The Peacebuilding Assembly-Line Model: Towards a Theory of International Collaboration in Multidimensional Peacebuilding Operations

Even though post-conflict peacebuilding has gained priority on the international community’s agenda in the post-Cold War era, the scholarly knowledge on how international organizations (IOs) cooperate with one another in multidimensional peacebuilding remains limited. This article develops a theoretical model on the inter-institutional division of labor in complex peacebuilding missions. Borrowing from international relations, organization theory, and economics disciplines, it formulates the Peacebuilding Assembly-Line Model (PALM) for improving the effectiveness of IO collaboration in peacebuilding missions. It analyzes lessons from multidimensional peacebuilding missions in the Balkans, and concludes with general reflections on the applicability of the PALM model on inter-institutional collaboration in multidimensional peacebuilding missions in the Balkans and elsewhere