Decolonising Conflicts, Security, Peace, Gender, Environment and Development in the Anthropocene

‘Peace ecology’ is a scientific approach that aims to build bridges between peace research and environmental studies. In 2000, Paul J. Crutzen introduced the Anthropocene as a new epoch of Earth’s history. Geologists still need to identify evidence in the sediments, e.g. from nuclear explosions and the testing of nuclear and hydrogen weapons in the atmosphere, that such a transition has actually occurred. Direct human interventions into the Earth System through the accumulation of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere have caused multiple societal impacts, resulting in rapid increases in production, consumption, urbanisation, pollution, migration, crises and conflicts. Peace ecology in the Anthropocene era of Earth and human history can be conceptualised on the basis of five conceptual pillars: peace, security, equity, sustainability and gender. This chapter develops ‘peace ecology’ in the context of the Anthropocene in ten sections. After a detailed conceptual introduction (2.1), the second Sect. (2.2) discusses five alternative starting points of the Anthropocene: the Agricultural or the Industrial Revolutions, the Columbian Exchange, the Nuclear era and the ‘Great Acceleration’, while the third Sect. (2.3) offers a conceptual mapping of the Anthropocene and the fourth Sect. (2.4) interprets the Anthropocene as a turning point, context and challenge for science and politics. For the new context of the Anthropocene Sect. 2.5 offers a rethinking of peace and the evolution of peace research since the end of World War I, World War II and the Cold War in selected countries and the development of three international peace research organisations: IPRA, PSS(I) and ISA-PEACE. A reconceptualisation of peace in the Post-Cold War Era (1990–2020) and in the Anthropocene is also taking place. Section 5.6 reviews the evolution and rethinking of several ecology concepts (human, political, social) and (political) geo-ecological approaches during the Anthropocene. Section 2.7 reviews several bridge-building initiatives between peace research and ecology that were previously developed by scholars (e.g. Kenneth and Elise Boulding, Arthur H. Westing et al.) and were suggested during the conceptual debate on environmental and ecological security and in the empirical case studies by Günter Bächler (Switzerland) and Thomas Homer Dixon (Canada) on environmental degradation, scarcity and stress as causes and on conflictive outcomes. Since the end of the Cold War, from a policy perspective, debates have evolved on environmental peacemaking and post-conflict peacebuilding and on climate change, security and conflict linkages. While older bridge-building efforts stemming from peace research have addressed issues related to violence, more recent discourses emerging from environment and sustainability studies have addressed issues of sustainability transition and their impact on sustainable peace (Peck 1998) initiatives in the Anthropocene Sect. 2.7. Section 2.8 focuses on the suggested peace ecology approach and research programme as a holistic, enlightening and critical scientific project for the Anthropocene. For this it is necessary to overcome the fragmentation of scientific and political knowledge to incorporate holistic perspectives and transformative approaches that facilitate the move from knowledge to action. In Sect. 2.9 the author addresses the need to develop an ecological peace policy for the second phase of the Anthropocene (2020–2100) by developing strategies and policies to surmount the challenges in the Anthropocene. In Sect. 2.10 the author concludes by proposing a peace ecology research programme and an ecological peace policy in the Anthropocene (2.10).

Among the most recent theoretical and methodological proposals in peace studies that have transcended the foundational paradigm of a science initially disconnected from social participation, the proposal of ‘Transformative Peace’ epistemologically justifies the need to integrate the population in the processes of research, education and action for peacebuilding and conflict transformation as subjects – and not objects – of study and/or beneficiaries of the actions designed by others. This chapter describes the conceptual evolution that has enabled the development of an epistemological perspective in peace and conflict studies that is concerned with and occupied by participatory action-reflection from a socio-praxical perspective.

Agenda 2030 sets the goal of building peaceful, just societies – but how do we get there? More and more sociopolitical questions are being addressed to science, and peace research should get involved in order to create an impact. While positive peace is rarely on the political agenda, social cohesion is an issue of growing interest because of the need to find new ways of living together in increasingly diverse societies. However, current policies tend to be exclusionary, due to their underlying paradigms. Yet there is no elaborated paradigm of positive peace that could be contrasted with this. Therefore, existing paradigmatic positions are examined. Because they mostly deal with ontological and axiological aspects, suggestions for suitable supplements concerning methodology and epistemology are made. This will contribute to the development of an integrative paradigm of positive peace which facilitates interdisciplinary communication and enables suggestions to be made for shaping social cohesion in a more peaceful way. Furthermore, indications are given on what to consider as a researcher in interdisciplinary and normative research settings in order to meet social responsibility.

It is a matter of dispute as to whether the attainment of national independence is primarily the result of non-violent actions by the Indians, or of the moderate British colonial policies. Numerous domestic political factors in India and Britain, and above all the weakening of the British Empire as a result of the World Wars, paved the way for the success of the largely non-violent independence movement. Its most important political leader was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He only rarely took up official positions in the Indian National Congress. Nevertheless he enjoyed authority over the masses. The core element of Gandhi’s way of life is an awareness of one’s responsibility not only for one’s actions, but also of one’s failure to put up resistance against injustice in one’s own environment. Non-cooperation is the primary legal means of non-violent action. Civil disobedience is a stage of escalation of non-violent policies that requires careful preparation and consideration of the risks to the common good that it entails. The basic principles of non-violent social behaviour and Gandhi’s policies have universal significance, particularly in liberal democracies and in dictatorships that are losing their legitimacy in the eyes of a population suffering from injustice.

This chapter presents a practical theory of formal and informal education, and of direct action, based on three decades of experience with non-violent civil resistance. It represents an attempt to conceptualise and systematise the reflection and action processes which have enabled us – and many others – to build forms, on different scales, of ‘due disobedience to inhuman orders’. We consider this to be a key concept and practice for building something we call ‘disobedient peace’, within the broader objective of contributing a new conceptualisation to enrich the already ample panoply of similar input to be found in studies on peace. The complexity involved in ‘disobedience’ in the social order has enabled us to develop a comparable epistemology.

Confronted with the uncertainty of climate change impacts and the complexity of urban development in the Global South, megacities and urban agglomeration in coastal areas are at high risk of losing lives, wealth and infrastructure. The present chapter explores the Talanoa Dialogue to reduce impacts and increase peacebuilding in regions where climate change effects will increase disasters in urban areas and often oblige people to leave high-risk areas and settle elsewhere. It further analyses how governments and city-dwellers could promote multi-level governance actions to reduce conflicts and promote disaster risks reduction, mitigation and adaptation among extremely exposed social groups, especially women, children and the elderly. Talanoa Dialogue also promotes the interchange of experiences among cities in the Global South and proposes multisectorial climate governance for achieving successful political changes with participative governance that are able to improve resilience. Finally, the chapter examines how cities could promote clean energy, sustainable transport and a radical carbon sink of greenhouse gases to prevent conflicts and disasters by involving all stakeholders within a frame of cultural and socio-environmental diversity.

Modern threats to security differ in both form and dynamics and therefore it is important to appreciate their origins, trends and evolution within the context of the political history of the country in order to deal with the underlying issues surrounding them. Against this backdrop, this chapter delves into the nature and drivers of insecurity in Kenya with the aim of enhancing understanding of the context within which realistic, sustainable policy options can be sought. Kenya is rife with violence, as exemplified by its high levels of sexual and gender-based violence, intercommunal violence, cycles of election-related violence, and increasing numbers of terrorist attacks. The incidence, gravity and intensity of the phenomena have been increasing for years. The conflicts the country experiences are multiple and overlapping, with the Rift Valley, Nairobi, the peripheral pastoralist drylands, and the coastal region being among the areas most affected. The high levels of violence are the result of a range of factors, including: ethnic intolerance, border conflicts, political party zoning, competition over land and other resources, the proliferation of small arms, weak security and poverty, underdevelopment, and marginalisation. Intercommunal violence risks being increased by competition over the fruits of devolution and the elite manipulation of local communities. Violent Islamist activities have tended to be clustered in the north-eastern region of the country (which borders Somalia and Ethiopia), the coastal region in the South East, and Nairobi. Terrorist attacks have pervasively increased since the Kenyan government sent its defence forces to Somalia for the military operation dubbed ‘Operation Linda Nchi’ in 2011. The response of the government has been characterised mainly by the politicisation of the counterterrorism response and the scapegoating of certain ethnic and religious groups that have also played into Al-Shabaab’s hands. The proliferation of small arms in the African Great Lakes Region and Kenya provides more opportunities for violence and wider insecurity. There have been attempts to avert conflicts in Kenya, but failure to address various problems embedded in Kenya’s social structures makes the nurturing of peaceful coexistence a mirage. In order to mitigate the foregoing, there is an urgent need to deal with: economic inequalities, provision of basic essentials, culture of violence as manifested in the formation of gangs used by politicians to settle political scores, gender inequalities and unequal power relationships between women and men, and the creation of an effective and accessible justice system that has made women and girls in the internally displaced person (IDP) camp susceptible to multiple levels and various forms of violence.

The prevalence of sexual abuse of the girl-child in Nigeria in recent times has made it a subject of discourse and headlines in many newspapers. Despite the declaration in Nigeria’s Sexual Offences Act that it is an offence to attempt intercourse with a child below eighteen years of age, the rising rate of the destructive offence right across the country is alarming. The question is: what are the reasons for the rising rate of sexual abuse of the girl-child in Nigeria? What is the nature and what are the implications of the abuse? This study, using secondary sources, analytically investigates sexual abuse of the girl-child in Nigeria, including the nature, scope, causes, and consequences of such a disheartening practice that has become rampant in Nigeria. The data gathered are descriptively analysed. The study identifies poverty, hawking, lack of values or parental control, pornographic pictures and the abuse of social media as culpable. Other causes include the get-rich-quick syndrome, unemployment, bad governance, and weak enforcement of law and culture. Sexual abuse of the girl-child is perpetrated by the rich and the poor, teachers and coaches, religious leaders and laymen, educated and illiterate people, and more especially by family members and neighbours. The study further argues that the attendant socio-economic effects of girl-child abuse in Nigeria include backwardness, cheating, rape, abortion, unwanted pregnancy, broken homes, single parenting, health hazards, population growth, an increase in unemployment, and underdevelopment. To curb the act, the study recommends realistic and effective government policies, the provision of jobs, a strong security base, intervention by community and religious leaders, and penalties for offenders.

With the wave of Nigeria’s evolving farmer-herder conflicts, the mobile Fulbe group appears to be the centre of discourse among any other pastoral group in the country. Its nomadic lifestyle has constantly led to contact with farmers. This contact takes various forms, from mutual co-existence and co-operation to competition and conflicts over shared natural resources, such as green and lush pasture, vegetation, fresh water and land for livelihood. One of the drivers of this competition over scarce resources is the ecological change caused by global warming, which is already being felt in the northern part of Nigeria. It has been forecast that these environmental changes will significantly increase, with more irregular precipitation and rising temperatures. These changes are aggravating land degradation and increasing the frequency of droughts, and consequently, lead to declining food production and a decline in the availability of water, which is a major problem for food security. The farmer-herder conflicts might increase in frequency and intensity in the coming years. The Nigerian government is searching for an alternative to the situation. The government needs to consider the historical antecedent of the mobility and migration of the Fulbe as a lifestyle when formulating policies. The government should enhance security in the country, engage on an aggressive scale in combating the desertification which has been pushing people further south, recognise the fundamental features of Fulbe mobility, formulate long-lasting ranching policies, and ensure that the grazing routes and reserves that have been overtaken by development and farming are maintained or new ones established.

The threat posed by climate change to Africa’s development and growth is real. To move along a climate-resilient-development pathway, Africa must respond and implement effective climate change adaptation measures, so that climate-related risks and opportunities support development objectives. This can partly be achieved by recognising the rich interactions between climate and culture, and harnessing cultural science, knowledge and technologies. Informed by the anthropological theory of cultural ecology, this chapter, framed on the prism of weather and climate-related modification rituals, sets an understanding of how communities across Africa have, over the centuries, characteristically, utilised this form of culture to respond and adapt to categories of climate change. Drawn from evidence from a swathe of extant data, this study interprets the ritual practices and explains the logical basis, wisdom, understanding, thought-patterns and imagination underlying and informing their foundation from purposively selected cases representing various regional zones across Africa. In considering the principal tenets structuring this body of knowledge across a multiplicity of socio-cultural, economic, political, geographical and anthropological settings, civilisations and histories, this chapter highlights insightful understanding of the existence of a pattern of unity and diversity in the ‘climate rituals’ which have developed as a human adaptation to climate change across Africa, and emphasises the value of such rituals as a prototype for cultural response adaptations to climate change. The study recommends incorporating the insights derived from this form of knowledge and science into the design of creative multipronged climate change response adaptations in contemporary Africa.

Since the outbreak of civil war in South Sudan in December 2013, thousands of South Sudanese have been subjected to sexual violence, including rape, gang rape, sexual mutilation, castration, and forced nudity. The outrageous and brutal sexual violence has resulted in undesirable physical, psychological, and social impacts on the survivors, who are largely living in refugee settlements in the West Nile region of Uganda. This paper provides a critical understanding of the disturbing narratives and experiences of the survivors of the ethnically-charged sexual attacks in the ongoing civil war in South Sudan. It examines how extreme acts of sexual violence were part of a strategy to terrorise, degrade, shame and humiliate both the victims and their ethnic or political group. This paper also examines the impacts of the horrendous sexual violence on the survivors, their families and society, and provides policy recommendations to address the wartime sexual violence.

Like contemporary Western approaches to peacemaking, peacebuilding and conflict, the traditional ones are also very effective and important. Traditional and local loyalties determine both political and social, even everday life among the Kurdish tribes which live in the south-eastern part of Turkey. These tribes generally need friends and enemies to continue their existence. So, for them conflict and reconciliation are common features. Xwin (blood feud) is the unique traditional conflict of this community. Also béş/béj (blood money) is the most common form of traditional peacemaking and nané aşitiyé (a dinner of peace) is accepted as a traditional peacebuilding ritual. In this study, the traditional conflict and peacemaking process will be examined in the context of Kurdish tribes which live in Mardin in Turkey and the basic conflict and reconciliation practices of the Kurdish tribes are discussed with the argument that traditional practices have an effective role in peacemaking and conflict.

This chapter presents a qualitative study of social emergence in relation to forbidden marriage and its consequences (Romeo and Juliet style romance tragedy), predominantly in India and Nepal but also Pakistan. Despite Indian citizenship incorporating the right to free choice of marital partner, ongoing violations of this right have attracted worldwide publicity since 1993. Media awareness and increased presentation of outdated, patriarchal social rules and taboos around marriage, and their tragic consequences, has spawned a human rights movement, led mostly by women, which calls for legislative change to implement capital punishment for those murdering or persecuting couples in contentious marriages, and the provision of safe houses for eloping couples. The researcher uses philosophical value analysis to examine media reports, personal communications and Hindustani love legends to scrutinise local and national cultural obstacles to making these changes, and to establish evidence of social progress from lethal violence to non-violence, and finally to positive acceptance in family and community responses to love and marriage. The researcher concludes that within the communities of India, Nepal and Pakistan, enforceable, non-patriarchal law and order related to non-violence and human rights, and a shift in sociocultural thinking and behaviour rather than unquestioning adherence to centuries-old marriage rules, are needed to overcome ongoing Romeo and Juliet style romance tragedies.

Based on three months of ethnographic research, this paper analyses the Bódvalenke Fresco Village Project, an open-air art gallery created to help villagers with Roma roots in a Hungarian settlement reaffirm their identity and develop tourism. Examining how the project (as help provider) and the locals (as help recipients) understand help similarly or differently, the author concludes that differences in concept, conduct, and action regarding social, political and economic empowerment have led to an intractable conflict between the Fresco Village Project and villagers. The emphasis is that helping disadvantaged Roma in Western societies should not repeat the basic error of developmental communication – telling a single story of poverty and misery while positioning helpers as saviours and recipients as victims. This concept of help becomes problematic when applied to Roma/Gypsies, who have lived within this society for hundreds of years. Ultimately, the author concludes that those who want to help Roma communities need to use a language that will reflect on their own help practices, one that calls for more advanced principles for analysing help and empowerment practices and offers critical metrics for doing so.

Much peacekeeping literature focuses on the need of the international community to prevent human catastrophes, project liberal values, provide security or prevent conflict areas from becoming terrorist enclaves, which has been a major goal in the global war on terror since the September 11 attacks (Ramsbotham/Woodhouse 1996; Hultman 2013). This approach to peace studies impedes reflections on what is already known and limits activities in this area to classroom lectures. So, how do we keep in touch with the past while searching for more effective approaches for the present and future? To foster this process, this paper adopts a traditional approach to peace studies and examines the challenges of peacekeeping approaches, neo-realist manipulations, the unanswered issues that persist, the challenges on the ground to peacekeepers and host populations, and the implications for troop-contributing countries. This paper encourages people to revisit the ideological foundations of peace studies and the development of peacekeeping theories.

This chapter examines the role of violent non-state actors (VNSA) and their capacity to offer governance in competition with the Brazilian state, specifically in poor urban communities, where state security forces fail to provide the basic needs of their citizens in terms of physical protection, human dignity and social security – primarily in areas with a high level of structural violence. Scholars have pointed to the emergence of areas that are not governed by the State. In such cases, informal governance structures led by criminal organisations emerge and unbalance actors and processes aiming a sustainable peace. Using the case study method on two criminal organisations – Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) (First Capital Command) and Família do Norte (FDN) (Northern Family) – the chapter argues that the State’s failure or negligence in the areas with high structural violence in the cities give these VNSAs legitimacy, promoting rules of conviviality, resolution of litigation and also promoting material goods for their criminal members.

The last decade has been a constant bloodshed in Mexico due to drug wars and as a consequence of the lack of an effective strategy against this critical problem. The government has focused on the deployment of the military and the police to control the drug cartels and local gangs, with poor results. The main question is how to mitigate violence and what kind of strategies are effective to solve this problem. This article explores different approaches of peacebuilding done by local artists and organisations in communities with high levels of violence. Using ethnographic research and direct fieldwork on some of the most violent neighbourhoods in Mexico, I want to show how people have organised themselves and resist violence using cultural practices like murals, hip-hop or artistic interventions in public space. Following peace theories, I use the concepts of structural, cultural and interpersonal violence to frame the cultural practices and understand their art as a contribution to peacebuilding that can transform their communities. This study contributes to the current debate on innovative strategies to mitigate violence, the possibility of cultural activities for peacebuilding, and the alternatives to security policies on violence prevention in Mexico.

Many works of conflict resolution and peacebuilding focus on the Government or top-level leadership efforts. However, peace efforts require a comprehensive approach that is simultaneously conducted at the grass-roots level. This study examined a case study of a grass-roots peacebuilding movement in a post-conflict society, in the Poso District, where a communal conflict occurred (1998–2001). The Mosintuwu Women’s School, scattered in fourteen sub-districts and forty-two villages of the Poso District, in the Central Sulawesi Province, Indonesia, implemented the peace education, trauma healing, and social training for grass-roots women. This study aims to explore the contribution of this Women’s School and the participation of grass-roots women in peacebuilding. The theories used in this study are grass-roots peacebuilding, women in peacebuilding, and peace education. This study is a case study with a qualitative approach. The sources of data are from qualitative interviews, observation, and documents. The study proves that grass-roots movements are essential to peacebuilding efforts because of their contribution to creating sustainable peace, restoring social conditions, implementing peace treaties, disseminating peace issues, establishing a culture of peace, teaching the understanding of conflict and peace, and facilitating societal independence. The study also proves that grass-roots women play a critical role in peacebuilding because they prioritise transformation, female empowerment, healing and forgiveness, and also uphold gender justice and equality. The suggestion put forward is that the Government should integrate grass-roots movements as a part of peacebuilding efforts.

This chapter presents the institutional characteristics of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT Indus Waters Treaty, 1960: “The Indus Waters Treaty”, signed in Karachi on 19 September 1960: 300–365, 1960) between India and Pakistan in the literature of peace ecology and discusses the complexities of including climate change discourse in the Treaty using the hydro-diplomacy approach in transboundary water management. The introduction to the chapter is followed by the conceptual framework of the study, the historical background of the Indus Water Treaty and the Indus River Basin, and the key aspects of the Indus Water Treaty. The second part includes institutional analysis of the Indus Water Treaty from the peace ecology and climate change perspectives. Towards the end this chapter notes that the challenges of the Indus Water Treaty justify the importance of hydro-diplomacy in the transboundary water management. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the convergence of hydro-diplomacy and peace ecology with climate change supplements for the rich and vulnerable Indus River Basin.

Bangladesh now hosts more than one million stateless Rohingya people. Most of them have entered the country since August 2017, amid military crackdowns on them in the state of Rakhine in Myanmar. The stateless population is considered to be one of the biggest threats to regional peace and security in South Asia. This chapter explores the security challenges and concerns from three different perspectives: (i) local livelihood, (ii) political competition, and (iii) future risks of radicalisation that may emerge from the statelessness of the Rohingya. This paper highlights the current situation that requires particular actions on behalf of regional governments. Political will is needed and measures must be initiated with a view to successfully handling security implications.

For campaigners from Pope John Paul II to Angelina Jolie, and especially for those from legal backgrounds, it is axiomatic that there can be ‘No Peace without Justice’. It is, of course, possible to define peace in such a way that this becomes a simple truism. But what if peace is defined much more basically as the prolonged absence of physical warfare within a country and the cessation of killing? This chapter proposes the argument that there is, indeed, peace without justice across the world and that economic justice should be given higher priority than forensic justice. The poor know that the world is an unjust place and, if given a chance to voice their choices, put food before truth or retribution.

The objective of this chapter is to revisualise all the issues and goals from a design and systems science perspective to be able to provide a common minimum and simple framework for interventions and fewer sets of indicators to work with and yet be able to achieve all the sustainable development goals (SDGs) faster at a lower cost and in a sustainable manner. Based on the author’s community-based action research over the last fifteen years, extensive surveys and case studies across India for over two decades, the text outlines six major dimensions and Forty factors (15 embedded under Production dimension) towards building sustainable ecological systems. First, this paper lays down the major issues and challenges of the present times and how the SDGs provide a framework that encapsulates these issues and concerns, and then it highlights the challenges of the design and implementation of these SDGs. Second, it provides a linear analysis of the six dimensions – viz. relationships, institutions, production, organisations, governance and ecology – and the factors that could help all seventeen sustainable development goals to be achieved. Third, it provides a dynamic analysis by demonstrating the interconnectedness of the factors within each dimension and the interconnectedness of the factors of one dimension with the factors of the other dimensions. It then goes on to show the embedded nature of the six dimensions in an ecological system. Fourth, it discusses how simultaneous interventions in the six dimensions could easily help the SDGs to be achieved faster and at a lower cost. Fifth, it summarises the principles of simultaneous interventions in local ecosystems for SDGs and peace from sub-system design and systems perspectives. The text argues that simultaneous interventions rather than sequential interventions in each of the six dimensions in an ecosystem could help the seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs) to be achieved multiple times in any given ecological system. By mapping the SDGs against the dimensions chosen for simultaneous interventions, the article shows that all SDGs can be achieved twice over, and as many as six SDGs can be achieved five times (500 per cent) more.

In 2015, in response to long-term instability, Nepal became a federal state with a number of powers devolved to 753 new local governments. These important powers include regulating education and health care. Education is one of the key responsibilities of local governance in such a context. This paper examines education governance from the perspectives of the participatory peace education approach in Nepal. This paper focuses on challenging two aspects of current education governance. The first is the problematic nature of global and national agendas in learning assessment, which don’t match the realities and needs of local communities in Nepal, enforcing traditional ‘pen and paper’ based paper assessments. To this end, this chapter discusses an exemplary project which engaged in participatory pedagogic methods and mobilized hundreds of young undergraduate students to assess the reading and numeracy skills of all children aged between five and sixteen years in the sampled households, and in partnership generated new approaches to learning issues. Second, this addressed the problem of teachers’ use of sometimes violent disciplinary techniques. In this second approach, the paper outlines how the project engaged teachers in participatory exercises that trained teachers to use non-violent communication. The researchers and teachers designed a scheme of work for the classes together, discussed solving the classroom challenges non-violently, and reflected on their classroom experiences.

This chapter discusses the question “To what extent did infrastructure-based development projects in West Papua, especially in road construction, provide positive impacts on peace-building between 2014 and 2018?” Since 2014, the Indonesian government under President Joko Widodo has given more attention than previous governments to coping with separatism in West Papua. The separatist movements have already been active since 1965 and have now transformed from armed struggle into political campaigns. One of the national government efforts is promoting many road construction projects to increase connectivity between districts in West Papua. Of the 3259 km of road construction planned in 2014, the government had constructed almost half (48%) by 2018. My argument is that increasing infrastructure-based development has a minor impact on improving livelihoods among the indigenous West Papuans, so this policy is not entirely successful in supporting peacebuilding or coping with separatism. Previous studies mentioned that the Indonesian government has implemented a hybrid peace-building approach but failed to prevent political violence in West Papua. My research suggests that either a liberal or an illiberal peacebuilding approach is necessary but not sufficient to end the political violence. The national government should conduct a mediated political settlement via dialogue with the separatist group. The infrastructure-based development is not enough to promote peacebuilding without a dialogue between Jakarta and West Papua.