Shifting ideas of sustainable peace towards conversation in state-building

ABSTRACT This article offers reflections on the meaning of peace and peace-building in Africa and proposes a reframing of the state-building problematic. It argues for a shift in analytical lens by providing alternative ways of looking at state-building in order to explore a different approach to peace-building. Thus, the paper re-centres the notion of conversation in the processes of building peace and state. This concept of conversation requires a shifting of the debate from a focus on which institutions, liberal or otherwise, and which policies are most effective for peace, to how inter-elite and society-elite conversation gives rise to, or fails to bring about particular ensembles of institutions and policy outcomes. We analyse the role of political settlement in shaping the nature and outcome of these conversations. We suggest that the pursuit of peace must account for the depth of conversation about the presence, absence or desire for peace as well as accompanying perspectives of state-building across the target society.