The Bifurcation of the Two Worlds: assessing the gap between internationals and locals in state-building processes

Studies increasingly highlight the limits of state building conducted ‘from the top-down’. Building on the literature and using a Rosenauian concept in a novel way, this article posits that international interventions create a ‘bifurcation of the two worlds’. Departing from a study of Kosovo and Timor-Leste, the article posits that the massive arrival of staff involved in international governance will create a social gap between the international and the local ‘worlds’, which will in turn become a target of narratives of resistance by local actors. This bifurcation is exemplified by the ‘white car syndrome’, a concept representing the horde of white UN vehicles accompanying major interventions and developed in this contribution. Thus, the article attempts to shed new light on the legitimacy crises that Kosovo and Timor-Leste experienced at the beginning of the current century, while demonstrating and increasing the linkages between development studies and peace studies.     

Transcending binaries in critical peacebuilding scholarship to address ‘inclusivity’ projects

Abstract

In light of the recent turn to ‘inclusivity’ in peacebuilding practice, this article problematises established ways of ‘doing critique’ in peacebuilding scholarship. Inclusivity refers to the building of peace as a situated and co-constituted process. This entails what can be termed a new epistemic commitment: the acknowledgement that peacebuilding as a dynamic and emergent phenomenon is also an epistemically co-constituted process. In the article, I make two arguments. First, the move towards inclusivity places currently dominant modes of scholarly critique at an impasse. Persistent ontological and epistemological binaries preclude a productive investigation and challenging of inclusivity projects and their epistemic commitment. Second, I argue that, by returning to historical conditions that were formative in the very emergence of the category of ‘the local’, the conceptual basis of an alternative mode of critique (re)appears. This alternative critical project allows for an analytical sensibility to peacebuilding as emergent and adaptive. It makes it possible to disentangle power relations as these emerge between different and possibly unexpected configurations of actors and knowledge claims in inclusivity projects.     

The paradoxes of the ‘everyday’: scrutinising the local turn in peace building

With the advent of the local turn in the mid-2000s, critical approaches have attempted to rethink peace building from the bottom up, placing local agents at the centre of the debate, declaring the end of top-down governance and affirming the fragmented, complex and plural nature of the social milieu. While local turn approaches have become popular in peace-building theory, this article invites the reader to question and problematise the local turn’s use of the concept of ‘everyday’, in order to explore paradoxes and contradictions that indicate the need to think more deeply about the impact of the local turn’s project of critique.     

A Hybrid Peace through Locally Owned and Externally Financed ssr–ddr in Rwanda?

This article aims to critically examine Rwanda's security sector reform and disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (ssr–ddr) process through a theoretical framework outlining four different models of peace processes in order to identify the sort of peace that can emerge from Rwanda's ssr–ddr approach. The author analyses how the Rwandan government has managed to keep the process ‘locally’ owned, while largely financed by external actors, despite strong criticism of its apparent lack of democratisation. The ‘genocide credit’, the Rwandan government's preference for national, rather than international solutions and its recent troop contribution to peacebuilding operations in the region are identified as the main reasons for this development. The paper argues that the peace emanating from the ssr–ddr process may be considered a hybrid form of state formation and state building, because of the local agency's preference for security and stability while simultaneously enjoying financial and technocratic support for its ‘liberal’ peacebuilding actions in the region.     

Pashtun Jirga and prospects of peace and conflict resolution in Pakistan’s ‘tribal’ frontier

ABSTRACT

There is growing recognition and appreciation of traditional approaches towards peace and conflict resolution across the world. This article aims to highlight the crucial role and consequential importance of traditional mechanisms of peace and conflict resolution in Pakistan’s terror-hit Pashtun ‘tribal’ areas, formerly known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). These ‘peripheral’ areas of Pashtun tribes stand in relative isolation from the ‘centre’ of the Pakistani ruling establishment. Moreover, with the onset of militancy since 2001 in the Afghanistan–Pakistan region, the situation has turned worse for the local Pashtun tribes. The article discusses the changing role of traditional mechanisms and local structures of peace and conflict resolution, arguing that colonial legacies have failed to prevent, manage, resolve or transform conflicts in post-colonial states such as Pakistan. Furthermore, the Pashtun cultural code of Pashtunwali, along with its various tenets and structures, especially Jirga (Pashtun tribal council) and Lashkar (tribal militia), is also discussed in the article. The article concludes that the changing socio-political situation, along with the rise of the secular Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), is presenting a challenge to ‘tribal’ Pashtun patriarchal values as well as traditional structures like Jirga in the region.     

The rise of an anti-politics machinery: peace,civil society and the focus on results in Myanmar

‘Results’, ‘value for money’, ‘effectiveness’ and similar buzzwords have become commonplace in development cooperation and peace building. The use of technical instruments such as project cycle management and evaluations is hardly questioned anymore: these are presented as a minor shift of focus to make current practice more effective. This paper argues that there is far more to this shift: a machinery of practices and institutions has been installed that removes political questions on development or peace from the political realm and places them under the rule of technical experts. Drawing on a Foucauldian understanding of discourse analysis, the paper analyses how this machinery prioritises gradual reform, subjugates other approaches to societal change and reproduces power/knowledge networks in both the global South and North. Based on ethnographic field research in Myanmar, it also explores discursive strategies of local actors and assesses how they are aiming to create spaces to challenge this machinery.     

A tale of three bridges: agency and agonism in peace building

This article explores agonistic processes of peace, which are situated within and constitutive of different spaces and places. Three contested cities, Sarajevo, Mostar and Vi?egrad in Bosnia-Herzegovina, provide us with local sites where peace and peace building in various forms ‘take place’ as people come together in collective action. Through a close reading of three symbolically and materially important bridges in the towns, we reveal meaning-making processes, as agentive subjects struggle around competing claims in the post-conflict everyday world. The collective, situated and fleeting agency that we explore through the Arendtian notion of ‘space of appearance’ invests space with meaning, belonging and identity. Thus, this article grapples with agonistic peace as it manifests itself in materiality and spatial practices. We use the social and material spaces of the city to locate agency and agonism in peace building as they relate to the conflict legacy in Mostar, Vi?egrad and Sarajevo in order to advance the critical peace research agenda.     

Power,politics and perception: the impact of foreign policy on civilian–peacekeeper relations

This article responds to a recent call for increased empirical evidence on the ‘local turn’ in the peacebuilding literature and discusses the impact of the international on local consent for peace operations. Using fresh empirical material this article examines the case of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). It shows how local perceptions of the foreign policies of peacekeeping contingents matter, and how this affects the functionality of the mission. This article highlights the heterogeneity of both United Nations peacekeeping missions and local populations, an issue that is insufficiently discussed in the literature on local engagement in peacebuilding/peacekeeping.     

Refugee youth in settlement,schooling, and social action: reviewing current research through a transnational lens

How do refugee youth engage in peacebuilding, civic participation, and social action through their educational experiences? This article draws from transnational frameworks, specifically Ajrun Appadurai’s notion of ‘imagined worlds’ with an emphasis on ethnoscapes as a framework through which to review literature on refugee young peoples’ involvement in peacebuilding, participation, and social action in schools, focusing particularly on experiences from countries of settlement outside of refugee camps. This study examines current literature on refugee youth schooling and social engagement along three main themes: the student, the school, and the wider society. Each section considers the implications of the scholarly literature in a transnational framework, identifying what transnational flows (i.e. people, capital, ideas, media, technology, etc.) and what imagined worlds are reflected in the literature. In conducting this analysis, I aim to dislodge peacebuilding education from spatially fixed contexts of ‘fragility’ that assigns a nation-state as the primary reference point of peace and conflict, to instead examine the transnational nature both of conflict and of the agency that displaced youth can mobilize to transform conflict through peacebuilding.     

Who governs? Religion and order in postcolonial Africa

Abstract

This article explores how mutually productive intersections between religion and governance constitute international political order in sub-Saharan settings. Asking ‘who governs’, I propose religion–governance entanglement as a means of analysing these intersections and rethinking governance, order and religion in Africa. Existing literatures typically characterise the public reliance on religious actors and institutions as being part of a uniquely ‘post-secular’ moment in contemporary world politics or a wider ‘post-Westphalian’ shift in modern governance. Enduring dynamics between postcolonial states and the Global North problematise these framings. In sub-Saharan Africa, religion has a protracted history in postcolonial hybrid governance, overlapping the regional presence of international non-govermental organisations following decolonisation. Using the example of South Sudan, I build on recent analyses of religious-political activities that leave their collective implications under-theorised.     

The Trouble in Mali—corruption,collusion, resistance

The combined force of the 2012 coup in Bamako and the rebellion in the north entailed an unmasking of Mali. What had been presented as a showcase of democracy, good governance, and peace and reconciliation proved to be a facade for institutional weakness and mismanagement. The collusion between regional and national ‘big man’ interests that the crisis revealed showed little if any respect for human security and development. This article will analyse the causes of the crisis and the strategies of key actors, including the Islamist rebels. The consequences of and responses to the conflict will also be addressed before the article ends with some tentative conclusions concerning the future stability of Mali and the Sahel region. The article is based on the authors’ long engagement with Mali, spanning more than a decade, but the most recent material presented is based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted there in February and March 2013.     

From Al-Itihaad to Al-Shabaab: how the Ethiopian intervention and the ‘War on Terror’ exacerbated the conflict in Somalia

Abstract

External intervention has frustrated and continues to frustrate peace and stability in the Horn of Africa and Somalia, adding various adverse layers to an already complicated and complex conflict. The level of forceful military engagement intended for regional domination has profoundly affected negatively the efforts of peacebuilding and statebuilding in Somalia. This article examines how the earlier Ethiopian policies towards Somalia has reshaped the (post)-Cold War politics of the Horn. In doing so, it traces the roots of the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia vis-à-vis new non-state armed groups to chart the changing political dynamics of the conflict in Somalia. By using historical approach, the article argues that Ethiopia’s agenda is central to understanding why the ‘War on Terror’ has strengthened and subsequently midwifed armed militant movements (e.g. new insurgency groups) in Somalia, starting from Al-Itihaad to today’s Al-Shabaab. In focusing upon various regional actors and groups, the article moves from the emphasis of internal systems to external power structures, considering the wider historical and political factors in the region that must be closely examined if the regional and local conflicts are to be deeply understood. While it is a context-specific study, the article aims to contribute fresh perspectives and insights to ongoing discussions on the consequences of the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia.     

State Building for Peace: a new paradigm for international engagement in post-conflict fragile states?

This article is intended to analyse two leading approaches that have guided international efforts to promote peace and development in conflict-afflicted fragile states since the 1990s, namely peace building and state building. In a relatively recent development a growing number of donors has sought to bring these two closer together, based upon the perception that the challenges posed by (post-)conflict fragile states need to be addressed through an approach that combines both—‘state-building for peace’, as the undp has put it. The article thus seeks to explore how the processes of building peace are related to the processes of building more resilient, effective and responsive states in (post-)conflict settings. It provides an overview of the evolution of these two concepts and analyses key complementarities between peace building and state building. It also explores the challenges that arise for both on the basis of these complementarities. The article goes on to examine some of the most significant tensions that arise between the two, and what these tensions may imply for the international assistance community. By way of a conclusion the article offers a few key lessons that emerge from the analysis for improved donor policy and practice in state building for peace efforts.     

The Transformation of Soviet Industrial Relations and the Foundation of the Moldovan Dniester Republic

The debate about post-socialist internal conflict has overcome the ‘ethnic turn’ and increasingly focuses on actors. For the case of separatism in the Moldovan Dniester Valley, research has highlighted the crucial role of industrial factory directors. These managers mobilised their factories’ employees. To refine the knowledge of how collective conflict actors are formed, this article asks the question: what enabled directors to mobilise ‘their’ workers? The sources show that, on the one hand, the managers’ political power was rooted in typical Soviet enterprise structures; on the other, it was further strengthened by perestroika market reforms and the economic crisis entangled to them. These results suggest that separatist mobilisation and internal conflict were entangled to social transformation and functioned as a catalyst to the process of (re-)distribution of capital and power.     

Promoting neoliberal ideology in Finnish rural community development: the creation of new moral actors

ABSTRACT

Today’s political ambitions are based on the neoliberal aspiration to diminish the state’s role and responsibilities, and to transfer those responsibilities to local communities and individuals in ways that idealise those communities, promising to ‘give power to the people’. Instead of highlighting individualism, neoliberalism now celebrates communities and participation. This article deals with the effects of this ideology with regard to Finnish rural policy objectives. Drawing on Finnish village action programmes as data, we argue that these ideological views aim to transform individuals and create new moral actors. Our research indicates that Finland’s rural policy objectives invoke actors that are responsible for their communities, have an ‘enterprising spirit’, and are change-friendly and innovative. However, the ideology disregards the economic and social preconditions and resources necessary for building affluent communities and villages, which are difficult to attain when there is less government involvement. Thus, rural communities face increasing demands and less government involvement.     

Peace education,militarism and neo-liberalism: conceptual reflections with empirical findings from the UK

This article explores ‘peace days’ in English schools as a form of peace education. From a historical overview of academic discussions on peace education in the US and Great Britain since the First World War, we identify three key factors important for peace education: the political context, the place in which peace days occur and pedagogical imperatives of providing a certain narrative of the sources of violence in politics. Although contemporary militarism and neoliberalism reduce the terrains for peace studies in English schools, peace days allow teachers to carve out spaces for peace education. Peace days in Benfield School, Newcastle and Comberton Village College, Cambridgeshire, are considered as case studies. We conclude with reflections on the opportunities and limitations of this approach to peace education, and on how peace educators and activists could enlarge its reach.     

Endorsing empowerment? A critical comparative study of peace education in Jamaica and Peru

Is empowering peace education primarily about providing individuals with skills to respond to violence they experience and capabilities to enhance their own lives? Or is inspiring social transformation to alter forms of injustice that contribute to violence an equally valid and important dimension of an empowering peace education program? This article draws upon the authors’ experiences researching peace education programs implemented by local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in two different contexts: Jamaica and Peru. The basis for comparison is grounded in the discourse key actors in these NGOs utilized in reference to their respective educational initiatives, explicitly emphasizing empowerment for marginalized groups. Using critical qualitative techniques and troubling the idea of ‘empowerment,’ the authors analyze the discourse of empowerment to look beyond explicit truth claims and unveil tacit assumptions regarding the purpose and desired outcomes for the beneficiaries of their respective programs. The authors interrogate what definitions of empowerment – social and/or individual – the program stakeholders envision as well as how they believe such empowerment comes about. The study’s findings contribute to the need to critically unpack the commonly uncritical use of the term ‘empowerment’ as necessarily directed toward addressing social inequalities and altering unjust power relations.     

‘SAFEGUARDING NATIONAL CREDIBILITY’: FOUNDING THE BANK OF CHINA IN 1912

Abstract

The Bank of China led China’s modern-style banks during the Republican era, supporting the Chinese state through war and peace and financing China’s industrialization in the first half of the twentieth century. This article explores the founding of this institution in 1912 in the context of building the modern Chinese nation state following the 1911 Revolution. It argues that the events that made possible the Bank of China’s founding illustrate the contingent nature of state building. Furthermore, emphasis is on the critical relationship between finance and political legitimacy in state building. The article also shows how the creation of an institution such as the Bank of China, which was originally intended to be the new Republic’s central bank, gave the fledgling state the opportunity to support the transfer of legal rights in regime change.     

Daisaku Ikeda’s philosophy of peace,education proposals,and Soka education: convergences and divergences in peace education

In this article, the authors introduce and explicate Daisaku Ikeda’s contributions to peace education. Ikeda is a Buddhist leader, peacebuilder, school founder, and prolific author whose six decades of contributions to peace education have had a global impact in practice but have remained unexamined in the extant, particularly Anglophone, literature. Using excerpts and bilingual discourse analysis of the Ikeda corpus, the authors focus on five aspects to trace the past, present, and future of Ikeda’s contributions to peace education: first, they trace the biographical roots of Ikeda’s contributions to his early educational experiences and encounter with Josei Toda (1900–1958). Second, they outline the Nichiren Buddhist philosophy informing Ikeda’s approach to peace education. Third, they explicate in the context of peace and peace education Ikeda’s concept of value-creating, or Soka education (soka kyoiku) relative to value-creating pedagogy (soka kyoikugaku) theorized by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871–1944). In light of this relation, they also trace the origin of the Soka Gakkai International, of which Ikeda is founding president. Fifth, they clarify Ikeda’s educational proposals made explicitly under the label of ‘peace education,’ namely, cultural exchange, a United Nations for Education, and education for disarmament and human rights (including anti-bullying, sustainability, and global citizenship). The authors conclude that Ikeda’s perspectives, proposals, and practices of Soka education and ‘peace education’ can be viewed as a tripartite ontological model of a process of becoming, moving from inner transformation by means of dialogue to global citizenship.     

Everyday Fixers as Local Heroes: A Case Study of Vital Interaction in Urban Governance

This article exemplifies the importance of viable coalitions in processes of neighbourhood development and local governance. Elaborating on the notion of the ‘everyday maker’, discovered in Danish local politics by Bang and Sörensen, this article further explores the characteristics and conditions of organising capacity, using the case of the Neighbourhood Development Corporation in the Dutch city of The Hague as a paradigmatic case. This case shows that individual actors, ‘everyday fixers’ or ‘local heroes’, can make a real difference in local politics if they are well connected to a supportive structure and if they are sensitive to the logic of the situation at hand. Context matters, sometimes impedes, but smart individuals can also make it work.