Peacebuilding Systems
Before KS Insight became a modern leadership studio, its foundations were laid in war zones, negotiations, and constitution-making processes…
About These Publications
Peacebuilding, Statebuilding, and Constitutional Design
The publications below span UN agencies, research institutes, policy journals, and academic presses. Together, they trace a through-line: the belief that constitutions, legal frameworks, and international interventions only matter when they are grounded in political realities, lived experience, and the incentives of actors on the ground.
The same systems instincts now applied to leadership, culture, and strategy were first developed here: reading power dynamics, surfacing tradeoffs, and designing processes that can hold volatility without collapsing into paralysis or illusion.
Selected Publications
Peacebuilding, Participation, and Constitutional Transitions
Women’s Inclusion in Political Transitions
How best to support Women’s inclusion in Participatory Political Transitions
UN Women, 2015
Distils practice-based guidance on moving women from symbolic presence to real agenda-setting power in political transitions.
Women’s Inclusion and Equity under the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan 2011
Conflict Dynamics International, 2013
Reads South Sudan’s transitional constitution through a gender lens to show where legal promises for women fall short of actual political and socio-economic equity.
Political Accommodation and Constitution-Making
Cultivating Consensus: Exploring Options for Political Accommodation and Promoting all Somali Voices
Conflict Dynamics International, 2014
Maps concrete power-sharing and governance options for Somalia that would bring historically excluded Somali voices into the political settlement.
Pathways to Peace - South Sudan’s Constitution
Conflict Dynamics International, 2013
Uses South Sudan’s constitutional moment to show how different sequencing and design choices could lock in either renewed conflict or a more inclusive peace.
Building the House of Governance: Political Accommodation in South Sudan
Conflict Dynamics International, 2012
Argues that early elite bargains in South Sudan built a fragile “house of governance” and sets out reforms to avoid exclusionary politics becoming permanent.
Somalia’s constitution making process
Accord 21, Conciliation Resources, 2010
Shows how Somalia’s constitution-making opened space for reconciliation and dialogue, but also how limited participation risked turning a peacebuilding opportunity into a new fault line.
Comparative Constitutional Design and Statebuilding
Constitutional Choices and Statebuilding in Postconflict Countries
Routledge, 2008
Unpacks the tradeoffs between inclusion, efficiency, and stability that constitution-makers face when trying to rebuild states emerging from war.
Post-Conflict Peace-Building and Constitution-Making
Chicago Journal of International Law, 2006
Makes the case that constitution-making is not just legal drafting but a central peacebuilding arena where process design can make or break a settlement.
Paradoxes and Compromises in the Design of Post-Conflict Constitutions
Research Partnership on Postwar Statebuilding, 2006
Highlights the built-in paradoxes of post-conflict constitutions-how provisions meant to end war can entrench wartime power structures.
Constitution Building Processes and Democratization: A Discussion of Twelve Case Studies
International IDEA, 2006
Uses twelve country cases to show when constitution-building genuinely deepens democratization and when it merely repackages elite deals.
State-building and Constitutional Design after Conflict
International Peace Institute, 2006
Links concrete constitutional design choices-like executive structure or decentralization-to core state-building goals such as legitimacy, capacity, and conflict management.
Rule of Law, Security Sector Reform, and International Responses to Violence
Justice Sector Development Assistance in Post-Conflict Countries: In Search of Strategy
In The Future of Security Sector Reform, CIGI, 2010
Exposes how donors fund justice projects without an overarching strategy and calls for justice to be treated as a core pillar-not an afterthought-of security sector reform.
Political Violence and the International Community: Civil Conflict and Coup d’Etat
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2007
Traces how the international community’s legal and political responses to civil wars and coups evolved, and what these patterns reveal about when outsiders tolerate or punish violent power grabs.
Rule of Law Reform in Post-Conflict Countries: Operational Initiatives and Lessons Learnt
World Bank Social Development Papers, 2006
Draws on field operations to show why rule-of-law reforms often underperform and which design and sequencing choices give them a better chance of sticking.
Sustainability and peace-building: A key challenge
Development in Practice, 2005
Argues that peacebuilding will falter unless development actors embed conflict-sensitivity and long-term sustainability into everyday practice.
The Future of UN State-Building: Strategic and Operational Challenges and the Legacy of Iraq
International Peace Institute, 2004
Uses the Iraq experience to surface the UN’s recurring strategic blind spots and operational dilemmas in ambitious state-building missions.
Journal of Conflict and Security Law, 2003
Uses Sierra Leone to dissect how legal norms and geopolitical interests interacted to shape international responses to wartime atrocities.