Knowledge about violent conflict and international intervention is political. It involves power struggles over the objects of knowing (problematization/silencing), how they are known (epistemic practices), and what interpretations are taken into account in policymaking and implementation. This book unearths the politics, power and performances involved in the social construction of seemingly neutral concepts such as facts, truth and authenticity in knowing about violent conflict and international intervention. Contributors foreground problems of physical and social access to information, explore practices generating knowledge actors’ authority and legitimacy, and analyse struggles over competing policy narratives.

A first set of chapters focuses on the social construction of facts, truth and authenticity through studies of militia research in the DR Congo, politicians’ on-site visits in intervention theatres in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and the epistemic practices of Human Rights Watch and comics journalism. A second set of contributions analyses the strategic side of knowledge through case studies of diplomatic counterinsurgency in Bosnia and Herzegovina, African governments’ active role in the ‘bunkerization’ of international aid workers, and authoritarian peacebuilding as a challenge to the liberal power/knowledge regime in world politics.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.