Januarius Asongu

Abstract

The remarkable expansion of peace studies during the past seven decades has transformed the discipline from a narrow concern with interstate warfare into an interdisciplinary field encompassing conflict transformation, peacebuilding, reconciliation, transitional justice, human security, indigenous conflict resolution, feminist peace, ecological peace, and decolonial theory. Yet this conceptual diversification has also generated increasing theoretical fragmentation. Contemporary peace scholarship offers sophisticated explanations of how peace may be negotiated, institutionalized, or sustained, but remains divided concerning the normative foundations of peace itself. Questions regarding the relationship between justice and peace, sovereignty and self-determination, historical accountability and reconciliation, indigenous knowledge and universal theory, and human flourishing and political order continue to resist satisfactory integration. This state-of-the-art review argues that the scholarship of Fonkem Achankeng provides one of the most significant yet underexamined attempts to reconstruct contemporary peace theory around a coherent normative framework. Employing Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology (CSRM), the article reconstructs Achankeng's corpus as an integrated theory of just peace grounded in six interdependent principles: historical accountability, justice, peoples' sovereignty, indigenous epistemic legitimacy, human dignity, and human flourishing. The article further argues that Liberative Realism extends this reconstruction by demonstrating that liberation is not merely a political aspiration but a constitutive dimension of peace itself. Rather than presenting Achankeng simply as a scholar of African conflicts, the review positions his work within the broader evolution of global peace studies and argues that it helps address what this article identifies as the Peace Theory Gap—the growing disconnect between increasingly sophisticated peacebuilding practices and the absence of an integrated philosophical account of peace. In doing so, the article contributes both the first systematic reconstruction of Achankeng's peace theory and a broader proposal for the future direction of contemporary peace studies.

Keywords: peace studies; just peace; Fonkem Achankeng; Critical Synthetic Realism; Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology; Liberative Realism; decolonial peace; human flourishing.

1. Introduction

The twenty-first century presents an extraordinary paradox. Never before has humanity possessed such extensive institutional infrastructures dedicated to the pursuit of peace. International organizations, regional bodies, humanitarian agencies, truth and reconciliation commissions, constitutional courts, mediation initiatives, transitional justice mechanisms, peacekeeping operations, development agencies, and thousands of non-governmental organizations collectively represent an unprecedented global commitment to preventing violent conflict and constructing peaceful societies. Peacebuilding has itself become a global enterprise supported by sophisticated academic research, professional training, international diplomacy, and multilateral governance. Since the end of the Cold War, billions of dollars have been invested in post-conflict reconstruction, democratic institution-building, humanitarian intervention, and conflict prevention. Simultaneously, peace studies has matured into one of the most intellectually diverse fields within the social sciences, drawing together insights from political science, international relations, sociology, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, law, theology, economics, environmental studies, and development studies (Galtung, 1969, 1996; Burton, 1990; Lederach, 1997; Jeong, 2000; Paris, 2004; Ramsbotham et al., 2016).

Yet despite these remarkable achievements, the contemporary world appears neither significantly more peaceful nor substantially closer to resolving many of its most persistent conflicts. Armed violence continues across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, Central Africa, Myanmar, and numerous other regions. Internal conflicts increasingly intersect with geopolitical rivalry, climate insecurity, forced migration, transnational terrorism, organized crime, cyber conflict, and renewed contests over sovereignty and national identity. Even where large-scale warfare subsides, structural inequalities, political exclusion, constitutional crises, historical grievances, and institutional fragility continue to undermine prospects for durable peace. The persistence of these conditions raises a fundamental question that extends beyond policy effectiveness: Has peace studies reached a point at which its conceptual fragmentation limits its explanatory and normative capacity?

This article begins from the proposition that the central challenge confronting contemporary peace studies is no longer the absence of theories of peace but the proliferation of partially integrated theories that illuminate particular dimensions of peace while leaving the broader philosophical architecture of the discipline increasingly fragmented. Positive peace transformed understandings of structural violence (Galtung, 1969, 1990). Conflict transformation reoriented attention toward relationships and long-term social change (Lederach, 1997). Liberal peacebuilding emphasized democratic governance and institutional reconstruction (Paris, 2004). Post-liberal and hybrid peace exposed the limitations of externally imposed peacebuilding models (Richmond, 2011; Mac Ginty, 2015). Decolonial scholarship demonstrated that coloniality remains deeply embedded within contemporary political and epistemic structures (Mignolo, 2011; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013). Each of these traditions has profoundly enriched the discipline. Collectively, however, they have also contributed to an increasingly specialized intellectual landscape in which justice, reconciliation, sovereignty, history, human rights, indigenous knowledge, and human flourishing are often examined independently rather than as components of a coherent theory of peace.

This article identifies this condition as the Peace Theory Gap. The gap does not refer to the absence of peace research. On the contrary, peace studies has generated an extraordinarily rich empirical and theoretical literature. Rather, it refers to the growing disconnect between increasingly sophisticated theories explaining how peace is pursued and the relative absence of sustained philosophical reflection concerning what peace ultimately is. Questions concerning mediation, negotiation, institution building, transitional justice, human security, reconciliation, and development have received extensive scholarly attention. Comparatively less attention has been devoted to reconstructing peace itself as a unified normative concept capable of integrating these diverse dimensions within a coherent philosophical framework.

It is precisely within this context that the scholarship of Fonkem Achankeng assumes significance extending well beyond African conflict studies. Over more than two decades, Achankeng has developed an extensive body of scholarship addressing colonialism, conflict resolution, negotiation, indigenous peacebuilding, humanitarian intervention, constitutional legitimacy, self-determination, peoples' sovereignty, historical accountability, and just peace. While individual publications have frequently been discussed within African political studies and conflict resolution literature, his broader intellectual project has not yet been systematically reconstructed as a contribution to contemporary peace theory. This article argues that such a reconstruction reveals an integrated normative framework that directly addresses several of the unresolved debates currently confronting peace studies. Rather than treating peace as the successful management of conflict, Achankeng consistently understands peace as the ethical reconstruction of political communities through justice, historical accountability, legitimate sovereignty, indigenous political wisdom, human dignity, and the conditions necessary for human flourishing. His recent contributions to Beyond Speaking Peace: Rethinking Conflict, Sovereignty, and Just Peace in the Twenty-First Century represent the most explicit synthesis of these concerns and provide a fitting culmination of a much longer intellectual trajectory.

2. Contemporary Peace Studies after Liberal Peace: Achievements, Fragmentation, and the Peace Theory Gap

2.1 From the Absence of War to the Search for Just Peace

The intellectual history of modern peace studies is often narrated as a gradual expansion of the meaning of peace. Early scholarship emerged largely from concerns associated with interstate warfare, nuclear deterrence, diplomacy, and international security during the Cold War (Boulding, 1962; Deutsch, 1969; Rapoport, 1960). Peace was generally understood in negative terms—as the absence of organized violence between states—and research focused on identifying the institutional, strategic, and diplomatic mechanisms capable of preventing war. The establishment of specialized peace research institutes during the 1950s and 1960s reflected growing confidence that scientific inquiry could contribute directly to reducing armed conflict through better international institutions, negotiation, and conflict management (Boulding, 1962; Gleditsch et al., 2014).

A decisive transformation occurred with Johan Galtung's seminal distinction between negative peace and positive peace (Galtung, 1969). By introducing the concept of structural violence, Galtung fundamentally reoriented the discipline away from the exclusive study of military conflict toward broader questions of social justice, political exclusion, economic inequality, and institutional oppression. Violence was no longer confined to physical injury but included systematic social arrangements that prevented individuals and communities from realizing their full human potential (Galtung, 1969, 1990, 1996). This conceptual breakthrough permanently altered the ontology of peace. Peace became not simply the absence of direct violence but the presence of social conditions conducive to justice, equality, participation, and human development.

The significance of Galtung's contribution can scarcely be overstated. Virtually every subsequent development within peace studies—whether conflict transformation, human security, transitional justice, feminist peace, ecological peace, or decolonial peace—presupposes his broader understanding that violence operates through multiple interconnected structures rather than exclusively through armed confrontation (Jeong, 2000; Ramsbotham et al., 2016; Barash & Webel, 2018). Nevertheless, the expansion of peace into increasingly diverse domains also introduced new conceptual challenges. If peace encompasses justice, equality, dignity, democracy, development, reconciliation, environmental sustainability, and human rights, then the question naturally arises: what principle unifies these diverse dimensions?

This question has received comparatively little sustained philosophical attention. Contemporary peace scholarship frequently assumes that expanding the concept of peace necessarily strengthens the discipline. Yet conceptual expansion may also risk conceptual diffusion. When peace comes to encompass virtually every desirable social condition, the discipline must explain what distinguishes peace from adjacent concepts such as justice, development, human rights, or social welfare. As Richmond (2011) observes, peace studies increasingly confronts the challenge of defining peace in ways that remain philosophically coherent while accommodating the growing complexity of contemporary conflicts.

From a Critical Synthetic Realist perspective, this challenge reflects a deeper problem of epistemic integration. Individual theories illuminate important dimensions of peaceful political order but often leave unexplained how these dimensions relate to one another within a coherent philosophical account of peace. The consequence is not theoretical failure but theoretical fragmentation. Contemporary peace studies possesses numerous sophisticated theories of particular aspects of peace yet comparatively few integrative theories of peace itself.

It is within this emerging theoretical space that Achankeng's scholarship becomes particularly significant. Throughout his corpus, peace is consistently treated not as an aggregate of desirable institutional outcomes but as a morally integrated political order grounded in justice, historical accountability, legitimate sovereignty, and human dignity (Achankeng, 2013, 2015, 2026). Rather than expanding the concept of peace indefinitely, he seeks to reconnect its multiple dimensions through an underlying normative architecture. In this respect, his work may be understood as participating in what this article identifies as the reconstruction of contemporary peace theory.

2.2 Can Peace Exist Without Justice? The Continuing Legacy of Positive Peace

Few propositions within peace studies command broader acceptance than the claim that peace requires justice. Yet beneath this apparent consensus lies considerable theoretical diversity concerning what justice actually means and how it relates to peaceful political order. Positive peace remains the dominant conceptual framework through which these questions have traditionally been approached.

Galtung's conception of structural violence demonstrated that societies may enjoy political stability while simultaneously reproducing profound forms of injustice through discriminatory institutions, unequal economic arrangements, restricted political participation, or systemic deprivation (Galtung, 1969, 1990). Peace therefore demanded not merely the cessation of armed conflict but the transformation of social structures preventing individuals from achieving their full human potential. Subsequent scholars extended this insight in multiple directions. Burton's Human Needs Theory argued that durable peace depends upon satisfying universal human needs for identity, recognition, security, and participation (Burton, 1990). Sen's capabilities approach shifted attention toward substantive freedoms enabling individuals to live lives they have reason to value (Sen, 1999), while Nussbaum (2000, 2011) further developed a normative account of justice centered upon human capabilities and dignity. Rawls (1971) similarly grounded political legitimacy in principles of fairness governing the basic structure of society.

Collectively, these approaches significantly enriched normative discussions of peace. Nevertheless, they also reveal an important conceptual ambiguity. Justice appears throughout contemporary peace literature as distributive justice, procedural justice, restorative justice, transitional justice, social justice, historical justice, and epistemic justice. Each addresses an important dimension of peaceful coexistence, yet their interrelationships remain insufficiently theorized. Peace studies therefore possesses multiple theories of justice without an equally integrated theory explaining how these forms of justice converge within a unified conception of peace.

Achankeng's scholarship contributes to this unresolved debate by refusing to treat justice as one variable among many within peacebuilding. Instead, justice functions as the normative criterion by which peace itself is evaluated. Stable political institutions, negotiated settlements, constitutional reforms, or diplomatic agreements cannot legitimately be described as peaceful if they systematically reproduce historical exclusion, political marginalization, or violations of human dignity (Achankeng, 2013, 2015, 2026). Peace is therefore not merely compatible with justice; peace is constituted by justice.

This seemingly modest shift carries profound theoretical implications. Rather than asking how justice contributes to peace, Achankeng asks whether peace exists wherever justice remains absent. Such reasoning moves beyond the instrumental treatment of justice characteristic of much peacebuilding literature and relocates justice at the ontological center of peaceful political order. Within the framework of Critical Synthetic Realism, this represents an important movement toward normative integration: justice is no longer one dimension of peace but one of its constitutive conditions.

Liberative Realism extends this insight still further. If peace is grounded in justice, justice itself must ultimately be evaluated according to whether it enables authentic human liberation and flourishing. Justice therefore becomes neither exclusively legal nor distributive but fundamentally liberative. Peace that institutionalizes dependency, exclusion, or structural domination cannot satisfy this criterion even if violence has formally ceased. Accordingly, peace and liberation become mutually constitutive rather than conceptually independent realities.

2.3 Can Peace Be Built through Institutions Alone? Liberal Peace and Its Discontents

The conclusion of the Cold War marked a decisive turning point in both international relations and peace studies. The ideological polarization that had structured global politics for nearly half a century gave way to a renewed confidence in liberal democracy, constitutional governance, market economies, and international institutions as the principal foundations of sustainable peace. Liberal peacebuilding emerged as the dominant paradigm guiding international interventions in societies affected by civil war, state collapse, and humanitarian crises. Democratic elections, constitutional reform, judicial independence, civil society development, market liberalization, and the rule of law were increasingly understood as universal mechanisms through which fractured societies could be reconstructed (Doyle, 1986; Fukuyama, 1992; Paris, 2004).

Underlying this paradigm was a broader philosophical tradition extending back to Immanuel Kant's Perpetual Peace (1795/2006), which argued that republican government, international law, and commercial interdependence would gradually reduce the likelihood of war among nations. Liberal peacebuilding therefore represented not merely a post-Cold War policy framework but the contemporary expression of a much longer tradition linking constitutional governance with peaceful political order. Democratic institutions were expected to constrain authoritarianism, encourage accountability, protect individual rights, and provide peaceful mechanisms for resolving political disputes (Russett, 1993; Doyle, 1986).

The achievements of liberal peacebuilding should not be understated. In numerous post-conflict societies, internationally supported constitutional reforms, electoral institutions, judicial restructuring, and economic reconstruction contributed to reductions in large-scale violence and facilitated important political transitions (Paris, 2004; Doyle & Sambanis, 2006). Liberal peace also expanded the normative agenda of international intervention by emphasizing human rights, democratic participation, and civilian protection rather than merely geopolitical stability.

Yet by the early twenty-first century, growing empirical evidence exposed important limitations within the liberal paradigm. A considerable number of post-conflict societies experienced recurring violence despite formally adopting democratic constitutions, conducting internationally monitored elections, and implementing extensive governance reforms (Chandler, 2010; Richmond, 2011). Institutions frequently exhibited procedural legitimacy without corresponding social legitimacy. Elections produced governments whose constitutional authority remained contested. Judicial reforms often failed to address deeply embedded historical grievances. Peace agreements ended military confrontation while leaving political exclusion substantially unchanged.

These developments generated one of the most significant debates within contemporary peace studies: Can institutions create peace, or must legitimate peace precede institutional stability?

This question represents more than a technical disagreement concerning peacebuilding practice. It exposes a deeper philosophical issue regarding the relationship between political institutions and moral legitimacy. Liberal peacebuilding frequently assumes that constitutional institutions generate legitimacy through democratic procedures. Increasingly, however, critics have argued that institutions derive legitimacy only insofar as they embody justice, historical accountability, and meaningful political inclusion (Richmond, 2011; Mac Ginty, 2015).

Fonkem Achankeng's scholarship intervenes directly within this debate. Across his analyses of constitutional conflict, self-determination, postcolonial governance, and nationalist movements, he consistently rejects the assumption that institutional order alone constitutes peace (Achankeng, 2012, 2013, 2015). Constitutional arrangements lacking historical legitimacy or meaningful political consent may successfully preserve governmental authority while simultaneously perpetuating structural conflict. Institutional stability therefore cannot serve as the primary criterion for evaluating peaceful political order.

This position reflects a significant theoretical shift. Rather than evaluating peace according to the effectiveness of institutions, Achankeng evaluates institutions according to their capacity to realize justice and protect the dignity and political agency of peoples. Institutions become instruments of peace rather than its defining characteristic.

From the perspective of Critical Synthetic Realism, this distinction is crucial. Institutions possess no intrinsic moral status independent of the realities they sustain. Ontological realism requires that political arrangements be evaluated according to their correspondence with justice rather than merely their procedural functionality. Consequently, constitutional legality, democratic elections, or international recognition cannot by themselves establish peaceful legitimacy if they continue reproducing historical exclusion or structural domination.

Liberative Realism reinforces this critique by arguing that institutions should ultimately be assessed according to whether they expand or constrain human freedom, responsibility, and flourishing. Political stability purchased at the cost of sustained injustice represents not peace but institutionalized domination. Peace therefore requires institutions capable of fostering liberation rather than merely administering order.

Viewed in this light, Achankeng's scholarship extends rather than rejects the liberal tradition. He does not deny the importance of constitutions, elections, judicial independence, or democratic governance. Instead, he insists that these institutions remain normatively incomplete unless grounded in justice, historical accountability, and authentic political participation. Liberal peace thus requires ethical reconstruction rather than abandonment.

2.4 Can Reconciliation Replace Historical Justice? Conflict Transformation and the Limits of Procedural Peace

If liberal peacebuilding shifted attention toward institutions, the theory of conflict transformation redirected scholarly attention toward relationships. John Paul Lederach's influential work represented a decisive departure from conventional approaches to conflict resolution by arguing that sustainable peace cannot be achieved simply through negotiated settlements or diplomatic agreements (Lederach, 1997). Instead, conflict transformation emphasizes the gradual reconstruction of relationships, identities, institutions, and social structures that have been damaged through prolonged violence.

Lederach's contribution fundamentally altered peacebuilding practice. Rather than viewing peace agreements as the culmination of peace processes, conflict transformation understands them as the beginning of much longer journeys of reconciliation. Peace becomes relational rather than merely political. Trust, mutual recognition, social healing, community participation, and the rebuilding of civic relationships assume central importance alongside constitutional reform and political negotiation (Lederach, 1997; Lederach & Appleby, 2010).

The influence of this perspective extends far beyond academic theory. Restorative justice initiatives, truth and reconciliation commissions, community dialogue programs, trauma healing, and local peacebuilding practices throughout Africa, Latin America, and Asia all reflect important elements of the transformational paradigm (Bloomfield, Barnes, & Huyse, 2003; Ramsbotham et al., 2016).

Yet the remarkable success of conflict transformation also reveals an unresolved tension. Can relationships genuinely be transformed while the historical structures that generated violence remain substantially intact?

This question becomes particularly acute in postcolonial societies where contemporary conflicts frequently emerge from constitutional arrangements, territorial boundaries, and political institutions inherited from colonial rule. Reconciliation among individuals may prove insufficient where historical injustices continue to shape present political realities.

Achankeng repeatedly returns to precisely this concern. Throughout his writings on colonial conflict, constitutional legitimacy, mediation, and nationalist movements, reconciliation is never detached from historical accountability (Achankeng, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2026). Negotiated agreements, mediation processes, and political dialogue remain indispensable components of peacebuilding, but they cannot substitute for confronting the historical conditions that originally produced conflict. Peace processes that privilege procedural consensus while avoiding unresolved historical grievances risk producing temporary stability without durable justice.

This distinction becomes especially important in Achankeng's critique of negotiations conducted under conditions of profound political asymmetry. Negotiation itself is not inherently emancipatory. Agreements reached between profoundly unequal parties may reinforce rather than transform structural domination if the underlying historical and constitutional conditions remain unaddressed. Consequently, successful mediation cannot be evaluated exclusively according to whether violence declines. It must also be evaluated according to whether the resulting political order embodies justice, dignity, and meaningful inclusion.

Critical Synthetic Realism deepens this analysis by insisting that historical reality possesses ontological significance. Present political relationships cannot be adequately understood independently of the historical processes that generated them. Conflict transformation therefore requires more than relational reconstruction; it requires historical reconstruction. The past is not merely remembered—it continues to shape the structures within which contemporary political life unfolds.

Liberative Realism complements this perspective by arguing that reconciliation devoid of liberation remains ethically incomplete. Forgiveness, dialogue, and restored relationships are indispensable, but reconciliation reaches its fullest meaning only when it contributes to the transformation of political structures that impede human flourishing. In this sense, peace becomes neither exclusively relational nor exclusively institutional. It becomes the integration of historical truth, moral responsibility, structural justice, and reconciled human community.

Accordingly, Achankeng extends Lederach's theory without displacing it. Conflict transformation remains indispensable, but its normative horizon expands beyond interpersonal reconciliation toward the reconstruction of historically just political communities.

2.5 Can Local Peace Become Universal Theory? Post-Liberal Peace, Hybrid Peace, and the Recovery of Indigenous Epistemologies

One of the most significant developments within contemporary peace studies during the past two decades has been the growing recognition that peace cannot be constructed exclusively through externally designed institutional frameworks. While liberal peacebuilding substantially expanded international efforts toward post-conflict reconstruction, its implementation frequently revealed a persistent disconnect between internationally designed governance structures and locally embedded political realities. Constitutional reforms, democratic elections, judicial restructuring, and development programs often achieved measurable institutional success while failing to secure enduring political legitimacy among the populations they were intended to serve (Paris, 2004; Chandler, 2010; Richmond, 2011).

These limitations stimulated what has become broadly known as the post-liberal turn in peace studies. Rather than rejecting the normative aspirations of liberal peace, post-liberal scholars questioned the assumption that peace could be universally engineered through standardized institutional models irrespective of historical, cultural, and political context (Richmond, 2011). Oliver Richmond argues that peace emerges through complex interactions between international norms and local political agency rather than through the unilateral transfer of institutional templates. Roger Mac Ginty's influential theory of hybrid peace similarly demonstrates that local actors rarely receive externally designed peacebuilding initiatives passively. Instead, they reinterpret, negotiate, resist, modify, and indigenize international interventions according to local histories, identities, and cultural traditions (Mac Ginty, 2011, 2015).

The post-liberal literature therefore represents a major epistemological correction within peace studies. It challenges the implicit universalism that characterized much earlier peacebuilding theory and restores agency to communities historically treated as recipients rather than producers of peace. Local knowledge, customary institutions, traditional leadership, indigenous mediation practices, and community-based reconciliation increasingly become recognized as indispensable components of sustainable peacebuilding (Boege et al., 2009; Richmond, 2011; Mac Ginty, 2015).

Yet despite these advances, an important conceptual limitation remains. Post-liberal scholarship successfully establishes that local knowledge matters. It is considerably less explicit, however, regarding why local knowledge matters philosophically. Indigenous institutions are frequently recognized because they improve peacebuilding outcomes, increase local participation, or strengthen institutional legitimacy. Comparatively little attention has been devoted to whether indigenous political traditions themselves constitute sources of universal theoretical knowledge capable of reshaping the conceptual foundations of peace studies.

This distinction is critical. To recognize indigenous mediation as effective practice differs fundamentally from recognizing indigenous political thought as theory. The former expands empirical understanding; the latter reconstructs the epistemological foundations of the discipline itself.

It is precisely here that Fonkem Achankeng's scholarship assumes broader theoretical significance. Across his analyses of African conflict resolution, indigenous mediation, customary authority, nationalism, constitutional legitimacy, and political reconciliation, indigenous institutions are never presented merely as culturally specific mechanisms of dispute resolution (Achankeng, 2013; 2015; 2018; 2026). Rather, they embody accumulated normative wisdom concerning justice, communal responsibility, reconciliation, political legitimacy, and human dignity. Indigenous knowledge therefore contributes not simply to African peacebuilding but to peace theory itself.

Achankeng's position avoids two opposite errors that have characterized portions of contemporary scholarship. On the one hand, he rejects epistemological universalism, which assumes that legitimate theories of peace originate exclusively within Euro-American intellectual traditions. On the other hand, he equally avoids romantic cultural relativism, which treats indigenous institutions as inherently valid simply because they are indigenous. Instead, indigenous traditions become objects of critical philosophical engagement. Their authority derives not from cultural origin but from their capacity to illuminate enduring dimensions of political reality.

This approach resonates deeply with the epistemological commitments of Critical Synthetic Realism. CSR maintains that reality exceeds every particular tradition of knowledge while simultaneously affirming that no civilization possesses a monopoly upon truth (Asongu, 2026a). Knowledge advances through critical dialogue among diverse intellectual traditions rather than through epistemic isolation. Indigenous African political thought therefore enters peace studies neither as an alternative to universal theory nor as a subordinate illustration of existing paradigms, but as a co-equal participant in the ongoing reconstruction of global political knowledge.

Liberative Realism extends this epistemological insight by arguing that liberation itself requires epistemic justice. Political emancipation cannot be fully realized while systems of knowledge continue reproducing hierarchies that privilege certain civilizations as producers of theory and others merely as providers of empirical cases. Genuine liberation therefore requires recognition that all cultures possess the potential to contribute universal insights into justice, peace, dignity, and human flourishing, subject always to critical philosophical evaluation rather than uncritical affirmation (Asongu, 2026b).

Viewed from this perspective, Achankeng's scholarship contributes to a broader transformation occurring within contemporary peace studies. The discipline moves beyond including indigenous voices toward reconstructing peace theory through genuinely intercultural dialogue. Peace becomes not the exportation of a finished theory but the collaborative discovery of political truths emerging from multiple intellectual traditions critically engaged with one another.

2.6 Can Decolonial Peace Move Beyond Critique? Coloniality, Historical Accountability, and the Reconstruction of Justice

Few intellectual movements have reshaped contemporary social theory more profoundly than decolonial scholarship. Building upon earlier anti-colonial thinkers such as Frantz Fanon (1961), Amílcar Cabral (1973), and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1986), contemporary decolonial theorists have argued that colonialism persists not merely through political or economic institutions but through enduring structures of knowledge, culture, identity, and epistemic authority (Quijano, 2000; Mignolo, 2011; Santos, 2014; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013). Coloniality, in this understanding, survives the formal end of colonial administration by continuing to shape how societies define legitimate knowledge, political order, development, civilization, and even humanity itself.

Within peace studies, these insights have generated profound methodological and normative consequences. Increasingly, scholars have questioned whether conventional peacebuilding frameworks unintentionally reproduce colonial assumptions through externally imposed institutional models, asymmetrical donor-recipient relationships, and universalist conceptions of governance that inadequately acknowledge historical injustice and indigenous political traditions (Richmond, 2011; Pureza & Cravo, 2020). Peace can no longer be understood independently of colonial histories because many contemporary conflicts remain deeply rooted in colonial state formation, imposed territorial boundaries, unequal citizenship regimes, and enduring political marginalization (Mamdani, 1996; Mbembe, 2001; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013).

The contribution of decolonial scholarship to peace studies is therefore immense. It has fundamentally altered how scholars understand violence, legitimacy, sovereignty, and historical responsibility. Yet decolonial theory also confronts an important philosophical challenge. Its critical power often exceeds its reconstructive clarity.

The literature excels at exposing colonial domination, epistemic injustice, racial hierarchies, and structural exclusion. Less fully developed is a systematic account of the political and ethical order that should emerge once coloniality has been critically dismantled. The transition from deconstruction to reconstruction remains one of the principal unfinished tasks of contemporary peace theory.

It is at precisely this point that Achankeng's scholarship contributes something distinctive. While deeply attentive to the enduring effects of colonialism upon African political development, his work consistently refuses to end with critique. Historical analysis serves a constructive rather than merely diagnostic purpose. Colonialism matters because it explains why contemporary conflicts persist; equally important, however, is the question of how historically fractured political communities may be reconstructed through justice, legitimate sovereignty, reconciliation, and institutional accountability (Achankeng, 2012; 2013; 2015; 2026).

This reconstructive orientation differentiates Achankeng from strands of decolonial scholarship that privilege resistance over institutional rebuilding. Historical accountability becomes neither perpetual grievance nor historical nostalgia. Instead, it functions as the ethical condition under which reconciliation acquires political credibility. Peace cannot be sustained through historical amnesia because unresolved injustices continue shaping political identities, constitutional legitimacy, and collective memory.

Critical Synthetic Realism provides an important philosophical framework for understanding this position. CSR argues that historical realities possess enduring ontological significance. The past is not merely interpreted differently by competing narratives; rather, historical events continue generating objective structural consequences within present political life (Asongu, 2026a). Consequently, reconciliation cannot simply negotiate present disagreements while ignoring historically constituted realities. Peace requires truthful engagement with the structures through which injustice became institutionalized.

Liberative Realism further extends this insight by arguing that liberation itself is incomplete unless historical truth culminates in transformed political relationships capable of fostering justice and human flourishing. Liberation therefore possesses both negative and positive dimensions. It requires emancipation from structures of domination while simultaneously creating institutions through which dignity, responsibility, solidarity, and the common good may flourish. Decolonization without reconstruction remains ethically unfinished.

In this respect, Achankeng's scholarship represents an important movement beyond both liberal peacebuilding and decolonial critique. Liberal peace frequently privileges institutional reconstruction while underestimating historical injustice. Decolonial theory powerfully exposes historical injustice while sometimes leaving the normative architecture of reconstructed political order comparatively underdeveloped. Achankeng seeks to integrate both concerns by arguing that durable peace requires institutions grounded in historical accountability, justice, and the dignity of peoples rather than merely the authority of states.

2.7 The Epistemic Fracture of Peace Studies and the Need for Theoretical Reconstruction

The foregoing review reveals that the history of contemporary peace studies is not simply a narrative of cumulative theoretical progress. It is equally a history of increasing conceptual specialization. Each successive paradigm has illuminated an important dimension of peaceful political order while simultaneously narrowing its primary analytical focus. Positive peace foregrounded structural injustice (Galtung, 1969, 1990); conflict transformation emphasized relationships and reconciliation (Lederach, 1997); liberal peace prioritized democratic institutions and constitutional governance (Paris, 2004); post-liberal and hybrid approaches restored local political agency (Richmond, 2011; Mac Ginty, 2011, 2015); indigenous peacebuilding recovered customary political wisdom (Murithi, 2006; Boege et al., 2009); and decolonial scholarship exposed the enduring influence of coloniality upon contemporary political structures and systems of knowledge (Quijano, 2000; Mignolo, 2011; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013).

Taken individually, these traditions represent remarkable intellectual achievements. Collectively, however, they expose an increasingly evident paradox. As peace studies has become richer in conceptual diversity, it has become correspondingly less integrated as a unified theory of peace. Justice, reconciliation, sovereignty, historical accountability, indigenous knowledge, human rights, environmental sustainability, gender, trauma, development, and human security are each investigated with considerable sophistication, yet they frequently develop within parallel scholarly conversations whose underlying philosophical relationships remain insufficiently examined. The discipline has generated multiple theories of aspects of peace while producing comparatively fewer systematic theories of peace itself.

This article argues that this condition is best understood as an instance of epistemic fracture. Within Critical Synthetic Realism, epistemic fracture refers to the progressive fragmentation of human knowing whereby complex realities become divided into increasingly specialized domains that lose sight of their underlying unity (Asongu, 2026a). Specialization itself is not the problem. Indeed, modern scholarship depends upon disciplinary expertise. Epistemic fracture occurs when specialization begins to obscure rather than illuminate the relationships among the realities under investigation. Knowledge becomes increasingly precise concerning individual components while becoming progressively less capable of explaining the whole.

Applied to peace studies, epistemic fracture does not imply that existing theories are mistaken. On the contrary, positive peace, conflict transformation, liberal peacebuilding, post-liberal peace, feminist peace, environmental peace, indigenous peacebuilding, and decolonial theory each illuminate indispensable dimensions of peaceful political order. The difficulty lies elsewhere. The discipline increasingly lacks a coherent philosophical framework capable of explaining how these dimensions relate to one another. Justice is discussed separately from reconciliation; reconciliation separately from sovereignty; sovereignty separately from historical accountability; historical accountability separately from indigenous knowledge; indigenous knowledge separately from human flourishing. The resulting fragmentation does not reflect intellectual weakness but conceptual incompleteness.

The consequences of this epistemic fracture are evident both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, peace studies risks becoming a federation of specialized subfields rather than an integrated discipline. Practically, peacebuilding initiatives frequently privilege one dimension of peace—constitutional reform, reconciliation, economic development, security sector reform, transitional justice, or humanitarian intervention—without adequately considering their interdependence. The persistence of recurring violence in numerous post-conflict societies suggests that successful intervention in one domain cannot compensate indefinitely for neglect in others (Richmond, 2011; Ramsbotham et al., 2016).

Fonkem Achankeng's scholarship becomes significant precisely because it consistently resists this fragmentation. Although his writings span diverse subjects—including colonial conflict, mediation, negotiation, self-determination, constitutional legitimacy, indigenous peacebuilding, humanitarian intervention, and just peace—they are united by a persistent philosophical concern: the search for an integrated moral and political understanding of peaceful coexistence. Justice is never detached from history; history is never detached from sovereignty; sovereignty is never detached from human dignity; dignity is never detached from community; and community is never detached from the conditions necessary for human flourishing (Achankeng, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2026). Read as a whole, his corpus exhibits a coherence that has remained largely unrecognized because individual publications have typically been interpreted in isolation rather than as components of a larger theoretical project.

This observation leads directly to the central claim of the present article. Achankeng's principal contribution is not simply the addition of another perspective within contemporary peace studies. Rather, his scholarship implicitly attempts to repair the epistemic fracture of the discipline by reintegrating dimensions of peace that contemporary scholarship increasingly examines separately. Peace is reconstructed not as the aggregate outcome of successful institutions, reconciled relationships, historical acknowledgement, indigenous participation, or constitutional legitimacy considered independently, but as the dynamic integration of these realities within a morally coherent political order.

Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology provides the methodological framework through which such reconstruction becomes possible. Unlike descriptive literature reviews that catalogue competing theories or comparative analyses that evaluate isolated concepts, CSRM seeks to identify the deeper ontological, epistemological, and normative structures connecting apparently diverse theoretical traditions. It asks not merely what different theories say about peace but how those theories may be critically integrated into a more comprehensive understanding of peaceful political reality (Asongu, 2026a). In this sense, CSRM responds methodologically to the epistemic fracture that characterizes much contemporary peace scholarship.

Liberative Realism extends this reconstruction by identifying the normative horizon toward which peace ultimately points. Throughout much of the contemporary literature, peace functions as an end in itself. Liberative Realism argues that peace derives its moral significance from the forms of human existence it makes possible. Peace exists for the flourishing of persons and communities. Consequently, justice, reconciliation, historical accountability, indigenous legitimacy, democratic participation, and constitutional order are not isolated objectives but mutually reinforcing conditions that enable authentic liberation. Peace without liberation becomes institutional stability; liberation without justice becomes political rhetoric; justice without human flourishing remains ethically incomplete (Asongu, 2026b).

The concept of epistemic fracture therefore serves two purposes within the present study. First, it provides a philosophical diagnosis of why contemporary peace studies, despite its extraordinary richness, continues to experience theoretical fragmentation. Second, it establishes the intellectual context within which Achankeng's scholarship may be understood not merely as another contribution to the field but as an emerging effort toward disciplinary reintegration. His work does not eliminate the diversity of contemporary peace studies; rather, it demonstrates how that diversity may be ordered around a coherent normative vision grounded in justice, historical accountability, peoples' sovereignty, indigenous epistemic legitimacy, human dignity, and human flourishing.

Accordingly, the remainder of this article proceeds from the conviction that the future development of peace studies depends less upon generating additional specialized paradigms than upon reconstructing the philosophical unity capable of holding those paradigms together. It is this reconstructive task that the scholarship of Fonkem Achankeng, interpreted through Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology and normatively extended through Liberative Realism, invites the discipline to undertake.

3. Methodology: Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology (CSRM) and the Normative Extension of Liberative Realism

3.1 The Methodological Problem: How Should Peace Theory Be Reconstructed?

The reconstruction of normative theory presents methodological challenges that differ fundamentally from those encountered in empirical peace research. Conventional methodologies employed within peace studies—including case study analysis, historical inquiry, discourse analysis, comparative politics, qualitative interviews, ethnography, bibliometric reviews, systematic literature reviews, and meta-synthesis—have significantly advanced scholarly understanding of conflict, mediation, reconciliation, peacebuilding, and post-conflict governance (Creswell & Poth, 2018; Ramsbotham et al., 2016). These approaches are exceptionally well suited to describing historical developments, analysing institutional processes, evaluating policy interventions, or synthesizing existing empirical findings.

However, they are considerably less equipped to answer a different class of scholarly question: How should an emerging body of scholarship be reconstructed as a coherent normative theory?

This question differs fundamentally from asking whether an author's empirical conclusions are correct or whether individual concepts are logically consistent. Rather, it concerns whether diverse publications, produced over many years across different disciplinary contexts, collectively constitute a unified philosophical framework capable of addressing unresolved problems within a field. Such reconstruction requires moving beyond description toward critical synthesis. It demands a methodology capable of identifying the deeper conceptual architecture connecting seemingly independent arguments, while simultaneously evaluating their explanatory power, normative coherence, interdisciplinary integration, and ontological adequacy.

Peace studies increasingly confronts precisely this methodological challenge. As demonstrated in the preceding review, the discipline has generated an impressive diversity of theoretical traditions addressing structural violence, conflict transformation, liberal peacebuilding, hybrid peace, restorative justice, indigenous peacebuilding, feminist peace, ecological peace, and decolonial reconstruction. Yet comparatively little methodological guidance exists concerning how these traditions may themselves be critically integrated into broader explanatory frameworks. Existing review methodologies generally catalogue scholarship or compare competing paradigms; they less frequently attempt to reconstruct the philosophical structures that unite them.

The present article therefore requires a methodology designed not simply for reviewing literature but for reconstructing theoretical systems. That methodology is Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology (CSRM).

3.2 Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology: Philosophical Foundations

Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology emerges from the broader philosophical tradition of Critical Synthetic Realism (CSR) (Asongu, 2026a). Developed in response to increasing fragmentation across philosophy, theology, psychology, ethics, and the social sciences, CSR argues that many contemporary intellectual traditions suffer not primarily from inadequate evidence but from insufficient conceptual integration. Modern scholarship has become increasingly specialized, generating remarkable advances within individual disciplines while often losing sight of the underlying realities connecting them. The consequence is what CSR identifies as epistemic fracture: the progressive fragmentation of knowledge into increasingly isolated domains that obscure rather than illuminate the unity of reality.

CSR therefore advances three interrelated philosophical commitments that together provide the foundation for CSRM.

3.2.1 Ontological Realism

The first commitment is ontological realism. Reality exists independently of human perception, linguistic construction, ideological preference, or political interest. Peace, justice, conflict, sovereignty, dignity, historical injustice, and reconciliation are not merely rhetorical categories whose meaning varies entirely according to competing discourses. Rather, they refer to objective dimensions of political and social reality, even though our understanding of those realities remains historically situated and necessarily incomplete.

Ontological realism therefore rejects both naïve positivism, which assumes direct and exhaustive access to reality, and radical constructivism, which dissolves reality into discourse alone. Human beings know reality imperfectly, but they nevertheless know something real.

Applied to peace studies, this principle implies that theories should ultimately be evaluated according to their capacity to illuminate the realities of peaceful coexistence rather than simply describe competing narratives about peace.

3.2.2 Epistemic Fallibilism

The second commitment concerns epistemic fallibilism. While reality exists objectively, human knowledge remains provisional, corrigible, and historically conditioned. No theoretical framework—including Critical Synthetic Realism itself—claims exhaustive understanding. Every act of knowing remains open to revision through dialogue, criticism, empirical evidence, and philosophical reflection.

This principle has important implications for peace studies. Competing theories should not be viewed primarily as mutually exclusive alternatives but as potentially complementary attempts to illuminate different dimensions of a shared reality. Conflict transformation, positive peace, decolonial theory, indigenous peacebuilding, feminist peace, and human security each contribute valuable insights precisely because no single framework exhausts the complexity of peace.

Consequently, disagreement within peace studies should not necessarily be interpreted as evidence that one theory must eliminate all others. Instead, disagreement often signals the need for more comprehensive theoretical integration.

3.2.3 Synthetic Integration

The third defining principle of CSR is synthetic integration. Contemporary social realities are multidimensional. Peace cannot be adequately understood exclusively through political science, international relations, sociology, psychology, economics, anthropology, law, philosophy, theology, or history. Each discipline reveals genuine aspects of peaceful political order while simultaneously leaving important dimensions underdeveloped.

Synthetic integration therefore seeks neither disciplinary homogenization nor superficial interdisciplinarity. Rather, it critically integrates insights from multiple traditions into progressively more comprehensive explanatory frameworks. Integration occurs not through reducing all theories to a common denominator but through identifying the complementary relationships among them while preserving their legitimate differences.

This principle becomes especially significant for peace studies because peaceful societies simultaneously involve constitutional institutions, historical memory, economic justice, moral responsibility, cultural legitimacy, psychological healing, ecological sustainability, and political participation. Any adequate theory of peace must therefore be capable of integrating multiple forms of knowledge without collapsing them into a single disciplinary vocabulary.

3.3 From Critical Synthetic Realism to Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology

Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology represents the operationalization of these philosophical commitments for scholarly inquiry. Whereas CSR provides an ontology and epistemology, CSRM provides a methodology for reconstructing complex intellectual traditions. Rather than asking only what a scholar argues, CSRM asks how an author's concepts relate to one another, whether they form a coherent explanatory architecture, how they engage competing theories, and whether they illuminate unresolved problems within a discipline.

In this respect, CSRM differs from conventional literature review methodologies in several important respects.

First, it is reconstructive rather than descriptive. Conventional reviews frequently summarize existing scholarship. CSRM seeks to reconstruct the conceptual architecture that may remain only implicitly articulated across an author's corpus.

Second, it is critical rather than celebratory. Reconstruction does not imply endorsement. Every theoretical claim is evaluated according to conceptual coherence, historical adequacy, explanatory scope, interdisciplinary integration, normative consistency, and practical relevance.

Third, it is synthetic rather than reductionist. Rather than forcing scholarship into predetermined theoretical categories, CSRM allows new conceptual relationships to emerge through sustained dialogue among disciplines and traditions.

Finally, it is normatively explicit. Peace theories inevitably embody assumptions concerning justice, legitimacy, authority, freedom, responsibility, dignity, and the common good. Rather than leaving these assumptions implicit, CSRM identifies, analyses, and evaluates them directly.

These characteristics make CSRM particularly appropriate for the present study. Fonkem Achankeng's scholarship spans more than two decades, multiple disciplines, and diverse forms of publication. A purely chronological or bibliographic analysis would describe this corpus but would not adequately explain its deeper theoretical unity. CSRM instead asks whether these writings collectively constitute an integrated reconstruction of contemporary peace theory.

3.4 Positioning Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology within Contemporary Review Methodologies

During the past two decades, review methodologies have undergone significant methodological refinement across the health sciences, education, management, psychology, political science, and the social sciences more broadly. As scholarly literature has expanded exponentially, systematic approaches to evidence synthesis have become increasingly important for identifying patterns, evaluating theoretical development, and informing future research (Grant & Booth, 2009; Snyder, 2019; Booth et al., 2021). Contemporary review methodologies—including systematic literature reviews, scoping reviews, narrative reviews, integrative reviews, realist reviews, meta-ethnography, critical interpretive synthesis, and umbrella reviews—each serve distinct scholarly purposes depending upon the nature of the research question.

Systematic literature reviews (SLRs) seek comprehensive, transparent, and reproducible identification of relevant studies according to explicitly defined inclusion and exclusion criteria (Kitchenham & Charters, 2007; Page et al., 2021). Their principal objective is minimizing selection bias while providing reliable summaries of existing evidence. Such reviews are particularly valuable where empirical findings require rigorous synthesis across multiple quantitative or qualitative studies.

Scoping reviews pursue a broader objective. Rather than critically evaluating evidence, they map the extent, range, and characteristics of existing scholarship within emerging or interdisciplinary fields (Arksey & O'Malley, 2005; Levac et al., 2010; Peters et al., 2020). They are especially useful where conceptual boundaries remain fluid or where bodies of literature have not yet matured sufficiently for systematic review.

Narrative reviews occupy a different methodological position by providing interpretive syntheses of intellectual developments rather than exhaustive evidence mapping (Baumeister & Leary, 1997). Their flexibility enables deeper conceptual analysis but often at the expense of methodological transparency and reproducibility.

Integrative reviews similarly seek to synthesize theoretical and empirical scholarship across methodological traditions (Torraco, 2005; Whittemore & Knafl, 2005). Unlike systematic reviews, they frequently combine conceptual, theoretical, qualitative, and quantitative evidence within a single analytical framework.

Critical interpretive synthesis (Dixon-Woods et al., 2006) moves further toward theory generation. Rather than merely summarizing existing literature, it critically interrogates assumptions, concepts, and theoretical relationships, generating new interpretive constructs capable of advancing scholarly understanding.

Each of these approaches offers important methodological strengths. Collectively, they have significantly improved the rigor, transparency, and cumulative character of contemporary scholarship.

However, the present study addresses a fundamentally different research problem.

This article does not seek to determine the effectiveness of particular peacebuilding interventions, estimate empirical relationships, map the breadth of existing scholarship, or summarize conceptual debates. Nor does it simply generate an interpretive synthesis of existing literature. Instead, it seeks to reconstruct the underlying philosophical architecture of an author's intellectual corpus while simultaneously evaluating its capacity to address unresolved theoretical questions within an academic discipline.

This distinction is methodologically significant.

The principal analytical unit of the present study is neither the individual publication nor the isolated concept but the emerging theoretical system. Accordingly, the central question is not whether Achankeng's individual arguments are persuasive in isolation but whether his complete body of scholarship collectively constitutes a coherent normative reconstruction of contemporary peace theory.

Existing review methodologies only partially address such questions.

Systematic reviews privilege methodological transparency but generally remain descriptive regarding theoretical architecture.

Scoping reviews successfully map intellectual landscapes but seldom reconstruct underlying philosophical systems.

Narrative and integrative reviews provide valuable conceptual syntheses yet often stop short of explicit ontological and normative evaluation.

Critical interpretive synthesis comes closest to the present study's objectives through its emphasis upon theory generation. Nevertheless, its primary concern remains interpretive explanation rather than systematic philosophical reconstruction.

Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology therefore complements rather than replaces these existing approaches.

Its distinctive contribution lies in integrating four analytical movements rarely combined within a single methodological framework.

First, CSRM undertakes critical reconstruction. Rather than summarizing publications individually, it reconstructs the conceptual architecture connecting them across time.

Second, it employs synthetic integration, bringing diverse disciplinary conversations—including peace studies, political philosophy, African studies, international relations, decolonial theory, ethics, and conflict resolution—into sustained dialogue.

Third, it subjects reconstructed theories to ontological and normative evaluation, asking whether they adequately explain reality and whether their ethical commitments remain conceptually coherent.

Finally, CSRM proceeds toward constructive theoretical extension. Reconstruction is not regarded as the endpoint of scholarly inquiry but as the foundation for further theoretical development. Consequently, reconstructed theories remain open to refinement, correction, dialogue, and interdisciplinary expansion.

These characteristics distinguish CSRM from existing review methodologies while remaining fully compatible with their commitment to rigorous scholarship.

Accordingly, the present article should not be understood as rejecting systematic review methodologies. On the contrary, it builds upon their commitment to comprehensive engagement with the literature. However, because the principal objective is the reconstruction of an emerging normative theory rather than the synthesis of empirical evidence, a methodology explicitly designed for philosophical reconstruction becomes necessary.

CSRM is proposed as one such methodology.

Its contribution is therefore methodological as well as substantive. By demonstrating how complex intellectual traditions may be reconstructed through critical synthesis, ontological realism, epistemic fallibilism, interdisciplinary integration, and normative evaluation, the methodology offers a potentially valuable framework for future theoretical work not only within peace studies but also across political philosophy, theology, psychology, ethics, and other disciplines where intellectual systems evolve across multiple publications over extended periods.

3.5 Research Design and Analytical Procedure

Having situated Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology within the broader landscape of contemporary review methodologies, the present study now specifies how CSRM is operationalized in reconstructing Fonkem Achankeng's contribution to contemporary peace theory.

Unlike conventional author-centered intellectual histories, the unit of analysis in this study is not the individual publication but the emerging theoretical architecture that develops across Achankeng's complete scholarly corpus. Accordingly, the objective is neither chronological description nor comprehensive bibliographic cataloguing. Rather, the study seeks to identify the recurring conceptual structures that unite his work, evaluate their explanatory coherence, and determine whether they collectively constitute a significant reconstruction of contemporary peace theory.

The analytical procedure proceeds through six interconnected stages.

Stage One: Corpus Delimitation

The first stage establishes the evidentiary foundation of the study.

The primary corpus consists of Achankeng's published books, peer-reviewed journal articles, scholarly book chapters, edited volumes, invited chapters, and major conference publications addressing conflict resolution, peacebuilding, colonialism, nationalism, sovereignty, constitutional legitimacy, humanitarian intervention, indigenous governance, mediation, reconciliation, historical accountability, and just peace. Particular emphasis is placed upon his major monographs, his sustained work on the Southern Cameroons question, and his recent contributions to Beyond Speaking Peace: Rethinking Conflict, Sovereignty, and Just Peace in the Twenty-First Century, which synthesizes many themes developed throughout his earlier scholarship.

Because the objective is theoretical reconstruction rather than bibliometric analysis, publications are evaluated according to their conceptual significance rather than citation counts or publication chronology. The corpus is therefore approached as a cumulative intellectual project rather than a sequence of independent scholarly outputs.

Stage Two: Conceptual Extraction

The second stage identifies the principal concepts recurring throughout the corpus.

Rather than imposing predetermined categories upon the literature, concepts emerge inductively through repeated close reading of the primary texts. Particular attention is devoted to concepts that appear consistently across different publications and disciplinary contexts.

Among the most prominent recurring concepts are:

• historical accountability; 
• coloniality; 
• negotiation; 
• mediation; 
• justice; 
• peoples' sovereignty; 
• constitutional legitimacy; 
• indigenous peacebuilding; 
• reconciliation; 
• human dignity; 
• moral responsibility; 
• human flourishing. 

The purpose of conceptual extraction is not merely to catalogue themes but to determine whether apparently independent concepts actually function as components of a broader theoretical framework.

Stage Three: Conceptual Reconstruction

The third stage constitutes the analytical heart of Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology.

Having identified recurring concepts, CSRM reconstructs the relationships among them. The guiding question is no longer What does Achankeng say about negotiation? or What does he argue regarding sovereignty? Instead, the methodology asks:

How do these concepts interact to form an integrated theory of peace?

This stage therefore shifts the unit of analysis from isolated concepts to conceptual architecture.

Historical accountability is examined in relation to justice.

Justice is analysed in relation to sovereignty.

Sovereignty is interpreted in relation to human dignity.

Human dignity is connected to indigenous legitimacy.

Indigenous legitimacy is evaluated in relation to human flourishing.

The objective is to reconstruct the underlying philosophical structure that connects these apparently separate dimensions into a coherent normative theory of just peace.

Stage Four: Comparative Reconstruction

The reconstructed framework is then situated within the wider intellectual history of peace studies.

Rather than comparing isolated concepts, CSRM compares theoretical architectures.

Achankeng's reconstruction is placed in sustained dialogue with major traditions represented by, among others,

• Johan Galtung; 
• John Paul Lederach; 
• Kenneth Boulding; 
• John Burton; 
• Oliver Richmond; 
• Roger Mac Ginty; 
• Roland Paris; 
• Emmanuel Murithi; 
• Mahmood Mamdani; 
• Achille Mbembe; 
• Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni; 
• Martha Nussbaum; 
• Amartya Sen. 

The purpose is neither intellectual genealogy nor priority claims. Instead, comparative reconstruction identifies areas of convergence, divergence, complementarity, and theoretical innovation.

Stage Five: Critical Evaluation

Unlike descriptive review methodologies, CSRM requires explicit philosophical evaluation.

The reconstructed theory is assessed according to multiple criteria, including:

• conceptual coherence; 
• ontological adequacy; 
• historical grounding; 
• explanatory power; 
• interdisciplinary integration; 
• normative consistency; 
• practical applicability. 

Importantly, reconstruction does not imply endorsement.

Conceptual strengths are identified alongside theoretical limitations.

Areas requiring further development—such as engagement with feminist peace theory, environmental peacebuilding, peace psychology, and critical security studies—are examined alongside the framework's original contributions.

This critical orientation distinguishes CSRM from methodologies whose primary objective is descriptive synthesis.

Stage Six: Constructive Extension

The final stage moves beyond reconstruction toward theoretical development.

CSRM proceeds from the assumption that every theoretical tradition remains historically unfinished.

Accordingly, reconstructed theories are not treated as completed systems but as open intellectual projects capable of further refinement through interdisciplinary dialogue.

In the present study, this constructive extension is undertaken through Liberative Realism.

Liberative Realism is not imposed externally upon Achankeng's scholarship.

Rather, it develops organically from tensions already present within the reconstructed framework.

Achankeng consistently argues that justice precedes durable peace.

He likewise maintains that historical accountability conditions reconciliation, that peoples' sovereignty grounds political legitimacy, and that human dignity constitutes the ethical foundation of political order.

Liberative Realism extends these insights by arguing that peace ultimately finds its normative fulfillment in human flourishing through liberation.

Liberation therefore becomes neither an optional political aspiration nor a rhetorical ideal.

Instead, liberation constitutes the positive realization of justice, truth, responsibility, institutional legitimacy, and authentic human development.

The study therefore concludes not merely by reconstructing Achankeng's theory but by showing how that reconstruction contributes to the broader future development of contemporary peace studies.

3.6 CSR Reconstruction Matrix

To enhance methodological transparency and analytical replicability, the present study operationalizes Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology through the CSR Reconstruction Matrix (Table 1). The matrix specifies the principal evaluative criteria employed throughout the reconstruction of Achankeng's scholarship and illustrates how CSRM progresses from descriptive analysis toward theoretical synthesis and constructive development.

Table 1. CSR Reconstruction Matrix for the Analysis of Normative Peace Theory

 | Analytical Dimension | Guiding Question | Application in This Study | Conceptual Coherence | Do the author's principal concepts form an internally consistent theoretical system? | Examines relationships among justice, historical accountability, sovereignty, dignity, indigenous legitimacy, and flourishing.
| Ontological Adequacy | Does the theory correspond to enduring political and social realities rather than merely describing discourse? | Evaluates Achankeng's treatment of coloniality, conflict, sovereignty, and political legitimacy.
| Historical Grounding | Does the theory adequately explain how historical processes shape contemporary conflicts? | Assesses the role of colonialism, constitutional history, collective memory, and historical responsibility.
| Interdisciplinary Integration | Does the theory synthesize insights across multiple disciplines without reductionism? | Evaluates integration of peace studies, political philosophy, African studies, ethics, history, and international relations.
| Normative Consistency | Are the ethical commitments internally coherent and philosophically defensible? | Examines relationships among justice, dignity, sovereignty, liberation, and responsibility.
| Explanatory Scope | Can the theory illuminate unresolved debates within contemporary peace studies? | Assesses contributions to positive peace, conflict transformation, post-liberal peace, indigenous peacebuilding, and decolonial peace.
| Practical Applicability | Does the theory provide meaningful guidance for peacebuilding practice? | Evaluates implications for mediation, constitutional reform, reconciliation, peacebuilding, and human flourishing.
| Constructive Capacity | Can the reconstructed theory be further developed? | Explores how Liberative Realism extends Achankeng's framework toward a broader theory of just peace.

The CSR Reconstruction Matrix serves two complementary purposes. Methodologically, it provides a transparent analytical framework that enables other scholars to apply CSRM to the reconstruction of complex normative traditions in peace studies and related disciplines. Substantively, it demonstrates that the evaluation of peace theories extends beyond descriptive comparison toward systematic assessment of their explanatory coherence, ontological adequacy, normative integrity, and constructive potential. In doing so, the matrix operationalizes the central claim of this article: that theoretical reconstruction is itself a rigorous form of scholarly inquiry, capable of advancing disciplinary knowledge by revealing the deeper philosophical architecture connecting diverse bodies of work.

4. Reconstructing Fonkem Achankeng's Theory of Just Peace

The preceding review argued that contemporary peace studies has reached a stage of increasing conceptual diversification accompanied by growing epistemic fragmentation. While successive paradigms have significantly enriched scholarly understanding of conflict, reconciliation, institutional reform, historical justice, and peacebuilding, they have frequently developed along parallel trajectories without an overarching framework capable of integrating their respective insights. The methodological task undertaken in this article is therefore not merely to summarize Fonkem Achankeng's scholarship but to determine whether his corpus constitutes such an integrative framework.

Existing discussions of Achankeng have tended to approach his publications through the lenses of African conflict studies, the Southern Cameroons question, nationalism, mediation, or postcolonial politics. While these readings are valuable, they often examine individual publications in isolation and consequently risk obscuring the broader philosophical architecture that connects his work across more than two decades of scholarship. Read collectively, however, Achankeng's writings exhibit a striking conceptual coherence. Whether addressing colonial legacies, constitutional legitimacy, indigenous governance, humanitarian intervention, self-determination, mediation, or reconciliation, the same normative concerns recur with remarkable consistency. Peace is repeatedly understood not as the simple absence of violence nor as the procedural management of political disagreement, but as the ethical reconstruction of political communities through justice, historical accountability, legitimate sovereignty, human dignity, and the conditions necessary for collective flourishing.

Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology makes it possible to reconstruct this deeper architecture by moving beyond the chronological sequence of publications toward the conceptual relationships that unite them. Rather than treating justice, sovereignty, historical memory, indigenous knowledge, and reconciliation as separate research interests, CSRM identifies them as mutually reinforcing components of an integrated theory of just peace. This reconstruction suggests that Achankeng's scholarship is best understood not as a collection of independent contributions but as a systematic normative project responding to what the previous sections identified as the Peace Theory Gap.

The analysis that follows reconstructs Achankeng's theory around six interdependent principles. These principles are not presented as categories imposed externally upon his work. Instead, they emerge inductively through sustained engagement with the primary corpus and collectively express the philosophical logic that runs throughout his scholarship. They are:

1. Historical Accountability 
2. Justice 
3. Peoples' Sovereignty 
4. Indigenous Epistemic Legitimacy 
5. Human Dignity 
6. Human Flourishing 

Taken together, these principles constitute what this article argues is Achankeng's implicit theory of just peace.

Importantly, these principles are not independent propositions. Each presupposes the others. Historical accountability grounds justice; justice legitimizes sovereignty; legitimate sovereignty protects human dignity; dignity requires recognition of indigenous political agency; and these realities collectively create the social conditions within which persons and communities may flourish. Peace therefore emerges not through the additive accumulation of isolated institutional achievements but through the dynamic integration of these normative dimensions within a coherent political order.

From the perspective of Critical Synthetic Realism, this reconstruction represents considerably more than an exercise in intellectual history. It illustrates how apparently diverse scholarly contributions may reveal an underlying ontological unity when interpreted through an integrative methodological framework. Liberative Realism, in turn, extends this reconstruction by arguing that the six principles converge toward a common normative horizon: the liberation and flourishing of persons and communities through truthful, just, and historically accountable political relationships.

Accordingly, the following sections examine each principle in turn, situating Achankeng's contribution within the broader literature of contemporary peace studies while demonstrating how his work addresses unresolved debates concerning the nature of peace itself.

4.1 Principle One: Historical Accountability as the Moral Foundation of Just Peace

Can Peace Exist Without Confronting History?

Among the most persistent debates within contemporary peace studies concerns the relationship between historical injustice and durable peace. Although scholars broadly agree that violent conflicts emerge within historical contexts, considerable disagreement remains regarding the extent to which historical accountability should function as a constitutive element of peacebuilding rather than merely one transitional mechanism among many. Liberal peacebuilding has traditionally emphasized institutional reconstruction and constitutional stabilization (Paris, 2004; Doyle & Sambanis, 2006), while transitional justice literature has concentrated upon legal accountability through criminal tribunals, truth commissions, reparations, and memorialization (Teitel, 2000; Minow, 1998). Conflict transformation further highlights the importance of healing damaged relationships and restoring trust among formerly antagonistic communities (Lederach, 1997).

Despite their considerable achievements, these traditions frequently treat historical accountability instrumentally. The past becomes important because unresolved grievances may destabilize present institutions or obstruct reconciliation. History therefore functions primarily as an obstacle to peace rather than as one of peace's constitutive foundations.

Achankeng's scholarship consistently challenges this assumption.

Across his analyses of colonialism, constitutional development, nationalist movements, mediation, and political conflict, history is never merely contextual background. Instead, historical processes actively shape the legitimacy of contemporary political institutions, the identities of political communities, and the moral credibility of peace agreements. Colonial treaties, imposed constitutional arrangements, contested boundaries, political exclusion, and broken historical commitments continue to influence present political realities long after the formal end of colonial administration (Achankeng, 2012; 2013; 2015; 2026).

This insight becomes particularly evident in Achankeng's sustained examination of the Southern Cameroons question. Rather than interpreting the conflict simply as an episode of contemporary political instability, he reconstructs it as the cumulative consequence of historical decisions involving colonial administration, trusteeship arrangements, constitutional restructuring, and competing understandings of political legitimacy. Whether or not one agrees with every aspect of his historical interpretation, the broader theoretical point remains significant: present conflicts cannot be adequately understood independently of the historical structures that produced them.

The implications extend well beyond a single case. Historical accountability, in Achankeng's framework, becomes a universal principle of peace theory rather than a context-specific political demand. Peace cannot be reduced to negotiated settlements that suspend historical questions in favor of short-term political compromise. Durable reconciliation requires truthful engagement with the historical realities through which injustice became institutionalized. Peace without historical accountability therefore risks becoming procedural stability rather than moral reconciliation.

This position places Achankeng in productive dialogue with transitional justice scholarship while simultaneously extending it. Transitional justice has made indispensable contributions by emphasizing truth commissions, criminal accountability, reparations, institutional reform, and collective memory (Teitel, 2000; Hayner, 2011). Yet much of this literature remains focused upon mechanisms. Achankeng redirects attention toward the deeper philosophical question: Why does history matter ethically?

His answer is that historical truth establishes the moral conditions under which justice becomes credible. Reconciliation that asks communities to forget the structures through which exclusion and domination were historically produced risks reproducing rather than resolving conflict.

Critical Synthetic Realism provides a philosophical explanation for this position. CSR rejects the reduction of history to competing narratives alone. Historical events possess enduring ontological consequences because they shape institutions, identities, constitutional arrangements, and political expectations across generations. Historical accountability therefore does not merely satisfy collective memory; it corresponds to realities that continue structuring present political life. To ignore those realities is not simply to overlook the past but to misunderstand the present.

Liberative Realism extends this analysis further by arguing that liberation begins with truth. Political communities cannot flourish while foundational injustices remain denied, distorted, or systematically forgotten. Historical accountability thus acquires a positive rather than merely corrective function. It creates the epistemic and moral conditions necessary for reconciliation, institutional legitimacy, and authentic freedom. Liberation is therefore inseparable from truthful historical remembrance.

Seen from this perspective, Achankeng's first principle of just peace is neither retrospective nor punitive. It is reconstructive. History matters not because societies must remain imprisoned by past grievances but because truthful engagement with historical reality enables political communities to build institutions worthy of trust. Peace becomes possible not through collective amnesia but through historically informed justice.

4.2 Principle Two: Justice as the Ontological Condition of Peace

Can Peace Exist Without Justice?

Few propositions command broader agreement within contemporary peace studies than the assertion that peace requires justice. Yet beneath this apparent consensus lies one of the discipline's most enduring conceptual disagreements. While scholars readily invoke justice as an indispensable component of peacebuilding, they frequently disagree regarding its nature, scope, normative priority, and relationship to peaceful political order. Justice appears variously as distributive justice, procedural justice, restorative justice, transitional justice, social justice, environmental justice, restorative justice, racial justice, gender justice, and, more recently, epistemic justice. Each formulation illuminates an important dimension of political life, yet contemporary peace theory continues to lack a comprehensive account explaining how these diverse understandings converge within a unified conception of peace.

The intellectual roots of this debate extend well beyond the emergence of modern peace studies. Classical political philosophy consistently treated justice as the constitutive principle of political order. In Plato's Republic, justice establishes harmony within both the individual soul and the polis (Plato, trans. Reeve, 2004). Aristotle similarly understood justice as the highest political virtue because it ordered communal life toward the common good (Aristotle, trans. Rackham, 1932). Augustine's celebrated observation that kingdoms without justice become little more than organized robbery underscores the long-standing conviction that political authority divorced from moral legitimacy cannot genuinely sustain peaceful community (Augustine, trans. Dyson, 1998). Thomas Aquinas later integrated justice within his broader account of natural law, arguing that legitimate political order depends upon its orientation toward the common good rather than merely the exercise of coercive power (Aquinas, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 1947).

Modern political philosophy retained this concern while reformulating it under new historical conditions. Hobbes emphasized security as the primary objective of political authority (Hobbes, 1651/1996), whereas Kant grounded perpetual peace in republican government, cosmopolitan law, and universal moral principles (Kant, 1795/2006). More recently, Rawls (1971) famously described justice as the first virtue of social institutions, while Sen (1999) and Nussbaum (2000, 2011) shifted attention toward human capabilities and substantive freedoms as the appropriate measure of just political arrangements. These traditions differ substantially in their normative assumptions, yet they share a common conviction: durable peace cannot be separated from justice.

Peace studies inherited this philosophical legacy but expanded it considerably. Galtung's theory of structural violence demonstrated that injustice may persist even in the absence of armed conflict because social institutions themselves can systematically constrain human flourishing (Galtung, 1969, 1990). Burton's Human Needs Theory similarly argued that unresolved needs for recognition, identity, participation, and security inevitably generate recurring conflict (Burton, 1990). Lederach's conflict transformation emphasized restorative relationships and moral imagination as conditions for reconciliation (Lederach, 1997; Lederach, 2005). Transitional justice scholarship subsequently broadened the discussion through analyses of truth commissions, reparations, criminal accountability, institutional reform, and memorialization (Teitel, 2000; Hayner, 2011).

Despite these remarkable advances, a persistent conceptual ambiguity remains. Much of the contemporary literature continues to treat justice primarily as an instrument for achieving peace. Justice is important because it reduces grievances, strengthens institutions, increases legitimacy, or promotes reconciliation. Peace remains the primary objective, while justice functions as one of several mechanisms through which peace may be realized.

Fonkem Achankeng's scholarship subtly but decisively reverses this relationship.

Throughout his writings, justice is not presented as a policy instrument subordinate to peacebuilding. Rather, justice constitutes the normative criterion through which peace itself is evaluated. Political settlements, constitutional reforms, mediation processes, ceasefire agreements, or internationally recognized institutions cannot legitimately be described as peaceful if they continue reproducing historical exclusion, structural domination, or systematic violations of human dignity (Achankeng, 2012; 2013; 2015; 2026). Peace therefore possesses no independent moral status apart from justice.

This inversion represents one of Achankeng's most original contributions to contemporary peace theory.

Rather than asking, "How does justice contribute to peace?", he asks the more fundamental philosophical question: 

"Can peace exist where justice is absent?"

The implications of this question extend far beyond particular conflicts. It challenges a recurring tendency within international peacebuilding to equate political stability with peaceful order. Stable authoritarian regimes may suppress violence while perpetuating profound injustice. Negotiated settlements may reduce armed confrontation while preserving institutionalized inequality. Constitutional arrangements may satisfy procedural standards without commanding genuine moral legitimacy among affected communities. From Achankeng's perspective, such outcomes may represent political accommodation, administrative order, or conflict management, but they do not constitute just peace.

His sustained engagement with colonial and postcolonial political formations illustrates this principle. Across his analyses of the Southern Cameroons conflict, constitutional transitions, and questions of self-determination, Achankeng repeatedly argues that legal arrangements cannot be evaluated independently of the justice they embody. Constitutional legitimacy derives not merely from formal enactment or international recognition but from its capacity to protect the dignity, equality, and political agency of peoples. Institutions become morally authoritative only when they express justice rather than merely exercise power.

This understanding distinguishes Achankeng from both legal positivism and political realism. Legal positivism tends to identify legitimacy with procedural legality, while political realism frequently evaluates political arrangements according to stability or effectiveness. Achankeng instead advances what may be described as a moral realism of political order. Political institutions correspond to peace only insofar as they embody objective principles of justice that safeguard the dignity of persons and communities.

Critical Synthetic Realism provides a philosophical framework for understanding this position. CSR maintains that justice is not merely a socially negotiated preference or culturally contingent convention but an aspect of objective moral reality toward which political institutions ought to orient themselves (Asongu, 2026a). Human beings may disagree concerning the precise application of justice in particular circumstances, yet such disagreement does not negate the existence of objective standards by which political arrangements may be evaluated. Ontological realism therefore rejects both moral relativism and political expediency as adequate foundations for peace.

Within this framework, peace acquires a distinctly realist character. Peace is not whatever political actors agree to call peace. Neither is it reducible to ceasefires, constitutional procedures, institutional stability, or the temporary suspension of violence. Peace corresponds to reality only when political relationships reflect justice grounded in the equal dignity of persons and peoples.

Liberative Realism extends this argument by asking an additional question that contemporary peace theory has rarely addressed:

Justice for what?

Justice cannot remain merely corrective. It must also be constructive. Institutions exist not simply to rectify historical wrongs but to create the conditions under which persons and communities may flourish. Liberation therefore becomes the dynamic realization of justice rather than its political alternative. A society that has ended overt violence but continues to deny meaningful participation, responsibility, creativity, cultural identity, or human development cannot be regarded as fully peaceful because liberation remains incomplete.

Consequently, justice acquires both negative and positive dimensions. Negatively, it dismantles structures of domination, exclusion, and historical oppression. Positively, it creates political, social, economic, and cultural conditions conducive to authentic human flourishing. Peace therefore emerges not at the conclusion of justice but through its continual realization.

Viewed from this perspective, Achankeng's theory significantly expands the normative horizon of peace studies. Justice is no longer treated as one objective among many within peacebuilding practice. It becomes the ontological condition through which peace itself is recognized. This shift reconnects contemporary peace theory with its deepest philosophical heritage while simultaneously extending it beyond procedural conceptions of political order toward a richer account of human dignity, historical accountability, and collective flourishing.

4.3 Principle Three: Peoples' Sovereignty as the Political Foundation of Just Peace

Can Peace Exist Without Legitimate Sovereignty?

Few concepts within contemporary peace studies have generated greater controversy than sovereignty. For much of modern international relations, sovereignty has functioned as the organizing principle of the international system. Since the Peace of Westphalia, states have generally been regarded as the primary subjects of international law, possessing territorial integrity, political independence, and juridical equality regardless of disparities in power, wealth, or military capacity (Krasner, 1999; Jackson, 2007). The United Nations Charter reinforces this understanding by affirming both sovereign equality and the prohibition of external interference in the domestic affairs of member states (United Nations, 1945).

Within peace studies, however, sovereignty has become increasingly contested. The rise of humanitarian intervention, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), international criminal justice, and human security has challenged traditional assumptions that sovereignty constitutes an absolute political norm (Bellamy, 2009; Evans, 2008). Simultaneously, postcolonial scholarship has questioned whether many postcolonial states inherited political boundaries and constitutional arrangements that reflected colonial administrative convenience rather than the freely expressed political aspirations of the peoples incorporated within them (Mamdani, 1996; Mbembe, 2001). Peace scholars therefore confront a persistent dilemma: should peacebuilding prioritize the preservation of existing states, or should it recognize circumstances in which claims to self-determination and political reconfiguration acquire moral legitimacy?

This debate remains unresolved because it involves two competing conceptions of political order. The first conceives sovereignty primarily as a juridical attribute of internationally recognized states. Peace, from this perspective, requires the preservation of territorial integrity and constitutional continuity except under extraordinary circumstances. The second conceives sovereignty more fundamentally as deriving from the political agency and consent of peoples. Here, constitutional arrangements derive legitimacy not merely from legal recognition but from their capacity to embody justice, representation, and meaningful political participation.

Fonkem Achankeng's scholarship consistently aligns with the second conception.

Across his analyses of colonial transitions, constitutional development, nationalist movements, mediation, and postcolonial conflict, Achankeng repeatedly distinguishes state sovereignty from peoples' sovereignty (Achankeng, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2026). This distinction is foundational to his broader theory of just peace. Political order cannot be evaluated solely according to the stability or international recognition of existing states. Rather, the decisive normative question concerns whether the political community itself has participated meaningfully in constituting the authority under which it is governed.

This argument should not be misunderstood as a generalized endorsement of secession or the fragmentation of existing states. Such an interpretation would significantly oversimplify Achankeng's position. Instead, his work raises a deeper philosophical concern regarding the sources of political legitimacy. Constitutional arrangements, negotiated settlements, and institutional reforms remain morally deficient where they systematically exclude the political agency of the communities whose future they seek to determine. Accordingly, sovereignty acquires its ethical legitimacy not simply through legal continuity but through justice, participation, and historical accountability.

This position situates Achankeng within a broader philosophical tradition extending from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's conception of popular sovereignty to contemporary theories of democratic legitimacy and self-determination (Rousseau, 1762/1997; Buchanan, 2004). Yet Achankeng's contribution differs in one important respect. Whereas much liberal political philosophy assumes relatively stable constitutional communities, his scholarship addresses political communities whose constitutional foundations themselves remain historically contested. Colonial administration, trusteeship arrangements, imposed constitutional settlements, and disputed processes of political incorporation become central variables in determining whether sovereignty possesses enduring moral legitimacy.

Consequently, sovereignty cannot be treated as a static legal category. It is a historically constituted moral relationship between political authority and the communities over whom that authority is exercised. Peace therefore requires more than constitutional order; it requires constitutional legitimacy grounded in justice and historical truth.

This insight carries significant implications for contemporary peacebuilding. International mediation frequently seeks negotiated settlements capable of ending violence while preserving existing constitutional frameworks. Such agreements may succeed in reducing armed confrontation, yet they often leave unresolved the deeper question of whether the constitutional order itself commands genuine legitimacy among all affected political communities. Achankeng repeatedly cautions that peace agreements which postpone or suppress these foundational questions may achieve procedural success while leaving the underlying sources of conflict substantially intact.

His analyses therefore shift attention from conflict management toward constitutional justice. Political negotiations become meaningful only insofar as they create conditions under which peoples may participate freely in determining their constitutional future. Mediation detached from questions of legitimacy risks stabilizing injustice rather than resolving it.

Critical Synthetic Realism provides a broader philosophical interpretation of this position. CSR maintains that political institutions should be evaluated according to their correspondence with objective realities of justice, dignity, and responsible human agency rather than according to procedural legality alone (Asongu, 2026a). From this perspective, sovereignty is not merely an institutional fact but an ontological and moral relationship. Political authority becomes legitimate when it reflects realities grounded in justice and truthful historical understanding. Conversely, institutions that retain legal recognition while systematically denying meaningful political agency remain ontologically deficient because they fail to correspond to the realities they claim to represent.

Liberative Realism extends this argument by emphasizing that authentic sovereignty ultimately serves liberation rather than domination. Political communities require institutions through which persons may exercise responsibility, participate in collective self-government, preserve legitimate cultural identities, and pursue the common good. Sovereignty therefore possesses instrumental rather than ultimate value. It is morally justified insofar as it enables the flourishing of persons and communities through just political relationships.

This perspective also provides an important corrective to certain strands of both realism and liberal interventionism. Classical realism frequently privileges state survival and strategic stability, while liberal interventionism sometimes subordinates local political agency to externally defined standards of governance. Achankeng rejects both reductions. Peace requires neither unquestioned deference to existing states nor the imposition of externally designed constitutional models. Rather, it requires political orders capable of reconciling justice, historical accountability, and meaningful participation within legitimately constituted communities.

Read through CSRM, this reconstruction reveals that Achankeng is advancing more than a theory of constitutional conflict. He is offering a theory of moral sovereignty. Sovereignty becomes the political expression of justice rather than its substitute. It is neither absolute nor disposable but continuously evaluated according to whether it protects the dignity, agency, and flourishing of the peoples whose lives it orders.

For contemporary peace studies, this constitutes an important theoretical contribution. It reframes sovereignty from being merely a legal obstacle to peacebuilding or an institutional assumption of international relations into one of the constitutive conditions of just peace itself. In doing so, Achankeng provides a framework capable of engaging some of the discipline's most difficult questions concerning self-determination, constitutional legitimacy, postcolonial statehood, mediation, and political reconciliation without reducing them to either legal formalism or political expediency.

4.4 Principle Four: Indigenous Epistemic Legitimacy—Recovering Local Knowledge as Universal Peace Theory

Can Indigenous Knowledge Reconstruct Peace Theory?

One of the most significant intellectual developments within contemporary peace studies has been the gradual recognition that sustainable peace cannot be constructed solely through externally designed institutions or universal policy frameworks. During much of the twentieth century, international peacebuilding largely assumed that durable peace emerged through the successful transplantation of democratic governance, constitutional reform, judicial independence, market liberalization, and professionalized conflict management into societies recovering from violence (Paris, 2004; Doyle & Sambanis, 2006). Although these approaches frequently generated important institutional advances, their limitations became increasingly evident as numerous post-conflict societies experienced renewed instability despite substantial international investment.

In response, scholars began emphasizing the importance of local ownership, indigenous peacebuilding, and community-based conflict resolution (Boege et al., 2009; Mac Ginty, 2011, 2015; Richmond, 2011). Customary institutions, councils of elders, restorative justice practices, traditional mediation, religious leadership, and communal reconciliation increasingly came to be recognized as indispensable components of sustainable peacebuilding. Peace was no longer conceived as a model exported from international organizations but as a process negotiated within historically situated communities.

This shift represented a major correction within peace studies.

Nevertheless, an important conceptual asymmetry persisted.

Much of the literature acknowledged indigenous institutions because they appeared effective rather than because they generated theory. Local peace traditions were frequently presented as culturally appropriate mechanisms for implementing broader theoretical principles developed elsewhere. Indigenous societies supplied empirical illustrations, practical innovations, and context-sensitive mediation strategies, while the conceptual vocabulary of peace continued to derive predominantly from Euro-American political philosophy and international relations.

This distinction is more significant than it initially appears.

To recognize indigenous mediation as useful practice is not equivalent to recognizing indigenous political thought as a source of universal knowledge concerning justice, legitimacy, reconciliation, authority, and peaceful coexistence. The former broadens peacebuilding practice; the latter reconstructs peace theory itself.

Fonkem Achankeng consistently advances the second position.

Across his scholarship on indigenous governance, customary mediation, African political traditions, conflict resolution, and constitutional legitimacy, indigenous institutions are never treated merely as culturally specific techniques for resolving disputes (Achankeng, 2013; 2015; 2018; 2026). Rather, they embody accumulated normative wisdom concerning political authority, communal responsibility, restorative justice, social solidarity, historical memory, and human dignity. Indigenous institutions therefore become sources of political reasoning rather than simply objects of anthropological description.

This reconstruction is especially evident in Achankeng's analyses of traditional mechanisms of mediation within Cameroonian communities. These institutions are not romanticized as flawless alternatives to modern constitutional systems. Instead, they are interpreted as historically evolved political practices through which communities have developed sophisticated understandings of legitimacy, reconciliation, participation, and social responsibility. Their significance lies not merely in their antiquity but in their capacity to illuminate enduring questions concerning how political communities sustain peaceful coexistence.

This approach distinguishes Achankeng from both cultural relativism and epistemological universalism.

Cultural relativism frequently hesitates to subject indigenous institutions to critical philosophical evaluation, treating them as internally valid expressions of particular traditions. Epistemological universalism, by contrast, often evaluates indigenous knowledge according to conceptual standards developed elsewhere, implicitly assuming that theoretical innovation flows primarily from metropolitan intellectual centers toward peripheral societies.

Achankeng rejects both positions.

Indigenous knowledge neither escapes critical evaluation nor requires validation solely through external theoretical frameworks. Instead, it participates directly in the construction of universally significant political theory. Indigenous traditions become legitimate interlocutors within global philosophical dialogue because they illuminate objective dimensions of political reality concerning justice, authority, reconciliation, communal identity, and the common good.

This position resonates strongly with contemporary African philosophy. Kwasi Wiredu (1996) argued that African philosophical traditions should contribute actively to global philosophy rather than merely preserving cultural heritage. Kwame Gyekye (1997) similarly demonstrated that African communitarian thought contains sophisticated normative resources relevant to contemporary political philosophy. Emmanuel Murithi (2006) extended this insight within peace studies through his analysis of Ubuntu as a philosophical foundation for reconciliation and restorative justice. Achankeng builds upon this broader intellectual movement but directs it specifically toward reconstructing peace theory.

The originality of his contribution lies in refusing to separate indigenous epistemology from normative political theory.

Critical Synthetic Realism provides a broader philosophical explanation for this position. CSR maintains that truth is neither geographically determined nor monopolized by any civilization (Asongu, 2026a). Human knowledge remains historically situated, yet reality itself exceeds every particular cultural perspective. Consequently, diverse civilizations may illuminate complementary dimensions of the same objective reality. The appropriate response is neither epistemological homogenization nor relativistic fragmentation but critical synthesis. Indigenous knowledge becomes indispensable precisely because reality is too complex to be exhausted by any single intellectual tradition.

Within this framework, indigenous epistemic legitimacy acquires a meaning extending beyond cultural recognition. It becomes a condition for overcoming what the present article has identified as the epistemic fracture of peace studies. A discipline that systematically privileges some knowledge traditions while relegating others to empirical illustration inevitably restricts its own theoretical development. Peace studies therefore requires not merely greater geographical diversity among its case studies but genuine epistemological pluralism capable of integrating multiple traditions of political reasoning into shared theoretical inquiry.

Liberative Realism deepens this analysis by arguing that liberation necessarily possesses an epistemic dimension. Political domination has historically operated not only through military conquest, economic exploitation, or institutional control but also through the hierarchical organization of knowledge itself. Colonized peoples were frequently denied recognition as producers of universal knowledge even where their political traditions embodied sophisticated understandings of justice, governance, and communal life. Liberation therefore requires more than political independence; it requires the restoration of epistemic agency.

Yet Liberative Realism simultaneously cautions against reversing one epistemic hierarchy with another. Indigenous knowledge does not become authoritative merely because it is indigenous. Like every intellectual tradition, it remains subject to critical examination according to its explanatory adequacy, normative coherence, historical plausibility, and capacity to promote human flourishing. Epistemic justice therefore requires equal participation in philosophical dialogue rather than immunity from philosophical criticism.

Read through CSRM, Achankeng's contribution assumes significance extending far beyond African peacebuilding. He implicitly challenges one of the deepest assumptions underlying much contemporary peace research: the distinction between those societies that produce theory and those that merely supply data. His scholarship demonstrates that local political traditions are capable of generating concepts with universal explanatory significance precisely because they engage realities common to human political existence—authority, justice, reconciliation, memory, dignity, and communal responsibility.

This insight carries important implications for the future development of peace studies. The discipline's continued growth depends not simply upon expanding its empirical horizons but upon reconstructing its epistemological foundations. Indigenous traditions should no longer be incorporated merely as culturally sensitive adaptations of established theories. They should be recognized as co-constitutive sources of peace theory itself. In this respect, Achankeng contributes to the emergence of what may be described as a genuinely polycentric peace studies—one in which theoretical authority arises through critical dialogue among diverse intellectual traditions rather than through unilateral conceptual exportation.

Consequently, indigenous epistemic legitimacy becomes more than one principle among others within Achankeng's theory of just peace. It functions as the bridge connecting historical accountability, justice, sovereignty, and human dignity with the broader project of reconstructing peace studies as an intellectually plural yet philosophically integrated discipline.

4.5 Principle Five: Human Dignity as the Ethical Foundation of Just Peace

Can Peace Exist Without Human Dignity?

Few concepts possess broader normative acceptance within contemporary political thought than human dignity. International human rights law, democratic constitutionalism, humanitarian intervention, restorative justice, transitional justice, and peacebuilding all invoke dignity as a foundational value. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights famously begins by affirming "the inherent dignity" of every member of the human family (United Nations, 1948), while subsequent international conventions consistently ground political rights in the equal worth of the human person. Similarly, modern political philosophy—from Kant's moral theory to contemporary capabilities approaches—has increasingly understood dignity not simply as one ethical value among others but as the moral foundation upon which legitimate political order rests (Kant, 1785/1997; Rawls, 1971; Nussbaum, 2011).

Yet within peace studies, dignity has often remained conceptually underdeveloped.

Justice, reconciliation, security, mediation, sovereignty, institution building, and conflict transformation occupy central positions within the literature, while dignity frequently appears as an assumed normative background rather than an explicitly theorized principle. Peacebuilding initiatives routinely seek to restore dignity to conflict-affected populations, yet comparatively little attention has been devoted to explaining precisely why dignity occupies such a foundational place within peaceful political order.

This omission is significant.

Without an explicit account of human dignity, peace risks becoming primarily institutional rather than ethical. Political stability may be achieved while persons continue experiencing humiliation, exclusion, domination, or systematic denial of moral agency. Conversely, political disagreement need not necessarily destroy peace if institutions continue affirming the equal dignity of all participants. Peace therefore cannot be evaluated solely according to institutional effectiveness or conflict reduction. It must ultimately be evaluated according to its treatment of persons.

Although Fonkem Achankeng rarely develops a formal philosophical anthropology in the manner of Jacques Maritain, Emmanuel Mounier, Paul Ricoeur, or Martha Nussbaum, the moral logic underlying his scholarship consistently presupposes a robust conception of human dignity. Across his analyses of colonial domination, constitutional legitimacy, mediation, humanitarian intervention, indigenous governance, and reconciliation, the ultimate object of concern is never the state as an abstract political entity. Nor is it sovereignty understood merely as territorial jurisdiction. Rather, the recurring ethical focus remains the protection of persons and political communities whose dignity has been compromised through historical injustice, political exclusion, structural violence, or constitutional marginalization (Achankeng, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2026).

This implicit anthropology distinguishes Achankeng's scholarship from approaches that evaluate peace primarily through geopolitical stability or institutional efficiency. Throughout his work, institutions matter because persons matter. Constitutions matter because they shape the conditions under which persons live together in justice. Negotiations matter because they determine whether communities are treated as moral agents rather than merely as administrative populations. Sovereignty matters because it concerns the capacity of peoples to participate meaningfully in determining their own political future.

In this sense, dignity functions as the ethical center around which the remaining principles of his reconstructed theory revolve.

Historical accountability protects the dignity of memory.

Justice protects the dignity of persons before institutions.

Peoples' sovereignty protects the dignity of political agency.

Indigenous epistemic legitimacy protects the dignity of cultures as producers of knowledge.

Each principle ultimately converges upon a single moral concern: safeguarding the intrinsic worth of persons and communities.

This understanding places Achankeng within a broader tradition of personalist political philosophy while simultaneously extending it into contemporary peace studies. Kant famously argued that human beings must always be treated as ends in themselves rather than merely as means (Kant, 1785/1997). Jacques Maritain (1951) grounded democratic society in the transcendent dignity of the person. Paul Ricoeur (1992) emphasized mutual recognition as the ethical basis of political life, while Martha Nussbaum (2000, 2011) developed a capabilities approach that measures justice according to whether institutions enable persons to develop and exercise fundamental human capacities.

Achankeng's contribution differs from these traditions in one important respect.

Rather than approaching dignity primarily through moral philosophy, he reconstructs dignity through the lived realities of historical conflict. Dignity is revealed most clearly where it has been denied. Colonial domination, political exclusion, constitutional marginalization, cultural suppression, and violent conflict become morally significant precisely because they violate the dignity of persons and communities. Peace therefore consists not merely in ending violence but in restoring the moral conditions under which dignity can once again flourish.

Critical Synthetic Realism provides a deeper philosophical explanation for this position. CSR maintains that dignity is not merely a social convention produced through political consensus. Rather, dignity corresponds to an objective reality grounded in the nature of the human person (Asongu, 2026a). Although societies may disagree concerning the practical implications of dignity, such disagreement does not negate its ontological significance. Political institutions therefore do not create dignity; they recognize and protect a reality that precedes them.

This distinction is crucial.

If dignity derives solely from legal recognition, governments may legitimately redefine or restrict it.

If dignity corresponds to objective moral reality, political authority remains accountable to standards that transcend institutional power.

Within CSR, this ontological grounding explains why justice, sovereignty, and historical accountability possess enduring normative force. They derive their moral significance from the persons whose flourishing they are intended to serve.

Liberative Realism extends this argument further by insisting that dignity cannot remain merely declaratory. Human dignity reaches its fullest expression through liberation understood as the restoration of moral agency, social participation, responsible freedom, and communal flourishing. Liberation therefore differs fundamentally from simple emancipation. One may be liberated from domination without yet possessing the institutional, cultural, educational, economic, or political conditions necessary for genuine human development.

Peace accordingly becomes the social realization of dignity.

This insight substantially enriches contemporary peace studies. Much existing scholarship evaluates peace according to measurable outcomes—reduced violence, successful elections, institutional reform, constitutional stability, or economic recovery. These indicators remain indispensable. Yet they remain incomplete unless they also answer a more fundamental question:

Do these institutions enable persons and communities to live with dignity?

Achankeng's reconstructed theory consistently suggests that this question should become the primary evaluative criterion of peace itself.

Viewed from this perspective, dignity is not an additional normative objective appended to peacebuilding after violence has ceased. It is the ethical principle that gives coherence to every other dimension of just peace. Historical accountability matters because persons deserve truthful remembrance. Justice matters because persons deserve fair political relationships. Sovereignty matters because persons deserve meaningful participation in shaping their political future. Indigenous epistemic legitimacy matters because persons and communities deserve recognition as creators of knowledge rather than merely subjects of external expertise.

Consequently, dignity becomes the moral grammar through which Achankeng's entire theory of peace may be interpreted.

4.6 Principle Six: Human Flourishing as the Telos of Just Peace

What Is Peace Ultimately For?

Every mature normative theory eventually encounters a question that cannot be avoided:

What is the ultimate purpose toward which its principles are directed?

Political institutions, justice, historical accountability, sovereignty, reconciliation, constitutional legitimacy, and human dignity all possess intrinsic importance. Yet they also invite a deeper philosophical inquiry. Are these realities ends in themselves, or do they derive their significance from a more comprehensive understanding of human life?

Surprisingly, contemporary peace studies has devoted comparatively little sustained attention to this question. Much of the discipline understandably concentrates upon ending violence, preventing armed conflict, rebuilding institutions, protecting civilians, facilitating reconciliation, or strengthening democratic governance. These objectives remain indispensable. Nevertheless, they primarily describe the conditions under which peace may emerge rather than the purpose for which peace exists.

This distinction is more than semantic.

Peace that is understood exclusively as the absence of violence risks becoming politically minimalist.

Peace understood exclusively as institutional stability risks becoming administratively procedural.

Peace understood exclusively as reconciliation risks becoming psychologically therapeutic.

Peace understood exclusively as justice risks remaining normatively corrective.

Each captures an essential dimension of peaceful political order.

None fully answers the more fundamental philosophical question:

What kind of human life is peace intended to make possible?

It is here that the present article moves beyond reconstruction toward constructive theoretical development.

Although Fonkem Achankeng consistently emphasizes justice, historical accountability, legitimate sovereignty, indigenous political agency, and human dignity, he rarely presents these concepts within an explicitly articulated philosophy of human flourishing. Yet when his corpus is read synthetically through Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology, an implicit teleological orientation becomes increasingly visible. Peace is never treated as an end exhausted by institutional order or conflict cessation. Rather, political reconstruction repeatedly points beyond itself toward the restoration of communities capable of living together truthfully, responsibly, and justly.

CSRM therefore argues that the organizing logic of Achankeng's scholarship is fundamentally teleological.

History matters because communities deserve truthful memory.

Justice matters because communities deserve fair political relationships.

Sovereignty matters because peoples deserve meaningful political agency.

Indigenous legitimacy matters because communities deserve recognition as creators of political wisdom.

Human dignity matters because persons possess intrinsic moral worth.

Taken together, these principles suggest a common destination.

They point toward the conditions under which persons and communities may genuinely flourish.

This reconstruction places Achankeng in conversation with one of the oldest traditions of political philosophy. Aristotle understood the purpose of political association not merely as survival but as living well (eudaimonia) (Aristotle, trans. Rackham, 1932). Political communities exist so that human beings may realize their capacities through virtuous participation in common life. Thomas Aquinas later integrated this insight into his account of the common good, arguing that political authority derives its legitimacy from its orientation toward the flourishing of the entire community rather than the interests of rulers alone (Aquinas, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 1947). More recently, Sen (1999) and Nussbaum (2000, 2011) reframed flourishing through the language of capabilities, emphasizing the substantive freedoms necessary for persons to develop and exercise their human capacities.

Achankeng's scholarship does not explicitly employ the vocabulary of eudaimonia or capabilities. Nevertheless, his sustained concern with justice, participation, constitutional legitimacy, reconciliation, and dignity consistently presupposes that political order exists for the sake of human beings rather than the reverse. Institutions are evaluated according to whether they enable communities to recover agency, responsibility, mutual recognition, and sustainable coexistence. In this sense, flourishing functions as the implicit horizon toward which his theory of just peace continually moves.

Critical Synthetic Realism provides the philosophical resources for making this implicit orientation explicit. CSR maintains that reality possesses an intelligible moral structure in which truth, justice, responsibility, and human dignity are mutually reinforcing rather than conceptually isolated (Asongu, 2026a). Peace therefore cannot be adequately understood through fragmented institutional indicators alone. It must be interpreted within a broader ontology of human flourishing in which political, ethical, psychological, cultural, economic, and spiritual dimensions of life converge. Flourishing is not reducible to economic prosperity, political stability, or individual satisfaction. It denotes the integrated realization of human potential within truthful and just relationships.

This understanding also resolves an important limitation present within several contemporary paradigms of peace. Liberal peacebuilding often privileges institutional effectiveness. Conflict transformation prioritizes relational healing. Transitional justice emphasizes accountability. Human security focuses upon protection from fear and want. Capabilities theory highlights substantive freedoms. Each identifies an indispensable component of flourishing, yet none by itself provides a sufficiently comprehensive account of peaceful human existence. Through synthetic integration, CSR argues that these dimensions are complementary rather than competitive. Peace therefore becomes the ordered integration of justice, truth, reconciliation, legitimate authority, responsible freedom, and communal participation.

Liberative Realism extends this synthesis by introducing what may be regarded as the final normative movement of the present reconstruction.

Liberation is frequently understood negatively as emancipation from domination, oppression, violence, or structural injustice. While such emancipation remains indispensable, it does not by itself constitute flourishing. A society may successfully dismantle oppressive institutions while remaining incapable of cultivating responsibility, solidarity, creativity, civic virtue, educational development, moral accountability, or the common good. Liberation therefore reaches its fullest meaning only when it enables persons and communities to participate positively in the construction of just political life.

Accordingly, Liberative Realism defines flourishing as the positive realization of liberated human existence.

Flourishing encompasses:

• truthful knowledge rather than ideological distortion; 
• justice rather than structural domination; 
• responsible freedom rather than arbitrary autonomy; 
• legitimate political participation rather than imposed authority; 
• reconciliation rooted in historical truth rather than collective amnesia; 
• institutions ordered toward the common good rather than administrative control; 
• communities capable of sustaining solidarity across historical, cultural, and political differences. 

Peace thus ceases to function merely as the management of conflict.

It becomes the social ecology within which liberated persons and flourishing communities become possible.

Read in this manner, Achankeng's scholarship assumes significance extending well beyond African conflict studies. It offers a conception of peace that resists the reduction of political order to security, legality, or procedural governance. Instead, peace is reconstructed as a dynamic moral reality whose success is ultimately measured by the quality of human life it enables. Historical accountability, justice, sovereignty, indigenous epistemic legitimacy, and dignity are therefore neither isolated objectives nor parallel policy concerns. They constitute mutually dependent conditions that orient political communities toward their proper end.

This interpretation also completes the six principles reconstructed throughout the present chapter.

Historical accountability restores truthful memory.

Justice restores moral order.

Peoples' sovereignty restores political agency.

Indigenous epistemic legitimacy restores epistemic participation.

Human dignity restores moral recognition.

Human flourishing restores the telos toward which every preceding principle points.

Taken together, these principles constitute what this article argues is Achankeng's implicit theory of just peace—a theory that extends beyond conflict resolution toward the comprehensive moral reconstruction of political community.

5. Assessing the Achankeng Framework of Just Peace: Contributions, Limitations, and Future Directions

5.1 From African Conflict Theory to Global Peace Theory

The reconstruction undertaken in the preceding section argues that Fonkem Achankeng's scholarship constitutes a substantially more coherent theoretical contribution than has generally been recognized within the existing literature. Read through the lens of Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology, his corpus reveals an integrated normative framework organized around six mutually reinforcing principles: historical accountability, justice, peoples' sovereignty, indigenous epistemic legitimacy, human dignity, and human flourishing. Collectively, these principles address many of the conceptual tensions identified earlier in contemporary peace studies and suggest an alternative trajectory beyond the fragmentation that increasingly characterizes the discipline.

Yet the reconstruction of a theoretical framework is only the beginning of scholarly evaluation rather than its conclusion. Every major theory must ultimately be assessed according to its explanatory power, conceptual coherence, normative adequacy, interdisciplinary reach, empirical relevance, and capacity to illuminate unresolved disciplinary problems. The objective of this section is therefore neither to defend Achankeng's scholarship uncritically nor to diminish its significance through superficial criticism. Instead, it evaluates the reconstructed framework in dialogue with contemporary developments across peace studies, political philosophy, peace psychology, feminist theory, environmental peacebuilding, restorative justice, and critical security studies.

Such evaluation is particularly important because the article advances a broader claim than the reconstruction of a single scholar's work. It proposes that the Achankeng Framework of Just Peace represents an emerging contribution to global peace theory rather than merely to African conflict studies. That claim requires careful scrutiny.

5.2 Major Contributions to Contemporary Peace Theory

The first and perhaps most important contribution of the reconstructed framework lies in its capacity for normative integration.

As demonstrated throughout the literature review, contemporary peace studies has generated a remarkable diversity of specialized paradigms. Positive peace foregrounds structural justice (Galtung, 1969, 1990). Conflict transformation emphasizes relationships (Lederach, 1997). Liberal peacebuilding prioritizes institutions (Paris, 2004). Hybrid peace restores local agency (Mac Ginty, 2015). Decolonial approaches recover historical accountability (Quijano, 2000; Mignolo, 2011). Human security emphasizes protection from fear and want (UNDP, 1994). Feminist peace exposes gendered structures of violence (Cockburn, 2007). Environmental peacebuilding highlights ecological sustainability (Conca & Dabelko, 2002).

Each of these paradigms contributes indispensable insights.

Yet comparatively few attempts have been made to explain how these diverse dimensions relate within a unified normative theory.

Achankeng's reconstructed framework addresses precisely this problem.

Rather than privileging one dimension of peace over all others, it demonstrates how historical accountability, justice, sovereignty, indigenous legitimacy, dignity, and flourishing function as mutually dependent components of a single moral architecture. In doing so, the framework provides one possible response to what this article has identified as the Peace Theory Gap.

A second contribution concerns historical depth.

Many peacebuilding models understandably concentrate upon contemporary institutions, mediation processes, or conflict management strategies. Achankeng consistently insists that peaceful political order cannot be adequately understood apart from the historical processes that produced present constitutional realities. History therefore becomes neither background information nor political rhetoric but an indispensable explanatory category.

This historical orientation enriches transitional justice by explaining not merely how societies address historical injustice but why historical truth remains constitutive of legitimate peace itself.

Third, the framework contributes significantly to the decolonization of peace theory.

Unlike approaches that simply advocate greater inclusion of African case studies, Achankeng reconstructs African political traditions as sources of theoretical innovation. Indigenous institutions become contributors to universal peace theory rather than merely culturally appropriate peacebuilding practices.

This shift possesses implications extending well beyond African studies. It challenges the longstanding epistemological hierarchy through which some societies produce theory while others primarily provide empirical illustration.

Fourth, the reconstructed framework restores moral philosophy to the center of peace studies.

Much contemporary scholarship necessarily emphasizes institutions, governance, public policy, conflict management, and empirical evaluation. Achankeng consistently redirects attention toward deeper philosophical questions concerning justice, legitimacy, dignity, responsibility, and the moral purposes of political order. In this respect, his work reconnects peace studies with its classical philosophical heritage while simultaneously extending it into contemporary debates surrounding coloniality, constitutional legitimacy, and global justice.

Finally, interpreted through Liberative Realism, the framework introduces human flourishing as the ultimate evaluative criterion of peace. Rather than asking whether peace agreements reduce violence alone, the reconstructed framework asks whether political communities enable liberated persons and flourishing societies. This teleological orientation significantly broadens the normative ambitions of contemporary peace theory.

5.3 Dialogue with Feminist Peace Theory

Notwithstanding these important contributions, the reconstructed framework would benefit from more sustained engagement with feminist peace scholarship.

Over the past three decades, feminist theorists have fundamentally transformed understandings of conflict by demonstrating that violence operates through deeply gendered political, economic, and cultural structures (Tickner, 1992; Enloe, 2000; Cockburn, 2007). Feminist peace scholars have shown that conventional peacebuilding frequently privileges elite political negotiations while overlooking domestic violence, gendered insecurity, reproductive justice, care work, and everyday experiences of conflict.

The reconstructed Achankeng framework clearly values justice, dignity, participation, and inclusion. Nevertheless, explicit analysis of how these principles operate within gendered structures of power remains comparatively limited.

For example, if justice constitutes the ontological condition of peace, then justice must necessarily encompass gender justice.

If sovereignty derives from the agency of peoples, then women's political agency cannot remain secondary to constitutional negotiations dominated by male political elites.

Similarly, if indigenous epistemic legitimacy contributes to peace theory, critical attention must also be given to ways in which indigenous institutions themselves may reproduce patriarchal exclusion alongside valuable traditions of communal reconciliation.

These observations should not be understood as fundamental objections to Achankeng's framework.

Rather, they indicate opportunities for further theoretical development.

Indeed, the normative architecture reconstructed through CSRM appears sufficiently robust to incorporate feminist insights without abandoning its central commitments.

Historical accountability naturally extends toward recovering women's historical experiences.

Justice expands toward gender justice.

Human dignity includes bodily integrity and equal participation.

Human flourishing necessarily requires the flourishing of women and girls as fully equal participants in political life.

Consequently, feminist peace theory complements rather than contradicts the Achankeng Framework of Just Peace.

5.4 Dialogue with Peace Psychology: Trauma, Moral Injury, and Epistemic Reconstruction

During the past three decades, peace psychology has emerged as one of the most dynamic areas of peace research, expanding scholarly understanding of conflict beyond political institutions and military violence toward the psychological conditions that sustain both war and reconciliation. Whereas traditional peace studies concentrated primarily upon diplomacy, constitutional reform, mediation, and conflict resolution, peace psychology investigates the cognitive, emotional, relational, and developmental processes through which individuals and communities experience violence, construct identities, transmit collective memory, recover from trauma, and rebuild social trust (Christie, Wagner, & Winter, 2001; Bar-Tal, 2013; Vollhardt, 2013).

This psychological turn has substantially enriched contemporary peace theory. Armed conflict is increasingly understood not merely as a breakdown of political institutions but as a disruption of human consciousness itself. Trauma, fear, humiliation, dehumanization, collective victimhood, intergenerational memory, moral injury, and identity formation all shape the capacity of individuals and communities to imagine peaceful futures. Consequently, sustainable peace requires more than constitutional agreements or institutional reconstruction; it also demands psychological healing and the restoration of moral relationships (Staub, 2006; Herman, 1992; Bloomfield, Barnes, & Huyse, 2003).

Although Achankeng's scholarship rarely engages explicitly with peace psychology, the reconstructed framework developed in this article displays striking points of convergence with its central concerns. His sustained emphasis upon historical accountability, justice, reconciliation, dignity, and political participation implicitly recognizes that conflict cannot be understood exclusively through institutional analysis. Communities remain shaped by historical memories of exclusion, colonial domination, broken constitutional promises, and political marginalization long after formal hostilities have diminished. Historical injustice therefore possesses not only institutional consequences but also enduring psychological significance.

This insight becomes particularly important when considered alongside contemporary scholarship on collective trauma. Volkan (1997, 2006) demonstrates that communities frequently organize political identity around shared historical experiences of humiliation, loss, and unresolved grievance. Similarly, Bar-Tal (2013) argues that protracted conflicts generate durable socio-psychological infrastructures—including collective narratives, emotional orientations, and systems of belief—that perpetuate conflict across generations. Peacebuilding that neglects these psychological dimensions risks producing institutional settlements unsupported by transformed political consciousness.

Achankeng's insistence that durable peace requires historical accountability resonates strongly with these findings. His argument that unresolved historical injustice continues shaping present political realities may therefore be interpreted not only as a political claim but also as an implicitly psychological one. Historical truth becomes necessary because communities cannot construct authentic reconciliation while foundational experiences of injustice remain denied or systematically distorted.

Critical Synthetic Realism deepens this dialogue by introducing the concept of epistemic fracture. Whereas peace psychology has made substantial progress in explaining trauma, memory, identity, and moral injury, CSR argues that violent conflict also fractures the very structures through which individuals and communities know reality (Asongu, 2026a). Epistemic fracture refers to the progressive distortion of perception, judgment, trust, and moral reasoning produced by fear, domination, ideological manipulation, and unresolved historical violence. Conflict therefore damages not only institutions and relationships but also the epistemic capacities through which persons interpret themselves, others, and the political world.

This perspective complements rather than replaces existing psychological theories. Trauma disrupts emotional regulation, identity formation, interpersonal trust, and moral imagination. Epistemic fracture explains how these disruptions simultaneously distort the processes of knowing through which political communities understand justice, responsibility, legitimacy, and reconciliation. The reconstruction of peace therefore requires epistemic as well as political and psychological healing.

Liberative Realism extends this analysis further by proposing that genuine liberation includes the restoration of epistemic agency. Individuals and communities recovering from conflict require more than freedom from violence. They require the capacity to recover truthful judgment, moral responsibility, critical reflection, and hopeful imagination. Liberation thus possesses an irreducibly cognitive dimension. Peace becomes possible when persons regain the ability to know reality truthfully enough to participate responsibly in the reconstruction of their political communities.

This dialogue also opens fruitful engagement with emerging research on post-traumatic growth (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1995, 2004). Post-traumatic growth demonstrates that suffering, while never intrinsically desirable, may under certain conditions contribute to deeper appreciation of life, strengthened relationships, renewed moral commitments, expanded existential understanding, and greater psychological resilience. Importantly, such growth does not occur automatically. It depends upon truthful processing of traumatic experience rather than denial or repression.

Here again Achankeng's framework reveals unexpected compatibility. Historical accountability creates the conditions under which communities confront painful histories honestly rather than suppressing them. Justice restores moral confidence in political institutions. Reconciliation rebuilds damaged relationships. Human dignity affirms the intrinsic worth of victims and survivors. Interpreted through Liberative Realism, these conditions collectively create the possibility that societies may emerge from conflict not merely restored but morally transformed.

Accordingly, the Achankeng Framework of Just Peace should not be understood as limited to constitutional reconstruction or conflict mediation. Properly extended through Critical Synthetic Realism and Liberative Realism, it also provides a conceptual foundation for integrating political peacebuilding with peace psychology. The resulting synthesis suggests that sustainable peace requires simultaneous reconstruction of institutions, historical memory, moral relationships, epistemic capacities, and the conditions for human flourishing.

This interdisciplinary dialogue represents one of the principal strengths of the reconstructed framework. Rather than compartmentalizing political theory and psychology, it demonstrates how each illuminates dimensions of the same underlying reality. Political institutions influence consciousness; consciousness shapes political participation; historical memory informs moral judgment; and moral judgment guides the reconstruction of peaceful societies. Peace therefore emerges as an integrated human achievement rather than the product of isolated institutional reforms.

5.5 Dialogue with Environmental Peacebuilding: Ecology, Resources, and the Ethics of the Common Good

If peace psychology reminds us that conflict wounds the human mind, environmental peacebuilding reminds us that conflict also transforms the ecological conditions upon which peaceful societies depend. During the past two decades, climate change, environmental degradation, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, extractive industries, and competition over natural resources have become central concerns within peace research (Conca & Dabelko, 2002; Ide, 2019; Matthew, 2014). Increasingly, scholars recognize that environmental insecurity is not merely a consequence of conflict but may also contribute to its emergence, persistence, and recurrence.

Traditional peacebuilding approaches frequently treated environmental issues as secondary to constitutional reform or security stabilization. Contemporary scholarship has substantially revised this assumption. Environmental governance, equitable resource distribution, climate adaptation, and ecological restoration are now understood as integral components of sustainable peace rather than optional post-conflict initiatives.

Viewed through this lens, Achankeng's reconstructed framework presents both an opportunity and a limitation. His corpus pays comparatively limited explicit attention to ecological conflict or environmental governance. Nevertheless, the six principles reconstructed in the preceding chapter possess considerable potential for extension into environmental peacebuilding.

Historical accountability invites examination of the ecological legacies of colonial extraction and environmental injustice.

Justice naturally expands toward environmental justice and equitable access to natural resources.

Peoples' sovereignty raises questions concerning community participation in resource governance.

Indigenous epistemic legitimacy recognizes traditional ecological knowledge as a valuable source of environmental stewardship.

Human dignity encompasses the environmental conditions necessary for healthy human existence.

Finally, human flourishing requires ecological systems capable of sustaining present and future generations.

Liberative Realism further reinforces this extension by arguing that liberation cannot be understood independently of humanity's relationship with the natural world. Political communities cannot flourish where ecological degradation systematically undermines health, livelihoods, cultural continuity, and intergenerational responsibility. Accordingly, environmental peacebuilding represents not an external addition to the Achankeng Framework but a natural expansion of its underlying moral architecture.

5.6 Dialogue with Restorative Justice, Transitional Justice, and Critical Security Studies

Beyond Accountability: Restorative Justice and the Moral Reconstruction of Political Community

Few developments have reshaped contemporary peacebuilding more profoundly than the emergence of restorative and transitional justice. Whereas earlier approaches often concentrated upon ceasefire agreements, constitutional settlements, or military stabilization, restorative justice shifted attention toward repairing relationships damaged by violence, while transitional justice developed institutional mechanisms through which societies confront legacies of mass atrocity, authoritarianism, and civil conflict (Teitel, 2000; Minow, 1998; Hayner, 2011).

Restorative justice begins from the premise that crime and political violence constitute not merely violations of legal norms but ruptures within human relationships. Justice therefore requires more than punishment. It requires acknowledgment of harm, accountability, restoration of trust, participation of victims and communities, and the gradual reconstruction of social relationships (Zehr, 2002; Braithwaite, 2002). Transitional justice extends this concern into post-conflict societies through truth commissions, reparations, criminal prosecutions, institutional reforms, public memorialization, and guarantees of non-recurrence (Teitel, 2000; Hayner, 2011).

These developments have profoundly enriched peace studies by demonstrating that durable peace cannot simply suppress memories of violence. Political communities must confront historical injustice if reconciliation is to possess moral credibility.

Fonkem Achankeng's reconstructed framework shares this fundamental intuition while simultaneously extending it. Throughout his scholarship, historical accountability functions as more than a legal obligation or institutional mechanism. It constitutes one of the moral foundations of political legitimacy itself. Truth commissions, constitutional reforms, negotiated settlements, and reparative initiatives acquire significance not because they satisfy procedural requirements but because they contribute to rebuilding political communities grounded in justice, dignity, and historical truth (Achankeng, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2026).

This distinction is important.

Much transitional justice literature understandably concentrates upon institutional design: Which mechanisms should societies adopt? Under what conditions are truth commissions preferable to criminal tribunals? How should reparations be structured? While these questions remain indispensable, Achankeng consistently redirects attention toward a more fundamental inquiry:

What kind of political community should emerge after justice has been pursued?

In this respect, his reconstructed framework complements rather than replaces transitional justice scholarship. It supplies the broader moral horizon within which restorative and transitional mechanisms may be evaluated. Institutions become successful not merely when they satisfy procedural benchmarks but when they contribute to restoring truthful relationships among persons, communities, and political institutions.

Critical Synthetic Realism deepens this analysis by arguing that reconciliation without truth represents an instance of epistemic distortion. Political communities cannot construct durable peace while systematically denying or falsifying the realities that produced conflict in the first place. Historical accountability therefore possesses epistemological as well as moral significance. It restores the conditions under which communities may once again deliberate truthfully concerning justice, responsibility, and shared political futures.

Liberative Realism extends this reconstruction by insisting that restorative justice ultimately aims beyond reconciliation toward flourishing. The restoration of relationships is not the final objective of peacebuilding but the beginning of renewed communal life. Justice, forgiveness, accountability, and reconciliation become stages within a broader process through which liberated communities recover the capacity for responsible self-government and mutual flourishing.

Security Reconsidered: From State Security to Human Flourishing

Perhaps no concept has exerted greater influence over modern international politics than security. For much of the twentieth century, security studies focused primarily upon military capability, territorial defense, deterrence, and the strategic behavior of states (Waltz, 1979; Buzan, Wæver, & de Wilde, 1998). Within this paradigm, peace largely signified the successful management of threats to national survival.

Beginning in the 1990s, however, scholars increasingly questioned whether military security alone adequately captured the realities of human vulnerability. The emergence of human security shifted attention toward protection from chronic poverty, disease, environmental degradation, political repression, and structural violence (United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], 1994). Critical security studies further challenged state-centric assumptions by demonstrating that security itself is socially and politically constructed, often reflecting relations of power as much as objective threats (Booth, 2007; Wyn Jones, 1999).

These developments significantly broadened the conceptual landscape of peace research. Security increasingly came to encompass economic well-being, political participation, environmental sustainability, human rights, and community resilience. Nevertheless, contemporary security scholarship continues to struggle with an important normative question:

Security for what?

Security frequently appears as an objective in itself. Governments secure borders. Institutions secure political order. International organizations seek collective security. Yet the moral purpose toward which security is directed often remains implicit.

Achankeng's reconstructed framework provides an important corrective.

Throughout his scholarship, political stability is never treated as an autonomous value. Institutions, constitutional arrangements, sovereignty, and security derive legitimacy from their relationship to justice and human dignity. A politically secure state that systematically excludes portions of its population from meaningful participation cannot simply be described as peaceful because its security remains detached from justice. Likewise, constitutional stability achieved through historical denial or structural domination represents order without moral legitimacy.

This perspective substantially enriches human security.

Rather than replacing state security with human security, Achankeng's framework reorders both within a broader normative architecture. Security becomes one necessary condition among several required for flourishing political communities. It neither supersedes justice nor competes with dignity. Instead, it supports the social conditions under which justice, participation, reconciliation, and flourishing become possible.

Critical Synthetic Realism strengthens this argument by insisting that security must correspond to the realities it claims to protect. Political systems frequently confuse the preservation of institutional authority with the protection of human communities. CSR distinguishes these objectives. Institutions exist for persons, not persons for institutions. Consequently, security should be evaluated according to whether it safeguards the objective realities of human dignity, responsible freedom, truthful political participation, and the common good.

Liberative Realism carries this insight to its logical conclusion. Liberation transforms the concept of security from defensive preservation into positive enablement. Secure societies are not merely societies free from external threats. They are communities in which persons possess the freedom, responsibility, educational opportunity, political agency, and moral capacity necessary to pursue flourishing lives. Security therefore becomes developmental rather than merely protective. It creates the conditions under which liberated persons and flourishing communities may emerge.

This reconceptualization also responds to one of the principal criticisms directed at both traditional security studies and portions of liberal peacebuilding. Excessive emphasis upon stability may inadvertently legitimize unjust political orders so long as overt violence remains limited. The Achankeng Framework rejects this possibility. Stability without justice is precarious. Security without dignity is incomplete. Peace without flourishing remains ethically deficient.

5.7 Toward an Integrated Peace Theory

The interdisciplinary dialogues developed throughout this section demonstrate that the Achankeng Framework of Just Peace possesses an unusual capacity for theoretical integration. Rather than competing with feminist peace theory, peace psychology, environmental peacebuilding, restorative justice, transitional justice, or critical security studies, the reconstructed framework provides a broader philosophical architecture within which these diverse approaches may be understood as complementary dimensions of peaceful political order.

This integrative capacity constitutes one of the framework's greatest strengths. It suggests that the future development of peace studies depends less upon multiplying specialized paradigms than upon reconstructing the conceptual relationships that unite them. Justice, historical accountability, sovereignty, indigenous epistemic legitimacy, dignity, reconciliation, security, environmental stewardship, psychological healing, and human flourishing should no longer be treated as parallel conversations. They are interconnected dimensions of a single normative reality.

This observation prepares the way for the article's final theoretical contribution. If the preceding chapters have reconstructed Achankeng's contribution to peace studies, the next section asks a broader question:

What should the future architecture of peace studies look like?

Drawing upon Critical Synthetic Realism and Liberative Realism, the article now moves beyond reconstructing Achankeng's scholarship toward proposing a new integrative framework capable of addressing the epistemic fracture that continues to characterize contemporary peace theory. This final contribution does not replace the major traditions of peace studies. Rather, it seeks to synthesize their enduring insights within a more coherent philosophical vision oriented toward truth, justice, liberation, and human flourishing.

6. Reconstructing Peace Studies: Toward an Integrated Theory of Just Peace

6.1 Beyond the Epistemic Fracture of Peace Studies

The preceding chapters have pursued two interconnected objectives. The first has been reconstructive. Through Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology, the article has argued that Fonkem Achankeng's scholarly corpus constitutes a far more coherent normative theory than existing scholarship has generally recognized. Rather than representing a collection of independent studies concerning African conflict, mediation, constitutional legitimacy, or indigenous peacebuilding, his work reveals an integrated philosophical framework organized around six interdependent principles: historical accountability, justice, peoples' sovereignty, indigenous epistemic legitimacy, human dignity, and human flourishing.

The second objective has been diagnostic. The literature review demonstrated that contemporary peace studies has achieved extraordinary conceptual sophistication while simultaneously exhibiting increasing epistemic fragmentation. Positive peace, conflict transformation, liberal peacebuilding, transitional justice, restorative justice, feminist peace, indigenous peacebuilding, decolonial theory, environmental peacebuilding, peace psychology, human security, and critical security studies have each expanded the discipline's explanatory scope. Yet these paradigms frequently develop in relative isolation from one another, producing specialized bodies of knowledge whose deeper philosophical relationships remain insufficiently articulated.

This article has described that condition as the epistemic fracture of peace studies.

Importantly, epistemic fracture should not be confused with intellectual diversity. Diversity represents one of the discipline's greatest strengths. Peace itself is irreducibly multidimensional and necessarily requires insights from political science, philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, law, history, theology, economics, ecology, and international relations. Fragmentation arises only when these legitimate specializations lose sight of the broader realities that connect them. The result is not theoretical error but conceptual incompleteness. Scholars increasingly explain particular dimensions of peace while lacking a sufficiently integrated account of peace itself.

The reconstruction of Achankeng's scholarship demonstrates one possible response to this problem. His work repeatedly brings together dimensions that contemporary literature often treats separately: history and justice, sovereignty and dignity, indigenous knowledge and political legitimacy, reconciliation and institutional reform. Yet even this reconstructed framework does not by itself resolve the wider epistemological challenge confronting the discipline.

The present article therefore advances a broader claim.

The future development of peace studies requires not merely additional specialized paradigms but the reconstruction of peace theory itself.

This proposition constitutes what may be termed the Reconstruction Thesis of Peace Studies.

The thesis may be stated simply:

The principal challenge confronting contemporary peace studies is no longer the absence of theories of peace but the absence of an integrated philosophical architecture capable of relating its increasingly diverse theories to one another.

This observation has profound implications.

It suggests that the next stage of disciplinary development lies not primarily in multiplying new paradigms but in reconstructing the conceptual relationships among those already available.

6.2 Critical Synthetic Realism as an Integrative Framework

Critical Synthetic Realism offers one possible philosophical framework through which such reconstruction may proceed.

CSR does not claim to replace positive peace, conflict transformation, liberal peacebuilding, feminist peace, decolonial theory, restorative justice, indigenous peacebuilding, environmental peace, or peace psychology.

Indeed, such replacement would simply reproduce the very fragmentation that this article has sought to overcome.

Instead, CSR proceeds from a different epistemological assumption.

Reality is richer than any individual theoretical tradition.

Accordingly, each major school of peace studies illuminates genuine dimensions of peaceful political order while simultaneously remaining incomplete when considered independently.

Positive peace correctly identifies structural injustice.

Conflict transformation correctly emphasizes relational healing.

Transitional justice correctly insists upon accountability.

Human security correctly broadens understandings of vulnerability.

Environmental peacebuilding correctly recognizes ecological interdependence.

Peace psychology correctly explains trauma and reconciliation.

Decolonial theory correctly exposes enduring colonial structures.

Indigenous peacebuilding correctly restores local political wisdom.

The problem is not that these theories compete.

The problem is that the discipline lacks an adequate account of how they belong together.

CSR responds by treating these traditions as complementary investigations into different dimensions of the same ontological reality.

Synthetic integration therefore differs fundamentally from eclecticism.

Eclecticism simply accumulates ideas.

Synthetic integration identifies the objective relationships connecting them.

Within this framework, justice cannot be understood independently of history.

History cannot be understood independently of political legitimacy.

Political legitimacy cannot be understood independently of dignity.

Dignity cannot be understood independently of flourishing.

Flourishing cannot be understood independently of truthful knowledge.

Peace therefore becomes the ordered integration of realities that contemporary scholarship frequently investigates separately.

This approach simultaneously preserves disciplinary diversity while restoring philosophical coherence.

6.3 Liberative Realism and the Telos of Peace

If CSR provides the epistemological architecture for reconstructing peace studies, Liberative Realism provides its normative horizon.

One of the recurring observations throughout this article has been that contemporary peace scholarship often concentrates upon the mechanisms through which peace is pursued while devoting comparatively less attention to the purposes for which peace exists. Negotiation, mediation, constitutional reform, security sector transformation, democratic governance, reconciliation, institutional accountability, and conflict prevention all remain indispensable. Yet these activities acquire moral significance only insofar as they contribute to the flourishing of persons and communities.

Liberative Realism therefore asks a question that has remained largely implicit throughout much of peace theory:

What is the ultimate end of peace?

Its answer is straightforward.

Peace exists neither for institutions nor for states.

Peace exists for persons and communities.

More precisely, peace exists to create the conditions under which persons and communities may pursue truth, exercise responsible freedom, participate in just political relationships, cultivate solidarity, preserve legitimate cultural identities, and flourish together.

Liberation thus becomes the dynamic realization of peace rather than merely its political consequence.

This understanding significantly expands prevailing conceptions of peacebuilding. Political agreements are no longer evaluated solely according to their capacity to reduce violence. Constitutional reforms are no longer judged solely according to procedural legality. Institutions are no longer measured solely through administrative effectiveness. Instead, every dimension of peacebuilding is assessed according to a broader ethical criterion:

Does it contribute to liberated and flourishing human communities?

This criterion unites the six principles reconstructed from Achankeng's scholarship within a single teleological framework.

Historical accountability restores truthful memory.

Justice restores moral order.

Peoples' sovereignty restores responsible political agency.

Indigenous epistemic legitimacy restores communities as creators of knowledge.

Human dignity restores moral recognition.

Human flourishing becomes the integrative purpose toward which every preceding principle ultimately points.

Accordingly, Liberative Realism should not be understood as replacing Achankeng's framework. Rather, it completes its implicit normative trajectory by making explicit the telos toward which his reconstructed theory consistently moves.

6.4 A New Architecture for Twenty-First-Century Peace Studies

The combined insights of Achankeng's reconstructed framework, Critical Synthetic Realism, and Liberative Realism suggest that peace studies may now be entering a new stage of disciplinary development.

The first generation of peace research sought to explain war.

The second sought to prevent violence.

The third expanded peace toward justice, reconciliation, human security, indigenous participation, and decolonial critique.

The emerging fourth stage may be characterized by integrative reconstruction.

Rather than asking whether justice, security, reconciliation, sovereignty, indigenous knowledge, or flourishing should occupy the center of peace studies, this emerging paradigm recognizes that each identifies an indispensable dimension of peaceful political reality. The central task therefore shifts from selecting among paradigms to explaining their objective relationships within a coherent philosophical architecture.

This article proposes that such reconstruction should proceed according to five foundational commitments.

First, peace studies should recover a robust philosophical account of peace itself rather than concentrating exclusively upon conflict management.

Second, historical accountability should be recognized as constitutive of legitimate peace rather than merely supplementary to reconciliation.

Third, interdisciplinary dialogue should move beyond methodological pluralism toward genuine conceptual integration.

Fourth, indigenous intellectual traditions should be recognized as co-producers of universal peace theory rather than merely providers of culturally specific case studies.

Finally, the success of peacebuilding should ultimately be evaluated according to whether it enables liberated persons and flourishing political communities.

These commitments do not exhaust the future of peace studies.

They represent the beginning of a broader reconstructive project.

Read in this light, Fonkem Achankeng's scholarship assumes significance extending well beyond the particular conflicts that initially inspired much of his work. Through Critical Synthetic Realist reconstruction, his corpus becomes an important contribution to the philosophical renewal of peace studies itself. Through Liberative Realism, that contribution is extended toward an integrated vision of peace grounded not only in the cessation of violence or the administration of justice but in the truthful, liberative, and flourishing life of persons and communities.

7. Conclusion

The evolution of peace studies during the past seven decades represents one of the most remarkable intellectual developments within the contemporary social sciences. From its origins in the study of interstate warfare and conflict prevention, the discipline has expanded to encompass structural violence, conflict transformation, peacebuilding, transitional justice, human security, indigenous peacebuilding, feminist peace, environmental peacebuilding, decolonial critique, peace psychology, and numerous other specialized fields of inquiry. This remarkable diversification has substantially enriched scholarly understanding of conflict and peaceful political order. Yet, as this article has argued, it has also generated an unintended consequence. Peace studies increasingly possesses sophisticated theories explaining individual dimensions of peace while lacking an equally integrated philosophical account of peace itself.

This article has described that condition as the epistemic fracture of peace studies.

The fragmentation identified here should not be interpreted as evidence of disciplinary weakness. On the contrary, it reflects the intellectual vitality of a field that has continually expanded its explanatory horizons. Nevertheless, diversity alone cannot substitute for theoretical integration. A mature discipline requires not only specialized paradigms but also a philosophical architecture capable of relating those paradigms to one another. The central argument advanced throughout this article has therefore been that the next stage in the evolution of peace studies is fundamentally reconstructive rather than merely additive.

The first contribution of this study has been methodological. Employing Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology (CSRM), the article demonstrated that Fonkem Achankeng's extensive body of scholarship is best understood not as a collection of independent writings on African conflict, mediation, constitutional legitimacy, or postcolonial politics, but as a coherent normative theory of just peace. Through sustained engagement with his books, journal articles, and recent contributions to Beyond Speaking Peace: Rethinking Conflict, Sovereignty, and Just Peace in the Twenty-First Century, the analysis reconstructed what this article has termed the Achankeng Framework of Just Peace. Organized around six interdependent principles—historical accountability, justice, peoples' sovereignty, indigenous epistemic legitimacy, human dignity, and human flourishing—this framework addresses several of the unresolved conceptual tensions that continue to shape contemporary peace theory.

The second contribution has been theoretical. By placing Achankeng in sustained dialogue with the major traditions of peace studies—including positive peace, conflict transformation, liberal peacebuilding, post-liberal peace, indigenous peacebuilding, decolonial theory, feminist peace, peace psychology, environmental peacebuilding, restorative justice, transitional justice, and critical security studies—the article has argued that his reconstructed framework contributes to a broader reconsideration of the discipline itself. Rather than positioning Achankeng merely as an African peace scholar, the analysis has demonstrated that his work engages questions of enduring significance concerning justice, legitimacy, sovereignty, historical memory, reconciliation, and the moral purposes of political order.

The third and most original contribution of the article lies in advancing what has been called the Reconstruction Thesis of Peace Studies. The article contends that the principal challenge confronting the discipline is no longer the absence of theories of peace but the absence of a sufficiently integrated philosophical framework capable of explaining how its increasingly specialized theories relate to one another. Positive peace, conflict transformation, human security, decoloniality, indigenous peacebuilding, and peace psychology should no longer be viewed as competing paradigms but as complementary investigations into different dimensions of the same complex reality. The future of peace studies therefore depends less upon multiplying additional paradigms than upon reconstructing the conceptual architecture that unites them.

Within this broader reconstruction, Critical Synthetic Realism provides the epistemological framework through which theoretical integration becomes possible. By affirming ontological realism, epistemic fallibilism, and synthetic integration, CSR offers a philosophical response to the epistemic fracture identified throughout the article. It neither collapses disciplinary diversity into a single explanatory model nor leaves competing paradigms isolated from one another. Instead, it seeks progressively richer syntheses capable of preserving legitimate differences while revealing their deeper ontological relationships.

Liberative Realism, in turn, supplies the normative completion of this reconstruction. Throughout much of contemporary peace scholarship, peace is evaluated according to the reduction of violence, the effectiveness of institutions, or the success of reconciliation processes. These objectives remain indispensable. Yet they acquire their fullest moral significance only when understood as conditions enabling liberated persons and flourishing communities. Liberative Realism therefore reorients peace studies toward its deepest ethical question: not simply how peace may be achieved, but what peace ultimately exists for. Its answer—that peace exists to create the conditions for truthful, just, responsible, and flourishing human communities—provides the teleological horizon within which the six principles of the Achankeng Framework achieve their fullest coherence.

The implications of this study extend beyond the interpretation of a single scholar. Methodologically, it illustrates the potential of CSRM for reconstructing complex intellectual traditions whose underlying coherence may remain obscured by disciplinary specialization or chronological analysis. Theoretically, it demonstrates that peace studies can benefit from renewed dialogue with philosophy, psychology, African political thought, ethics, theology, and the broader human sciences. Practically, it suggests that peacebuilding efforts should be evaluated not only according to institutional stability or conflict reduction but also according to whether they foster historical truth, moral legitimacy, political participation, epistemic justice, human dignity, and collective flourishing.

Like every scholarly reconstruction, the present study possesses limitations. While it has sought comprehensive engagement with Achankeng's published corpus, future research should examine additional archival materials, unpublished lectures, policy interventions, and evolving scholarship. Further dialogue with feminist peace theory, ecological peacebuilding, digital conflict, artificial intelligence and peace, migration studies, comparative constitutionalism, and empirical peace psychology would also enrich the reconstructed framework. Equally important will be empirical applications of the Achankeng Framework across diverse conflict contexts beyond the African cases that have significantly shaped his scholarship.

Ultimately, this article argues that peace studies now stands at a significant intellectual crossroads. The discipline has reached extraordinary levels of specialization, yet its future development increasingly depends upon recovering the philosophical unity capable of integrating its many achievements. The scholarship of Fonkem Achankeng, interpreted through Critical Synthetic Realist Methodology and extended through Liberative Realism, offers one important path toward that reconstruction. Whether future scholars ultimately accept every aspect of this proposal is less important than the broader invitation it extends: to move beyond fragmented theories of peace toward a richer understanding of peace as the truthful, just, liberative, and flourishing ordering of human community.

The future of peace studies, this article concludes, will not be secured by producing ever more specialized theories of peace, but by recovering the intellectual courage to ask again the discipline's most fundamental question: What is peace, and what kind of human world is it ultimately meant to make possible?

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