The Limits of Liberal Peacebuilding? International Engagement in the Sri Lankan Peace Process

Abstract

This essay explores international engagement in the Sri Lankan peace process between 2002 and 2008. The internationalization of peacebuilding in Sri Lanka is analysed as part of a broader international shift towards a model of ‘liberal peacebuilding’, which involves the simultaneous pursuit of conflict resolution, liberal democracy and market sovereignty. The essay provides a detailed and disaggregated analysis of the various exporters, importers and resisters of liberal peacebuilding, with a particular focus on the contrasting ways in which the United National Front (UNF) and the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) regimes engaged with international actors. It is argued that an analysis of the Sri Lankan case provides a corrective to some of the core assumptions contained in much of the literature on liberal peacebuilding. Rather than viewing liberal peacebuilding as simply an hegemonic enterprise foisted upon countries emerging from conflict, the essay explores the ways in which peacebuilding is mediated through, and translated and instrumentalized by, multiple actors with competing interests – consequently liberal peacebuilding frequently looks different when it ‘hits the ground’ and may, as in the Sri Lanka case, lead to decidedly illiberal outcomes. The essay concludes by exploring the theoretical and policy implications of a more nuanced understanding of liberal peacebuilding. It is argued that rather than blaming the failure of the project on deficiencies in its execution and the recalcitrance of the people involved, there is a need to look at defects in the project itself and to explore alternatives to the current model of liberal peacebuilding.     

The electoral effectiveness of constituency campaigning in the 2010 British general election: The ‘triumph’ of Labour?

This article establishes a model of likely campaign effectiveness, before examining the intensity of constituency campaigning at the 2010 general election in Britain and its subsequent impact on electoral outcomes, using both aggregate and individual level data. It shows that constituency campaigning yielded benefits in varying degrees for all three main parties and that Labour’s constituency campaign efforts were effective despite the electoral context, and ultimately affected the overall outcome of the election. These findings have significant implications for our understanding of the circumstances under which campaigns are likely to be more or less effective, and provide further evidence that a carefully managed campaign stands the most chance of delivering tangible electoral payoffs.     

Does the Motivation for Market‐Based Reform Matter? The Case of Responsibility‐Centered Management

Organizational theorists have long examined the implications of market‐oriented policies for public agencies. Current research often aims to understand the effects of policies imposed on organizations by external stakeholder groups, but few studies have attempted to gain a better understanding of what mechanisms cause agencies to select into these strategies. The purpose of this article is to understand, first, which factors make an organization more likely to adopt a decentralized, market‐based budgeting system—termed “responsibility‐centered management (RCM)—and, second, whether this type of system has implications for organizational performance. Using data on doctorate‐granting public and private nonprofit four‐year universities in the United States, the authors find that mission, resource dependence, and state party control influence the take‐up of RCM. In terms of effects, RCM creates winners for graduation rates (white students) and degree production (science, technology, engineering, and math departments), which raises questions of equity across groups.     

Nowhere to Run,Nowhere to Hide? The 2010 General Election and the Defence of First‐past‐the‐post

The 2010 general election threw traditional arguments about electoral reform into chaos: defenders of the status quo suddenly found themselves defending outcomes the existing system is supposed to prevent, while advocates of reform were obliged to praise outcomes arising from current arrangements. This article examines the strengths and weaknesses of first‐past‐the‐post in the light of the 2010 result and asserts that—contrary to many claims—FPTP remains a defensible electoral system. In doing so, the article highlights the peculiar political circumstances attending the last general election, while reminding readers that other recent UK elections, conducted under other electoral systems, have not been free of serious anomalies.     

What has the Brexit Process done to Scotch Whisky?

The United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union does not have any impact on Scotch whisky itself: Brexit or not, Scotch whisky is Scotch whisky. However, it features more prominently in the Brexit negotiations than, for example, beer. This is because Scotch whisky is a highly export‐oriented product which brings large economic benefits to the UK—particularly Scotland—and its brand is protected by the international regime of intellectual property rights protection, especially, by the geographical indications regime championed by the EU. Moreover, the Brexit negotiations have led to the resurfacing of another political issue which affects Scotch whisky: Scottish independence. As a strong territorial brand, the constitutional status of Scotland is highly relevant to Scotch whisky and the investigation into the impact of the Brexit process on Scotch whisky has highlighted the inter‐connectedness of various political issues.     

What do we really know? The effect of reporting thresholds on inferences using environmental right‐to‐know data

Environmental right‐to‐know regulations require regulated entities to publicly disclose measures of environmental performance but exempt entities from these disclosure requirements if they manufacture, process, or use a chemical below some threshold level. Environmental right‐to‐know data are widely used to assess environmental performance by academics, regulators, non‐profit organizations, and the public. This paper uses data from Massachusetts to estimate the effect of reporting thresholds in environmental right‐to‐know programs on the validity of inferences using data from these programs. The analysis indicates that errors in inference introduced by reporting thresholds may be significant. Up to 40% of the observed decline in reported toxic releases in Massachusetts may be attributed to non‐reporting due to the reporting thresholds. In addition, quartile rankings of facilities may be in error up to 45% of the time when behavior around the reporting thresholds is not taken into account.     

Beyond bi-nationalism? The Young Hebrews versus the ‘Palestinian issue’

The bi-national option for the solution of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is as old as Zionism itself. The standard bi-national scenario envisaged an accommodation in a shared polity of separate Jewish and Palestinian identities. The Young Hebrews movement defied this paradigm by arguing that these identities were not national and should be incorporated into the Hebrew nation. This article analyses the Young Hebrews’ solution to the ‘Palestinian issue’ by showing that they used it as a tool to destroy Zionist hegemony in Israel and open the way to a radical geopolitical rearrangement of the entire Middle East.     

What Have We Learned about the Performance of Council‐Manager Government? A Review and Synthesis of the Research

The 100th anniversary of the International City/County Management Association provides an excellent point to review and assess research on the performance of the council‐manager form of government. The development of the council‐manager form arguably has been the most important innovation in American local government over the last century, yet its impact on the performance of municipal governments is not well understood. This article reviews and assesses the empirical evidence for 10 propositions that council‐manager governments perform better than mayor‐council governments. This evidence indicates that although progress has been made on demonstrating differences in representation and functionality, the proposition that council‐manager governments are better managed than mayor‐council governments has yet to be seriously engaged in this literature. Filling this critical gap requires progress in two areas: the development of theory to explain why council‐manager governments are better‐managed organizations and the production of evidence assessing the major propositions of this theory.     

In Search of Society? The Limitations of Citizen‐Centred Governance

Democratic governments have spent much of the last two decades attempting to recalibrate their governance systems around a single focal entity: the citizen. The all‐pervasive rhetoric of citizen‐centred governance has seen policies conceived, delivered and evaluated in terms of the satisfaction levels achieved by individual ‘citizens’. This article argues that by disaggregating societal interests down to the smallest available individual unit – the citizen – policy makers have created unrealistic expectations of individual participation, leading to public distrust when ‘citizen‐centred’ rhetoric does not match reality. Simultaneously, the focus on individual outcomes has narrowed the policy‐making gaze away from wider society‐level measures that could create more robust policy options in the face of ‘hard choices.’ The result – paradoxically – is that the more government focuses on pleasing the individual citizen, the less trusting those citizens are of government's ability to deliver meaningful outcomes.     

Is there Something Wrong with Intelligence in France? The Birth of the Modern Secret State

The lack of academic interest in intelligence in France partly explains the prevalence of many preconceived ideas about French Intelligence. This article deals with the slow building of France's intelligence machinery in the nineteenth century, as part of a study of the modern French State. At this time, intelligence practices were transformed by the appearance of several intelligence bureaucracies. Studying three dimensions of the development – informal practices, formal organizations and statutory rules – the article demonstrates the closeness of intelligence to politics. Doing so it suggests that intelligence needs to be considered not only as an instrument of policy-making but as an actor at the centre of the modern French state, a part of its very essence.     

What Motivates Reasoning? A Theory of Goal‐Dependent Political Evaluation

Rather than exhibiting bias or open‐minded reasoning at baseline, we argue that information processing is motivated by whatever goals a context makes salient. Thus, if politics feels like debate, people will be motivated to argue for their side. If politics feels like deliberation, they will be motivated to seek consensus through open‐minded processing. Results from three experiments demonstrate: (1) Politics evokes thoughts similar to conflictual contexts and dissimilar from deliberative contexts. (2) Consequently, information labeled “political” primes the motivation to counterargue, leading to opinion polarization. Absent such labeling, no such motivation is evident, explaining why bias is common but not inherent to politics. (3) Despite this capacity for bias, people can be motivated to actively process and accept counterattitudinal information by simply making the value of open‐mindedness salient. This suggests open‐minded discourse is possible even absent motivation to evaluate information accurately. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research for political discourse.