Is ‘good enough’ peacebuilding good enough? The potential and pitfalls of the local turn in peacebuilding in Timor-Leste

There is a palpable sense of humility within the United Nations and other international institutions regarding peacebuilding. Rather than seeking to implement the liberal peace, they now pursue the more modest goal of ‘good enough’ outcomes. This shift reflects a growing consensus in the critical literature that space needs to be provided for the local agency that will ultimately determine the outcomes of peacebuilding. At first blush this emphasis on local agency is positive; it offers an important correction to the technocratic and generally top-down nature of liberal peacebuilding. But, is the ‘good enough’ approach to peacebuilding good enough? What are the pitfalls and potential of the local turn? This article uses a case study of Timor-Leste to answer these questions. It finds that the local turn can help lend legitimacy to the state and increase opportunities for political participation and the delivery of public goods at the local level. However, the emerging evidence from Timor-Leste also highlights the pitfalls of the local turn. Most significantly, the state can transfer responsibility for public goods provision to the local level in order to lessen the burden on the state and to divert attention from ineffective or illegitimate central institutions.     

Intervention Theatre: performance,authenticity and expert knowledge in politicians’ travel to post-/conflict spaces

ABSTRACT

This article explores the role of official travel activities by politicians to post-/conflict spaces in German foreign policymaking. Starting from the observation that official travel justifications stress the value of authentic insights and unfiltered information, while journeys in practice are meticulously planned and staged, it asks what kind of knowing is possible, how actors make sense of the staged nature of field trips, and how multiple performances create and/or undermine notions of authenticity and first-hand expertise. The article shows that official on-site visits are composed of multiple conscious performances by all actors involved, but that these performances do not undermine the notions of authenticity and expertise. On the contrary, knowledge authenticity—or truth claims on the basis of authentic insights—and related expert authority are produced through travel-as-performance. The emphasis policymakers put on on-site presence and (the performance of) localized knowledge contradicts intervention literature’s generalized finding of a prioritization of technocratic over localized knowledge. The article draws on politics and performance scholarship and authenticity theories in tourism studies to make sense of a wealth of empirical material on the claims, practice and functions of German MPs’ journeys to post-/conflict spaces as part of broader political struggles over policy knowledge.     

Moving Beyond Hybridity: the Multi-Scalar Adaptation of Community Policing in Liberia

Extensive fieldwork in Liberia revealed that security agents and civilians alike all talked of community policing, yet they had different visions, understandings and legitimizations of the idea in mind. These ranged from community meetings to vigilante groups, and were divergent in whether they were orientated towards a Weberian-state model or the community as a primary security provider. This variation was not simply an example of hybrid policing, but revealed a multi-scalar adaption process across and between international, national and local actors and (geographical) scales. Theories on hybridity are insufficient to analyse such implementation processes since the scholarship heuristically still favours binary and essentialized actors and ‘pure’ starting points or blueprints.     

International Transitional Administrations and the Politics of Authority Building

This article critically examines authority-building practices of international transitional administrations (ITAs) engaged in statebuilding, and evaluates authority building as a framework for understanding the practices of statebuilding operations. It argues that war-torn states rarely lack actors claiming authority, but that these claims are often competing and mutually exclusive, and frequently not widely recognized. Building authority, therefore, requires ITAs to choose between different actors, recognizing the authority claims of some and withholding recognition from others, seeking ways to strengthen their ability to justify their authority claims vis-à-vis domestic and international audiences. Through authority-building practices, external actors directly become part of the political competition and dynamics of war-affected societies. The discussion of authority building by ITAs proceeds in three steps. The first section outlines the concept of political authority, in particular in the context of fragile states and of ITAs, and discusses relevant methodological issues. The second section then examines three distinct aspects of authority building by ITAs: claiming and justifying their own authority, recognizing and validating the authority claims of local actors, and strengthening the capacity of local actors to justify their authority claims. The final section concludes the paper with some reflections on political authority and authority building.     

Optimised or compromised? United Kingdom support to reforming security sector governance in post-war Nepal

UK policies embrace the ideas of security–development nexus, but most scholarship on its engagement builds upon African cases. This paper examines the drivers, nature and implications of UK involvement with an Asian country, Nepal. The UK’s position as the largest bilateral contributor and major peace and security donor among at least 21 others makes examination of its Nepal involvement imperative. This paper uses the grounded theory method and interpretivist analytical approach to create interactions between published and field information. Although the UK’s persistent engagement and programme-based approach helped peacefully manage transition, this paper contends, institutional changes have been shallow and winning confidence remains strenuous.     

Conflict resolution classrooms to careers: an emergent theory of change with implications for a strategy in peace education

Peace education provides for the development of knowledge, skills, and dispositions appropriate to effective peacebuilding. Therefore, the development of curriculum in degree programs which builds bridges by which students in conflict resolution/peace studies classrooms may cross over to the field of conflict transformation and peacebuilding may properly be thought of as within the sphere of peace education. This paper describes an emerging theory of change in the context of the peace education offered by a graduate and undergraduate program of conflict resolution. It is argued that employability exists at the nexus of student skills and attributes, and the demands of a labor market which a partnership between experienced practitioners and academics has a responsibility to inform and shape through outreach, education, practice, evaluation, research, and publication.     

包容性发展理念下的领导伦理的构建:基于政府发展理念的反思

改革开放以来,以经济建设为中心的发展理念在一些领导干部思想中变成了单一的经济增长的发展理念,发展偏离了"人本"的本质,逐渐演变为排他的发展,冷酷的发展,缺乏伦理的畸形发展。因此,重建领导发展伦理,使发展回归"正统"已迫在眉睫。"包容性发展"理念为领导伦理的重建指明了方向。     

自由裁量论研究——以德沃金自然法学和包容性实证主义法学中的自由裁量论为视角

在法官造法意义上的“自由裁量论”争论中，德沃金认为司法过程实际是法官们在法律规定的幅度内依法行使自由裁量践行裁判，反对法官造法意义上的“自由裁量论”。所有的法律实证主义者都同意法官造法意义上的“自由裁量论”，基于对法律效力的渊源类判准和内容类判准的不同理论主张，包容性实证主义法学与排他性实证主义法学在此种“自由裁量论”适用空间上也存在着极大差异，渊源类判准及内容类判准适用后法官的“自由裁量权”的不同适用空间也是包容性与排他性实证主义法学的理论分野所在。     

权利社会理论与社会“弱势化”心态矫正

社会＂弱势化＂心态是当前社会转型期值得警惕的社会问题,其本质问题是社会权利贫困问题。权利贫困决定了社会利益分配的不平衡,加剧社会分化和社会结构失衡,从而引发不同社会群体之间的对立和冲突,妨碍经济发展和社会稳定。为此,必须适时着手赋权社会的改革,使社会弱势群体获得更多的生存、发展、医疗、教育和文化等社会权利,获得和分享更多的改革开放的成果,以权利同质和机会均等实现包容发展。