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New Directions in Peacebuilding Evaluation

Edited by Tamra Pearson d’Estrée

In this landmark collection, the voices of pathmakers and innovators in peacebuilding evaluation are assembled to provide new direction for the field. Stock is taken of the development and challenges of engaging in the real-time learning that evaluation requires. Best practices for overcoming challenges are discussed and critiqued, as well as some of the basic assumptions guiding the field. New means of gathering information and understanding conflict processes are offered and examined. To continue to evolve and strengthen peacebuilding practices and professionalism, multiple calls are issued for collaborative learning and a field-wide effort at community inquiry.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

Pages: 258 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-1-78661-243-4 • Hardback • November 2019 • $147.00 • (£113.00)

978-1-78661-244-1 • Paperback • November 2019 • $51.00 • (£39.00)

Series: Peace and Security in the 21st Century

Subjects: Political Science / Peace, Political Science / Security (National & International), Political Science / History & Theory

New Directions in Peacebuilding Evaluation

Hardback

Paperback

Summary

In this landmark collection, the voices of pathmakers and innovators in peacebuilding evaluation are assembled to provide new direction for the field. Stock is taken of the development and challenges of engaging in the real-time learning that evaluation requires. Best practices for overcoming challenges are discussed and critiqued, as well as some of the basic assumptions guiding the field. New means of gathering information and understanding conflict processes are offered and examined. To continue to evolve and strengthen peacebuilding practices and professionalism, multiple calls are issued for collaborative learning and a field-wide effort at community inquiry.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

Pages: 258 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-1-78661-243-4 • Hardback • November 2019 • $147.00 • (£113.00)

978-1-78661-244-1 • Paperback • November 2019 • $51.00 • (£39.00)

Series: Peace and Security in the 21st Century

Subjects: Political Science / Peace, Political Science / Security (National & International), Political Science / History & Theory

Author

Tamra Pearson d’Estrée is Henry R. Luce Professor of Conflict Resolution in the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and has co-directed DU’s Conflict Resolution Institute since 2002.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part I: Taking Stock

Chapter 1:A Refresher on Evaluation

Tamra Pearson d’Estrée

Chapter 2:Peacebuilding Evaluation: Two Decades of Evolution

Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church

Chapter 3:Challenges in Peacebuilding Evaluation: Voices From the Field

Mohammed Abu-Nimer

Chapter 4:Talking for the Sake of It, or Making a Difference? Measuring and Evaluating Track Two Diplomacy

Peter Jones

Part II: New Directions

Chapter 5:Scrambling after Moving Targets: Monitoring & Evaluation Applied to Adaptive Management Approaches in Peacebuilding

Peter Woodrow & Isabella Jean

Chapter 6:Using Action Evaluation to Identify Shared Conceptions of Success: Towards Generating Islands of Theory

Jay Rothman & Deborah Sachare

Chapter 7:Everyday Peace Indicators: Renegotiating Rigor for Peacebuilding Evidence

Pamina Firchow & Zach Tilton

Chapter 8:Judging Peacebuilding: Attending to Values in Evaluation

Reina Neufeldt

Part III: Increasing Capacities

Chapter 9:Reflective Practice in the Face of Complexity

Tamra Pearson d’Estrée

Chapter 10:Developing Essential Evaluation Competency in Conflict Resolution Professionals

Mara Schoeny & Susan Allen

Chapter 11:‘Through the Portal and What the Peacebuilding Field Found There’: The DME for Peace Website and the Path to More Rigorous Design, Monitoring and Evaluation Practice

Nick Oatley

Reviews

With this volume, one gets the sense of a discipline coming of age; it articulates a maturing of the field of scholarship around peace-building and conflict engagement/transformation/resolution. The work includes contributions from scholars and practitioners who propose strategies for determining what works, why, and how in a complex field that has often seen itself as exceptional, resisting efforts to set realizable goals for—and implementing processes for achieving—assessment. Anchoring chapters by the editor lay out the groundwork for evaluation (types and purposes) and make a plea for building a “community of inquiry for public, shared, and cumulative learning.” Other contributions review the different contexts and modalities for evaluation, and different evaluative tools and frameworks applicable in these contexts—all in the interest of building knowledge from experience. Overall, the work contributes to clarity—conceptually and operationally—for an emerging field that is starting to look at itself, and indicates ways the field can build both problem-solving and theory-building research. It will be of interest to practitioners and scholars, as well as to students of social science methodology. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.

— Choice Reviews

Awards

• Winner, CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2020 (2020)

New Directions in Peacebuilding Evaluation

Edited by Tamra Pearson d’Estrée

New Directions in Peacebuilding Evaluation

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