Peace is more than the absence of violence. This insight is not new, sounds almost banal, and yet is highly political. Because how peace is conceived and implemented is never neutral. It is about power, about sovereignty of interpretation, about visibility - and ultimately about justice. Those who shape peace also shape social conditions. And this is precisely why it is worth taking a closer look at how current peace processes work - and where they reach their limits. This is precisely where the blog post comes in, with an initial theoretical consideration that is then substantiated with examples[1].

From a master plan with blind spots to frictions

Since the 1990s, the model of the so-called liberal peace has dominated international practice. It follows a clear script: democracy leads to peace, market liberalization promotes stability, international institutions ensure cooperation. Sounds plausible. But in practice, it becomes clear that what appears plausible at first glance reveals considerable weaknesses on closer inspection - especially where global norms clash with sometimes divergent local realities. Because peace cannot be imposed. And it certainly cannot be standardized.

In practice, democratization is often a process initiated from the outside - top-down, standardized and often detached from local dynamics. Market liberalization, for example in the form of IMF programmes, often leads to an increase in social inequalities in fragile contexts and international institutions such as the United Nations or the World Bank often reflect global power asymmetries in the way they function instead of overcoming them.

What is sold as universally valid is in fact a normative blueprint of Western governmental logic. Richmond therefore speaks of a "peace from IKEA" - a standardized, prefabricated package that is simply superimposed on local realities.

But what happens when this metaphorical kit arrives in reality? It leads to tensions - to frictionsfrictions that arise when global concepts meet local contexts. These frictions are not just technical problems, but also express themselves in political and personal conflicts.

One example: In a rural context, a gender workshop is organized with international funding to promote local peacebuilding. The terms "empowerment" or "gender mainstreaming" are central from the organizers' point of view. However, they are met with a lack of understanding - not because the topics are unimportant, but because the language associated with them does not resonate. Instead of dialog, misunderstandings arise. There is also a form of epistemic violence: local knowledge - such as indigenous conflict management practices - is dismissed as "non-professional". Only those who speak the right vocabulary are heard. Those who take other paths are quickly marginalized. In this way, peace is not negotiated together, but imposed - from outside, from above, by experts.

Peace and power - an uncomfortable truth

Peace work is never free of power. Those who shape peace make decisions: about goals, about methods, about language. Power is not only evident - for example in budget allocation or program planning. It is also subtle: through indicators, through project logic, through seemingly technical issues.

In international peace processes, there is often a clear power imbalance: Organizations from the Global North have resources, personnel and expertise at their disposal. They bring project funds, evaluation criteria and objectives with them. Local organizations in the Global South, on the other hand, often take on the role of implementation partners. They are the ones who implement programs on the ground - but not necessarily design them. As a result, epistemic violence plays a major role. Who defines what peace is and what it entails? I refer here to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, who asks in her famous essay: "Can the subaltern speak?" The answer: only to a limited extent. Local or subaltern voices often do not have access to the dominant discourses. Even when they do speak, their views are not understood or recognized. This form of epistemic violence manifests itself in international missions, where Western experts are considered "experts", while local knowledge is dismissed as backward or irrelevant. The structural consequence: peace is not co-produced, but imposed.

These asymmetries are often concealed under the term "partnership" - a term that expresses the intention of a privilege levy, but is often not realized in practice. It is often what I refer to in my research as a rhetorical partnership: a symbolic framework that suggests equality but masks real power imbalances.

A simple example: whether a project goal is considered achieved often depends on how it is measured - and who sets the bar. For example, in my research I was able to participate in an evaluation of a project in Liberia. There, the experiences of participants in literacy courses were to be evaluated for the German donor. The evaluation was to be carried out with the help of a pre-prepared, written questionnaire. A measuring instrument in which people who are just learning to read and write cannot participate. The project would therefore have failed. However, the local organization that implemented the project on site used interview methods to fill out the questionnaires via third parties. This allowed the project to be successfully evaluated. Here, power is not only repressive, but also productive: it creates reality - and blocks out other realities.

Peace work therefore requires an awareness of power. And this involvement requires critical self-reflection: What assumptions do we make? What blind spots characterize our actions? And which voices are lost if we do not actively seek them out? Peace policy action that ignores these questions reproduces existing inequalities - even if it intends the opposite. But: those who are aware of these power relations can begin to negotiate them, to open them up - or at least not to cement them.

Hybrid peace - a more realistic view

In view of this criticism, the question arises: how can peace be conceived and shaped differently? The proposal of a hybrid peaceoffers an alternative. It understands peace not as a uniform model, but as a negotiation process - between local and international actors, between formal and informal structures, between norms and everyday life.

The central characteristics of a hybrid understanding of peace are

1. the recognition of local dynamics. It must be emphasized that peace is not technocratic, but always political and context-bound. Peace work takes place in complex social realities that are not linear and cannot be replaced by standardized measures. Local practices of conflict transformation - such as traditional councils of elders, informal negotiation methods or networks of civil society actors - are not deficient, but are key elements of peace processes.

2. an openness to ambivalence and contradiction. A hybrid peace is not consistent - and that is its strength. Different groups of actors pursue different interests. Local actors sometimes adopt international discourses without fully submitting to them - they adapt, reinterpret, contradict. Example: Local CSOs in Kenya carry out programs in the name of peacebuilding, but adapt implementation, language and target groups independently. This leads to "frictions" that develop creative potential.

3. the reflection and negotiation of power. It is clear that power asymmetries are real - and are not eliminated by the term "partnership". However, a hybrid approach names these asymmetries and attempts to negotiate them in the process itself, e.g. through local scope for decision-making, joint monitoring or context adaptation.

This means that peace is not created through blueprints, but through relationships. Not through control, but through openness.

How peace spaces are created nonetheless - three examples from civil peace work

What can this look like in practice? Three examples from the Civil Peace Service (CPS) in Kenya, Sierra Leone and Liberia show how local actors can create spaces of peace even under difficult conditions:

1. peace mediators in rural areas: a CPS project trained volunteer mediators who dealt with everyday conflicts - for example over land issues. Instead of enforcing formal guidelines, the focus was on local solutions: Fingerprints instead of signatures on the German donor's prescribed attendance list, communication in the local language, and an accompanying role for the international experts. The result: trust, closeness - and a peace that grows out of everyday life. Peace is anchored in concrete social spaces. Power imbalances are noticeable, but they can be negotiated through conscious interaction. Hybrid peace work means that not only goals, but also paths and tools are defined together - with openness to ruptures, friction and context.

2. revision of a country strategy: Although the process of designing a country strategy should be participatory, many local partner organizations criticized the fact that the drafting process was strongly controlled from Germany. Some organizations had little influence on the content, although they were later to implement the programmes. This criticism led to a new round of revisions in which the local partner organizations were able to contribute their perspectives in small groups and through personal relationships. In this way, the strategy was not simply accepted, but further developed. This shows that networks are not just technical connections, but political spaces for action on a small scale.

3 Taboo topics and silent negotiation: In a project on gender-based violence, a local specialist built up trust in the community over a period of years. She decided independently how the topic was addressed - with what language, at what pace, with what methods. The international specialist provided discreet support in the background with project resources and documentation, without controlling the content. This arrangement was not officially intended, but resulted from various factors. On the one hand, the international expert had language barriers, and on the other hand, a slow approach by the international expert to the local communities was planned from the outset. This slow rapprochement was pushed further and further into the distance by mutual agreement and so the changed role constellation was tacitly supported by both sides. This example is a classic case of silent negotiation: the local organization consciously uses its creative power in the field, adapts content to suit the context and reinterprets the project logic without openly confronting it. In this way, peace is experienced not as an imported default, but as an everyday practice of local navigation and control. This is hybrid peace in action, beyond ideal types.

What we can take away

We have now seen thatpeace is not a state that can be "manufactured" - like a product that can be ordered somewhere and then delivered. Peace is a process, a network of relationships, a space for negotiation - and often also a place of contradiction.

Many international peace efforts still follow a kind of "master plan" - supported by good intentions, but characterized by implicit assumptions about power, knowledge and order. They assume that democracy, the market and institutions operate universally - overlooking the fact that these concepts do not have the same meaning or impact everywhere.

We have talked about frictions - about the frictions that arise when global norms meet local lifeworlds. These frictions are not the problem, but part of the solution - if we take them seriously: They show us where peace work reaches its limits - but also where new paths become visible.

And we have seen that local actors - in Sierra Leone, in Kenya, in Liberia - are not passive. They negotiate, they shift meanings, they shape peace processes - sometimes loudly, often quietly. Often beyond the official project logic, in networks, through everyday actions, through silent negotiations.

Hybrid peace is not a model of perfection. It is contradictory, fragmentary, incomplete - but it is closer to reality. It creates space for diversity, for disorder, for non-uniqueness - and that is exactly what peace needs:

• Spaces that are not controlled, but kept open.

• Relationships that do not insist on equality, but learn to deal with asymmetry.

• Processes that do not come to an end, but start again and again.

The central task that we take away from this is: Listening instead of planning. Asking instead of asserting. Enabling instead of guiding. This does not mean that international support is unimportant - on the contrary. But it must reflect self-critically, rethink its own role and be prepared to step back, break through existing structures and change itself so that others become visible. Shaping peace means not acting for others, but together with them. Not to impose one truth, but to endure different perspectives. And not keeping control, but sharing responsibility. To carry forward the question "Shaping peace - but how?" not as a rhetorical question, but as a political one.