Understanding Peacebuilding Coordination and Impact Using a Complex Adaptive Systems Method

The application of complex adaptive systems (CAS) analysis can enhance the effectiveness of coordination in international peacebuilding interventions. This study demonstrates the utility of an inductive CAS analysis approach using rich field data from Kosovo in 2010. It reveals unintended patterns of interaction across key sectors that blocked many intervenors’ peacebuilding policies. Most notably, it shows that international actors pragmatically using informal coordination practices to advance peacebuilding goals also fuelled negative dynamics that, paradoxically, undermined those same goals. The methodology employed illuminates the complex, non-linear dynamics of interactions between international and local actors that led to many hybrid outcomes in Kosovo. Although the resulting insights on Kosovo’s challenges are specific to the 2010 period, many continue to resonate today. More broadly, it shows how a CAS approach can be used to support evidence-based coordination and adaptive management processes in international peacebuilding interventions to improve outcomes.