* Offers strategies for conflict transformation, based on a "conflict prevention toolbox," which deals with all aspects of the conflict cycle
* Burundi and Macedonia make powerful case studies

Breaking Cycles of Violence studies how the international community, working with local partners, can effectively pinpoint key breaking points and target resources for societies at risk of violent conflict.

This book provides policymakers, practitioners, scholars, and students with a framework for recognizing and tackling the complexities of internal and intrastate conflicts in order to avert violence and mass human suffering. It presents guidelines for using early warning indicators to assess the causes of conflict; using preventative action to contain it; and using multidimensional strategies to rehabilitate societies through the cycle of post-conflict peacebuilding.

Table of Contents:

PART 1 CONCEPTURAL FRAMEWORK; 1) The Priority of Acting Preventively; 2) Organizing For Proactive Intervention; 3) The Early Warning Toolbox: Cues From Background Conditions; 4) Crossing Thresholds: Mechanisms of conflict Escalation; 5) Keeping Closed the Gates of War: The Peace Potential of Preventive Action; PART 2 CASE STUDIES; 6) The Shock of the Familiar: Discerning Patterns in Burundi’s Cycles of Ethnic Violence; 7) Preventing Conflict in Macedonia: A Lasting Peace or a Line in the Sand?; PART 3 POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS; 8) Inventive Diplomacy: Policy Recommendations for Early Warning and conflict Prevention