^aDepartment of Political Science, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940, USA. E-mail: cyordan@drew.edu

Abstract

A review of the literature on post-Cold War peace operations demonstrates that the international community's record in establishing a self-sustaining peace is mixed. In most cases, international actors have not established legitimate political orders or prevented the recurrence of the fighting. Employing Jürgen Habermas's research, this article differentiates between two theoretical approaches to peace operations: strategic and communicative. Although I use the latter to critique the former, my primary aim is not to promote one theoretical approach. Recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, the goal is to explain how theorists and decision-makers should use insights from both approaches to assess existing peace operations and to create new types of operations that may establish self-sustaining political orders. A secondary objective is to introduce the theoretical underpinnings of a society-building strategy, as an intellectual counterweight to state-building efforts, which have dominated post-settlement peace-building operations.