'This critique of liberal peacebuilding strategies, based on fieldwork in five war-torn societies, reveals variations of approach that are nevertheless commonly based on statebuilding rather than affording justice and livelihoods to populations. Richmond and Franks have identified the dysfunctionalism of these virtual states and the local resistances that give rise to hybrid and diffuse forms of social contract. It is an interrogation of the enlightenment project that leads to revisionist thinking about peacebuilding and causes us to wonder just how emancipatory liberalism really is.' -- Michael Pugh, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford 'This critique of liberal peacebuilding strategies, based on fieldwork in five war-torn societies, reveals variations of approach that are nevertheless commonly based on statebuilding rather than affording justice and livelihoods to populations. Richmond and Franks have identified the dysfunctionalism of these virtual states and the local resistances that give rise to hybrid and diffuse forms of social contract. It is an interrogation of the enlightenment project that leads to revisionist thinking about peacebuilding and causes us to wonder just how emancipatory liberalism really is.'