• The United Nations peacebuilding architecture is a new and relatively recent institutional creation. To address the issue of what role the UN peacebuilding architecture could realistically be expected to perform ten years from now, this paper briefly examine what different theories have to tell us about the origins of new institutions, their operational dynamics, their challenges, their constraints, their pathologies, and their realistic possibilities.
• Thomas Biersteker is Gasteyger Professor of International Security, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva; Oliver Jütersonke is Head of Research, Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP), Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva

  The Challenges of Institution Building: Prospects for the UN Peacebuilding Commission