Oliver P. Richmond, Sandra Pogodda, Jasmin Ramović (Eds.) - The Palgrave Handbook of Disciplinary and Regional Approaches To Peace-Palgrave Macmillan UK (2016)

The Palgrave Handbook of Disciplinary and Regional
Approaches to Peace
The Palgrave Handbook of
Disciplinary and Regional
Approaches to Peace
Edited by
Oliver P. Richmond
Research Professor, University of Manchester, UK, International Professor, Kyung Hee University,
Korea & Visiting Professor, University of Tromso, Norway
Sandra Pogodda
Lecturer, University of Manchester, UK
and
Jasmin Ramović
Doctoral Candidate, University of Manchester, UK
Editorial selection and content © Oliver P. Richmond, Sandra Pogodda and
Jasmin Ramović 2016
Individual chapters © Respective authors 2016
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-40759-7
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First published 2016 by
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Richmond, Oliver P., editor.
Title: The Palgrave handbook of disciplinary and regional approaches to
peace / edited by Oliver P. Richmond, Research Professor, University of
Manchester, UK ; Sandra Pogodda, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of
Manchester, UK ; Jasmin Ramovic, University of Manchester, UK.
Other titles: Handbook of disciplinary and regional approaches to peace
Description: New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015033206 |
Subjects: LCSH: Peace-building—Case studies. | Peace-building—
International cooperation—Case studies.
Classification: LCC JZ5566.4 .P35 2016 | DDC 303.6/6—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015033206
Contents
List of Figures viii
Acknowledgements ix
Notes on the Editors x
Notes on the Contributors xi
Introduction 1
Oliver P. Richmond, Sandra Pogodda and Jasmin Ramović
Part I Disciplinary Perspectives

1 Peace in History 21
John Gittings
2 Politics and Governance: From Emergency to Emergence 32

David Chandler
3 The Philosophy of Peace 45

Nicholas Rengger
4 Peace in International Relations Theory 57

Oliver P. Richmond
5 Anthropology: Implications for Peace 69

Geneviève Souillac and Douglas P. Fry
6 Arts and Theatre for Peacebuilding 82

Nilanjana Premaratna and Roland Bleiker
7 Sociology: A Sociological Critique of Liberal Peace 95

Nicos Trimikliniotis
8 Economics: Neoliberal Peace and the Politics of Social Economics 110

Brendan Murtagh
9 Geography and Peace 123

Nick Megoran, Fiona McConnell and Philippa Williams
10 Peace and Development Studies 139

Caroline Hughes
11 Post-Colonialism: A Post-Colonial Perspective on Peacebuilding 154

Vivienne Jabri
v
vi Contents
12 Religion: Peace through Non-Violence in Four Religious

Traditions 168
Caron E. Gentry
13 Gender: The Missing Piece in the Peace Puzzle 181

Annika Björkdahl and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic
14 Education: Cultural Reproduction, Revolution and Peacebuilding

in Conflict-Affected Societies 193
Tejendra Pherali
15 Children and Peace 206

Bennett Collins and Alison Watson
16 Social Psychology and Peace 220

Shelley McKeown Jones and Daniel J. Christie
17 Humanitarianism and Peace 233

Jenny H. Peterson
18 International Law: To End the Scourge of War . . . and to Build a

Just Peace? 247
Wendy Lambourne
19 Indigeneity and Peace 259

Morgan Brigg and Polly O. Walker
20 Critical Security Studies and Alternative Dialogues for Peace:

Reconstructing ‘Language Barriers’ and ‘Talking Points’ 272
Faye Donnelly
Part II Regional Perspectives

21 South Africa’s Incomplete Peace 287
Andries Odendaal
22 Peace in West Africa 299

Patrick Tom
23 The Great Lakes Region of Africa: Local Perspectives on Liberal

Peacebuilding from the Democratic Republic of Congo 312
Josaphat Musamba Bussy and Carol Jean Gallo
24 Peace in the Horn of Africa 325

Christopher Clapham
25 Peace through Retribution or Reconciliation? Some Insights and

Evidence from South-East Asia 336
Sorpong Peou
Contents vii
26 East Asia: Understanding the Broken Harmony in Confucian Asia 350

Ching-Chang Chen
27 Human Development and Minority Empowerment: Exploring

Regional Perspectives on Peace in South Asia 363
Florian Krampe and Ashok Swain
28 Peace and the Emerging Countries: India, Brazil, South Africa 376
Kai Michael Kenkel
29 Central Asia: Contested Peace 387

David Lewis
30 Middle East and North Africa: Hegemonic Modes of Pacification

in Crisis 398
Sandra Pogodda
31 Peace in Europe 411

Roberto Belloni
32 Peace in the Balkans: (En)countering the European Other 424

Jasmin Ramović
33 Peacebuilding in South America 438

Roddy Brett and Diana Florez
34 Central America: From War to Violence 450

Jenny Pearce
35 North America: Peace Studies versus the Hegemony of Realist and

Liberal Methods 463
Henry F. Carey
36 Peace in the Pacific: Grounded in Local Custom, Adapting to

Change 476
Volker Boege
Bibliography 489
Index 555
Figures
8.1 SRRP social impact analysis 119
viii
Acknowledgements
The editors would like to thank the hard-pressed authors who contributed to
this handbook. They have all tolerated difficult scheduling demands on their
time, in a very good-natured and supportive manner. We also thank the review-
ers, whose comments proved invaluable. The result is a handbook we all feel
proud of.
ix
Editors
Oliver P. Richmond is Research Professor of IR, Peace and Conflict Studies in

the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, University of Manchester,
UK. He is also international professor, College of International Studies, Kyung
Hee University, Korea, and a visiting professor at the Centre for Peace Stud-
ies, University of Tromso, Norway. His publications include Failed Statebuilding
(2014), A Very Short Introduction to Peace (2014), A Post Liberal Peace (2011),
Liberal Peace Transitions (with Jason Franks, 2009), Peace in IR (2008) and The
Transformation of Peace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005/7). He is the editor of the
Palgrave book series Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies and co-editor of the
journal Peacebuilding.
Sandra Pogodda is Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies in the Humanitarian

and Conflict Response Institute at the University of Manchester. She com-
pleted her PhD in international relations at the University of Cambridge as a
Marie Curie Fellow. Subsequently, she worked at Johns Hopkins University, the
US Institute of Peace and the University of St Andrews. Her research focuses on
state-formation processes in the revolutionary societies of the Arab region; resis-
tance movements; (post-)revolutionary challenges to peace and conflict studies;
and critical development studies.
Jasmin Ramović is a doctoral candidate at the Humanitarian and Conflict

Response Institute, University of Manchester. His research focuses on the role
of local agency in peacebuilding in the Balkans. Previously, he worked as a
lecturer, teaching undergraduate courses in political science and international
relations. As a UK Government Chevening scholar, he holds a master’s in inter-
national security studies from the University of St Andrews. He completed his
degree in political science at the University of Sarajevo. He has extensive expe-
rience working with various international organizations, including the United
Nations and the European Union missions to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
x
Contributors
Roberto Belloni is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Univer-

sity of Trento, Italy. Previously, he held research and teaching positions at the
University of Denver, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Queens Belfast. His main
research interest is in post-conflict international intervention in deeply divided
societies, with particular reference to South-Eastern Europe. His publications
include Statebuilding and International Intervention in Bosnia (2008) as well as
more than 40 journal articles and book chapters.
Annika Björkdahl is Professor of Political Science at Lund University, Sweden.

Her research includes international and local peacebuilding, with a particular
focus on urban peacebuilding, and gender and transitional justice, and she is
currently directing three research projects on these themes. Among her recent
publications are the co-edited Rethinking Peacebuilding: The Quest for Just Peace
in the Middle East and the Western Balkans (2013) and the co-edited special issue
‘Precarious Peacebuilding: Friction in Global–Local Encounters’, Peacebuilding
1(3). Her articles have appeared in Peace and Change, Human Rights Review,
Journal of European Public Policy, International Peacekeeping and Security Dialogue.
Roland Bleiker is Professor of International Relations at the University of

Queensland. His books include Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Poli-
tics (2000), Divided Korea: Toward a Culture of Reconciliation (2005) and Aesthetics
and World Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). His most recent co-edited vol-
umes are Mediating across Difference: Pacific and Asian Approaches to Security and
Conflict (2010) and Emotions and World Politics (Forum in International Theory,
Fall 2014). He is currently working on a project that examines how images, and
the emotions they engender, shape responses to humanitarian crises.
Volker Boege is a research fellow at the School of Political Science and Interna-
tional Studies, University of Queensland, Australia. His fields of work include
post-conflict peacebuilding and state formation; non-Western approaches to
conflict transformation; and natural resources, environmental degradation and
conflict. His regional areas of expertise include the South Pacific, South-East
Asia and West Africa. He is currently working on a number of externally funded
projects. These projects address issues of peacebuilding, conflict resolution and
state formation in Pacific Island Countries and West Africa (Ghana and Liberia).
He has published numerous articles, papers and books in peace research and
contemporary history.
xi
xii Notes on the Contributors
Roddy Brett is a lecturer at the School of International Relations, University

of St Andrews, and Co-convenor of the M. Litt in Peace and Conflict Studies.
He has lived for over a decade in Latin America, principally in Guatemala and
Colombia, working as a scholar-practitioner in the fields of conflict and peace
studies, political and other forms of violence, genocide studies, social move-
ments, indigenous rights, democratization and transitions. He has published
and co-edited eight books and a series of articles on these subjects. He has acted
as advisor to the United Nations System in Latin America and to the Norwegian
Embassy in Guatemala.
Morgan Brigg is a senior lecturer at the School of Political Science and Inter-
national Studies, University of Queensland. His research examines questions
of culture, governance and selfhood in conflict resolution, peacebuilding and
development studies. In particular, he aims to develop ways of knowing across
cultural differences that work with local and Indigenous approaches to polit-
ical community and conflict management to advance conflict resolution and
peacebuilding efforts. His books include The New Politics of Conflict Resolution:
Responding to Difference, Mediating across Difference: Oceanic and Asian Approaches
to Conflict Resolution (co-edited with Roland Bleiker) and Unsettling the Settler
State: Creativity and Resistance in Indigenous Settler-State Governance (co-edited
with Sarah Maddison).
Josaphat Musamba Bussy is an instructor of graduate courses in international

relations and political science at the Free University of the Great Lakes and
at the University of Simon Kimbangu (USK) Bukavu, where he is also research
assistant to Professor Godefroid Muzalia of the study group on conflict. He has
a degree in international relations from USK Bukavu and is also a researcher
at the Centre of Research and Strategic Studies in Africa (CRESA), where his
research is focused on the dynamics of armed groups in the Great Lakes region;
post-conflict stabilization; and regional security.
Henry F. (Chip) Carey is Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia

State University, where he has been based since 1998. He has published many
books and articles on international law, human rights and comparative democ-
ratization. He holds a PhD from Columbia University. His books include
Understanding International Law through Moot Courts: Genocide, Torture, Habeas
Corpus, Chemical Weapons and the Responsibility to Protect (2014), European Insti-
tutions, Democratization, and Human Rights Protection in the European Periphery
(2014), Trials and Tribulations of International Prosecution (2013), Privatizing the
Democratic Peace: Policy Dilemmas of NGO Peacebuilding (2012) and Reaping What
You Sow: A Comparative Examination of Torture Reform in the United States, France,
Argentina, and Israel (2012). His forthcoming edited volume is provisionally
Notes on the Contributors xiii
titled European Governance in Turmoil but Not Tatters? He is the editor of United
Nations Law Reports, currently in its fiftieth year of publication.
David Chandler is Professor of International Relations and Director of the

Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster. His research
focuses on new forms of international intervention and regulation. He is the
founding editor of the journal Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Dis-
courses. He is the author of a number of monographs, including Resilience: The
Governance of Complexity (2014), Freedom vs Necessity in International Relations
(2013), International Statebuilding: The Rise of Neoliberal Governance (2010) and
Hollow Hegemony: Rethinking Global Politics, Power and Resistance (2009).
Ching-Chang Chen is an associate professor in the Department of Global

Studies, Ryukoku University, Japan. Before joining Ryukoku, he taught at
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (2009–15), including various field study
programmes in China, Korea and Taiwan. His current research focuses on crit-
ical security studies with reference to East Asia and non-Western international
relations theory. He has appeared in the media, including Al Jazeera and NHK,
and published articles in Issues & Studies, Journal of Chinese Political Science, Inter-
national Relations in the Asia-Pacific, Asian Perspective and Perceptions. His latest,
co-edited volume is Regional Responses to the North Korea Problem (2015). He
graduated from National Taiwan University and holds a PhD in international
politics from Aberystwyth University, Wales.
Daniel Christie is professor emeritus at Ohio State University, Visiting

Researcher at the University of South Africa and Fulbright Specialist in Peace
and Conflict Studies. His research and writing are focused on harmony and
equity in relationships and systems. He is the editor and founder of the Peace
Psychology Book Series, which currently includes more than 20 books, and The
Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology, a three-volume set. As a Fulbright Specialist, he
develops Peace and Conflict Studies programmes around the world.
Christopher Clapham is based at the Centre of African Studies, Cambridge

University, and has recently retired after 15 years as editor of The Journal of
Modern African Studies. Until December 2002, he was Professor of Politics and
International Relations at Lancaster University, England. He is a specialist in the
politics of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, and his books include Transforma-
tion and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia (1988), Africa and the International
System: The Politics of State Survival (1996) and African Guerrillas (1998).
Bennett Collins is a research fellow with the Centre for Global

Constitutionalism at the School of International Relations, University of St
xiv Notes on the Contributors
Andrews, Scotland. His research interests focus on the fields of genocide stud-
ies, post-colonial studies, peacebuilding and transitional justice, particularly
with regard to minority and indigenous peoples. He is the editor of the spe-
cial issue for Peacebuilding, ‘Moving Forward in the Eastern Congo: Roles to Be
Played by the International Community’ (2014), and recently contributed to
the edited volume Indigenous Peoples’ Access to Justice, Including Truth and Rec-
onciliation Commissions (2014), edited by Elsa Stamatopoulou and Chief Wilton
Littlechild. He is currently leading and developing projects documenting and
examining truth and reconciliation commissions in North America and East
Africa.
Faye Donnelly is a lecturer in the School of International Relations at the

University of St Andrews. She is the author of Securitization and the Iraq
War: The Rules of Engagement (2013). Her most recent article, ‘The Queen’s
Speech: Desecuritizing the Past, Present and Future of Anglo-Irish Relations’,
has appeared in EJIR (2015). Currently, her research interests cut across the
fields of critical security, securitization and border studies, and coalesce around
an interest in the emergence of different lexicons and modalities of security.
In particular, she is exploring how security is communicated, expressed and
understood in non-verbal media.
Diana Florez is a practitioner who works at the United Nations Development

Programme in Colombia. She is a technical assistant in the UNDP office in
Norte de Santander, Colombia. Her research analyses issues of peacebuilding,
transitional justice and human rights.
Douglas P. Fry is a professor and chair of the Anthropology Department at

the University of Alabama at Birmingham, US, and concurrently Docent in the
Developmental Psychology Program at Åbo Akademi University in Finland. Fry
holds a doctorate in anthropology from Indiana University. He is the author
of Beyond War (2007) and The Human Potential for Peace (2006) and co-editor
of Keeping the Peace: Conflict Resolution and Peaceful Societies around the World
(2004) and Cultural Variation in Conflict Resolution: Alternatives to Violence (1997).
His most recent edited book is War, Peace and Human Nature (2013/15), which
brings together contributions from peace studies, evolutionary ecology, prima-
tology, forager studies, cultural anthropology, psychology and related fields to
explore the latest findings relevant to a peaceful view of human nature.
Carol Jean Gallo is a PhD student at Cambridge University. Her disserta-

tion is on Congolese peacebuilding actors’ perspectives on the disarmament,
demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants in the Congo, and in par-
ticular on the World Bank’s Multi-Country Demobilization and Reintegration
Notes on the Contributors xv
Program (MDRP). She spent most of 2013 in Bukavu, where she interned with
the Life & Peace Institute. She has an MA in African Studies from Yale, where
she had a fellowship to study Swahili.
Caron E. Gentry is a lecturer in the School of International Relations at the

University of St Andrews. Her work has focused on gender and terrorism for
over a decade. She has written on women’s involvement in politically violent
groups with articles in various journals, and her publications also include (with
Laura Sjoberg) Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics
(2007) and the edited volume Women, Gender, and Terrorism (2011). She has also
published in political theology, with a focus on the just war tradition and its
relationship with marginalized persons in international affairs. Her most recent
book is Offering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War (2013).
John Gittings has specialized in Cold War studies and in the history of mod-
ern China, and was on the staff of The Guardian for 20 years as East Asia editor
and foreign leader writer. He was active in the early years of the Campaign
for Nuclear Disarmament, and in the International Confederation for Disarma-
ment and Peace. He left The Guardian in 2003 to return to the field of peace
studies, joining the editorial team of the Oxford International Encyclopedia of
Peace (2010). He is the author of The Glorious Art of Peace: From the Iliad to Iraq
(2012), The Changing Face of China (2005), Superpowers in Collision (with Noam
Chomsky and Jonathan Steele, 1982) and The World and China (1974). He is a
research associate at the China Institute, School of Oriental and African Studies,
London University.
Caroline Hughes is Professor of Conflict Resolution and Peace at the Univer-

sity of Bradford. She is the author of Dependent Communities: Aid and Politics in
Cambodia and East Timor (2009) and The Political Economy of Cambodia’s Tran-
sition (2003) and the co-author of The Politics of Accountability in South East
Asia (2014). She has also edited several collections on Asian politics, and has
written more than 50 articles, reports and chapters on aid and development
in post-conflict countries. She was previously the Director of the Asia Research
Centre at Murdoch University in Australia, and has a long-standing position
as an external advisor to the Cambodia Development Resource Institute in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She has been a faculty member at the universities
of Birmingham and Nottingham in the UK, and has held visiting positions at
the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne.
Vivienne Jabri is Professor of International Politics in the Department of War

Studies, King’s College London, Coordinator of the Research Centre for Inter-
national Relations and Director of the King’s Interdisciplinary Social Science
xvi Notes on the Contributors
Economic and Social Research Council Doctoral Training Centre (ESRC DTC).
She joined the department in 2003, having previously lectured at the Uni-
versity of St Andrews and the University of Kent. Her research draws on
critical and post-structural social and political theory to investigate the nexus
between international politics and war. Her current research and writing focus
on war/violence and conceptions of cosmopolitan political community in a
globalized world. She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International
Political Sociology and Security Dialogue, and the International Studies Associa-
tion’s new Journal of Global Security Studies. Her publications include Postcolonial
Subject: Claiming Politics/Governing Others in Late Modernity (2012), War and
the Transformation of Global Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), Discourses on
Violence (1996) and Mediating Conflict (1990).
Kai Michael Kenkel is an assistant professor in the Institute of International

Relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, where he is
Director of Graduate Studies. He holds MA and PhD degrees from the Grad-
uate Institute (then IUHEI) in Geneva and an AB from the Johns Hopkins
University. His principal areas of research include United Nations peace oper-
ations, intervention and the responsibility to protect, as well as small arms.
He has published and advised extensively on these topics and is the editor of
three books. He has been editor of the Brazilian international relations journal
Contexto Internacional.
Florian Krampe is a peace researcher at the Department of Peace and Con-

flict Research and Director of the Forum for South Asia Studies at Uppsala
University. He is working on peacebuilding as well as environmental security
in Kosovo, Nepal and Afghanistan. In his current research, he is focusing on
environmental peacebuilding, particularly the consequences of climate change
mitigation for peacebuilding, resilience and critical local agency in Nepal.
In 2013, he published The Liberal Trap – Peacemaking and Peacebuilding in
Afghanistan after 9/11, which retraces the Afghanistan negotiations from 2001
and the role of external peacebuilders during the implementation phase in
Afghanistan. In addition, he has published on environmental/climate change
and conflict, as well as ‘new wars’, peacebuilding and reconciliation, dealing,
among others, with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan, South Africa,
Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Angola.
Wendy Lambourne is Deputy Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict
Studies, University of Sydney. Her interdisciplinary research on transitional jus-
tice, trauma healing and peacebuilding after genocide and other mass violence
has a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa and Asia/Pacific. Recent publica-
tions include chapters in Transitional Justice Theories (2014), Critical Perspectives
Notes on the Contributors xvii
in Transitional Justice (2012) and The Development of Institutions of Human Rights

(Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), as well as articles in the Journal of Peacebuilding
and Development, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Genocide Studies
and Prevention and African Security Review. She has served as Co-convenor of
the Reconciliation and Transitional Justice Commission of the International
Peace Research Association since 2006, and holds postgraduate degrees in
international relations and international law.
David Lewis is Senior Lecturer in Politics in the Department of Politics, Uni-

versity of Exeter, UK. He previously worked as a senior research fellow and
senior lecturer in the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford.
He also spent five years working for the Brussels-based think-tank, the Inter-
national Crisis Group, in Central Asia and in Sri Lanka. He has published
widely on politics and security in the former Soviet Union, particularly focus-
ing on the states of the Caucasus and Central Asia. His recent research focuses
on the impact of non-Western states on discourses and practices of liberal
peacebuilding.
Johanna Mannergren Selimovic is a post-doctoral research fellow at the

Swedish Institute of International Affairs. Her research concerns peace pro-
cesses, with a special interest in reconciliation processes, politics of memory,
urban peacebuilding and gender. She is currently involved in two research
projects: Gender and Transitional Justice, and Divided Cities – Challenges
to Post-Conflict Peacebuilding and Development. Recent publications include
‘Challenges of Post-Conflict Coexistence: Narrating Truth and Justice in a
Bosnian Town’, Political Psychology (2015), ‘Gendered Justice Gaps in Bosnia-
Herzegovina’, Human Rights Review (co-authored with Annika Björkdahl, 2013)
and ‘Making Peace, Making Memory. Peacebuilding and Politics of Remem-
brance at Memorials of Mass Atrocities’, Peacebuilding (2013).
Fiona McConnell is Associate Professor of Human Geography at the Univer-

sity of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow at St Catherine’s College, Oxford. She holds
a PhD in geography from Queen Mary, University of London, and previously
worked at Newcastle University and Trinity College, Cambridge. As a politi-
cal geographer, she is interested in how communities officially excluded from
formal state politics are nevertheless engaging with aspects of statecraft, and
in using such seemingly anomalous cases as a lens to critically examine the
‘norms’ of governance. A significant part of her research to date has focused
on the Tibetan government-in-exile based in India. She has ongoing research
projects on geographies of peace; constructions and contestations of political
legitimacy; social and labour mobility in India’s post-liberal economy; and the
diplomatic practices and cultures of unrecognized polities.
xviii Notes on the Contributors
Shelley McKeown Jones is Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Bristol.

Her research focuses primarily on how social-psychological theories, such as
social identity theory and contact theory, can be used to understand and
improve intergroup relations. She has written a number of journal articles and
book chapters as well as a book on identity, segregation and peacebuilding in
Northern Ireland.
Nick Megoran is Lecturer in Political Geography at Newcastle University. He

writes about the role of nationalist territorial claims in international con-
flict, and has principally worked on the Danish–German, Uzbek–Kyrgyz and
Israeli–Palestinian interfaces. He also explores the role of religion in framing
geopolitical visions that are variously violent or pacific. He is also Co-convenor
of the Northumbria and Newcastle Universities Martin Luther King Peace Com-
mittee, which brings geographers and activists together to build cultures of
peace.
Brendan Murtagh is a reader in the School of Planning, Architecture and Civil

Engineering at the Queens University Belfast. He has researched and written
widely on ethnic segregation, urban planning and social economics.
Andries Odendaal is a senior associate at the Centre for Mediation in Africa,

University of Pretoria. He was a regional coordinator of the Western Cape
Peace Committee during South Africa’s transition to democracy in the early
1990s, and subsequently a project coordinator at the Centre for Conflict Res-
olution, University of Cape Town. He has written several journal articles and
book chapters, as well as A Crucial Link: Local Peace Committees and National
Peacebuilding (2013).
Jenny Pearce is Professor of Latin American Politics in the Department of Peace

Studies, University of Bradford, England. Her research focuses on violence,
social change, peacebuilding and participation in Latin America, particularly
Colombia and Central America, and she has published widely in these fields.
She has also worked on methodologies for researching violence, security and
peace, and since 2010 has collaborated with the Observatorio de Seguridad
Humana of Medellin on a participatory approach to building security in
contexts of chronic violence.
Sorpong Peou is a professor and chair of the Department of Politics and Pub-
lic Administration, Ryerson University, Toronto. Formerly, he served as chair
of the Department of Political Science, University of Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Prior to these appointments, he was Professor of International Security at
Sophia University, Tokyo, and a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian
Notes on the Contributors xix
Studies (Singapore). His fields of academic expertise are security and democ-
racy studies, with a regional focus on the Asia-Pacific. His publications include
Human Security Studies: Theories, Methods and Themes (2014), Peace and Security
in the Asia-Pacific (2010), Human Security in East Asia: Challenges for Collabora-
tive Action (ed., 2008) and International Democracy Assistance for Peacebuilding:
Cambodia and Beyond (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). He is on the editorial boards
of Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies (Palgrave Macmillan) and the peer-
reviewed journal Asian Politics & Policy and serves as a regional editor of the
peer-reviewed journal The Asian Journal of Peacebuilding.
Jenny H. Peterson works in the Department of Political Science and Van-

tage College at the University of British Columbia. She is broadly interested
in the politics of international aid, with her past work analysing process of lib-
eral peacebuilding and critiques thereof. Engaging with debates on agonism,
resistance, hybridity and political space, she is now exploring diversity and
innovation, both local and international, in peace/justice movements.
Tejendra Pherali is Senior Lecturer in Education and International Devel-

opment at the UCL Institute of Education, University College London. His
research, teaching and consultancy focus mainly on interactions between edu-
cation, conflict and post-conflict peacebuilding in fragile environments. He
was the coordinator of a recently completed European Erasmus Intensive Pro-
gramme on Globalisation, Conflict and Learning Societies, in partnership with
four European universities from Denmark, Finland, Estonia and the UK. He was
also the principal investigator of an international research project on develop-
ing a higher education course on teacher education programmes in Cambodia
and Nepal. He is currently leading an inter-sectoral research project that focuses
on educational and health responses to the Syrian refugee crisis in Jordan
and Lebanon. His research publications have appeared in international jour-
nals, including International Journal of Educational Development and Prospects.
He holds a PhD in education and post-conflict peacebuilding, with a specific
focus on Maoist rebellion and school education in Nepal.
Nilanjana Premaratna is a PhD candidate at the School of Political Science and

International Studies, University of Queensland. Her current research focuses
on the role of theatre for peacebuilding in South Asia. She has published on art,
gender, peacebuilding and local conflict resolution methods in Sri Lanka.
Nicholas Rengger is Professor of Political Theory and International Relations at

the University of St Andrews and head of the School of International Relations.
He is also a Carnegie Council Global Ethics Fellow emeritus at the Carnegie
Council for Ethics and International Affairs, New York. He has held visiting
xx Notes on the Contributors
positions at the London School of Economics (1992), University of Southern

California (1995–96) and Centre for Theology and Philosophy at the University
of Nottingham (2010), and has served on the Executive of the British Interna-
tional Studies Association (2003–10) and the Governing Council of the Royal
Institute for International Affairs, Chatham House (1997–2010). He is a fellow
of the Academia Europaea.
Geneviève Souillac is presently conducting research on peace ethics at the

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in the Faculty of Theology and Religious Stud-
ies. Previously, she was senior university researcher in the Tampere Peace
Research Institute (TAPRI) at the University of Tampere, Finland, Senior Asso-
ciate Professor of Philosophy and Peace Studies at the International Christian
University in Tokyo, Japan, lecturer at Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and
Conflict Studies in Sydney, Australia, and earlier, academic program associate
at the United Nations University’s Peace and Governance Program in Tokyo,
where she directed a project on the ethics of international NGOs which led
to the publication Ethics in Action (2006). Her interests include contemporary
European philosophy, the philosophy and ethics of peace, religious ethics, and
civilizational dialogue. She is the author of Human Rights in Crisis. The Sacred
and the Secular in Contemporary French Thought (2005), The Burden of Democracy.
The Claims of Cultures, Public Culture, and Democratic Memory (2011) and A Study
in Transborder Ethics: Justice, Citizenship, Civility (2012).
Ashok Swain is Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University

and a professor at the Uppsala Centre for Sustainable Development, Depart-
ment of Earth Sciences. He holds a PhD from the Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi, and since 1991 he has been teaching at the Uppsala University.
He has been a MacArthur Fellow at the University of Chicago and a visit-
ing professor at the UN Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva;
University Witwatersrand, South Africa; University of Science, Malaysia; Uni-
versity of British Columbia; University of Maryland; Stanford University; and
McGill University. He has written extensively on security and development
issues.
Patrick Tom is co-founder, writer, editor and proof-reader at Mindleag Limited

and board member of the Zimbabwe Policy Dialogue Institute. He holds a PhD
in international relations from the University of St Andrews. He has taught
philosophy at the University of Zimbabwe, Arrupe College, United Theologi-
cal College and Christian College of Southern Africa, Zimbabwe. He interned
at the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, Uganda, where he developed
a human rights training manual for the organization’s schools outreach pro-
gramme. His research interests include local and international peacebuilding,
Notes on the Contributors xxi
African politics, conflict transformation, environmental philosophy, NGOs and

peacebuilding, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Nicos Trimikliniotis is an associate professor at the School of Social Sciences,

University of Nicosia. He heads the Cyprus team for the Fundamental Rights
Agency of the EU. He is also a practising barrister. He has researched on integra-
tion, citizenship, education, migration, racism, free movement of workers, EU
law, discrimination and labour law. He is the national expert for Cyprus for the
European Labour Law Network. He is part of the international team working
on world deviance, which has produced Gauging and Engaging Deviance 1600–
2000 (2014) and is currently working on its sequel Scripts of Defiance. His work
includes: Mobile Commons, Migrant Digitalities and the Right to the City (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2015), Beyond a Divided Cyprus: A State and Society in Transformation
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), The Nation-State Dialectic and the State of Excep-
tion (2010) and Rethinking the Free Movement of Workers: The European Challenges
Ahead (2009).
Polly O. Walker is of Cherokee and Anglo-American descent, and is a member

of the Cherokee Southwest Township in New Mexico. She serves as Assistant
Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Juniata College, lecturer at James
Cook University and chair of the Indigenous Education Institute. She holds
a PhD in conflict transformation from the University of Queensland. Her work
has appeared in a range of peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes, and
focuses on conflict transformation involving Indigenous and settler peoples,
recentring Indigenous knowledge systems, and the role of ritual and cere-
mony in peacebuilding. She is co-editor of Acting Together on the World Stage:
Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict. Vol. I Resistance and Recon-
ciliation in Regions of Violence and Vol. II Building Just and Inclusive Communities,
contributor to the documentary Acting Together on the World Stage and co-author
of the Acting Together Toolkit.
Alison Watson is Professor of International Relations at the University of St

Andrews, UK, and a member of the Centre for Global Constitutionalism. Her
primary research interest lies in an emphasis upon grassroots perspectives on
peace and peacebuilding. This has included a body of work on the place of chil-
dren and youth in the international system and an ongoing examination into
questions of rights and agency. She is currently working on issues surrounding
the rights and representations of Indigenous peoples in North America and East
Africa.
Philippa Williams is Lecturer in Human Geography at Queen Mary Uni-

versity of London and holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her
xxii Notes on the Contributors
research is animated by questions concerning violence and non-violence, cit-

izenship and justice, marginalization and the politics of development. She is
currently involved in projects on the geographies of peace, material politics
of transnational citizenship, social and labour mobility in India’s post-liberal
economy and the politics of development in India.
Introduction
Oliver P. Richmond, Sandra Pogodda and Jasmin Ramović
Dimensions of peace: Disaggregating disciplinary and regional

approaches
Recent developments and debates have outlined the need for more inter-
disciplinary work in international relations and peace and conflict studies.
Scholars, students and policy makers are often disillusioned with universalist
and Northern-dominated approaches, in terms of methodology and epistemol-
ogy.1 Universal blueprints on how to promote, build and sustain peace have
to contend with not only ineffective policy designs, but also resistance within
their ‘subject’ populations.2 What is needed is a better understanding of the
variations of peace and its building blocks, both theoretically, in different aca-
demic disciplines, and empirically, across different regions, in order to promote
a more differentiated notion of peace based on comparative analysis.3 Such an
aim points to significant methodological requirements.4
This endeavour is particularly relevant given the recent centennial anniver-
sary of the start of the First World War, which set in motion the fall of European
empires and influenced perceptions on a number of important issues such as
the state, nationalism, genocide, hegemony, democracy and decolonization.
One consequence was the establishment of the discipline of international rela-
tions (IR), which, in its early days at least, had peace – through international
organization – at its focus. One century later, it is crucial to revisit the question
of peace in IR and how the discipline has moved away from its original focus.
Moreover, this anniversary provides an incentive to compare how perceptions
and practices of peace have evolved over time in different parts of the world and
across different disciplines. The twentieth century saw the development of late
colonial, social and authoritarian versions of peace, and contemporary liberal
peace arguments. The end of direct colonialism, and later the Cold War, was fol-
lowed by the emergence of liberal internationalism, which has now morphed
into liberal institutionalism, the democratic peace and the liberal peace – all
variations on a similar theme. This evolution has formed the backbone of the
1
2 Introduction
contemporary architecture for peace. However, it is currently being challenged

from a range of perspectives, including by state and non-state actors, markets
and capital, and various organizations, as well as from different normative and
cultural positions.
For example, the recent rise of non-Northern actors has increasingly led
to their associated interests and values being inserted into debates and pol-
icy. To a greater or lesser extent, this has been reflected across the different
venues for peacemaking. These include a powerful internal critique of Western
social science and its epistemic power. Further challenges have arisen from
the contradictions within the liberal democratic, capitalist peace model. Such
dynamics represent a moving target for scholars. Nonetheless, these phenom-
ena need to be captured, according to the evolving nuances in debates on peace
in disciplines other than IR and political science, as well as epistemic vari-
ations in regional studies approaches. This volume provides leading scholars
in many different areas with space to consider the social, cultural, economic,
political and environmental underpinnings of peace from their intellectual per-
spectives. In the following chapters, selected authors explain how peace is
debated and contested internally/locally, as well as their views of Northern
approaches to peacebuilding, statebuilding, development and conflict reso-
lution/transformation from these perspectives. Contributors respond to the
following questions in various ways:
(i) How is peace understood in each discipline/region?

(ii) How far does this understanding diverge from the still-dominant liberal
peace?
(iii) What are the relevant debates on peace in your field, and are they essential
within each discipline?
(iv) Has the notion of peace changed over time, and if so, what has effected
this change?
Regional experts will, moreover, try to tease out the particular, empirical char-
acteristics of peace processes, their systemic obstacles and underlying driving
forces in their areas, through the following questions:
(i) How has peace been contested in each region, by whom, through which
strategies, and to what effect?
(ii) Is peacemaking mainly a top-down project or driven by local peace
agencies (or both)?
(iii) How do international and grassroots strategies for peace interact?
Given the diversity of perspectives covered in this book, the editors cannot (and
do not want to) predict how disciplinary and regional perspectives connect.
Oliver P. Richmond, Sandra Pogodda and Jasmin Ramović 3
This book is intended to prompt this debate and illuminate the divergence and
similarities between different perspectives. That said, in the following section
we make a preliminary attempt to point to key patterns and connections. The
contributors’ chapters on disciplinary or regional debates do not present a uni-
fied approach, but they do allow the editors to capture the internal debates and
rationalities of each.
A summary of disciplinary approaches
The first section of the book outlines many important disciplinary perspec-
tives on peace. Though politics, IR and anthropology are crucial, none of
them can solve the problem of peace, from their international or grassroots
positionality, without a historical perspective on the requirements for peace
and justice. History offers a rich platform from which to view debates about
social peace, the state and international order. It enables an understanding
of the long-term practices of power and peace, and the obstacles to order
that both address. Historians have been reassessing the conventional narra-
tives of international history, particularly since the end of the Second World
War, and challenging the dominant Realist approach. Historical revisionism
provided some bases for peace historians to examine the development of the
Cold War as well as the liberal peace era, as Chapter 1, by John Gittings,
argues.
Chapter 2 covers the discipline with probably the longest-standing and (from
a critical perspective) most unsatisfactory perspective on peace. Emerging from
political theory, the debate on the good life, the nature of the state and cit-
izenship was partly aimed at understanding how peace and justice might be
aligned with politics and institutions. In its longue durée, from Plato to Cicero,
from Hobbes to Marx, and on to more contemporary debates influenced by
the likes of Foucault, there have been numerous shifts in understanding policy
making for the governance of peace. In David Chandler’s chapter, he points to
the emergence of a model of intervention, focusing on the problem of society’s
own capacities and needs and internal and organic processes. Yet, the state and
related practices of statebuilding in this guise have been paralleled by a grow-
ing scepticism over attempts to export or impose Western models based on an
epistemological consensus first resting on liberal and now on neoliberal models
of politics and statehood. The search for a linear rationality of the development
of peaceful politics, embodied in the state and its position in modern regional
relations and the global economy, has maintained an interventionist mindset,
without specialist knowledge of anything other than abstract notions of politi-
cal economy. While the first millennia of political theorizing over the state and
its relation to the good life and citizenship opened up questions of justice and
equality, recent political approaches to peace suggest a bureaucratic mentality
4 Introduction
lacking the essence of politics. This unleashes the possibility, if not the right, of
intervention.
Without an understanding of the various norms of peace and the methods
by which the search for the good life might be achieved, key disciplinary con-
tributions cannot succeed. As Nicholas Rengger argues in Chapter 3, political
and moral cases for peace tend to be problematic where they search for absolute
positions, even such as pacifism. What is more important is constant prepara-
tion and readiness for peace, a debate that has long been carried forward in
discussions of just war.
In Chapter 4 Oliver Richmond outlines how IR theory has been reluctant to
engage with peace beyond the confines of state-centric and elite relations, as
outlined in Realist and Liberal theories. Its engagement with so-called bottom-
up, social ontologies is a rather recent trend. Similarly, the development of an
empathetic account of emancipation (in its global form) based upon mutual
ontologies and methods of peace is new to the discipline. As IR theory has
evolved, it has become clearer that to understand the conditions of peace, inter-
disciplinary and cross-cutting coalitions of scholars, policy makers, individuals
and civil society actors must develop discursive understandings of peace and
its construction. Developing multiple conceptions of peace, focused upon the
everyday life of their constituents in the context of an institutional framework
and social contract, involves an exploration of different and hybrid ontologies
of peace.
Many disciplines have, at some time or other, foregrounded context, includ-
ing the subaltern, local agency and custom, as well as identity, as sources of
legitimacy and knowledge for peace. Sometimes legitimacy and knowledge are
contradictory, requiring resolution and reconciliation. Human societies wedded
to exclusive forms of identity face the same need. An anthropology of peace,
as Geneviève Souillac and Douglas P. Fry argue in Chapter 5, can serve to lay
the ground for the reconciliation of difference while also respecting this very
difference. According to the authors, all societies have conflict management
and resolution mechanisms, which challenge internal and external notions of
cultural superiority, and focus on building a normative consensus about the
necessary conditions of human well-being. At the same time, though, such
‘local knowledge’ and attendant systems are often undermined by direct and
structural forms of power (militarization, industrialization or external incur-
sions). In a pattern repeated throughout the chapters in this book, local and
indigenous conflict resolution practices do respond and try to recover, even if
they are confronted with violent change. To cope with overwhelming societal
needs, such localized praxis often turns to the international for support.
In Chapter 6, we learn that beyond the realms of rationality, facts, norms and
utilitarianism, and as we move more deeply into ethnographic considerations,
peace is connected to the aesthetics, creativity and emotions associated with
the arts. Nilanjana Premaratna and Roland Bleiker highlight several potential
contributions (while acknowledging the regressive aspects of the arts), related
to overcoming entrenched discourses in conflict-prone communities, dealing
with emotions and trauma, reaching the grassroots and bringing out multiple
and often marginal voices to create a discourse and possibly even a practice of
reconciliation.
In this direction, the debate begins to return to the social. In Chapter 7,
Nicos Trimikliniotis argues that liberal peace ‘remedies’ are no longer ade-
quate or feasible. He argues that sociological modes of explaining peace
point to a ‘critical peace’ that requires a fundamental reconsideration of
peacebuilding, peacekeeping and reconstruction. ‘Critical conflict sociology’
thus enables social self-reflexivity and transformation, so far lacking from
militarized, political or economic intervention.
Chapter 8 turns to another very controversial discipline in the discussion of
peace: economics. Brendan Murtagh examines the question of the everyday as
a source of peace from an economic perspective. He argues that neoliberalism
undermines everyday struggles and agency and the essence of society itself,
which clearly is contradictory to the aim of peace. Social economics offers one
site of agency that may recondition mainstream neoliberal economics and its
tendency to place profit and efficiency over peace even in societies where the
proscription against violence in some quarters has been lost.
The following chapter offers a new perspective on a discipline seemingly
rarely mentioned in peace and conflict studies: geography. Nick Megoran,
Fiona McConnell and Philippa Williams argue that there are shifting geo-
graphic contours of and for peace, and the discipline has long been committed
to thinking about peace. They themselves have been aiming to introduce a
more critical approach to peace within the discipline, especially relating to
‘power, equity and justice in places and between spaces’. Places and spaces
reproduce the dynamics of conflict. Hence, peace needs to be also spatially
constructed through concepts such as hospitality, cooperation and solidarity.
Such insights challenge the growing neoliberalization of the academy as well
as policy making relevant to peace matters.
In Chapter 10, Caroline Hughes traces the relationship between develop-
ment studies and peace studies. She shows how this link has consistently
reflected the ideological orientations of the great powers, something to which
both disciplines have mounted a long-standing challenge. Voices from the
Global South and from non-state institutions directed structural critiques ear-
lier on, and more recently post-structural critiques, engaging with material
and identity questions. On occasion, such critiques of mainstream develop-
ment have become influential, but these concepts were quickly translated into
something less radical than would be expected in the service of a positive
peace.
6 Introduction
If much of what has preceded represents views of peace from a

Western/Northern and Eurocentric perspective, then the next step would be to
begin to open up the historical dynamics and lingering effects of colonialism
on peace in international and domestic politics. This implies the difficult task of
teasing out the epistemic dynamics of a post-colonial understanding of peace,
as Vivienne Jabri does in Chapter 11.
Caron E. Gentry discusses how the four major world religions understand
peace in Chapter 12. She argues that all recognize that individual actions
have external impacts that need to be regulated by norms, among which non-
violence is common to all the main religions. The spiritual dimension of reli-
gions promotes creative solutions to conflicts by valorizing love, social justice
and empathy among other positive, relational qualities in a world of difference.
In Chapter 13, Annika Björkdahl and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic offer
a gender perspective of and for peace. They argue that gender issues and
feminist research have made possible an important rethinking of structure
and agency leading to a productive critique of mainstream understandings of
peace. They point to problematic assumptions related to gender and agency,
which close down the plurality of subjects and spaces involved in peace. This
points to the need for a gender-sensitive consideration of the everyday and the
connections between the personal and the international. They also point to
matters of structural violence in gendered terms, connecting it also to tempo-
ral dimensions of justice. Their complex and reflective reading leads to a clear
statement about peace from a gender perspective: peace is plural and must per-
tain at the everyday level, including gender equality as well as equal rights and
opportunities.
In Chapter 14, Tejendra Pherali analyses the connection between education
and peace. He identifies education as both the target and a tool for the perpetu-
ation of globalization’s most worrisome impacts: militarization and inequality.
In this chapter, education is characterized as a dual-purpose instrument, either
serving societal unity and the transformation of cultures of violence, or fuelling
conflict through exclusion and marginalization.
Bennett Collins and Alison Watson turn to the perspective of children and
peace in Chapter 15. The authors highlight a paradox at the heart of the liberal
peace: while children are central to contemporary conceptions of human rights,
and thus to the liberal peace project itself, they tend to remain excluded from
its conceptual development and marginalized in the practice of peace processes.
As the future of any conflict-affected society, children and their welfare should
be central to peace and its study, requiring an alternative epistemology upon
which to ground peace.
In Chapter 16, the book turns to social psychology. Shelley McKeown Jones
and Daniel J. Christie illustrate how social psychologists have enabled micro-
level perspectives of peace and war, which have not been thoroughly utilized
by peace and conflict scholars. However, they provide opportunities to build

collaborative relations across disciplines on violence in intergroup relations and
how to improve them.
The next chapter turns to humanitarianism. Jenny H. Peterson argues in
Chapter 17 that the humanitarian field is divided over the liberal peace frame-
work. The questions of who should be protected and how this can be achieved
remain unresolved in both theory and practice, despite the centrality of those
issues for the work of humanitarians. However, internal divisions over such
questions often undermine the safety of the civilian populations at whom
humanitarianism is aimed, pointing to a lack of consensus on how far and
towards what type of peace humanitarianism is willing to push.
In Chapter 18 on international law, Wendy Lambourne explains how inter-
national law has followed the liberal peace framework since the Second World
War, and since the end of the Cold War, neoliberal international law approaches
have emerged that are more focused upon enhancing human freedom through
individual human rights, transitional justice, the rule of law, democratic gov-
ernance and a neoliberal economic order. Ironically, internal contradictions in
this system undermine the prospects for transitional justice. Calls for increasing
civil society participation and empowerment indicate the need first to generate
a revolution in international law and jus post bellum.
In Chapter 19, Morgan Brigg and Polly O. Walker examine the issue of
Indigeneity. They show how Indigenous peoples have retained contextual
approaches to peace, despite the severe deformation of Indigenous societies
through colonialism and subsequent nation-building projects. Indeed, there
has been an Indigenous renaissance that shares some characteristics with
the liberal peace, but is less individualistic and less hierarchical, focusing on
alternative ontologies of relatedness across nature, aimed at broader harmony.
The contributions of critical security studies are the focus of the next chapter.
In Chapter 20, Faye Donnelly argues that there is a distinct omission of the
problem of peace, especially in more critical terms, in the context of identifying
and removing language barriers, which marginalize the subaltern.
A summary of regional approaches
The second section of the book turns to perspectives from different geographi-
cal areas of the world. Our decision as to which regions should be covered was
guided by their relevance for debates in the field of peace and conflict studies.
Chapters in this part of the book focus on the most prominent cases within
the respective regions and their connection with wider regional developments.
In Chapter 21, Andries Odendaal looks at the implications of the incomplete
peace in South Africa. Governance, he argues, is challenged by growing discon-
tent, violence and frustration over the inability of democracy to secure dignity
8 Introduction
and socio-economic equality, despite the fact that the post-Apartheid system
enjoyed high levels of legitimacy. In South Africa, societal conflict has shifted
from racial discrimination to social inequality, while political agency has leaked
from the parliament back to the streets. He points to the common pattern of
a failure to address structural inequality across levels of government, and also
built into the model of peace and the state.
In Chapter 22 on West Africa, Patrick Tom argues that ECOWAS has shown
little engagement in post-conflict peacebuilding, leaving the responsibility for
building a regional peace to external actors. As a consequence, peacebuilding in
West Africa has followed the liberal peace agenda, which seems disconnected
from local understandings of peace. However, in countries such as Sierra Leone,
hybrid peacebuilding approaches have occurred at the local level, which appear
to carry more social legitimacy.
The Great Lakes Region of Africa is the topic of Chapter 23. Josaphat
M. Bussy and Carol Jean Gallo focus on local peacebuilding in DRC by way
of a wider illustration. They highlight the difference in the local understand-
ing of peace as focused on tangible factors, in contrast to the abstract notion
of international peacebuilders with its focus on the state. The authors show
how Congolese community organizations and NGOs agree on the need for
better governance but often disagree with the implementation of models of
peacebuilding proposed by donors. Local peacebuilding is effectively under-
mined by this approach, failing to recognize the complementary capacities and
expertise that already exist to deal with localized conflicts. They argue that state
failure in the Great Lakes is an opportunity to bury the remains of the colonial
state and rebuild the country according to local needs.
In Chapter 24, on the Horn of Africa, Christopher Clapham makes a similar
argument, pointing to the importance of customary governance practices in
securing the particular type of order that a society associates with peace. The
failure of the modern state project as a product of colonialism is thus rooted
in its disconnect from local state-formation dynamics. He argues that local
solutions are the only viable way of solving the long-standing conflicts in the
region. He also agrees, as with many of our authors, that external actors have
not seized the opportunity to adapt their blueprints for peace to a ‘complex and
varied world’ in recognition of local diversity.
In Chapter 25, on South-East Asia, Sorpong Peou argues that societies in
the region tend to use liberal frameworks as guidelines for their attempts to
build peace, desiring a rule of law and retributive justice. Political leaders have
soon realized the limits of retribution, though, and moved towards political
reconciliation through compromise. He argues for a flexible approach towards
the application of liberal peacebuilding: implementing aspects most suitable
to societal notions of peace, while shunning other dimensions in danger
of contravening customary belief systems and traditional dispute resolution

practices.
Chapter 26 turns to East Asia. Ching-Chang Chen illustrates how Confucian
countries aim at peaceful interactions, and that the Sino-Japanese conflict that
arose in the late nineteenth century was seen as a breakdown of a cosmic order
of ‘social harmony through intersubjective reciprocity’. He argues that the case
of Confucian Asia reaffirms that there are, indeed, alternatives to the liberal
peace for world order, rooted in deep, reflexive traditions of conflict resolution,
even if the current nationalist East Asian order suggests otherwise.
South Asia is the focus of Chapter 27, in which Florian Krampe and Ashok
Swain examine how development has led to tensions and violence but has
also underlined the ineffectiveness of long-term state suppression. They argue
that the lesson of this region for peace is that multi-cultural democracy is
only possible on the basis of interethnic accommodation and recognition of
minorities.
Chapter 28 examines the emerging countries’ stances on peace. Kai Michael
Kenkel illustrates the broad range of their engagement across the so-called
IBSA grouping (India, Brazil and South Africa, and their partners). Peace
through development is one key approach, which tends to deviate a little
from the Northern peacebuilding consensus due to resource constraints. They
all share concerns about sovereignty and the use of force, contributing differ-
ently to peacekeeping and peacebuilding. They emphasize local ownership, are
against conditionality, want to see more sharing of information and expertise,
and try to avoid securitizing development. Inequality problems are perhaps
more important than the liberal rights agendas.
Chapter 29 turns to Central Asia, whose contested peace frameworks David
Lewis examines. He argues that liberal peace has been institutionalized but
effectively contained by authoritarian regimes. Among the different concep-
tions of peace, national elites have been able to create support for their
authoritarian model of conflict management through horizontal and vertical
connections: domestically, the model is retained through the local legiti-
macy of paternalistic authority, and regionally, through linkages with other
authoritarian elites.
In Chapter 30, Sandra Pogodda investigates the elusiveness of peace in the
Middle East and North Africa, currently two of the most contested regions on
the planet. She explains the descent of the Arab region into protracted con-
flicts as the failure of the hegemonic modes of pacification. By conflating the
modern state’s growing arsenal of techniques to control society with interna-
tional aid and links to external actors, different pacification strategies have
stabilized the region in the short term. Simultaneously, however, they have laid
the foundations for protracted conflicts. While the state has transformed from
10 Introduction
being a guarantor for political stability into the subject of contestation, it now
depends on external support and excessive violence to shore up its precarious
existence. Grassroots peace initiatives have gained more prominence due to the
crisis of the hegemonic modes of pacification, but are currently constrained by
direct and structural forms of power.
Europe is the subject of Chapter 31. Roberto Belloni argues that the under-
standing of peace in the European context is broadly a result of a long cycle of
bloody European wars, culminating in the industrial warfare of the last century.
It is based upon the pooling of sovereignty, dialogue and compromise, interna-
tional law and economic cooperation. Europe has also offered itself as a liberal
peace exemplar for other conflict-affected regions, and has sought to high-
light the significance of civil society. During and after the wars of Yugoslavia
in the 1990s, however, this strategy has been partially successful at best, and
further divisions as to the meaning of Europe and its example to others have
emerged after the recent financial crisis. Europe’s so-called ‘normative power’
and humanistic self-image have, yet again, been displaced by nationalism and
division.
Chapter 32 turns to an examination of the Balkans. Jasmin Ramović discusses
how peace is perceived in this part of Europe, which has left an important mark
on peace and conflict studies in the last two decades. He argues that the promise
of EU membership has not resulted in the desired stability of the region, and in
some cases it has even had a negative effect. The international interveners’ lack
of attention to the history and culture of the region, as well as to locally driven
initiatives, has prolonged the fragility of the region.
Roddy Brett and Diana Florez discuss peace in South America in Chapter 33,
with a particular focus on Colombia. They argue that a wide range of strategies
have been tried in South America, ranging from conventional peacebuilding
to informal approaches run by grassroots communities, about which, as
yet, not too much is known. They are clear, however, that Western mod-
els for peacebuilding are rarely suited to the diverse societies and conditions
in the region, which actually retain asymmetrical power relations. Local
peacebuilding initiatives, by contrast, often find their capacity circumscribed
in two ways: forced into the execution of ‘flat-packed’ peacebuilding strategies
by their international sponsors, and isolated from the national debate of wider
conflict issues due to their local focus.
Jenny Pearce examines peace in Central America in Chapter 34. She questions
the significance of peace processes, which have failed to reduce violence or
stimulate development. She argues that the state has generally failed to support
local peacebuilding initiatives, especially in cases where indigenous peoples
were involved. She argues that this is mainly because the state in the region
represents a small minority, which tries to evade the costs of peacebuilding and
development. This has been aided by contradictory international dynamics:
international peacebuilding actors have tried to compensate for the lack of state
investment in peace, while the international financial institutions have further
reduced state capacity for development. As a consequence, violence prolifer-
ates and reproduces across countries like El Salvador and Guatemala. Where
organizational processes during the war foster conscious, grassroots agency, the
possibilities for continuing the struggles for development, justice and violence
reduction after war remain.
Henry F. Carey discusses perspectives of peace from a North American stand-
point in Chapter 35. He argues that many scholars regard peace studies as
not a legitimate field of studies because it is interdisciplinary, non-realist and
non-positivist. This means that peace and pacifism are viewed as normative
rather than scientific approaches. However, the US has many peace studies
programmes in its universities, and many peace organizations across society.
Many are involved in transnational peace movements, including the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions campaign in Palestine. While many traditional peace
movements have lost prominence in the public discourse, a revival of the civil
rights movements may refocus peace as a domestic rather than a foreign policy
issue.
Finally, and perhaps crucially, Volker Boege examines the Pacific region in
Chapter 36. He argues that the region has historically been peaceful because of
local norms and justice practices, though the arrival of the modern state has
produced violence, and has often been divorced from everyday life. However,
people are negotiating new forms of political order beyond the liberal peace
framework. In general, peace is and has been maintained by long-standing
forms of political authority, including village chiefs and clan elders, healers,
male and female community leaders, and church leaders.
A prelude to any findings
Amidst these rich chapters and this wealth of information and detail, some
common disciplinary and regional patterns have emerged. Some level of com-
plementarity exists, but there are also widely perceived shortcomings and
tensions within the various discussions of peace. This can be seen clearly in
the debates on political and international theory, just war in political philos-
ophy, peace and pacifism in the early chapters, as well as Eurocentric versus
post-colonial approaches. The nature, types, roots and consequences of vio-
lence, its impact on order, and the best frameworks for subsequent peaceful
political institutions, norms, law and discourses are the subjects of, and are at
stake in, each of the chapters of this volume.
Most prominent across all the theory chapters – and in some regional
chapters – is the common tension between theory and practice, whereby most
theorists work on the basis of a positive and hybrid form of peace, whereas
12 Introduction
policy and practice point to a negative or minimally liberal form because they
are intensely aware of the constraints of power, interests and sovereign claims.
Theorists remain less wedded to territorial or identity fixity than policy makers
(though sometimes they also see it as the basis of a negative peace), arguing
for sustainability across political communities and the environment as a global
commons, rather than within sovereign boundaries. Underlying many of these
chapters (as well as some of the regional chapters, most obviously in Belloni’s
chapter on peace in Europe) is the prominence (in mainly positive forms) of
Kantian thought’s many insights.
Some chapters point to various levels of analysis and their contradictions
(international versus state or local), while others point to questions of power,
interest or justice, and the global economy, as either positive or negative for
the goal of peacemaking. Some pinpoint particular levels as being crucial for
peace, and in particular its legitimacy, though they are also sanguine about
the extent of difference that can be tolerated in the state or at the interna-
tional level. Some point to hitherto little understood patterns or dynamics of
history. Others emphasize local agency and custom, the arts, or the need for
international practices of intervention that may overcome power and interests
that give rise to conflict, in order to address root causes. Some chapters iden-
tify governance as a positive ordering framework (potentially at least), whereas
others see governance as implicated in long-standing power structures rooted
in materiality, neoliberal globalization, the continuation of colonialism, and
its implication in development. Keynesian versus Hayekian versions of peace
are implicit in many of the volume’s chapters. Gender, children, Indigeneity,
international law, and commensurate humanitarian social and international
practices are clearly crucial to much of this analysis, but are often ignored in
the mainstream perspective, or added on as a form of political correctness. The
chapter on religion points to different, but also complementary, deeply rooted
traditions of social order and norms. Furthermore, as Faye Donnelly points out,
given the dominance of concerns about security in theory and policy across
social, state and international scales, how security is constructed inevitably
plays a major role in determining actual peace, and peace as an objective of
society, the state and the international.
In the regional chapters, different types of peace processes are criticized: for
their inability to reduce violence and generate development, for being limited
to conflict management strategies, or for acting as smokescreens to conceal the
modus operandi of direct and structural power.5 Prominence is often accorded
to lingering colonial legacies, concerns about Western or Northern dominance
of the international system, institutions and economy, and the potential of
alternative worldviews or systems. Common mention is made of local agency,
strategies for empowerment, and the broader structural problems of violence
and poverty in society, seen through an identity or contextual lens. Resistance
is often discussed as a productive force with a goal of emancipation and

social justice defined in contextual terms. There is also some debate over what
types of justice are needed after conflict, ranging from different approaches of
legal justice to socio-economic justice. The pros and cons of the paternalistic,
trusteeship approaches inherent in liberal peace, or of a more communitar-
ian world and social order, are debated across the thematic and disciplinary
chapters, through bottom-up and top-down perspectives. The question of what
is a ‘good society’, a ‘good state’ and peaceful ‘international order’, or whether
they have to be conformist and mutually recognized under a ‘commonwealth’,
is also crucial.
The everyday and difference are often highlighted across the book, with
methodological implications. Different components of justice, for instance,
are examined through divergent academic lenses, but often require a cross-
disciplinary understanding of the subject: legal justice mechanisms have to be
embedded in sociological and anthropological understandings of what consti-
tutes ‘justice’ in any given context. Here, global and domestic notions of justice
might diverge, translating into conflicting practices that could derail societal
reconciliation. While the international pursuit of retribution meets local expec-
tations in some contexts, it intensifies societal divisions in others. Truth seeking
and memorialization are often neglected, as our case studies show, closing
important avenues for reconciliation across conflict-induced divides. Socio-
economic justice, by contrast, needs to be based on local expectations of rights
and needs, which tend to be neglected by political economy analysis. While the
global economy and domestic business interests might set powerful constraints
on the formulation of development policies, domestic economic orders will
lack legitimacy as long as they are detached from society’s moral expectations
regarding redistributive justice and equal access to income opportunities. This is
clearly connected, as David Lewis’ chapter makes clear, to the age-old problem
of how to construct legitimate, representative forms of authority, and further-
more, as Volker Boege’s chapter makes clear, how different forms of legitimate
authority, from local to global scales, interact with, contest or complement each
other. Is something approaching absolute unity needed for peace, or the con-
stant mediation of often acute difference in complex systems of coexistence?
All scales offer contradictory perspectives on this question: societies and states
seek unity, as does the international, but many critical thinkers and policy mak-
ers point to the conceptually difficult requirement of both incorporating and
bridging acute differences, across identity, scales, interests, cultures and posi-
tionalities. Some authors also point to other versions of the international, and
their contests over the nature of order itself.
Organizing peace is clearly messy and unpredictable. Indeed, the very essence
of the concept of peace varies too much between different contexts to allow
uniform principles for its organization. Most of our regional chapters see
14 Introduction
peace as historically rooted, emanating from society and institutions, perhaps

captured in the nature of social organization, or the state, and certainly an
ongoing, but incomplete, process. David Lewis reminds us, though, that soci-
etal notions of peace are ‘not static sets of ideas, waiting to be “discovered”
by anthropologists, but constantly shifting notions of how to achieve peaceful
lives in difficult political, economic and social situations’. Divergent concep-
tions of peace within the population – often varying between peace as stability,
social unity or socio-economic justice, and equal rights – might deliberately
not be bridged at the national level of policy making. Instead, governments
may anchor particularistic models of conflict management or pacification at
the community level by connecting with traditional hierarchies, while strik-
ing political alliances with like-minded regional and international elites. Such
strategies amount to hegemonic modes of peace production, as Sandra Pogodda
suggests. The ways in which those modes are imposed on resistant populations
again vary widely: from fostering the governmentality of authoritarian stability
as the only reliable form of political order to the oppression of pluralistic and
emancipatory approaches to peace by means of direct and structural violence.
The state apparatus holds a powerful position in either establishing differ-
ent modes of oppressive political stability, enabling positive forms of peace,
or mediating between external demands for a liberal peace and local notions
of peace through hybrid institutions. Christopher Clapham suggests that state
institutions have to be constructed around local notions of a desirable form of
order in order to contribute to peace. The imposition of the modern state, by
contrast, has led in some regional contexts to a rupture of local state-formation
dynamics. This has created or deepened social divisions and often discon-
nected social from political order. Conflict prevails where the political is severed
from the social sphere with its specific customary, religious and moral content.
The modern state has influenced the mindset of several generations through
its governmentality, though, rendering the identification of legitimate local
forms of governance a challenging task. As Tejendra Pherali argues, however,
governmentality’s capacity to reproduce inequalities and normalize injustices
through education has to be re-evaluated in the light of the latest wave of
revolutions and growing political violence against marginalization.
Fluid notions of legitimacy might explain why self-determination becomes
a risky strategy. Mentioned in several chapters as the common aspiration of
oppressed groups, self-determination throws up manifold contradictions in
peace and conflict studies. Despite the hopes pinned on autonomy as eman-
cipation and ultimately peace, self-determination has in practice often turned
out to be messy, violent, discriminatory and, indeed, little more than the rein-
vention of power in a different guise. The current war in South Sudan and the
post-independence woes of Kosovo and Timor are striking reminders of this.
Without an oppressive power throwing issues of legitimacy into sharp relief, a
shared vision of a positive project for independence might soon become blurred
and provide the same temptations of power as any state-formation project.
Inequality is also an issue regularly raised, often in an attack on neoliberal
forms of statebuilding masquerading as peace. This critique extends to the
viability and efficacy of international institutions and policies. Perhaps most
notably, locality, context, scale and legitimacy are also regularly pointed to
as crucial. This also highlights common internal political divisions over any
response or the nature of peace and the state, as well as divisions between the
local and the international.
Many authors indicate the necessity, and sometimes the presence, of inter-
subjectivity in mediating institutions, norms and practices that have emerged
as a result of conflict. Harmony and reconciliation in socially determined ways
are regularly alluded to at the local or state levels. Different worldviews, if not
lifeworlds, are prominent across regions. It is clear that such perspectives are
emergent in IR, with a range of so far little-understood effects.
In practice, most authors acknowledge that structural and direct power con-
straints, the current international political and economic hierarchy, and the
way it is translated into methodology and theory in mainstream and positivist
disciplinary thinking or regional studies, mean that theory and practice for
peace diverge widely. They are part of a broad struggle over the nature of poli-
tics itself. A common refrain of the chapters is that differences in identity and
interests are generally not well handled – or even reinforced – at state or inter-
national level. Societies themselves may also be implicated in mono-identity,
territorial formulations. The global governance system, the globalized economy
and the modern state do not appear entirely fit for the purpose of a positive
hybrid peace. Social peace practices, by contrast, lack the power and reach to
overcome significant political and economic obstacles, meaning that many of
our regional chapters discuss long-standing and protracted conflicts (often, as
a consequence, captured in theoretical discussions about state formation and
revolution). The practice of peace is related to forms of governance that, in the
contemporary world, often foreground assimilative power and interests over
mediated norms and autonomy. The former are based on the state’s or system’s
categorization techniques, global governance in the international economy,
and the residue of colonial and state-centric forms of governance. The latter,
now increasingly mentioned, is a post-colonial or even anti-colonial narrative
of peace. However, most authors problematize many of these practices and
their associated categories, levels and epistemologies, arguing that most are not
sustainable in the longer term, legitimate with local populations, or scalable to
the global without ongoing forms of domination. Most authors indicate that
they feel the peace extant in their area of interest is inferior, anachronistic, or
subject to pressures that should or could be resolved by policy makers with
material power but limited theoretical frameworks at their command.
16 Introduction
One further common thread that needs to be emphasized is that many of the
chapters point to local agency as a basis for identifying the legitimate nature of
peace and the state, how people organize their everyday life in regard to extant
contextual approaches, views, norms and cultures, and the impact these have
upon the state. Hence, grassroots movements figure very strongly in building
influence over power and the state. Yet, such everyday approaches are also gen-
erally critiqued for not having the material capacity to change the structures
that give rise to violence, rebuild a peaceful state or community, and establish a
sustainable governance system from local to global scales. They cannot address
global or historical injustice without concerted external help. Outside actors
have limited capacities and perspectives, though, and are biased by their own
material and historical positionalities.
Among these discussions, the liberal peace remains a reference point for
many chapters in providing a basic level of understanding, and a practical form,
of peace. Indeed, political philosophy and theory would expect as much. Many
chapters, however, point to the limitations of the liberal peace in terms of prac-
tical implementation and its relationship with contextual forms of political
legitimacy. Some point to its implication in neoliberal development and glob-
alization, and the impact this has on communities struggling for peace and
justice together. Despite the many different customs and discourses relating to
peace that are on view in the chapters based on area studies, it is apparent,
however, that many of them recognize the need to respect difference, to build
bridges and to create institutions capable of discursively mediating political
power. Whether a peace is built from the ground up, or from the top down
by external institutions, or as a fluid and scalar hybrid system, there is a sense
that a balance needs to be negotiated between local and international justice
and law, contextual political legitimacy and the liberal peace system, as well
as between neoliberal economic development and community-based economic
systems. This balance requires constant recalibration and could be replaced by
a new, more sophisticated theoretical framework in the longer term. As long
as international actors use their material leverages to determine the outcome of
this negotiation, peacebuilding will remain contested as a neo-colonial practice.
However, across all of the chapters there are hints of an underlying agree-
ment that at least a liberal peace system is the basis for local and international
peace architecture, non-violence is preferable to violence of a direct or struc-
tural sort, and peace requires dense sets of institutional, social and political
networks and law, which must reflect the societies they emanate from as well
as global concerns and norms. There are also examples of many practical inno-
vations at the local and regional levels in the book’s chapters, also captured
in more critical theoretical approaches in each discipline. Public fora are used
by local, transnational and trans-scalar, often transversal, networks and criti-
cal agency; public and private demands on the state and the international are
represented in critical disciplinary discussions across disciplines. They represent

powerful evidence on the nature of peace for the contemporary era (as well as
in history). They intersect around claims for ever more sophisticated forms of
rights, justice, and material support and solidarity. They address the deep struc-
tural question of equality and systems which promote it in order to create wide
consensus for justice. They reflect a common agreement that negative forms of
peace, or long-standing structural violence across regions and disciplines, are
sources of conflict. They point to the fact that the negative forms of peace that
exist currently are fragile and liable to collapse at any moment, and that situ-
ations of low-level violence (including in structural terms) must be addressed.
A common underlying theme of many of the chapters is that any legitimate
political system, from local to international, must attempt to address these defi-
ciencies if it is to maintain its legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens. This dynamic
of legitimacy must also be recognized and built into the wide range of repre-
sentational and material claims that are now moving into general focus around
the world.
The book’s diverse chapters appear to indicate that while theory confirms
this as self-evident, the associated practices and methodologies of the current
international system, and the ‘ideal’ nature of the state and economy, lag far
behind. This suggests that such scientific evidence must be foregrounded over
the unrealistic and dangerous hope that maintaining situations of patent vio-
lence and injustice can be used to protect interests and existing hierarchies.
Such insights have been regularly repeated over the 50 years’ or more history
of peace and conflict studies in the wider academy. It is time now to take this
evidence seriously and avoid the pitfalls that the challenges of the twenty-first
century might bring, which, if judged by its first decade, might be as challeng-
ing as the previous one. We hope that more notice will now be taken as the
available evidence becomes more and more comprehensive.
Notes
1. Vivienne Jabri, Discourses on Violence: Conflict Analysis Reconsidered (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1996); Kevin Avruch, Context and Pretext in Conflict
Resolution: Culture, Identity, Power, and Practice (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers,
2012).
2. Oliver P. Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace (London: Routledge, 2011).
3. David Mitrany, A Working Peace System (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1944): John
Burton, World Society (Cambridge University Press, 1972): Johan Galtung, Peace by
Peaceful Means (London: Sage, 1996).
4. Morgan Brigg and Roland Bleiker, Mediating across Difference: Oceanic and Asian
Approaches to Conflict Resolution (Honolulu: University Of Hawaii Press, 2010).
5. For different types of power and their relevance in peace and conflict studies, see
Oliver Richmond, ‘The Paradox of Peace and Power: Contamination or Enablement?’
International Politics, 2016 (forthcoming).
Part I
Disciplinary Perspectives
1
Peace in History
John Gittings
A war historian studies the history of war: no one will quibble with that def-
inition. To say that a peace historian studies the history of peace raises more
difficult questions. We may disregard the objection of those who believe that
peace is merely the absence of war and that consequently the peace historian
has very little to work on. All the contributors to this volume, at least, believe
that peace is a rich and varied subject and that whole tracts of the subject have
yet to be fully explored. We may also resist the criticism that peace historians
risk compromising their integrity by becoming advocates of peace. As a gener-
alization, this is no more true than to say that war historians are all advocates
of war. Yet the real question for peace historians, and one which complicates
the definition of ‘peace history’, is this: to what extent should peace historians
confine themselves to the study of peace advocacy and argument in history,
and how far should they engage directly with the dominant (and peace-averse)
historical narrative of war? Indeed, the subject has been defined in both of these
ways. The first task is vast in itself, given the lack of coverage and low visibility
of peace advocacy and peace thinking in most orthodox histories. The efforts
of the peace societies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for
example, still do not feature as prominently as they should in most diplomatic
histories of the run-up to the First World War – and are sometimes ignored
altogether. The same is equally or even more true of most peace advocacy in
earlier ages – as I shall show later in the case of Desiderius Erasmus. The second
task requires the peace historian to go further, and often to challenge accepted
truths in the established fields of war history and international relations. Both
tasks are well illustrated if we consider how peace historians may approach the
history of the 40 years and more of Cold War. It is already a major exercise to
chart and analyse the influence of the anti-war and peace movements upon
the course of the Cold War (as has been done brilliantly by the US historian
Lawrence Wittner). It is a separate but equally essential exercise to submit con-
ventional views of the Cold War to rigorous scrutiny and to show how, in many
21
22 Part I: Disciplinary Perspectives
respects, they are flawed. The peace historian, in this instance, has to become a
war historian – or at least a Cold War historian.
‘What is peace history?’ asks the peace historian Charles F. Howlett in a recent
history of the American peace movement. ‘It is defined as the historical study
of non-violent efforts for peace and social justice’.1 ‘Peace history’ is sometimes
regarded as a shortened version of the phrase ‘peace research in history’, which
also implies a focus upon peace activism and argument. (The Peace History Soci-
ety in the US changed its name in 1994 from the original name of the Council
for Peace Research in History, chosen when it was first set up in 1963–64.) Peace
history has also been defined as the study of ‘ideas, individuals and organisa-
tions concerned with the promotion of peace and the prevention of war and
international conflict’.2 Taken literally, this type of definition can lead to a form
of ghettoization of peace history in which the peace advocates of today spend
most of their time researching and celebrating the peace advocates of the past.
And since the advocacy of their predecessors was usually unsuccessful, this can
expose contemporary peace history to the charge of being irrelevant to the ‘real
world’. However, it is also realized that the study of ‘[peace] ideas, individuals
and organisations’ should lead on to a broader critique of majority historical
narratives. The history of peace advocacy in the US, writes its chronicler Charles
Chatfield, is part of a challenge to the dominant consensus view of history.3
Another US historian, David Patterson, suggests that ‘the best peace research
will be related to questions of broader, more universal concerns’, noting that it
has already offered ‘penetrating critiques of the Cold War and its redefinition
of national security targets in terms of military power’.4
Periodization of peace
There are a number of books in print which offer a history of warfare, or a time-
line of wars, sometimes taking the narrative back as far as the late Bronze Age.
No one would query the conceptual approach behind such works: wars can be
named and assigned to a chronology; the science of war can be discussed and
its development can be charted. Questions may be raised, however, if a peace
historian adopts the same approach, surveying the science of peace over past
millennia, or constructing a timeline of ‘peaces’ (there is no logical reason not
to use the word in the plural, and yet it jars). It is easier to regard peace as
the interval between wars than to regard war as the interval between peaces,
and yet for the peace historian the two propositions are equally valid. Formal
‘peaces’ such as those established by treaty (e.g. the Peace of Nicias, 421 BC;
the Peace of Westphalia, AD 1648) may be readily identified. Broader periods
of peace in which substantial populations enjoy freedom from war over a sig-
nificant length of time (the Ptolemaic Peace, 287–225 BC; the European Peace,
AD 1818–48) are also visible. Their limitations may be discussed – for instance,
John Gittings 23
the ultimate reliance on armed force, as in the Pax Romana, or the persistence
of social violence and local conflict – but they remain periods of predominant
peace. When we consider the phenomenon of war in human society, we are
entitled to take equal account of the phenomenon of peace. Pioneering work
in the quantitative study of war was carried out from the 1930s through to the
1950s separately by Lewis Fry Richardson, Pitirim Sorokin and Quincy Wright,
from whose work some conclusions on the frequency of peace may be drawn.5
Otherwise, only isolated attempts have been made. One study of peace in the
ancient world challenges the view of its history as a tale of unrelieved war: the
authors, Matthew Melko and Richard Weigel, identify ten ancient ‘world peri-
ods of peace’, starting with the Middle Kingdom in Egypt (1991–1720 BC) and
concluding with the Hispanic-Roman period on the Iberian Peninsula (19 BC to
AD 409).6 An idiosyncratic work by a German scholar in the 1950s, advocating
a United States of Europe, sought to show that European Union would be the
successor to a series of ‘epochs of peace’ which included long war-free periods
in China, Japan and Latin America.7 The US peace scholar Kenneth Boulding
has attempted a more general definition of war and peace as ‘proportions of
human activity’ through calculating the proportion of GDP spent on the war
industry (defined very widely) in the US and other major countries, concluding
that it is doubtful whether war over time ‘has averaged more than 5 or at most
10 per cent of human activity’.8 We may conclude that the periodization of
peace (which is only meaningful if allied to a rigorous definition of peace) is a
field wide open for further research, though its findings would still be subject
to different interpretations. If it is true, for example, that periods of peace in
excess of a quarter of a century are extremely rare (as argued by Sorokin), is
such a period to be regarded as short or long?
In restoring peace to a historical narrative dominated by war, the peace
historian also seeks to counter the bias of ‘democratic peace’ theory, which
effectively minimizes the significance of both actual peace and action for peace
in the centuries of pre-modern, and largely pre-democratic or less ‘civilized’,
history. Exponents of ‘liberal peace’ show little interest in peace thought and
argument before Immanuel Kant, who is seen as foreshadowing their theory
in his essay on Perpetual Peace. The theory also has a vested interest in show-
ing that peace has become more widespread in more modern democratic and
‘civilized’ times. Influential exponents today include the war historian Azar
Gat, for whom liberal democracy has fundamentally reduced the prevalence of
war, and the cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, whose latest work argues in very
broad terms that modernity and culture have brought about a drastic decline
in violence.9
Further clarification of the periodization of peace will assist the peace his-
torian to investigate the conditions under which peace has been secured and
the means by which it is maintained. The reasons for its breakdown are also
of obvious interest, although this area is more likely to have been covered by
the war historian. The imbalance of studies of societies at war and societies at
peace has long been noted, though this has begun to be redressed in recent
decades. Publication of A Natural History of Peace (1996), edited by Thomas
Gregor, following a conference which brought together scholars from various
disciplines, was a significant step forward. In the concluding essay on ‘under-
standing peace’, John Vasquez argued that ‘a successful peace is not a negative
achievement’ but a positive and rational process which established ‘rules of
the game’ and combined self-interest with issues of legitimacy and morality.10
A volume of essays by European scholars has also sought to adopt a more his-
torically sensitive approach to both peace and war on the European continent,
rejecting what the editors regard as the ‘essentially ahistorical view of war and
peace that dominates most IR theory’.11
Classical peace
The standard view of ancient and classical history has been to regard it
as dominated by martial values and chronic warfare, stretching from pre-
dynastic China through the empires of the Near East to Greece and Rome.
The Greek example has been especially prominent over a whole millennium,
from Mycenaean Greece to the Persian, Peloponnesian and subsequent wars of
city-state Greece. A recent editor of the Iliad describes Homer’s work ‘as a glo-
rification of war and as the definition of a man as a skilled fighting machine’,
while a textbook on warfare in ancient Greece tells us that ‘a hostile relation-
ship was assumed to be the norm between Greek states’.12 Yet we are faced with
what one classical scholar has described as ‘the paradox of war’ in ancient lit-
erature: that ‘the prominence of war is disproportionate to its frequency and
significance in practice’.13 A more nuanced view has begun to emerge in recent
classical scholarship, in which war is regarded more as a social than as a purely
military phenomenon, and as a result more attention is paid to the ancient
Greek concern for peace, and the means adopted to achieve or maintain it.
An early attempt by the Italian scholar-diplomat Gerardo Zampagliano to
explore ‘the idea of peace’ in both classical Greece and Rome (1967) is still the
only general survey of this topic.14 However, the conventional view of Homer
as wholly concerned with strife and warlike qualities has been considerably
modified. More weight is now attached to the peaceful images conveyed in
Homer’s famous similes, which provide a pacific counterpoint to his narrative
of war. His equally famous description of the Shield of Achilles, decorated for
the most part with scenes of peace rather than war, has also received more
attention. Homer’s message is that humans aspire not to blood and violence
but to such hedonistic pursuits as song and dance, feasting and making love,
the Oxford classicist Oliver Taplin has suggested.15
John Gittings 25
More emphasis is also placed now on the elaborate institutions of inter-

state diplomacy in classical Greece, through which considerable efforts were
made to keep the peace by truce and treaty. The single-minded Thucydidean
emphasis on war, it is noted, says little about periods of peace, and sometimes
ignores successful peace diplomacy altogether. Greek drama has also been scru-
tinized for more insight into popular attitudes towards war and peace; the
plays of Euripides, for example, reveal a deep concern with the immorality
of war. The murderous behaviour of Sophocles’ Ajax is seen by the classicist
(and Vietnam veteran) Lawrence Tritle as showing the symptoms of what we
now know as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.16 By contrast, scholarly perception
of early Chinese attitudes to peace and war has hardened in recent scholar-
ship in a more war-oriented direction. The earlier view, strongly influenced by
the research into Chinese science and civilization of the Cambridge sinologist
Joseph Needham, and later by the US China historian John K. Fairbank, saw the
emerging Chinese imperial system as one which emphasized pacific (wen) over
martial (wu) values. Thus, for the emperor to resort to war was an admission
that he had failed to deliver good government.17 This concept of a ‘pacifist bias’
in the Chinese tradition has been questioned more recently by some military
historians: the fact that the Chinese government explicitly bases its claim to be
pursuing a ‘harmonious’ foreign policy upon the legacy of Confucian philoso-
phy gives this subject a political edge. Across the ancient world generally, it is
accepted more widely that while wars were very common in antiquity, relations
between the ancient ‘society of states’ from the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia
featured a wide range of devices, from treaties to kinship bonds, designed to
inhibit and avoid violence: it may even be said that ‘ “natural” peace, not a
war of all against all, was widely regarded as the default state of international
relations’.18
Peace in the modern age
Taking a very long view of modern history, we may detect four separate strands
of peace-and-war thought and argument over the last millennium. First is
the realist approach, whose origin is popularly associated with Machiavelli
(although it has older antecedents with Thucydides, among other classical
sources). The realist approach had particular appeal in the age of the rise of
nation-states, was later associated with the ruthless outlook on humanity of
Social Darwinism, and flourished again in the amoral age of Cold War nuclear
strategy. Second is the theory of just war, often traced back to St Augustine
(though he said less on the subject than is claimed), and then through Thomas
Aquinas and other theologians of the age of the Crusades to the more secular
approach of Grotius, Vattel and other jurists credited with founding inter-
national law. Dormant for obvious reasons for most of the Cold War, just
war theory has been reinvigorated by more recent debate on the ethics of
‘humanitarian intervention’ and the ‘war against terror’. A third strand is the
continuous narrative of peace thinking which can be traced from the time
of Erasmus and fellow-humanists of the Renaissance, through Kant and other
philosophers of the Enlightenment, to the peace societies and conferences of
the nineteenth century, whose efforts to find international mechanisms for
peaceful negotiation of differences between states seemed for a while to pro-
duce tangible results in the creation of new institutions for arbitration and for
the limitation of war. Though these hopes were dashed by 1914, they paved the
way ahead for the League of Nations, and ultimately for the United Nations.
The fourth strand is the history of pacifist thought and action (for pacifist con-
viction frequently led to martyrdom), which ultimately dates back to the early
Christian fathers. Though the pacifist record has been obscured or obliterated
by persecution, it can still be detected throughout medieval history as an under-
current of dissent, surfacing in ‘heretical’ sects such as the Lollards, Cathars,
Waldenses, Mennonites and Anabaptists. It becomes more visible in the Quaker
movement, and was later inspired by the ideas of Tolstoy and Gandhi and the
example of conscientious objectors in the two world wars.
These separate strands have been woven very unevenly into the widely
accepted scholarship and history of international relations. Generally speak-
ing, much more attention has been focused on just war theory and the realist
approach than upon the narrative of peace thought from the Renaissance to
the Enlightenment, or upon Christian pacifism and non-combatant dissent.
Both of the latter strands received more attention in the interwar years, when
a new search began for a more peaceful international order, with studies of
the ‘history of peace’ and of Christian attitudes to war and peace which are
still quoted today.19 Serious inquiry in more recent decades has remained lim-
ited to relatively few scholars: these include Robert P. Adams on humanism,
war and peace in the age of Erasmus, and Merle Curti and Peter Brock on
the history of pacifist protest and non-conformity in Europe and the US.20
Rather more attention has been focused on anti-war argument and peace soci-
ety activities before and after the First World War, with significant works by
Sandi Cooper and Cecilia Lynch, among others.21 Few mainstream historians
have integrated this material into their conventional narrative of interna-
tional diplomacy (Barbara Tuchman remains an outstanding exception).22 The
story of peace initiatives during this war (which were not confined to the
peace movement) – such as the 1917 ‘peace letter’ of Lord Lansdowne, the
former British foreign secretary – remains underexplored. Remarkably, no ade-
quate biographical account of Bertrand Russell’s critique of First World War
policy (or, decades later, of Cold War strategy) has yet been written. How-
ever, with the approach of the ‘Great War’ centenary years (2014–18), more
significant work has begun to appear both on anti-war opposition during
John Gittings 27
those years and on the ever-contentious subject of the origins and causes of
the war.23
Some useful attempts have been made to anthologize the literature of mod-
ern peace thought, most notably in the Garland Library of War and Peace,
a project launched in 1971 to make available some 360 titles of out-of-print
literature on war and peace. These materials, Curti observed in his introduc-
tion to the project, have an international range in both time and space, and a
great many of these books ‘approach[ed] war in terms of its alternatives’ – an
essential feature of peace thought which should ‘provide insight into the resur-
gence of peace advocacy’. The last two decades have also seen the publication of
several comprehensive readers in peace studies, and of the Oxford International
Encyclopedia of Peace.24
The treatment of the extensive writings of Erasmus on peace is an instruc-
tive illustration of the lack of attention generally given to peace thought.
These writings are not usually found in bookshops or libraries, in contrast
to the works of his contemporary Niccolo Machiavelli (both Erasmus and
Machiavelli witnessed the seizure of Bologna in 1506 by the ‘warrior pope’
Julius II, although they drew opposite conclusions from the event. It is intrigu-
ing to speculate on their conversation if they had met!). Erasmus was widely
read in his time by kings and counsellors – he was invited to the courts of
England and France – and his works circulated throughout Europe. Though
some war historians have dismissed his anti-war arguments as utopian, he
appealed to the rational self-interest of the rulers whom he addressed as well
as to their Christian conscience. The long-term consequences of war are so
damaging, he argued, that it is very rarely worth the risk. He identified the
false logic which often serves as justification for war, and the way it might
serve the interests of princes but not of people. He also raised, well ahead of
his time, the possibility that war could be prevented by arbitration. Erasmus
was greatly admired by the seventeenth-century Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius,
and he was read by the philosophers of the Enlightenment, yet his peace writ-
ings are now little known outside the field of Renaissance studies. The work of
Robert P. Adams cited above, published over 50 years ago, still stands almost on
its own.25
Peace history in the twentieth century
Peace research ‘as an organised, purposeful scholarly activity’ in the twentieth

century is of particular interest and value, we are reminded by the US peace
scholar Peter Wallensteen, since it has been ‘one of the most violent cen-
turies of humankind’.26 How successful, then, have peace historians been in
applying a distinctive view to this protracted historical period of violence?
To generalize broadly, they have had more success in illuminating the ideas and
activities of peace campaigners throughout this period than in interrogating

the dominant narrative of its international relations and presenting a coherent
counter-narrative. These two aspects of peace history are not always separate
and have been successfully combined by some peace scholars, as shown in the
early work of Merle Curti, who focused on the pre-war diplomatic efforts (led
by US Secretary of State Bryan) to promote international treaties on the settle-
ment of disputes through arbitration, before going on to chronicle the history
of US peace activism over three centuries.27 The inverse connection between
social deprivation and peace, embodied in the charter of the League of Nations,
was also well understood by interwar peace writers. As Jane Addams put it in
1930, peace was an integral part of ‘that new internationalism promoted by
the men of all nations who are determined upon the abolition of degrading
poverty, disease, and ignorance.’28 In the aftermath of the First World War,
searching questions were asked about the driving forces behind modern war
by social historians and educationalists, including Caroline Playne and Maria
Montessori – and in the famous exchange of letters between Albert Einstein and
Sigmund Freud in 1932.
The range of subjects which offered itself to the peace historian expanded
hugely in the second half of the twentieth century, and continues to do so
today as our world becomes ever more complex and globalized. The past
has become ever more relevant to understanding the present, and seeking to
avert future calamity. Although peace scholarship suffered from political dis-
approval during the earlier decades of the Cold War (when the very word
‘peace’ was tainted), some influential voices were heard. The history of the
development of nuclear weapons, and the failure of disarmament negotiations
in the 1950s, was an area for study with obvious contemporary implica-
tions. The Nobel Peace Prize winner (1959) Philip Noel-Baker led the way
with his ground-breaking study of The Arms Race.29 Social scientists such as
C. Wright Mills deconstructed the false assumptions behind superpower rivalry
and nuclear deterrence logic in books with a popular appeal.30 In a world
where large economies were dominated by military production, economic
historians such as Seymour Melman and John Nef discussed the connection
between war and industrial society and ways of converting military to civilian
production.31
Charting the history of the peace movement itself across several continents
has also required an assessment of its impact upon the actual policies of the
super- and great powers. This task is the more complicated because politi-
cal and military establishments have usually denied that they were to the
slightest extent affected by public opinion. However, the work of Lawrence
Wittner, among others, makes a strong case that public protest against nuclear
testing, and alarm over the 1962 Cuba crisis, added significant pressure, help-
ing to bring about the Nuclear Test-ban Treaty.32 Opposition to the renewed
John Gittings 29
superpower arms race of the 1980s led by the European Nuclear Disarmament
movement (END) encouraged polycentric tendencies in Europe and influenced
Mikhail Gorbachev.
Interest has also revived in the history of just war doctrine and related
questions of international law as this doctrine is redeployed in the post-Cold
War era to justify so-called humanitarian (and pre-emptive) intervention, with
significant recent assessments by Richard Falk and Andrew Fiala.33
The hardest task facing peace historians today is to question and reassess the
conventional narrative of international history, particularly since the end of the
Second World War, and to challenge the dominant ‘realist’ approach. As Peter
Wallensteen has perceptively written, peace research has grown as ‘a critical
and constructive analysis of the basic tenets of the “conventional wisdom” of
violence’, much of which dates back to Machiavelli.34 Questions about the ori-
gins of the Cold War, casting doubt on the established view that it could be
entirely blamed on the Soviet Union, were raised in the 1960s and 1970s by
‘revisionist’ scholars who would not necessarily regard themselves as peace his-
torians.35 The course and development of the Cold War, and the question of
whether opportunities were missed to bring it to an earlier end, have received
rather less attention.36 Johan Galtung and other peace scholars have sought to
counter the triumphalist view that the US and its allies ‘won the Cold War’,
which continues to have a harmful impact on conventional thinking today.37
Yet the voices of peace historians are heard much less frequently, and they have
far less effect on policy formulation, than those of the war historians. In this
vast field, much remains to be done.
Notes
1. F. Charles Howlett, ‘American Peace History since the Vietnam War’, AHA Perspectives
on History, December 2010, http://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/
perspectives-on-history/december-2010/american-peace-history-since-the-vietnam
-war, accessed 11 March 2014.
2. Charles Chatfield and Peter van den Dungen, Peace Movements and Political Cultures
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988), preface.
3. Charles Chatfield, ed. Peace Movements in America (New York: Schocken, 1973), xix–
xxx.
4. David S. Patterson, ‘Commentary: The Dangers of Balkanization’, Peace and Change
20, no. 1 (1995): 79. This special issue of the journal marked an important stage in
the discussion of peace history.
5. Pitirim Sorokin, Social and Cultural Dynamics: Volume III (New York: American Book
Co., 1937); Lewis F. Richardson, Statistics of Deadly Quarrels, eds Quincy Wright and
C. C. Lienau (Pacific Grove: Boxwood Press, 1960).
6. Matthew Melko and Richard Weigel, Peace in the Ancient World (Jefferson: McFarland
& Co., 1981).
7. Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, From War to Peace (London: Cape, 1959).
8. Kenneth Boulding, ‘Peace and the Evolutionary Process’, in The Quest for Peace: Tran-
scending Collective Violence and War among Societies, Cultures and States, ed. Raimo
Vayrynen (London: Sage, 1987), 54.
9. Azar Gat, War in Human Civilisation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Steven
Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature (London: Allen Lane, 2011).
10. Thomas Gregor, ed., A Natural History of Peace (Nashville: Vanderbilt, 1996).
11. Anja Hartmann and Beatrice Heuser, War, Peace and World Orders in European History
(London: Routledge, 2001), xiii.
12. (George Chapman), Chapman’s Homer: The Iliad and the Odyssey, ed. Jan Parker (Ware:
Wordsworth Editions Ltd, 2000); Michael Sage, Warfare in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook
(London: Routledge, 1996), 129.
13. Simon Hornblower, ‘Warfare in Ancient Literature: The Paradox of War’, in The
Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare: Volume I, eds Philip Sabin and Hans
van Wees (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 22.
14. G. Zampaglione, L’Idea della pace nel mondo antico (Turin: Eri-Edizioni Rai, 1967),
translated by R. Dunn, The Idea of Peace in Antiquity (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1973). See also Nathan Spiegel, War and Peace in Classical Greek Literature
(Jerusalem: Mount Scopus Publications, 1990).
15. Oliver Taplin, ‘The Shield of Achilles within the “Iliad” ’, Greece & Rome 27, no. 1
(April 1980), 4. See also Caroline Alexander, The War That Killed Achilles (London:
Faber, 2011), and my own discussion of the Iliad in John Gittings, The Glorious Art of
Peace (Oxford: OUP, 2012), 40–47.
16. Lawrence A. Tritle, From Melos to My Lai: War and Survival (London: Routledge, 2000),
44–45.
17. John K. Fairbank, ‘Introduction: Varieties of the Chinese Military Experience’, in
Chinese Ways in Warfare, eds John K. Fairbank and Frank Kierman (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1974). Fairbank’s approach is shared by Joseph Needham
in his introduction to Science and Civilisation in China: Volume V (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), 6.
18. Hans van Wees, ‘Peace and the Society of States in Antiquity’, in Peace, War and
Gender from Antiquity to the Present: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, eds Jost Dülffer and
Robert Frank (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2009), 26.
19. A. C. F. Beales, The History of Peace (New York: Dial Press, 1931); John C. Cadoux, The
Early Christian Attitude to War (London: Allen and Unwin, 1919).
20. Robert P. Adams, The Better Part of Valor (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1962); Merle Curti, Peace or War: The American Struggle 1636–1936 (Boston: Canner
& Co., 1959); Peter Brock, Pacifism in Europe to 1914 (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1972).
21. Sandi E. Cooper, Patriotic Pacifism: Waging War on War in Europe, 1815–1914
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Martin Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, 1914–
1945 (London: Oxford University Press, 1980); Cecelia Lynch, Beyond Appeasement:
Interpreting Interwar Peace Movements in World Politics (Cornell: Cornell University
Press, 1999).
22. Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World before the War 1890–
1914 (London: Macmillan, 1962); A. J. P. Taylor ignored altogether the Hague
Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 in his classic The Struggle for Mastery in Europe
1848–1918.
23. See especially Adam Hochschild, To End All Wars: A Study of Protest and Patriotism in
the First World War (London: Pan, 2011); Margaret MacMillan, The War That Ended
Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War (London: Profile, 2013);
John Gittings 31
Douglas Newton, The Darkest Days: The Truth behind Britain’s Rush to War, 1914
(London: Verso, 2014).
24. Blanche Wiesen Cook, Charles Chatfield and Sandi Cooper, The Garland Library of
War and Peace [introductory catalogue] (New York: Garland Publishing, 1971), 9–10.
See also Charles Chatfield and Ruzanna Ilukhina, Peace/Mir: An Anthology of Historic
Alternatives to War (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994); David P. Barash, ed.
Approaches to Peace: A Reader in Peace Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000);
Nigel J. Young, ed. Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace, 4 volumes (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010).
25. The Erasmus Project of the University of Toronto has published almost all of his
works in more than 80 volumes. A few modern scholars, including Dr Peter van den
Dungen of the University of Bradford, have sought to keep alive Erasmus’s peace
philosophy.
26. Peter Wallensteen, ‘The Growing Peace Research Agenda’, Kroc Institute Occasional
Paper 21:OP:4 (December 2001).
27. Merle Curti, Bryan and World Peace (Northampton: Smith College Studies); Merle
Curti, Peace or War: The American Struggle, 1636–1936 (New York: W.W. Norton &
Co., [c1936]).
28. Quoted in Jane Addams, Jane Addams: A Centennial Reader (New York: Macmillan,
1960), 251.
29. Philip Noel-Baker, The Arms Race (London: John Calder, 1959).
30. Charles W. Mills, The Causes of World War Three (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1958).
31. John Nef, War and Human Progress: An Essay on the Rise of Industrial Civilization
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950); Seymour Melman, The Demilitarized
Society: Disarmament & Conversion (Montreal: Harvest House, 1988).
32. Lawrence Wittner, The Struggle against the Bomb: Volumes I–III (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1993–2003); Lawrence Wittner, Confronting the Bomb (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2009).
33. Richard A. Falk, The Costs of War: International Order, the UN, and World Order after
Iraq (London: Routledge, 2008); Andrew Fiala, The Just War Myth (London: Rowman
and Littlefield, 2008).
34. Peter Wallensteen, ‘The Origins of Peace Research’, in Peace Research: Achievements
and Challenges, ed. Peter Wallensteen (Boulder: Westview, 1988), 1.
35. We owe a special debt to Noam Chomsky and to Gabriel and Joyce Kolko for their
dissection of the official Cold War narrative in works too numerous to cite here.
36. I have looked at some of the evidence for missed opportunities during the Cold War
in The Glorious Art of Peace (2012), 191–203.
37. See the essays by Johan Galtung, April Carter and David Cortright in Why the
Cold War Ended: A Range of Interpretations, eds Ralph Summy and Michael Salla
(Westport: Greenwood, 1995). For British policy, the work of Mark Curtis, including
The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy since 1945 (London: Zed Press, 1995), is
significant.
2
Politics and Governance: From
Emergency to Emergence
David Chandler
Introduction
How international actors can govern for peace has been a question at the top of
the international policy agenda since the end of the Cold War. However, despite
its centrality, there is very little clarity with regard to how external actors
can make policy interventions for peace, how these should be managed and
whether these interventions are, or could be, effective. This chapter analyses
the reformulation of the ‘governing for peace’ problematic from being an emer-
gency response, seeking to restore peace and security, to policy interventions,
understood in systems or process terms, as dealing with emergent problems,
on the basis of enabling or empowering local coping capacities. The opening
sections deal with conceptual concerns of how the politics of governing peace
has been transformed, and the closing sections focus on empirical examples of
the shift in policy practices in accordance with these new understandings.
Today, it seems that the biggest problem facing international policy making
in the search for methods of governing for peace is not so much ideological,
geopolitical or military competition as the dangers of the unintended con-
sequences of policy making in a complex and interconnected world, which
seems much less amenable to traditional projections of power and policy influ-
ence. We are witnessing nothing less than a transformation in the politics of
international peace thinking, with a shift from imagining that international
interveners can govern problems through coercive intervention, or the export
or transfer of policy practices, or their imposition through conditionality (a lin-
ear and reductionist approach), to understanding that barriers to peace should
be grasped as emergent consequences of complex social processes which need
to be worked with rather than hubristically ignored or bypassed.
For the purposes of this chapter, the problematic of governing for peace will
be understood as the policy understandings of external or international actors
asserting power in or over another state in order to direct or influence the
32
David Chandler 33
behaviour of actors within that state. Policy interventions to govern for peace
can take a number of forms: from non-material interventions in a conflict, for
example, making political/diplomatic statements which may lend support to
one side or another; to more directly seeking to influence behaviour, through
political, economic or social policy interventions; up to more coercive interven-
tions, for example, sanctions on a state or individuals and, at the most extreme,
direct coercive military intervention in the case of perceived severe abuses of
state power. This chapter seeks to conceptualize the politics of different forms
of governance intervention – not in terms of technical categories arranged in a
continuum from diplomatic communiqués to military coercion, but in terms of
how intervention is understood to work in relation to traditional liberal politi-
cal understandings of governance intervention and, crucially today, in terms of
Western, liberal or modernist forms of knowledge.
In the 1990s, as governance interventions for peace increasingly became an
acceptable and necessary policy practice, intervention was often conceived
of as an exception to the norm of international politics, which was still
based on a sovereign order. In order to justify the need for ‘governing for
peace’ interventions, situations were posed in terms of emergencies which
threatened the peace and security of international society itself,1 and the UN
Security Council increasingly relaxed its restrictions on the situations which
constituted such actions. The emergency framing of intervention is central
to the argument of this chapter: first, because intervention as an emergency
response was understood as an exception to normal rule-bound behaviour;
and second, because, in these exceptional circumstances, intervention was
legitimized by assumptions of the superior knowledge and resources of the
policy intervener. The ‘emergency’ framework was therefore heavily reliant on
modernist political assumptions that knowledge and power operated in univer-
sal, linear and reductionist ways. The key concerns, for this framework, were
those of international coordination and the development of a Western knowl-
edge base built upon the generalization of ‘lessons learned’ for post-conflict
governance.2
This chapter seeks thereby to conceptually chart the debates about the effec-
tiveness of the emergency form of peace governance intervention and the shift
from coercive and invasive forms of governance intervention to more preven-
tive and holistic understandings of how external policy interventions should
operate. This shift has major consequences for the politics and governance of
peace. Policies shaped upon ‘emergence’ understandings, in fact, invert tradi-
tional framings of intervention as undermining rights of autonomy, instead
operating on the assumption that intervention must respect and enable the
autonomous capacities of those subject to it, not merely as an ethical or strate-
gic choice but crucially, for reasons of practical necessity.3 Thus, this analysis of
policy practices and conceptual discourses focuses upon a growing recognition
of the failure of traditional hierarchical models of power and linear epistemes

of knowledge.4
From emergency to emergence
The emergency model of peace governance was the archetypal model of inter-
vention in the policy debates in the 1990s, particularly around the legal and
political concerns of the rights of humanitarian intervention.5 In this fram-
ing, the policy response to emergency tended to be one of centralized control
based upon military power or bureaucratic control, which often assumed that
peace interventions operated in a vacuum, where social and political norms had
broken down, and little attention needed to be given to the particular policy
context.
Emergency approaches have a long tradition in the assumption that the solu-
tion to the problem of peace is liberal forms of governance. In fact, modern or
liberal political theory starts with the assumption that peace and governance
are imbricated within constructions of sovereign power, from Hobbes’ Leviathan
onwards. In these constructions, the lack of sovereign governance meant life in
the state of nature, understood as a permanent or ‘natural’ state of war. The
assumption that peace and liberal forms of governance were co-constitutive
also shaped the modernist debates within the discipline of international rela-
tions: liberal theorists argued that liberal order needed to expand to extend the
‘zone of peace’, while realist theorists focused upon ways in which peace might
be maintained without the constitution of an overarching sovereign.6
The liberal view of peace as a product of liberal governance was contested
by those critical of liberal assumptions that sovereign power represented the
collective good of society. Foremost among these critics were those associated
with socialist and anti-colonialist strands of thinking, for whom interventions
for governing peace were aimed at propping up or supporting a hierarchical and
unequal system of power. For these critics, interventions for peace, viewed from
the vantage point of those struggling against existing frameworks of power,
were in fact interventions maintaining the violence of class rule and interna-
tional colonial and imperialist patterns of domination. E. H. Carr, for example,
argued that peace was a moral discourse only available to the powerful states in
the international arena,7 while Michel Foucault famously inverted Clausewitz’s
dictum to argue that the liberal governance of peace was ‘the continuation of
war by other means’.8
Despite the range of debates over liberal forms of governing peace within
international relations and political theory, what it meant to govern through
liberal understandings was not at issue. The assumption was that the state was
able to intervene, in a crisis or emergency, temporarily restricting the freedoms
of civil society in order to address the threat to security. There was no question
David Chandler 35
over the effectiveness of means–ends instrumental understandings of sovereign

power, merely over the goals to which this was, or could be, directed, and
whether peace on these terms should be accepted as a normative goal. As this
chapter seeks to highlight, the framework of ‘emergency’ through which lib-
eral modes of governing peace have been articulated, from Hobbes through
to Foucault, has recently come under sustained critique on the basis of both
its epistemological and ontological assumptions. Emergency approaches share
three key aspects.
Universalist
First, this model was universalist. Intervening states were understood to have
the power, resources and objective scientific knowledge necessary to solve the
problems of conflict and human rights abuses. Debates in the early and mid-
1990s assumed that Western states had the knowledge and power to act, and
therefore focused on the question of the political will of Western states.9 Of par-
ticular concern was the fear that the US might pursue national interests rather
than global moral and ethical peace concerns.10 In this framework, barriers to
peace were seen in terms of a universalist and linear understanding. It was
believed that peace-based humanitarian and human rights interventions, even
including regime change and post-conflict management, could be successful
on the basis that a specific set of policy solutions could solve a specific set of
policy problems. This framework of intervention reached its apogee in inter-
national statebuilding in the Balkans, with long-term protectorates established
over Bosnia and Kosovo, and was reflected in the RAND Corporation’s reduc-
tion of such interventions to simple cost and policy formulas that could be
universally applied.11 This set up a universalist understanding of good pol-
icy making: the idea that certain solutions were timeless, like the rule of law,
democracy and markets.
The universalist framework legitimizing peace intervention thereby estab-
lished a hierarchical and paternalist framework of understanding. Western
liberal democratic states were understood to have the knowledge and power
necessary to solve the problems that other ‘failed’ and ‘failing’ states were
alleged to lack. It was, therefore, little surprise that these interventions chal-
lenged the sovereign rights to self-government, which had been upheld since
decolonization in the 1950s and 1960s. Many commentators therefore raised
problems with the idealization of liberal Western societies and the holding up
of abstract and unrealistic goals, which tended to exaggerate the incapacity or
lack of legitimacy of non-Western regimes.12 Beneath the universalist claims
of promoting the interest of human rights, human security or human devel-
opment, critical theorists suggested, new forms of international domination
were emerging, institutionalizing market inequalities or restoring traditional
hierarchies of power reminiscent of the colonial era.13
Mechanistic
Second, this policy framework was mechanistic. The problems of non-Western
states were understood in simple terms of the need to restore the equilibrium
of the status quo – which was understood as being disrupted by new forces
or events. This was illustrated, for example, in the popular ‘New Wars’ the-
sis, which argued that stability was disrupted by exploitative elites seeking
to destabilize society in order to cling to resources and power,14 or that the
lack of human rights could be resolved through constitutional reforms.15 The
assumption was that society was fundamentally healthy and that the prob-
lematic individuals or groups could be removed or replaced through external
policy intervention, which would enable equilibrium to be restored. This was
a mechanistic view of how societies operated – as if they were machines and
a single part had broken down and needed to be fixed. There was no holistic
engagement with society as a collective set of processes, interactions and inter-
relations. The assumption was that external policy interveners could come up
with a ‘quick fix’ – perhaps sending troops to quell conflict or legal experts
to write constitutions – followed by an exit strategy. The problems of policy
based upon these mechanistic assumptions about peace and conflict led to an
extension of international intervention from peacekeeping to peacebuilding
and statebuilding, and to attempts to understand the social processes at play
and to search for the societal preconditions necessary for the establishment of
sustainable forms of peace.16
Reductionist
Third, this framework was reductionist. There was little understanding that
problems may not always reflect the same underlying causes or that they may
not always need to be addressed in the same way. In some contexts, corruption,
conflict and inequalities can be an expression of other underlying problems, or
may even be part of a process of struggle or of managing problems. Different
problems may manifest themselves in similar symptoms. Understanding the
problems of non-Western states through the liberal peace ‘lenses’ of war crimes
and human rights abuse, and providing universalist prescriptions of markets,
democracy and the rule of law, and international regulation, meant that many
of the historical, economic, social and political aspects of non-Western states
and societies were excluded or ignored.
This universalist, mechanistic and reductionist approach to international
peace interventions assumed that international intervention was the prerog-
ative of leading Western states, that the subjects of intervention were non-
Western states, and that Western international specialists had the knowledge,
technology and agency necessary to fix the problems. Traditionally, in the field
of politics and governance, critical commentators have understood this as a
David Chandler 37
paternalistic framework, reproducing relations of inequality and reinforcing

or constituting more open hierarchies of power, through the challenge to
post-colonial sovereignty claims to political equality and self-government.17
However, since the early 1990s a second way of politically conceptualiz-
ing intervention has developed, with critics suggesting that the claims of
Western knowledge and power were false and hubristic and that Western mod-
ernist understandings of knowledge as context-free and universally valid were
problematic.18
The limits of liberal governance
Policy interventions taking an emergency form, therefore, began to be criti-

cized as much on practical and functionalist grounds as on ethical and political
ones. Rather than articulating policy intervention in terms of emergency and
exception, with assumptions of external knowledge and control over policy
outcomes, policy approaches began to reframe problems as emergent outcomes
of complex processes rather than as discrete problems amenable to linear and
reductionist policy intervention. This process is well articulated by Michael
Dillon’s conception of a shift in policy concerns from sovereign power over
territory to biopolitical concerns over the circulatory and contingent processes
of life.19 For Dillon,
It is precisely here in the ground of life itself that contemporary biopolitics of

security therefore intuit a pure experience of order, and of its mode of being,
radically different from the Newtonian physics of a mechanistic and posi-
tivistic real that once inspired the west’s traditional state-centric territorial
geopolitics of sovereign subjectivity.20
Life to be governed is thus no longer construed as a subject amenable to

sovereign forms of top-down power and emergency intervention but, instead,
is seen as a complex of interconnected processes. Life is thereby emergent.21
Rearticulating problems in terms of emergent outcomes enables governance
responses which no longer need to be understood as exceptions or as under-
mining rights and autonomy. The systems- or process-based understanding of
emergence suggests that policy interventions need to work with, rather than
against, organic local practices and understandings, and suggests more homeo-
pathic forms of policy intervention designed to enhance autonomous processes
rather than undermine them.22
The retreat from the universalist understandings of liberal peace governance
interventions has been couched predominantly in terms of the dangers of
the ‘law of unintended consequences’. The ‘law of unintended consequences’
can be understood as a shorthand expression for a profound shift in the
understanding of governance interventions, of how they should operate and

of how the limitations to their success should be grasped and learned from.
This shift reflects the growing resonance of what this chapter terms the rise of
‘emergence’ understandings of peace governance.
Liberal peace forms of governance are understood to be based on the false
assumptions outlined above. Today, there has been a fundamental shift away
from the view that a universal set of policy instruments could be available
for every security problem. Rather than starting from these cause-and-effect
assumptions, it is non-linear outcomes that are at the centre of policy con-
cerns: the unintended side-effects of governance as policy intervention in a
globalized, interconnected and complex world.23 Emergence understandings
operate at the level of pragmatic long-term consequences, understood within a
relational or systems-thinking approach, which challenges the rationalist and
reductionist assumptions of traditional political thinking. Peace policy inter-
ventions today are increasingly understood to be problematic if they are based
upon the grand narratives of liberal internationalism, which informed and
drove the debate on international intervention in the 1990s.24
These critiques have tended to focus upon the value of organic, natural
or endogenous powers of resistance and resilience which have been under-
stood to be unintentionally undermined through mechanistic and reductionist
assumptions of modernist Western thinking.25 Instead, the organic processes of
endogenous peacebuilding tend to be prioritized over universalizing, mechanis-
tic or reductionist approaches to policy intervention which seek to introduce
policy solutions from the outside. For example, while markets, development,
democracy, security and the rule of law might be good when they develop
organically, it is often argued that when they are extracted from their con-
text and applied in a ‘pure’ form they can be dangerous, as they lack the other
ingredients connected to institutions and culture.
New forms of governance
For the ‘emergence’ approach to peace interventions, there are, therefore, no

ready-made international policy solutions that could simply be applied or
implemented, and therefore there is little possibility of learning generic lessons
from peace interventions that could be applied to all other cases of conflict
on the basis that if the symptoms appear similar, the cause must be the same.
The focus therefore shifts away from international policies (supply-driven pol-
icy making) and towards engaging with the internal capacities and capabilities
that are already held to exist. In other words, there is a shift from the agency,
knowledge and practices of policy interveners to those of the society that is
the object of policy concerns. As the 2013 updated UK Department for Inter-
national Development (DFID) Growth and Resilience Operational Plan states,
David Chandler 39
‘We will produce less “supply-driven” development of product, guidelines

and policy papers, and foster peer-to-peer, horizontal learning and knowledge
exchange, exploiting new technologies such as wiki/huddles to promote the
widest interaction between stakeholders.’26
‘Supply-driven’ policies are understood to operate in an artificial or non-
organic way, and to lack an authentic connection to the problems that need to
be addressed. The imposition of external institutional and policy frameworks
has become increasingly seen as artificial, and thereby having counterproduc-
tive or unintended outcomes, much like the ‘pure remedies’ of emergency
intervention. External policy interventions seeking to export constitutional
frameworks, to train and equip military and police forces, to impose exter-
nal conditionalities on the running of state budgets, to export managerial
frameworks for civil servants and political representatives, or to impose reg-
ulations to ensure administrative transparency and codes of conduct were at
the heart of international policy prescriptions in the 1990s and early 2000s.27
It is argued that the ‘supply-driven’ approach of external experts exporting or
developing liberal institutions does not get to the root causes of instability or
insecurity. Instead, the emergency framework of intervention is seen to create
problematic ‘hybrid’ political systems and fragile states with little connection to
their societies.28 These problems or blind spots have been increasingly corrected
through reconceptualizing peace interventions in the ‘emergence’ framework
highlighted by the policy shifts made by leading institutions involved in peace
governance.
Peace interventions are increasingly shifting in relation to the understanding
of conflict. There is much less talk of conflict prevention or conflict resolu-
tion, and more of conflict management and conflict transformation. As the UK
government argued, in a 2011 combined DFID, Foreign and Commonwealth
Office, and Ministry of Defence document, conflict per se is not the problem:
‘Conflict is a normal part of human interaction, the natural result when indi-
viduals and groups have incompatible needs, interests or beliefs.’29 The problem
that needs to be tackled is the state or society’s ability to manage conflict:
‘In stable, resilient societies conflict is managed through numerous formal and
informal institutions.’30
Conflict management, as the UK government policy indicates, is increasingly
understood as engagement with an organic set of societal processes and prac-
tices, which international policy intervention can influence but cannot impose
upon. As leading peace theorist Jean Paul Lederach states, ‘The greatest resource
for sustaining peace in the long term is always rooted in the local people and
their culture.’31 For Lederach, managing conflict means moving away from
emergency forms of external intervention which see people as ‘recipients’ of
policy, and instead seeing people as ‘resources’, integral to peace processes.
Therefore, it is essential that
we in the international community adopt a new mind-set – that we move

beyond a simple prescription of answers and modalities for dealing with con-
flict that come from outside the setting and focus at least as much attention
on discovering and empowering the resources, modalities, and mechanisms
for building peace that exist within the context.32
One of the central shifts in understanding conflict management as a product of

societal processes and practices, rather than as something that can be imposed
top-down, is the view that state-level interventions are of limited use. Peace
treaties can be signed by state parties, but unless peace is seen as an ongoing
and transformative inclusive societal process, these agreements will be merely
superficial and non-sustainable.33
Just as peace and security are no longer understood to be able to be secured
through emergency forms of intervention, reliant on policy interveners impos-
ing solutions in mechanical and reductive ways, there has also been a shift
in understanding the counterproductive effects of attempts to export the rule
of law.34 The focus of emergence understandings is upon the gap between
the formal sphere of law and constitutionalism and the social ‘reality’ of
informal power relations and informal rules. This perspective has also been
endorsed by Douglass North, the policy guru of new institutionalist economics,
who has highlighted the difficulties of understanding how exported institu-
tions will interact with ‘culturally derived norms of behavior’.35 The social
reality of countries undergoing post-conflict ‘transition’ could not be under-
stood merely by an analysis of laws and statutes. In fact, there appears to be
an unbridgeable gap between the surface appearances or artificial construc-
tions of legal and constitutional frameworks and the realities of everyday
life, revealed in dealings between individual members of the public and state
authorities.
This shift away from formal universalist understandings of governance as
‘exporting’ democracy and human rights is increasingly evidenced in the shift-
ing understanding of human rights-based approaches to empowerment. Rights
promoters have now shifted attention from the establishment of formal insti-
tutional mechanisms to empowering and enabling people and communities.
This approach places the emphasis on the agency and self-empowerment of
local actors themselves, not on the introduction of formal frameworks of law,
supported by international human rights norms. As Louise Moe and Maria
Simojoki note in their study of Somaliland,
access to justice does not only concern the workings of specific law ‘systems’.
Crucially, it also relates to structural inequalities, and socio-political lines of
inclusion and exclusion. The fact that, for example, women and members
of minority clans are unable to access justice in any of the justice systems
David Chandler 41
reveals that the challenge of access to justice is not simply a matter of law
(whether state or customary).36
Another study notes that policy interveners are concerned to avoid not only
the ‘moral imperialism’ of imposing Western human rights norms, but also a
moral relativism, which merely accepts local traditional practices.37 The solu-
tion put forward is being non-prescriptive, and avoiding and ‘unlearning’ views
of Western teachers as ‘authorities’ and students as passive recipients.38 Pol-
icy intervention is articulated as the facilitation of local people’s attempts
to uncover traditional practices and ‘awakening’ and ‘engaging’ their already
existing capacities: ‘By detecting their own inherent skills, they can more easily
transfer them to personal and community problem solving.’39 These processes
can perhaps be encouraged or assisted by external policy interveners, but they
cannot be transplanted from one society to another, much less imposed by pol-
icy actors. Tackling the symptoms of these problems as if they were the product
of direct causal relations thus misunderstands policy needs due to being trapped
in the reductionist mindsets of liberal governance understandings.
Conclusion
The shift in understanding policy making for the governance of peace – from
the emergency to the emergence model of intervention, focusing on the prob-
lem society’s own capacities and needs and internal and organic processes –
has been paralleled by a growing scepticism over attempts to export or impose
Western models. While emergency interventions, with crude levers of exter-
nal power, might be good in individual crisis situations, the discourse of peace
governance has shifted away from establishing mechanisms to achieve exter-
nally set and externally benchmarked policy goals and towards generic and
holistic approaches oriented towards developing existing local capacities and
capabilities. This form of projecting Western power and knowledge operates
very differently from previous understandings of peace governance – not only
does this not imply the undermining of sovereignty (the sine qua non of the
understanding of intervention in the discipline of international relations – see
Richmond, this volume), but it also operates outside the traditional liberal mod-
ernist political understanding of policy governance, which assumes a limited
interference in the private sphere (of individual autonomy) in the cause of the
collective good.
In emergence discourses of peace governance, there is no assumption that
the policy intervener is in any way limiting the freedom or the autonomy
of the state or society in which they intervene, and the discourse does not
establish the intervening governance actors as possessing any greater power
or knowledge or establish a paternalist relationship of external responsibility.
Peace governance, in this framing, is articulated as an approach that respects

the autonomy of the other and even enables the development of autonomous
capacities. Interventions of this sort require no specialist knowledge and, in
fact, tend to problematize such knowledge claims, suggesting instead that peace
governance requires more therapeutic capacities and sensitivities, more attuned
to open and unscripted forms of engagement, mutual processes of learning, and
unpredictable and spontaneous forms of knowledge exchange.40
Notes
1. Simon Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace?: Humanitarian Intervention and International
Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
2. See further, for example, I. William Zartman, Collapsed States: The Disintegration and
Restoration of Legitimate Authority (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995); Anna Jarstad
and Timothy Sisk, eds, From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008); Paddy Ashdown, Swords and Ploughshares: Bring-
ing Peace to the 21st Century (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2007).
3. Mitchell Dean, Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society, 2nd edn. (London:
Sage, 2010); Oren M. Levin-Waldman, Reconceiving Liberalism: Dilemmas of Contem-
porary Liberal Public Policy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1996).
4. See, for example, Roger MacGinty and Oliver Richmond, The Liberal Peace and Post-
War Reconstruction (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009); Edward Newman, Roland Paris and
Oliver Richmond, New Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding (New York: United Nations
University, 2009); Sharbanou Tadjbakhsh, ed., Rethinking the Liberal Peace: External
Models and Local Alternatives (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011).
5. See, for example, Albrecht Schnabel and Ramesh Thakur, eds, Kosovo and the Chal-
lenge of Humanitarian Intervention (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2000);
Anne Orford, Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in
International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Andrea Talentino,
Military Intervention after the Cold War: The Evolution of Theory and Practice (Ohio:
Ohio University Press, 2005); Ivan Manokha, The Political Economy of Human Rights
Enforcement (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008).
6. See, further, the discussion in Oliver P. Richmond, Peace in International Relations
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2008).
7. E. H. Carr, for example, argued that peace was a moral discourse only available to
the powerful states in the international arena. See E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis,
1919–1939 (London: Macmillan, 1939), 68.
8. Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended (London: Allen Lane, 2009), 15.
9. See, for example, David Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State
to Cosmopolitan Governance (Cambridge: Polity, 1995); J. Wheeler Nicholas, Saving
Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000).
10. Mary Kaldor, Human Security: Reflections on Globalization and Intervention (Cambridge:
Polity, 2007), 150.
11. James Dobbins et al., The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (Santa Monica, CA:
RAND, 2007).
12. See, for example, John Heathershaw and Daniel Lambach, ‘Introduction: Post-
Conflict Spaces and Approaches to Statebuilding’, Journal of Intervention and
David Chandler 43
Statebuilding 2, no. 3 (2008): 269–289; Nicolas Lemay-Hébert, ‘Statebuilding with-

out Nation-Building? Legitimacy, State Failure and the Limits of the Institutionalist
Approach’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 3, no. 1 (2009): 21–45.
13. See, for example, David Chandler, Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building
(London: Pluto, 2006); Costas Douzinas, Human Rights and Empire: The Political Phi-
losophy of Cosmopolitanism (Abingdon: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007); Mark Duffield,
Development, Security and Unending War: Governing the World of Peoples (Cambridge:
Polity, 2007); Michael Pugh et al., Whose Peace? Critical Perspectives on the Political
Economy of Peacebuilding (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Michael Dillon and
Julian Reid, The Liberal Way of War: Killing to Make Life Live (London: Routledge,
2009).
14. Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity,
1999).
15. Michele Brandt et al., Constitution-Making and Reform: Options for the Process (Geneva:
Interpeace, 2011).
16. See, further, Roland Paris, At War’s End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004); Michael Barnett, The International Humanitarian
Order (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010); David Chandler, International Statebuilding: The
Rise of Post-Liberal Governance (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010).
17. See, for example, David Chandler, Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton (London:
Pluto, 1999); William Bain, Between Anarchy and Society: Trusteeship and the Obligations
of Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Bickerton et al., Constitution-Making
and Reform: Options for the Process (Geneva: Interpeace, 2011); Aidan Hehir and Neil
Robinson, eds, State-Building: Theory and Practice (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007).
18. See, further, Robbie Shilliam, ‘The Perilous but Unavoidable Terrain of the Non-
West’, in International Relations and Non-Western Thought: Imperialism, Colonialism and
Investigations of Global Modernity, ed. Robbie Shilliam (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011),
13.
19. Michael Dillon’s conception of a shift in policy concerns from sovereign power over
territory to biopolitical concerns over the circulatory and contingent processes of
life. See Michael Dillon, ‘Governing Terror: The State of Emergency of Biopolitical
Emergence’, International Political Sociology 1, no. 1 (2007): 7–28.
20. Ibid., 13.
21. See also Michael Dillon and Luis Lobo-Guerrero, ‘Biopolitics of Security in the
Twenty-First Century: An Introduction’, Review of International Studies 34, no. 2
(2008): 265–292.
22. On emergent responses to disasters, see, for example, Thomas E. Drabek and David
A. McEntire, ‘Emergent Phenomena and the Sociology of Disaster: Lessons, Trends
and Opportunities from the Research Literature’, Disaster, Prevention and Management
12, no. 2 (2003): 97–112; Mareile Kaufmann, ‘Emergent Self-Organisation in Emer-
gencies: Resilience Rationales in Interconnected Societies’, Resilience: International
Policies, Practices and Discourses 1, no. 1 (2013): 53–68.
23. See, further, Ben Ramalingam et al., ‘Exploring the Science of Complexity: Ideas and
Implications for Development and Humanitarian Efforts’, ODI Working Paper 285
(London: Overseas Development Institute, 2008); Ben Ramalingam, Aid on the Edge
of Chaos: Rethinking International Cooperation in a Complex World (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013).
24. See, for example, David Owen, The Hubris Syndrome: Bush, Blair and the Intoxication
of Power, revised edn. (York: Methuen, 2012); Rory Stewart and Gerald Knaus, Can
Intervention Work? (London: W. W. Norton & Co., 2012); James Mayall and Ricardo
Soares de Oliviera, eds, The New Protectorates: International Tutelage and the Making
of Liberal States (London: Hurst & Co., 2011); Michael J. Mazarr, ‘The Rise and Fall
of the Failed-State Paradigm: Requiem for a Decade of Distraction’, Foreign Affairs
January–February (2014).
25. See, for example, Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture
(London: Flamingo, 1983).
26. DFID Growth and Resilience Department (London: DFID, 2013), 8.
27. World Bank, Conditionality in Development Policy Lending (Washington, DC: World
Bank, 2007); Eurodad, World Bank and IMF Conditionality: A Development Injustice
(Brussels: European Network on Debt and Development, 2006); ActionAid, What
Progress? A Shadow Review of World Bank Conditionality (Johannesburg: ActionAid,
2006).
28. David Roberts, ‘Hybrid Polities and Indigenous Pluralities: Advanced Lessons in
Statebuilding from Cambodia’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 2, no. 1 (2008):
63–86; Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Hybrid Peace: The Interaction between Top-Down and
Bottom-Up Peace’, Security Dialogue 41, no. 4 (2010): 391–412; Oliver P. Richmond
and Audra Mitchell, eds, Hybrid Forms of Peace: From Everyday Agency to Post-Liberalism
(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012); Gearoid Millar, ‘Disaggregating Hybridity: Why Hybrid
Institutions Do Not Produce Predictable Experiences of Peace’, Journal of Peace
Research 51, no. 4 (2014): 501–514.
29. UK Government, Building Stability Overseas Strategy (London: Department for Inter-
national Development, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence,
2011), 5.
30. Ibid.
31. John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies
(Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1997), 94.
32. Ibid., 95.
33. Ibid., 135.
34. Paolo Cesarini and Katherine Hite, ‘Introducing the Concept of Authoritarian Lega-
cies’, in Katherine Hite et al., Authoritarian Legacies and Democracy in Latin America
and Southern Europe (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004); Augusto
Zimmermann, ‘The Rule of Law as a Culture of Legality: Legal and Extra-Legal Ele-
ments for the Realisation of the Rule of Law in Society’, ELaw – Murdoch University
Electronic Journal of Law 14, no. 1 (2007).
35. Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 140.
36. Louise W. Moe and Maria V. Simojoki, ‘Custom, Contestation and Cooperation:
Peace and Justice in Somaliland’, Conflict, Security & Development 13, no. 4 (2013):
393–416; 404.
37. Diane Gillespie and Molly Melching, ‘The Transformative Power of Democracy
and Human Rights in Nonformal Education: The Case of Tostan’, Adult Education
Quarterly 60, no. 5 (2010): 477–498; 481.
38. Ibid., 481.
39. Ibid., 490.
40. See, for example, Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War, 233–234;
Vivienne Jabri, War and the Transformation of Global Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave,
2007), 177; Morgan Brigg and Kate Muller, ‘Conceptualising Culture in Conflict
Resolution’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 3, no. 2 (2009): 121–140; 130.
3
The Philosophy of Peace
Nicholas Rengger
As the rival viewpoints given in the previous chapters suggest, just as there
are many philosophical approaches to war, so there are many philosophical
approaches to peace. It would thus be invidious, not to say impossible, to
attempt to cover them all in one relatively brief chapter, and so I will not
even attempt to do so. Rather, my strategy in what follows will be to outline
what I take to be the two most significant philosophical approaches to peace,
and to seek to offer an interpretation and at least a provisional evaluation of
them. I would emphasize also that I will restrict myself here to ‘philosophical’
approaches to peace, understood, to be sure, fairly broadly, so much of the very
large (and sometimes very impressive) wider literature in what is often called
‘peace studies’ will not be referred to at all. Note also that in saying that these
are the most significant philosophical approaches I am not suggesting that they
are necessarily the most influential – though the second certainly has been very
influential recently – and clearly there are many others. In conclusion, I will
then offer a thought about where this discussion might leave the question of
thinking philosophically about peace.
Pacificism
The first ‘philosophical’ approach to peace I shall consider is also the oldest and
perhaps the rarest, and usually goes by the name of ‘pacifism’. Of course, there
is no single ‘pacifist’ argument. There have been, and still are, many different
versions of pacifism, and in the space I have here I could not possibly do justice
to them all.1
Let me start by observing that ‘pacifism’, as I will understand it here, includes
both a principled (as we might say) rejection of the use of lethal force for politi-
cal (and quite possibly for any) ends, and what we might call an ‘instrumental’
or strategic version, the version that Martin Caedel refers to as pacificism, that
is, ‘non-pacifist peace sentiment’.2 This latter might include (I accept there are
45
profound interpretative questions here) alleged pacifisms such as Gandhi’s cel-

ebrated ‘non-violence’3 and, most relevant for this chapter, the philosophical
advocacy of pacifism made by Richard Holmes, who argues for pacifism on what
I will call ‘instrumental’ grounds. As he puts it,
I maintain that the conditions that might theoretically justify war are simply
not met in the actual world; hence war is impermissible in the world as we
know it’.4
I will, for the purposes of this chapter, adopt Caedel’s terminology and refer to
the former as ‘Pacifism’ and to the latter as ‘non-pacifist peace sentiment’. Paci-
fism is, then, very much a minority position, and I think that this is because
it offers answers to some very hard questions which, for the most part, most
people, and most societies, are not prepared to concede. Perhaps the best pre-
sentation of this is offered by Grady Scott Davis.5 He suggests that pacifists
forego three particular goods which most people are not prepared to surrender.
The first, and least, of these is my person, which I cannot defend against attack;
the second of these are my family and friends, whom, again, I cannot defend;
and finally, I cannot take up arms against an unjust political order, no matter
what the circumstances.
I think Davis is correct that pacifism, properly understood, must accept these
three conditions and recognize, in doing so, that it is surrendering all hope
of political success in the conventional sense. On a strict pacifist analysis, and
contra Michael Walzer’s famous phrase,6 the Second World War was not differ-
ent, and the Nazi regime should not have been met by force; in which case,
it would, of course, have triumphed. Davis argues (and I agree) that a pacifist,
as he and I understand the term here, must accept that conclusion, and this
means, for him, that the only coherent pacifism is one that can offer a plausi-
ble grounding for accepting such a conclusion. He further argues that the only
such plausible grounding available is that offered by Christian pacifists like the
Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder or his ally and fellow theologian
Stanley Hauerwas.7
The substantive point Davis is making here is simple enough, but, I think,
very profound. He suggests that the pacifist renounces the possibility of secu-
lar success – victory over evil, intervening to save lives, stopping genocide by
military means and so on – and that such renunciation can only be justified if
something like Yoder’s version of Christian witness is true. As he puts it,
In the absence of a story about human relations to the divine that provides a
context for such renunciation, pacifism itself, is a source of [moral] pollution
altogether on a par with the crimes of Oedipus.8
Nicholas Rengger 47
I do not want, in this context, to argue the toss about Davis’s claim that only
Christian pacifism is ‘real pacifism’, but I certainly want to suggest that he is
right to say that adopting a pacifist stance precludes the possibility of using
force to achieve a rightfully desired goal – the protection of the innocent, the
defence of the weak and so on. These are things that our general moral world
would sanction as unquestionably good, other things being equal, and, unless
there is some very powerful overriding reason why such a renunciation should
be adopted, to allow the weak to be unprotected or the innocent defiled would,
almost universally I think, be considered a profound moral wrong.
As I argued in Just War and International Order, it is this recognition, I think,
that underpins both the origins and the longevity of the just war tradition.
For in many respects the early theorists of what we now call ‘the just war’
(say Ambrose and Augustine) did share something very like Yoder’s account
of Christian witness, with the one crucial difference that they did not agree
that this generated a blanket ban on the use of force in all circumstances, even
though it did generate a very healthy scepticism about the kinds of claims that
the powers usually resorted to in justifying the use of force.
Augustine, perhaps more than anyone else, was the sceptic par excellence both
of the claims political authorities give for justifying war and for the claims
they also give for limiting it and for defending ‘peace’. ‘Peace and War had a
contest in cruelty’, he famously remarks, ‘and Peace won’.9 An unjust peace for
Augustine was an affront to God as much as unjust war – and, of course, most
peace was unjust, as were most wars.
Thus, for all its moral force and longevity, pacificism as a philosophical
approach to peace is dependent, I think, upon there being a belief of the sort
that Yoder and Hauerwas (and others) think there is to ground it. Without that,
pure pacifism is, as Davis suggests, not only philosophically incoherent but
morally corrupting.
What Caedel calls ‘non-Pacifist Peace sentiment’ represents, as I remarked
above, a rather different line of argument. Although some of this is also rooted
in Christian objections to violence, it has come to have many other sources as
well over time. In Just War and International Order, I suggested that it was part
of what I termed the ‘compassionate response’ to war.
On this view, war is the greatest imaginable mistake. The war system – though
nobody called it that then – is a disastrous and hugely wasteful spectacle, the
heroism empty and the skill and ingenuity deployed grotesquely misplaced.
Strong elements of this view can be found in many of the Renaissance human-
ists, perhaps most famously Erasmus, whose Moriae Encomium and Querela Pacis
provide perhaps the most eloquent statement of this view into modern times.10
Yet it was not simply famous and well-known humanists who believed this.
Echoes of it can be found in much religious writing in the sixteenth and sev-
enteenth centuries, especially in the writings of the peace churches, Quakers,
Mennonites and Anabaptists, in the late seventeenth and eighteenth cen-

turies.11 It is retained in some of the eighteenth-century writings on the idea
and possibility of perpetual peace (for example, the Abbe de St Pierre’s famous
Projet sur paix perpetuelle) and it permeates much of the thinking of the Enlight-
enment in politics, especially, for example, the writings of Rousseau and Kant
on international relations, and central to this idea (though certainly not unique
to it) is a strong link, as we shall see in a moment, between the regime of a state
and its predilection, or lack of it, for war.12
This emerging confluence of ideas produced what Michael Barnett recently
called ‘the humanitarian big bang’,13 that set of ideas that emerged out of the
eighteenth-century Enlightenment when ‘compassion [] moved from part of
the private realm and into the public realm, and the alleviation of suffering
became a defining element of modern society’.14 And he is right, I think, to
see its significance for modern thought as almost impossible to overestimate.
But in the current context, the problem with it is also fairly clear. Lacking the
absolute grounding of the particular approach to Christian witness shared by
a Yoder or a Hauerwas, it becomes essentially an instrumental calculation, and
it seems unclear why such a calculation will always come down in favour of
‘peace’; it may often do so, to be sure, but that is not enough. Hence, instru-
mental versions of pacificism are consistently unstable, a reason, perhaps, for
their inconstant (or downright hypocritical) application.
Regime type and peace
It is perhaps not too far-fetched to suggest that the recognition of this problem
is one of the things that have generated the initially limited but then rapidly
growing belief that the problems of peace (or war) are actually problems associ-
ated with the kinds of polities we have. As Michael Howard, among others, has
pointed out,15 from the eighteenth century onwards some thinkers increasingly
come to see war not as a permanent, however regrettable, feature of human
experience but, rather, as a ‘problem’ that could, in principle at least, be ‘solved’
(i.e. eliminated). Of course, this was much broader than simply the belief that
war need not always be with us – that we might, by God or providence, be
delivered from war. Rather, it was a belief in the capacity of individuals and
societies to reshape the character of politics such that established traditions – in
this case, the tradition that there was nothing that could be done about war
as such, though there were always things you could do about particular wars –
weakened their grip on the European mind.
As we saw earlier, such a view was central to the rise of the ‘compassionate’
response, and many of the innovations in nineteenth-century international
relations are traceable to this idea, I think. The foundation of the Red Cross
is a good example, as are the disarmament conferences of 1899 and 1907.16
Nicholas Rengger 49
Indeed, the very notion of ‘disarming’ and ‘disarmament’ is surely depen-

dent on the idea that, at least in principle, it is not irrational to wish, and
act, for a world without war.17 Indeed, much of the history of institutional
change and ‘reform’ in international relations in general throughout the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries is inexplicable in the absence of this belief,
and even much of the negative reaction to such attempts speaks volumes
about the extent to which both reformers and their opponents occupied the
same essential mental universe; as Michael Oakeshott once remarked apro-
pos Hayek’s critique of centralized planning, ‘a plan to resist all planning
may be preferable to its opposite, but it is still part of the same style of
politics’.18
And it is here, I think, that we see two crucial philosophical assumptions
being made. First, we must assume that humanity can progress morally (note,
not that we must make such progress, nor even that we are doing so, only that
we can do so). Second, not only must we believe in the possibility of a world
without war, but we must have a plausible vehicle for getting us there.
The chosen vehicle has, of course, been variable – Kant’s foedum pacificum,19
the growth of ‘civilization’ suggested by some in the nineteenth century,20 eco-
nomic interdependence, as was hinted at by Kant and claimed more generally
by Norman Angel21 and subsequently by many others – but there has been a
growing conviction both that it was possible, and that this possibility could
be made law: that is to say, a predilection to see war or peace as a matter,
principally at least, of political form.
The best-known version of this claim in modern thought is, of course, the
so-called ‘democratic peace thesis’, and, however this is understood in detail,22
it is clear that the core argument depends upon the idea that there is a clear
and unambiguous relationship between a political regime and its manner of
acting in the world. As Montesquieu claimed, for example, monarchies (for
example) are war prone (if not always warlike), and republics peaceable (if not
always peaceful). This claim, while, of course, it has ancient roots,23 is trace-
able in its modern form to the Enlightenment. However, it is worth pointing
out that the Enlightenment did not speak with one voice on this matter. The
claim is often associated with Montesquieu’s De L’Esprit des Lois, and a widely
cited passage in the context is his claim that ‘the spirit of Monarchy is war
and enlargement of dominion; peace and moderation are the spirit of a repub-
lic’.24 From this, of course, it seems to follow that if you changed the social
form of Europe from monarchy to republics, you could – in principle – abol-
ish war. However, Montesquieu’s point is actually the very different one that
war is not a feature of the human condition as such but, rather, of social (but
not only constitutional) form; the character of the ‘spirit of the laws’ deter-
mines a society’s predilection towards or away from the use of force, but it is
a mistake to equate the spirit of the laws, as Montesquieu understands this,
merely with constitutional form or – as we might say today – with ‘regime

type’.25
The thinker who certainly does make this claim – and, as I have already said,
in contemporary terms he is easily the most influential advocate of the demo-
cratic peace avant la lettre, as it were – is Immanuel Kant. In a series of essays
published in the 1780s and 1790s, Kant outlined a subtle and philosophically
rich account of human social development that suggested, first, that properly
‘republican’ (as he would call them) states would have little to go to war over
and, second, that history (or, as Kant preferred to say, ‘providence’) was effec-
tively creating a situation in which more and more states would indeed become
republican. However, for Kant, this was not irrevocable (or, at least, not so
in any meaningful timescale), and so republican states had to look to pro-
tect themselves from other kinds of states that would be, for a long time, in
the majority. To this end, he thought, they should create a foedus pacificum, or
pacific union of republican states, peaceful towards one another but prepared
to defend each other against aggression.
This way of thinking helps to create a very different way of thinking about
peace (one entirely characteristic, I think, of the dominant tenor of post-
Enlightenment26 thinking). It assumes that the problem of war is essentially
solvable if we move away from political and social forms that encourage
it (monarchy or the ‘martial spirit’) and towards political and social forms
that discourage it (liberal republics/democracies) and that there is an histor-
ical process that can bring this about. This has given liberal and democratic
thinking about peace in general an institutional flavour which has perme-
ated much of the international relations theory of the twentieth century, from
Zimmern’s League of Nations and the Rule of Law in 1936 to the most recent
edition of Keohane and Nye’s Power and Interdependence in 2000. One might
even suggest that much conventional Marxist thought on international rela-
tions is a variant on the same theme; it is the contradictions of capitalism
that will bring about the abolition of war, not the republican state – indeed,
states too will be abolished – but the form of the argument is essentially
the same.27
Kant, of course, additionally believed (as did Marx) that a progressivist phi-
losophy of history was required to turn this argument from a fairly banal one
relating regimes to behaviour, prefigured in antiquity, to a much more signif-
icant comment on the emerging possibilities for humankind. Without what
Kant famously called an ‘idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan pur-
pose’,28 which emphasized the extent to which republics would, over time,
become the norm in international politics, his thesis is merely a recognition
of the fact that republics would have to wage war – and perhaps wage it with
considerable ferocity – if they were to survive in a world where most states were
still not republics and were, in all probability, hostile to such republics. The
Nicholas Rengger 51
other face of the foedus pacificum, in other words, is a democratic war theory,
an account of how and why republics will fight wars and a recognition that
such wars may be very fierce and very frequent until such time as the foedus
pacificum covers the earth.
Modern versions of the democratic peace thesis have been – to put it mildly –
ambiguous about what, in particular, has been the key factor in explaining
peace between ‘democracies’. Is it, perhaps, democratic political mechanisms?29
Or a liberal political culture?30 Or a combination of these things coupled with
an active free market and trade? Or the salience and binding force of interna-
tional institutions? Or all of the above? And we should add, of course, that
latterly, both in respect of politics in general and in respect of international
politics in particular, there is a burgeoning literature that argues for ‘republi-
can’ forms of government that are democratic but, in important ways at least,
very critical of liberalism.31 But the key points in all these arguments, of course,
are first, that whatever factor is identified should be seen as having, potentially
at least, universal scope and second, that however interpreted, the key assump-
tion has to be that there is a direct and unmediated connection between a
liberal democratic (or republican or what have you) political regime and its
behaviour in regard to (in this instance) war.
Of course, if it is the case that the royal road to international peace runs
through the establishment of what we might today term ‘liberal democratic’
societies, then there is an obvious logic in seeking to create as many democ-
racies as possible; even perhaps, in some circumstances, imposing them.
Something like this seems to have been at least part of the rationale for cer-
tain actions of the Bush administration after its epiphany on the 11 September
2001, but it is worth adding that to a lesser (and less obviously aggressive)
extent, such policies had been prefigured in the Clinton period and have been
followed also by the Obama administration, and are part of the widely shared
rhetoric of the contemporary West.
So can we find such a link? I want to suggest that we cannot, and we
cannot because the argument about regime type and war elides a central dis-
tinction. It is an obvious point, to begin with, that ‘liberal democracies’ are
themselves notoriously diverse. Of course, they have certain institutional sim-
ilarities, which is why it is fair enough to call them by a common name, but
it is equally certain that there are many differences. For there to be anything
properly meaningful in the ‘democratic peace’ thesis, however, one would have
to be able to say that it was the ‘liberal democratic’ aspect of a political commu-
nity – that is, the ‘regime type’ – that mattered most, that this aspect of country
a or b would overcome national or ethnic partiality, religious sensibility (or lack
of it), or simple perspective of profit and loss.
It seems unlikely that this would necessarily be the case; surely it would
depend upon the context. In which case, one is looking for the context in which
the existence of a democratic (or liberal democratic) political culture will lead
to a certain kind of political behaviour, rather than the mere fact that the state
in question was (in whatever sense) ‘liberal democratic’.
Some defenders of the thesis have sought to link the fact of liberal political
cultures or democratic political systems with relevant contexts, but even when
they have succeeded, the implications for the liberal democratic peace are not
really as rosy as many of its advocates would have us believe. Not only do ‘really
existing democracies’ of course differ between themselves, in many ways and
for many reasons, but it is surely also reasonable to suppose further that even
the specific form of government we might describe as liberal (or representative)
democracy will have many fault lines within it.
The democratic peace thesis – as a thesis, that is to say, as a philosophical
hypothesis about the political world – represents, it seems to me, in a par-
ticularly pure form, an error common in the history of European political
thought over the last two hundred years and especially common today, to
which Michael Oakeshott most famously pointed32 and on which I drew in
Just War and International Order. This is simply the confusion between describing
the character of a regime, that is, a particular set of constitutional arrange-
ments, and disclosing the logic of a certain mode of association. As Oakeshott
remarked in On Human Conduct, ‘belligerence is alien to civil association’,33 but
this has nothing specifically to do with the constitutional arrangements (republi-
can, liberal or whatever) of a state (which will in any case, for Oakeshott, be an
admixture of civil and enterprise association) and everything to do with how
one understands the logic of association itself.34
This error has a number of very unfortunate corollaries. It not only con-
flates regime type with mode of association, it also allows the identification
of certain kinds of behaviour with certain kinds of regime rather than, as
would be much more appropriate, the logics inherent to a certain mode of
association. Moreover, it tends to encourage the belief that one can change
or adapt behaviour deemed desirable or undesirable for various reasons by
changing the relevant regime. This gives an additional impetus, if one were
needed, for ‘liberal democratic’ states to believe that force can be used to
bring about ‘regime change’ and therefore allegedly secure changes in regime
‘behaviour’. As I already remarked, there certainly seems to be something of this
logic behind at least some justifications of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.35
As Oakeshott himself remarks at one point in On Human Conduct, we ourselves
have long ago ‘suffered the voice of civil association to be confused with a
“liberal” [almost always put in scare quotes in Oakeshott’s writing] concern
for constitutional devices’.36 He is clear, and I agree with him, that it should
not be.
But if this is the case, then the core assumption of the democratic peace
thesis – certainly the most practically significant contemporary philosophy of
Nicholas Rengger 53
peace – collapses, since no specific link can be shown to exist between regime
type and peaceful or non-peaceful behaviour.
Conclusion
In this chapter I have tried to suggest that the philosophy of peace is divided
between approaches that essentially make a moral case for peace and those
which suggest that peace (or war) is less a matter of moral choice and more a
feature of political (constitutional) form. But in both cases, as we have seen,
there are very serious problems. Where, then, does that leave us, in thinking
about the philosophy of peace? I would like to close with two observations that
might perhaps be relevant in pondering this question.
The first is to suggest that thinking about philosophies of peace should per-
haps reinforce the view, derivable to be sure in other contexts as well, that the
search for an absolute position, an ultimate ground of decision or choice, is
always likely to be a fruitless one. Of those approaches we have looked at here,
the one that adopts such a position most strongly is pacifism, but, as we saw,
even that is predicated on a claim that cannot itself be grounded (only believed,
or disbelieved). But such a view should worry only those who fear the reality
of indeterminacy – to be sure, a large and growing band in the twenty-first
century.
The second, certainly not unrelated to the first, is to suggest that what
thinking about the philosophy of peace perhaps reveals most clearly is the
requirement to prepare for peace: to be aware of the conditions that might
favour it, or, indeed, of those that might obstruct it, and have responses to
such conditions in mind. Peace may not always be attainable, and sometimes
(I agree with Augustine) might not be preferable, but for the most part, for most
of us, most of the time, it will be, and so we should think long and hard about
its context and its prospect. Perhaps the most telling lesson the philosophies
of peace I have examined here have to offer us is that, for once, the Romans
might have got it wrong with their proverb Si vis ppacem, para bellum. Perhaps
the motto should be: Si vis pacem, para pacem.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my friend and former colleague Oliver Richmond for
inviting me to contribute this chapter and for his generous – though increas-
ingly strained – patience with my rather relaxed attitude to deadlines. Parts of
the chapter are drawn from chapter 2 of my Just War and International Order:
The Uncivil Condition in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2013), though the general argument of this chapter is unrelated to the larger
argument of that book.
Notes
1. There is no overall historical treatment of pacifism as a phenomenon. Good, though
more limited, treatments would include P. Brock and N. Young, Pacifism in the
Twentieth Century (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999) and, especially,
Martin Caedel, Thinking about Peace and War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987),
chapter 7, where Caedel identifies five different types (arguably, in fact, ideal types) of
pacifism. Caedel has also written three excellent studies of pacifism in the UK: Paci-
fism in Britain, 1914–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), The Origins of War
Prevention: The British Peace Movement and International Relations 1730–1854 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1996) and Semi-Detached Idealists: The British Peace Move-
ment and International Relations 1854–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Excellent philosophical treatments of a pacifist position can be found in Richard
Holmes, On War and Morality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989) – which
also strongly advocates a certain kind of pacifism to which I will return – and Jan
Narveson, ‘Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis’, Ethics 75, no. 4 (1965): 259–271 –
which most certainly does not. I will come back to explicitly Christian justifications
for pacifism in a moment.
2. Caedel, Thinking about Peace and War, 102.
3. Gandhi’s non-violence was, as I read it, very much a strategy – though I do not
doubt his sincerity and his general abomination of violence – and in that sense not
a principled objection to violence as such. At the very least, he was often ambiguous
about how far his ‘pacifism’ went. For discussions, see Caedel, Thinking about Peace
and War, 158–159, and for a rather contrary view, see Bikhu Parekh, Gandhi’s Political
Philosophy: A Critical Examination (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989).
4. Holmes, On War and Morality, 14.
5. In Warcraft and the Fragility of Virtue (Moscow: Idaho University Press, 1992).
6. To wit, the title of his celebrated 1971 article in Philosophy and Public Affairs, ‘World
War Two: Why This War Was Different’.
7. Yoder’s position is detailed most fully in his The Politics of Jesus (Michigan: W. B.
Eerdmans, 1972); Hauerwas’s across a huge range of his books and essays, but see,
as a representative sample, chapters 6 and 7 of Despatches from the Front: Theological
Engagements with the Secular (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994).
8. Davis, Warcraft and the Fragility of Virtue, 49.
9. A remark from book XVIV of The City of God, of course.
10. Again, excellent discussions can be found in Skinner, The Foundations of Modern
Political Thought. On Erasmus, Ronald Bainton’s Erasmus of Christendom (New York:
Scribners, 1969) is also extremely useful.
11. Good discussions can be found in Caedel, The Origins of War Prevention.
12. A superb study of Kant’s view of these questions can be found in chapter 2 of Gallie,
Philosophers of Peace and War, and for a superb study of the general Enlightenment
context, Peter Gay’s The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, 2 vols (New York: Wildwood
House, 1970) cannot be bettered.
13. See his excellent study Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2011). See especially chapter 2.
14. Barnet, Empire of Humanity, 50.
15. See his The Invention of Peace (London: Profile Books, 2001).
16. For the best general treatment of this, see Geoffery Best, Humanity in Warfare: The
Modern History of the International Law of Armed Conflicts (London: Allen and Unwin,
1978).
Nicholas Rengger 55
17. For a wonderful illustration of this, as well as a superb discussion of the evolution
of this sensibility in modern thought as a whole, see Geoffery Best, Humanity in
Warfare (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980) and Law and War (Oxford: The
Clarendon Press, 1996).
18. The remark is made in Rationalism in Politics (London: Methuen, 1962).
19. Elaborated most fully in his essay Zum Ewigen Frieden (on Perpetual Peace). See Brown
Nardin and Rengger, 432–450.
20. A classic discussion is Geritt W. Gong, The Standard of Civilization in International
Society (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1984).
21. Most famously in The Great Illusion (London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons: 1911).
22. There is now an immense literature on this. I could not even begin to scratch the
surface if I were to write another book. The modern locus classicus is Michael Doyle,
‘Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 12 (Sum-
mer and Fall, 1983): 205–235, 323–353 and ‘Liberalism and World Politics’, American
Political Science Review, 80, no. 4 (1986). A critical response is Christopher Layne,
‘Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Democratic Peace’, International Security 19, no. 2
(Autumn, 1994): 5–49.
23. There is a good deal to be said about the extent to which Enlightenment and
post-Enlightenment understandings of the character of a regime (most obviously
in Montesquieu and Tocqueville) draw upon ancient ideas about the ‘character’ of
a regime and to what extent they differ from them. The most obvious difference is
the emphasis, certainly in both Plato and Aristotle, of the equivalence between the
soul and the city – Plato’s discussion of the declining character of the souls/cities in
books 8 and 9 of the Republic is an example – of which there is no real equivalent.
However, there are other differences as well. For good discussions of the idea of the
regime and its effect in antiquity, see, famously, Kurt Von Fritz, The Theory of the
Mixed Constitution in Antiquity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954) and an
even older classic, Alfred Zimmern, The Greek Commonwealth (Oxford: The Clarendon
Press, 1911). Much contemporary writing from the friends and admirers of the late
Leo Strauss has also stressed the importance of the notion of the regime and has also
considered its modern imitators. Good examples would be Thomas Pangle’s interpre-
tive essay to his (excellent) translation of The Laws (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1980). For his take on the Enlightenment version, see his Montesquieu’s Philos-
ophy of Liberalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973). A much more recent
discussion, specifically on Aristotle, but very good on the idea of the regime and its
significance, is Bernard Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1993).
24. Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 1949, 5.
25. This point is made by Oakeshott in On Human Conduct: see the discussion on
pp. 245–251. Accounts of Montesquieu that would broadly share this view (though
from very different perspectives) would include Judith Shklar, Montesquieu (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1987) and John Plamenatz, Man and Society Vol. 1 (Harlow:
Longman, 1961), see pp. 284–291. Accounts that would be rather different would
include Thomas Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1974).
26. In this context I mean, of course, post-Enlightenment in the sense of following on
in the spirit of the Enlightenment, not merely chronologically post-Enlightenment.
27. For an excellent discussion of Marxist accounts of international relations, see
Vendulka Kublakova and Andrew Cruikshank, Marxism and International Relations
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
28. The German title is ‘Idee zu Allgemeinen Gesichter in Weltburgerlicher absicht’.

29. This argument is developed in detail by Bruce Russett in Grasping the Democratic Peace
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
30. Implied, at least, in Fareed Zakaria’s recent The Future of Freedom (New York: Norton,
2003).
31. The growth of interest in ‘republican’ political thought, its history, character and
contemporary provenance is, of course, one of the great stories of the last 40 years
of intellectual history and political theory. Probably the two leading historians of
ideas responsible for much of this recapturing are J. G. A. Pocock – especially in
The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican
Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003 [1975]) – and Quentin Skin-
ner, much of whose work deals with republicanism in some form or another, but
whose pioneering historical work in The Foundations of Modern Political Thought,
2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978) bore specific fruit in Lib-
erty before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). The dominant
voice in contemporary republican political thought is probably Phillip Pettit, whose
Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1997) was the first fully worked out contemporary appropriation of the ideas of
classical republicanism and who has recently moved into thinking about the inter-
national implications of this, in his ‘A Republican Law of Peoples’ in the European
Journal of Political Theory, 9, no. 1 (January 2010). Other scholars who have articu-
lated a distinctive republican position in international relations are Nick Onuf in The
Republican Legacy in International Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997) and Daniel Deudney in Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis
to the Global Village (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).
32. See, especially, his discussion in On Human Conduct, 272–274.
33. Oakeshott, On Human Conduct, 273.
34. See, for example, Oakeshott’s acerbic footnote (On Human Conduct, 273) to the effect
that ‘Kant and others conjectured that a Europe composed of states with republican
constitutions would be a Europe at peace. This absurdity is often excused on the
ground that it is a plausible (although naïve) identification of war with so-called
dynastic war, but it is in fact the muddle from which Montesquieu did his best to
rescue us, the confusion of a constitution of government (republican) with a mode
of association’. Cf. the discussion of Montesquieu above.
35. Witness, for example, some of Paul Wolfowitz’s comments in an article printed
in Prospect Magazine, Radek Sikorski, ‘Interview: Paul Wolfowtiz’, Prospect Magazine,
23 November 2004.
36. See Oakeshott, On Human Conduct, 297 FN 2.
4
Peace in International Relations
Theory1
Oliver P. Richmond
Introduction
What is peace according to IR theory? This question appears to have been set-
tled in favour of the liberal peace. This comprises a victor’s peace aimed at
security, an institutional peace to provide international governance and guar-
antees, a constitutional peace to ensure democracy and free trade, and a civil
peace to ensure freedom and rights.2 Though the concept of peace is often
assumed to be central, it is rarely defined in IR theory. This raises issues related
to an ontology of peace, culture, development, agency and structure, and their
implications for ‘everyday life’.3
However, in general, mainstream realist IR focuses on the dynamics of power,
war, and assuming the inherency of violence in human nature and interna-
tional relations and sovereignty, encapsulated by the state over rights and
justice. Status, power, domination and control, for reasons of survival or to
maintain a balance of power, often lead, in the final analysis, in the direc-
tion of war, imperialism and a victor’s peace. Such orthodoxies in IR theory
routinely ignore the question – or problem – of peace: how is it constituted,
one peace or many? A vast range of social, anthropological and ethnographic
evidence shows that peace, conflict avoidance and accommodation are the
stronger impulses of human culture.4 Furthermore, critical innovations in the
discipline infer searching questions about peace in terms of methodology, epis-
temology and ontology. They range across ways of knowing peace, knowing
the minds of others, the role of social agency and resistance, and debating
normative frameworks, often connecting with debates on gender, culture and
identity.
Peace in mainstream IR theory
The debates about war imply a negative form of peace based upon either the
pragmatic removal of overt violence and the creation of a basic, realist order,
57
or more sophisticated and positive forms of peace according to political lib-

eralism or various debates about a self-sustaining peace. Hedley Bull famously
saw peace in the context of an international society,5 though war was the key
guarantee for individual state survival. Realism offers an elite and negative
peace based on inherency, and the balance of power between self-interested
state units. Liberalism offers a one-size-fits-all normative, legal and institutional
progressive framework of mainly elite governance with little recognition of
difference. Structuralism offers grassroots emancipation from determinist class
structures of the international political economy via a revolutionary politics,
while also pointing to the determinism of deep international structures related
to geography and materiality.
Realist IR theory assumes that human nature is violent and that states
reflect this if not well designed and institutionalized. War is perceived to be
immutable, reflecting the forces which drive IR, whether power or structure,
and their permanence. Realism infers a victor’s peace that has Darwinian, exclu-
sive and unreflexive qualities. This version of peace is a privileged concept
only available to the powerful and a ‘commonwealth’ they may want to create.
Most realist analysis expends its energy in reactive discussions based upon the
inherency of violence in human nature and states (now discredited in other
disciplines) as a counter to other strands of the main debates. Its different
iterations imply a peace found in the state-centric balance of power, perhaps
dominated by a hegemon.6 The tragedy of these approaches lies in their uni-
tary internal assumptions of a shared peace within political units based upon
common interests and values, and the difficulties in maintaining peaceful rela-
tions with other external polities that have their own notions of peace.7 Even
so, Hobbes envisaged a commonwealth that might tame the international.8
This tension can be seen in the tension between Waltz’s work focusing on men,
states and war; Wight’s and Bull’s opening up of a concept of international soci-
ety as opposed to anarchy;9 and E. H. Carr’s concerns about both positions.10
The dominant-mode realist approach, however, which underpins most ortho-
dox IR theory and policy making today, is that ‘the logic of strategy pervades
the upkeep of peace as much as the making of war’.11 War can even be seen as
the ‘origin of peace’ by exhausting opponents and their resources.12
Opposed to this negative view of peace and humanity, idealism and lib-
eralism claim a future possibility of a universal peace in which states and
individuals are free, prosperous and unthreatened. The idealist aspect of the first
‘great debate’13 in IR opposed realism and its inherency orientation, offering an
ambitious, ethically oriented account of peace through liberal internationalism
and governance, and based upon human rights and a positive reading of the
potential of human nature. It focused on its implications for the concep-
tualization of peace, which led to a discussion of international-level ethics,
interdependence and transnationalism.14
Oliver P. Richmond 59
Idealists called for disarmament, the outlawing of war, and adopted a posi-
tive view of human nature and international capacity to cooperate, but were
often accused of being unable to focus on facts, understand power or see the
hegemonic dangers of universal claims15 (despite the fact that realism itself
makes a universal claim of being able to understand objective truth). Idealist
thinking about IR rested upon various notions of internationalism and inter-
dependence, peace without war, disarmament, the hope that war could be
eradicated eventually,16 the right to self-determination of all citizens, and the
possibility of world government or a world federation. In this sense, it saw itself
as eminently practical rather than utopian, reflecting an ontology of peace and
harmony, often derived from Kant.
These debates indicated that there was a human and social potential for a
more sophisticated peace. This peace might be engineered in a pragmatic man-
ner, resting on the normative foundations offered by liberalism, as assumed
by the literatures and practices that emerged on international organization,
internationalism, functionalism and constitutionalism, as well as on norms,
regimes and global governance. This fertile ground for thinking about peace has
been one of IR’s strongest influences. It infers an ontology in which governance
and international organization can be used to develop peace as a common good
for all, through which a specific epistemology and methods can be practically
deployed to create progress towards an ideal of peace, through global govern-
ment or governance. This process depends upon a peace that can be created by
those with specialized capacities suitable both for themselves and for others.
Peace is represented as both process and outcome, defined by a grand theory
resting upon territorial sovereignty and international governance, which every
theoretical and conceptual stage should work towards in a linear and rational
fashion, offering the liberal claim of a ‘peace dividend’ strongly influenced by a
mixture of Western cultural and historical normative frameworks, which claim
universality.
Marxism offers a form of peace derived from the absence of structural vio-
lence related to economic distribution and class domination.17 The global
economy, world trade and global economic relations are structured to the
advantage of small elites and social classes and their control of state and inter-
national institutions, leading to global injustice and the disempowerment of
much of the world’s population.18 Peace cannot exist while such structures
exist, and so revolutionary forces are deemed necessary to overcome injustice.19
For Marx, capitalist property relations must be abolished in order to remove the
exploitation that occurred between ‘nations’,20 leading to social justice. The
class framework enabled a transnational view of IR in which a struggle over
the nature of order takes place not just between states, but also between mobi-
lized classes aiming at economic justice and equality (by taking control of the
means of production and removing private property). This was concerned not
only with developing a form of peace (in the form of a classless society) but
with the transnational organization of the masses, who would take discursive
and practical action to resist elite structures of exploitation. This emancipatory
discourse is one of Marxism’s most important contributions (if ironic) to IR’s
approaches to peace. This has brought into view the significance of peripheries
and ‘grassroots actors’, the processes by which they are marginalized, how resis-
tance occurs, emancipation, and ‘bottom-up’ perspectives in IR, often aiming
at social justice.
The English School debates about an international society offered another
alternative to such debates. An ‘international society’ is based upon shared val-
ues and interests between states as a framework for peace and follows a narrow
path between a balance of power and stable social relations. However, a related
concept of peace remained merely a subtext, never closely developed – in the
same way that Bull also saw human rights.21 This was an improvement on the
bleaker realist view of a negative or victor’s peace, however: peace lay in the
identification, development and expansion of international society, extended
by the debate on human rights that developed in the context of the English
School.22 Furthermore, human rights would always be limited by the norms
of sovereignty and non-intervention, meaning that they were merely the lux-
ury of those whose political conditions seemed to be more conducive to human
rights.23 Buzan later saw this as evidence of a shift from an international society
of states to a world society of multiple actors.24 As the English School developed,
there was a movement away from seeing human rights, one of the core com-
ponents of any liberal notion of peace, as subservient to power and interest, to
the point where it became one of its core assumptions and driving dynamics.
This was a step towards a liberal understanding of peace. Such arguments were
extended in various ways via normative,25 cosmopolitan26 and institutional27
approaches that emerged later.
The range of approaches of constructivism28 have been mainly concerned
with the role of states as central to the moderation of anarchy and the pro-
cess of socialization. As constructivist approaches argue that state behaviour is
determined by their identities and interests, this implies that their construc-
tion of peace is also determined by their interests and their identities. This
represents a picture of an identity- and interest-based peace deployed for oth-
ers, on a normative and interest basis, which may well fluctuate over time.
From this perspective, as socially constructed states create or control interna-
tional anarchy, they also create and control peace, and they do this according
to their own values and interests. Adler and Barnett have developed the idea
of ‘security communities’ in which states act in groups to establish a com-
munity with its own institutions aimed at providing a stable peace.29 In a
pluralistic, transnational security community, states retain their own sense of
identity while at the same time sharing a ‘meta-identity’ across the security
community.30 Here, the work of Waever and Buzan, and the ‘Copenhagen
School’, on ‘securitization’ has made the key contribution. This has effectively
defined securitization as a discursive process dependent upon societal and his-
torical contexts leading to an existential threat to a particular community.31
This means that peace in these terms moves towards a discussion of the qual-
itative conditions of peace for those who actually experience and, perhaps,
construct them.
Though these accounts challenge mainstream and orthodox approaches to
IR on ontological and methodological grounds, they also arrive at a problem
familiar to the liberal and realist canon. They offer more of a hybrid, based
upon rationalism and incorporating some aspects of more critical thinking
about society or the international. The state remains the central, dominant
actor, around which the understandings of peace revolve. For this reason, the
socially constructed peace offered by constructivism is conditioned by inter-
state relations, domestic politics and securitization (albeit discursive), which
treat intersubjective factors such as identity. They indicate a liberal and pro-
gressive ontology of peace, developed and controlled by governance run by
state elites and the rationalist bureaucratic and administrative power which
goes with statehood.
Lying behind such thinking is one of the core implicit debates in orthodox
IR theory. Peace is seen to be something to aspire to, often closely connected to
hegemonic preferences, though it is perhaps not achievable. This failure rests
on human nature for realists, or the failure of institutions (and even the lack of
world government or limitations of global governance) for liberals and idealists.
The Westphalian international system represents a compromise between these
positions. This is indicative of Galtung’s negative and positive peace frame-
work, which is the most widely used conceptualization of peace,32 and can
be extended into a negative and positive epistemology of peace.33 In the con-
text of such debates, the liberal peace has often emerged as the main blueprint
approach. What is most important about this treatment is that as an objec-
tive point of reference, it is possible for the diplomat, politician, or official of
international organizations, regional organizations or international agencies to
judge what is right and wrong in terms of aspirations, processes, institutions
and methods in their particular areas of concern. The liberal peace is the foil by
which the world was to be judged in the period after the end of the Cold War.
It is closely associated with the orthodoxy of IR theory, and can be seen as a
hybrid of liberalism and realism.
Peace and critical IR theory
More critical narratives establish a broader, interdisciplinary reading of peace,

combining a number of different socially oriented perspectives which point
towards the problems of power and inequality, and the potential of resistance
and social agency. Theory indicates the possibility for human action and eth-
ical and practical potential,34 meaning that the study of peace must be a vital
component of engagement with any theory.
Critical contributions to IR theory offer a more sophisticated conceptualiza-
tion of peace as well as a powerful critique of the liberal orthodoxy and the
neoliberal overtones that it has increasingly adopted.35 They aim to theorize
a post-Westphalian peace, in which territorial sovereignty and its ontology
no longer characterize the global normative landscape and political cartogra-
phy. Given the immediacy of the politics of everyday life, as the complexities
of global and historical injustice and inequality, the liberal peace is simply
not responsive enough to the demands made upon it by states, officials and
communities, particularly in the sphere of social welfare, justice, culture and
identity. The emergence of the critical impulse in IR theory, drawing upon
critical social theory, has perhaps been one of the most important develop-
ments in IR theory over the last generation.36 Different strands rested partially
upon a rejection of the objective and subjective divide and a ‘linguistic turn’.37
In the context of these developments, a complex concept of peace, relating
to a discursive, emancipatory project, reflecting the everyday life of all, men,
women and children, in the varied contexts around the world suddenly became
part of the interdiscipline. It points towards a post-colonial understanding of
peace as a hybrid peace in negative terms, representing an encounter between
claims of the subaltern and existing power structures relative to state and global
governance.38
An emancipatory version of peace would be based upon, and revolve around,
forms of communication designed to facilitate emancipation, both for the indi-
vidual and for others, leading to empathy and commensurate equality between
them.39 This ‘discourse ethic’ requires that principles be established through a
dialogue that does not exclude any person or moral position. All boundaries
and systems should be examined through this process to avoid exclusion.40
This would facilitate the recognition of the intersubjective nature of knowl-
edge even in instrumental areas such as the workings of the global political
economy. It would be derived from the evolution of social learning: from pre-
conventional morality, in which laws are obeyed because of fear of punitive
consequences of not doing so; conventional morality, in which norms exist
within a specific and limited moral community; and post-conventional moral-
ity, in which actors and individuals seek norms that have universal appeal
and consequently lead to a universal moral community.41 Ultimately, critical
theories offer a vision of an emancipatory, everyday and empathetic form of
peace in the context of a post-conventional, post-Westphalian IR. They offer
an account of a systemic process of emancipation built into the communicative
institutions of IR, as well as an attempt to show how individuals can achieve
emancipation within such moral communities. This implies a negotiated but

universal peace through a radical reform of politics, attainable though dia-
logue in various fora. This positive epistemology of peace suggests an overall
ontology of hybrid peace (as opposed to an institutional, class-based or bal-
ance of power ontology): emancipation is both plausible and pragmatic, and
an epistemic basis and methodology to realize this is possible, despite the age-
old problems related to entrenched understandings and discourses of interests
and difference. This form of peace may only come about when the inherent
contradictions of capitalism, the nation-state, self-determination and identity,
and the requirements for free universal communication are resolved.42
Notions of emancipation inevitably have to skirt between the twin dangers of
relativism and universalism, and, indeed, that emancipation is merely a stage
leading to an even wider freedom, which may be beyond the common currency
of democracy and self-determination.43 A universalism which recognizes that
individuals create their world – or, in this case, forms of peace – may well be a
sufficient response to this problem, though, of course, liberalism, neo or oth-
erwise, constrains this authorship, which should entail emancipations rather
than a singular emancipation.44
The common understanding of peace that is offered through critical theory
is not unproblematic, given its reliance on a specific, and claimed to be uni-
versal, set of human norms and discourse ethics, but these have brought a
much richer set of issues and dynamics to the debate.45 Critical theory is in
danger of falling back into the familiar territory of liberal thinking about peace
and its dependence upon rational states and institutions that progressively pro-
vide emancipation from above, with only limited engagement with those being
emancipated according to their historical and material positionality.
Post-structuralism offers an alternative critical approach. It takes an anti-
foundationalist stance against Enlightenment meta-narratives of progress,
structural determinism or tragedy, arguing that orthodox theories are ontolog-
ically and methodologically flawed. Post-structuralism opens up radically new
possibilities for ontologies of peace, for methodology, and towards an under-
standing of the relationship between knowledge and power. It negotiates with
the powerful criticism of the discipline that rational theory effectively reifies a
(neo)liberal empire that rests upon the residue of liberal imperialism by offering
meta-narratives and grounded facts or truths that are, in effect, simply the inter-
ests of the powerful. Given its resistance to meta-narratives, post-structuralism
does not offer a single theory, approach or concept of peace. What is particu-
larly important in the post-structural canon is the way in which power relations
are exposed.
From this perspective, much of IR’s orthodoxy is anti-peace, in positive
hybrid form, and, at best, leads to a negative peace. Even liberal or idealist
accounts effectively favour a discursive and hegemonic framework derived from
Western/developed ontologies and interests. Everyday life is, instead, rational-

ized within a universal knowledge system, which is actually biased towards
specific, normally Western, localities and their historical privileges.46 Positive
hybrid alternatives can be found in work on aesthetic approaches to IR;47 on
development that has been critical of its neoliberal orthodoxy’s tendency to cre-
ate ‘bare life’ for those who are being ‘developed’; in gender approaches;48 and
in work which identifies a range of power relations and injustices across time
and space. In addition, post-colonial theory illustrates the ‘othering’ impact
of Western liberalism against ‘non-liberals’,49 denoting ‘orientalism’ aimed
at discursively dominating and dehumanizing the non-liberal, non-Western
subject.50
An important contribution to such moves has been encapsulated within fem-
inist approaches, which emphasize post-structural concerns, an ontology of
peace and resistance to marginalization and the public/private dichotomy. This
offers another dimension of peace that critiques the wealthy, male-dominated
views of power, and the priorities are embedded in the international system
itself. As with other emancipatory projects in IR and other humanities and
social science disciplines, the feminist project (or projects) seeks various routes
to recognize the intersubjectivity of gender and identity, but also to understand
the power relations that attempt to objectify them and marginalize them. Fem-
inist theorizing makes clear the need to engage with everyday life, and, indeed,
that there is an ‘everyday realm to international relations’ in which ‘empathetic
cooperation’ has potential.51
This implies a more subtle form of emancipation, incorporating an under-
standing of the politics of resistance, solidarity and indigenous movements
(perhaps through a consideration of international political sociological dynam-
ics) rather than following the conceptualizations offered through elite intellec-
tual and interventionary practices and action in top-down hegemonic institu-
tions. Thus, it could be said that post-structuralism implies multiple ontologies
of peace as discourse, not through the active and material intervention of
elites, but through the laying bare of the disciplinary and biopolitical nature
of liberal-realist discourse, allowing a broad-ranging empathy and a purer form
of self-emancipation.
One avenue that offers a perspective on how an ontology of peace may be
thought of is derived from the notion of hybridity.52 This implies the overlay of
multiple identities and ideas, and their transmission without necessarily result-
ing in the domination of one core identity or idea, though power relations are
inevitably present. In this sense, social movements and alternative spaces that
are not necessarily delineated or patrolled by states (such as the internet) are
crucial.53 Walker argues that ‘critical social movements’ are able to operate and
develop in new issue areas, finding new spaces in these areas and methods with
which to open them up for debate.
Conclusion
Recent and critical IR theorizing points to the fact that peace probably requires
bottom-up, social ontologies developing an empathetic account of everyday
forms of emancipation. These should shape institutions and law so that states,
economies, laws and the international community are able to respond to
socially mediated claims. It should provide social, economic and political
resources sufficient to meet the demands made upon it by its local constituen-
cies and an international community of which it should be a stakeholder. Any
viable concept of peace that conforms to the above conditions must not dis-
place localized forms of legitimacy with preponderant institutions that are
inflexible and actually obscure the local. Interdisciplinary and cross-cutting
coalitions of scholars, policy makers, individuals and civil society actors can
develop discursive understandings of peace and its construction in this context.
Peace should not become a paradox of oppositional forces or concepts; it
should not be utopian, and therefore unobtainable, but it also should not be
dystopian, and therefore lack legitimacy among those who are subject to it.
Furthermore, it must be able to mediate across its own boundaries, without
dominating, but at the same time upholding its own internal logic, norms,
legitimacy and standards for all to see and understand. Any version of peace
should cumulatively engage with everyday life as well as institutions from the
bottom up. It should rest on uncovering an ontology, perhaps indigenous, on
empathy and emancipation, and recognize the fluidity of peace as a process, as
well as the constant renegotiation of ‘international’ norms of peace. Agents of
peace should endeavour to see themselves as mediatory agents of empathetic
emancipation, whereby their role is to mediate the global norm or institution
with the local before it is constructed. This involves an exploration of different
and hybrid ontologies of peace. Acknowledging these dynamics is an important
step towards the explicit development of the heterodox conditions, practices
and understandings of a hybrid, pluralist and everyday peace across diverse
contexts.
Notes
1. This chapter draws on a much longer essay by the same author, previously published
as ‘Reclaiming Peace in International Relations’, Millennium: Journal of International
Studies 36, no. 3 (2008): 439–470.
2. For a discussion of these components, see Oliver Richmond, The Transformation of
Peace (London: Palgrave, 2005), especially the conclusion.
3. See, among others, Christine Sylvester, ‘Bare Life as Development/Post-Colonial
Problematic’, The Geographical Journal 172, no. 1 (2006): 66–77. She draws upon
G. Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1998).
4. Douglas Fry, Beyond War (Oxford: OUP, 2007), 7 and 208.
5. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977);
Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, The Expansion of International Society (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1984).
6. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Oxford: OUP, 1998 [1651]), chapter 7.
7. Chris Brown, ‘Tragedy, “Tragic Choices” and Contemporary International Political
Theory’, International Relations 21, no. 1 (2007): 5; Richard Ned Lebow, The Tragic
Vision of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Barry Buzan, ‘The
Timeless Wisdom of Realism’, in International Theory: Positivism and Beyond, eds Steve
Smith et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 51.
8. Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter 26.
9. Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State and War (Columbia University Press, 1959); Hedley
Bull, ‘The Theory of International Politics 1919–1969’, in The Aberystwyth Papers:
International Politics 1919–1969, ed. B. Porter (London: Oxford University Press,
1972), 35; Martin Wight, ‘Why Is There No International Theory’, in Diplomatic
Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics, eds Herbert Butterfield et al.
(London: George Allen and Unwin, 1966), 33.
10. E. H. Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis (London: Macmillan, 1939), 68 and 97; Jim George,
Discourses of Global Politics (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994), 78.
11. Edward N. Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard,
1987), xi.
12. Ibid., 57.
13. Peter Wilson, ‘The Myth of the First Great Debate’, Review of International Studies 24
(1998): 1–16; Lucian M. Ashworth, ‘Where Are the Idealists in Interwar IR?’ Review of
International Studies 32, no. 2 (2006): 291.
14. Norman Angell, The Great Illusion (London: Heinemann, 1910): Alfred Zimmern, The
League of Nations and the Rule of Law (London: Macmillan, 1936). See also Andreas
Osiander, ‘Rereading Early Twentieth Century IR Theory: Idealism Revisited’, Inter-
national Studies Quarterly 42, no. 3 (1998): 409–432.
15. Peter Wilson, International Theory of Leonard Woolf (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 20.
16. Norman Angell, The Fruits of Victory (London: Collins, 1921); Leonard Woolf,
International Government (London: Allen and Unwin, 1916), 8.
17. Justin Rosenberg, ‘Isaac Deutscher and the Lost History of International Relations’,
New Left Review (January/February 1996): 5.
18. Michael Gurevitch, Tony Bennett, James Curran and Janet Woollacott, eds, Culture,
Society and the Media (London: Methuen, 1982).
19. See Vendulka Kubalkova and Albert Cruickshank, Marxism and International Relations
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1985); John Maclean, ‘Marxism and International Relations:
A Strange Case of Mutual Neglect’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 17,
no. 2 (1988): 295–319.
20. Saul K. Padover, ed., The Karl Marx Library, On Revolution (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1971), 35.
21. Bull, The Anarchical Society, 85 and 292.
22. John Vincent, Human Rights and IR (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
23. Bull, The Anarchical Society, 292.
24. Barry Buzan, From International to World Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004).
25. Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1979); Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books,
1977). See, in particular, John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: OUP, 1971).
26. David Held, ‘Cosmopolitanism: Globalisation Tamed’, Review of International Studies

29, no. 4 (2003): 470.
27. Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Economy
28. Maja Zehfuss, Constructivism in IR (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
29. Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, eds, Security Communities (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002).
30. Emanuel Adler, ‘Imagined (Security) Communities: Cognitive Regions in Interna-
tional Relations’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 26, no. 2 (1997): 249–277;
Emanuel Adler, ‘Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics’,
European Journal of International Relations 3 (1997): 319–364.
31. Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis
(London: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
32. Johan Galtung and Carl G. Jacobsen, Searching for Peace: The Road to TRANSCEND
(London: Pluto Press, 2000).
33. Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen, The West, Civil Society, and the Construction of Peace
(London: Palgrave, 2003), 113.
34. Steve Smith, ‘Positivism and Beyond’, in International Theory: Positivism and Beyond,
eds Steve Smith, Ken Booth and Marysia Zalewski (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), 13.
35. Robert W. Cox, Production, Power, and World Order (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1987).
36. George, Discourses of Global Politics, 139. See Robert W. Cox, ‘Social Forces, States, and
World Orders’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 10, no. 2 (1981): 126–155;
Richard K. Ashley, ‘Political Realism and Human Interest’, International Studies Quar-
terly 25 (1985): 204–236; Andrew Linklater, Men and Citizens in the Theory of IR
(London: Macmillan, 1982).
37. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. Anscombe, 2nd edn.
(London: Blackwell, 1998), section 23.
38. Oliver P. Richmond, ‘Dilemmas of a Hybrid Peace: Negative or Positive?’ Cooperation
and Conflict 50, no. 1 (2015): 50–68.
39. E. Balibar, Politics and the Other Scene (London: Verso, 2002), 4.
40. Andrew Linklater, ‘The Achievements of Critical Theory’, in International Theory: Pos-
itivism and Beyond, eds Steve Smith, Ken Booth and Marysia Zalewski (Cambridge:
41. Linklater, ‘The Achievements of Critical Theory’, 285.
42. Pierre Allan, ‘Measuring International Ethics’, in What Is a Just Peace, eds Pierre Allan
and Alexis Keller (Oxford: OUP, 2006), 91. See also Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).
43. Ernesto Laclau, Emancipation(s) (London: Verso, 1996), 18–19, especially note 2.
44. Laclau, Emancipation(s), 122.
45. Nicholas Rengger and Ben Thirkell-White, eds, ‘Critical IR Theory after 25 Years’,
Special Issue of Review of International Studies 33 (2007): 3–20.
46. Christine Sylvester, ‘Art, Abstraction, and IR’, Millennium 30, no. 3 (2001): 540–541;
see also Barry Buzan and Richard Little, ‘Why IR Has Failed as an Intellectual Project
and What to Do about It’, Millennium 30, no. 1 (2001): 19–39. They point out that
other disciplines do not bother to engage with IR.
47. Roland Bleiker, ‘The Aesthetic Turn in International Political Theory’, Millennium –
Journal of International Studies 30, no. 3 (2001): 510; Roland Bleiker, ‘Forget IR
Theory’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 22, no. 1 (1997): 57–85. Indeed, Bleiker
points out that increasing interest in this area in IR means that there has been an
‘aesthetic turn’.
48. See Sylvester, ‘Bare Life as Development/Post-Colonial Problematic’, 67.
49. See Stephen Chan, Peter G. Mandaville and R. Bleiker, eds, The Zen of IR (London:
Palgrave, 2001).
50. Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 1978), 291.
51. Christine Sylvester, ‘Empathetic Cooperation: A Feminist Method for IR’, Millennium
23, no. 2 (1994): 315–334.
52. Homi K. Bhabha, ‘Introduction: Narrating the Nation’, in Nation and Narration, ed.
Homi K. Bhabha (New York: Routledge, 1990); Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of
Culture (London; New York: Routledge, 1994).
53. R. B. J. Walker, ‘Social Movements/World Politics’, Millennium: Journal of International
Studies 23, no. 3 (1994): 669–700.
5
Anthropology: Implications for Peace
Geneviève Souillac and Douglas P. Fry
Introduction
Anthropologists have been slow to focus explicitly on peace. At the same time,
anthropology provides a great deal of data that is highly relevant to understand-
ing peace. Ironically, writers from other disciplines have raided anthropology
for information and insights but have not always been true to the accepted
canons of science and scholarship in their use of anthropological material.
In this chapter, we will consider key topics and controversies. The chapter
begins with a discussion of cultural variation in conflict resolution, internally
peaceful societies and peace systems. Anthropology shows that humans are
fully capable of living in peaceful, non-warring societies. Manifestations of
the war, peace and human nature controversy, from divergent views of war
and peace in antiquity to modelling ancestral nomadic forager social orga-
nization vis-à-vis war and peace, will then be considered. In a final section,
examples of peace-making ventures will show that greater attention could be
profitably directed towards understanding how local cultures, whether warring
or non-warring, foster non-violence and handle disputes without resorting to
war. Ultimately, the narrative that underpins Western civilization, in which
anthropology and related disciplines are steeped, rests upon a host of mod-
ernist assumptions about war, peace and humanity that challenge the full use
of anthropological perspectives for the benefit of peace. This chapter will show
that this trend can be reversed by a judiciously applied anthropology of peace.
The human potential for conflict resolution, peaceful societies and

peace systems
Societies can be conceptualized along a peacefulness–aggressiveness contin-

uum, with the most peaceful ones at one end and the most violent at the other.1
69
A culturally comparative view also shows that every human society has conflict
management and conflict resolution practices, the overwhelming majority of
which do not involve physical aggression.2 Across cultures, individuals avoid,
tolerate, negotiate and gripe. In some cultural circumstances, the onus of res-
olution lies with the individual; in many other cultures, third-party dispute
resolution mechanisms involve appealing to mediators and arbitrators. Some-
times the court, as a recognized authority, steps in. A cross-cultural perspective
suggests that people promote conformity to cultural norms via social control
mechanisms such as criticizing, teasing, shunning, gossiping and so on, which
serve to pre-empt the overt manifestation of physical aggression.3 Most human
conflicts run their course without becoming physical. Turning to intergroup
violence, a well-replicated finding is that the practice of war correlates with
degree of social complexity, meaning, for instance, that centrally organized
states have the capacity to engage in more carnage than do tribes, and, in turn,
that tribes are more prone to feuding and war than nomadic foragers.4
Further, much anthropological data exists on internally peaceful and non-
warring cultures.5 Internally peaceful societies have belief systems that favour
non-violence and extremely low levels of physical aggression. Such societies
have socialization practices and conflict resolution procedures based on non-
violence.6 Many internally peaceful societies shun war, although exceptions to
this generalization exist. Over 70 cultures from around the world that do not
practise warfare have been documented.7 Bonta and Fry list 40 societies that
are both internally peaceful and non-warring. Some are nomadic foragers, oth-
ers horticulturalists, and still others agriculturalists; some consist of only a few
hundred people, whereas others have populations into the tens of thousands.8
Gregor uses the term ‘peace system’ to refer to neighbouring tribes of the
Upper Xingu River basin in Brazil that do not war with one another.9 More
generally, peace systems are clusters of neighbouring societies that do not
make war on each other, and sometimes not with outsiders either.10 For exam-
ple, the aboriginal inhabitants of the central Malaysia Peninsula, the Inuit
of Greenland, the Montagnais, Naskapi and East Main Cree of the Labrador
Peninsula, the societies of India’s Nilgiri and Wynaad Plateaus, the Iroquois of
North America, Australian Aborigines generally and especially the societies of
the Great Western Desert exemplify peace systems.11 Some peace systems, such
as the one in Malaysia, reflect a total absence of war.12 In other cases, societies
within a peace system make war only with enemies outside the system. The
ten Upper Xingu River basin tribes (representing four different language fami-
lies) have a combined population of 1,200.13 These peoples are interconnected
through trade relations, intermarriage and ceremonies.14 Although they were
sometimes raided by outside tribes, violence from which they protected them-
selves, ‘Intertribal bonds within the upper Xingú Basin were based on peaceful
Geneviève Souillac and Douglas P. Fry 71
relations between the tribes.’15 The Upper Xingu peace system goes back at least
to the 1880s.16
Regular features of peace systems include an overarching social identity, inter-
linkages among subgroups, interdependence, non-warring core values, cere-
monies and symbolism that reinforce peace, and effective conflict management
processes and institutions.17 Peace systems reflect values that favour peace, and
as the member societies live together without making war, they strengthen a
shared social identity and sense of unity through ongoing interaction, rituals
and exchange. For the Iroquoian peoples, archaeology and ethno-history reveal
that chronic feuding, warring and cannibalism existed before the formation of
the Iroquois Confederacy.18 The abandonment of revenge killings, feud and
internal warfare accompanied the creation of this peace system.19 The peace
system became stronger over generations and endured for more than 300 years
as an intertribal identity. The Iroquois promoted values conducive to peace
and developed an overarching institution of governance, the grand council of
chiefs, to oversee the common affairs of the confederacy and to resolve con-
flicts without violence. Revenge seeking within and among tribes was outlawed
and replaced with the payment of compensation.
Peace systems described in the indigenous world deserve much closer consid-
eration, for their presence shows that neighbouring societies can live in peace
and security.20 Humanity in the twenty-first century faces security challenges
that are remarkably similar to those addressed successfully by the Iroquoian
peoples: how can a war system be replaced by a global system in which peace
and security constitute the new reality? Consideration of the anthropological
data on extant peace systems may help to answer this question.
Controversies: Debates over human nature
Do humans have a proclivity to make war? Do humans have a proclivity to be

peaceful? What is human nature in this regard? The disagreements over answers
to these questions extend beyond anthropology. We will consider three areas
of controversy that reflect the larger human nature debate. These are the antiq-
uity of war, the warlike/peaceful nature of the ancestral social type (nomadic
foragers), and the ongoing debate over war and reproductive success.
Regarding the antiquity of war, one group of writers – the deep roots pro-
ponents – believe that war is ancient, going back hundreds of thousands, if
not millions, of years.21 A different perspective holds that war is recent, that
it originated only within the last 10,000 years or so, and therefore that a non-
warring condition existed for most of the two million years that the genus
Homo has lived on Earth.22 The worldwide archaeological evidence supports
the latter perspective. With the possible exception of one case, a site in Africa
called Jebel Sahaba, the earliest evidence of warfare is within the last 10,000
years, a point illustrated by an examination of the dates of the archaeological

cases of violence listed by Pinker.23 Furthermore, various archaeological records
for different locations show transitions from conditions of warlessness to war,
always occurring within the archaeologically recent 10,000-year time frame.24
Additionally, the archaeological evidence shows how war became more com-
mon and destructive with the rise of the state as recently as 4,000 and 6,000
years ago.25
One argument employed by deep roots proponents is that the absence of
archaeological evidence for war in the Pleistocene is not evidence of its absence.
However, others point out first, that warfare leaves its marks in the archaeologi-
cal record and second, that well-evidenced time sequences show the transitions
from no war to war.26 Both of these observations argue against the validity of
the ‘absence of evidence’ assertions. Specialized weapons; fortifications; numer-
ous burials with signs of violent death; depictions of war in art; the immediate
replacement in an archaeological sequence of one cultural type of artefacts with
another following a conflagration: each type of evidence indicates the pres-
ence of war.27 Furthermore, when these multiple types of archaeological data
align, we can be certain that warfare was occurring. But the converse is also
true. The fact that war leaves clear prehistoric indicators also means that a well-
documented archaeological record with absolutely no evidence of war can be
taken to mean that war was actually absent.
For example, on the north-west coast of North America, in the Valley of
Oaxaca in Mexico, in the Anasazi region of the south-western US, and in
the southern Levant in the Near East, prehistoric time sequences show shifts
regarding war and peace at the same locations over time.28 Haas concludes:
‘Archaeologically, there is negligible evidence for any kind of warfare anywhere
in the world before about 10,000 years ago.’29 Thus, the view that war has
occurred over hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years has no archaeo-
logical basis to support it. Aside from the total lack of archaeological evidence,
there are other problems with the contention that warfare is ancient, one of
which stems from nomadic forager studies. Prior to about 12,500 years ago, the
nomadic forager way of life was ubiquitous. In the debate about human nature,
nomadic forager societies are regularly used to draw inferences about human
existence ‘in a state of nature’ prior to agriculture and the development of
complex forms of social organization such as chiefdoms, kingdoms and states.30
Complex foragers, in contrast to nomadic foragers, tend to be hierarchical and
settled, and have higher population densities. If the purpose is to gain insights
through analogy about peacefulness–warlikeness over the course of human evo-
lution, then the most appropriate type of extant society to consider is nomadic
forager social organization.31
Researchers who have worked with nomadic foragers usually report that war-
fare is absent or rudimentarily developed.32 Contrary to such ethnographies,
Carol Ember proposes that foragers are prone to war.33 However, Ember’s
study falters, first, because almost half of the societies she considers are not
nomadic foragers and second, because the definition of warfare employed is
broad enough to include homicides if committed by two or more persons.34
Such a definition probably incorrectly classifies some homicides as warfare. Fry
pursues this problem by comparing nomadic foragers with complex and eques-
trian foragers and provides a rationale for reinterpreting Ember’s35 findings.36
Fry reports that the majority of nomadic foragers are non-warring, whereas all
of the complex and equestrian societies in the sample make war, and, addi-
tionally, that when warfare is reported for nomadic forager bands, it tends to
be less severe and destructive than warfare in complex and equestrian forager
societies.37 These observations match Robert Kelly’s38 conclusion that nomadic
foragers as a social type are peaceful, in contrast to complex foragers.
The war–peace controversy about nomadic foragers has recently reignited.
Bowles examines war deaths in eight societies, six of which were subsisting
as nomadic foragers, and reports the occurrence of war in all eight societies.39
This contradicts Kelly’s40 generalization, Fry’s41 findings that the majority of
such groups did not war, and a cadre of nomadic forager ethnographies. Next,
Steven Pinker republishes Bowles’ findings to support his contention that
nomadic foragers before the agricultural revolution were warlike.42 There are
two likely explanations for divergent assertions about warlikeness–peacefulness
of nomadic foragers: differences in definition of war and differences in sam-
pling methods. Fry and Söderberg consider both factors.43 To address sampling,
they use precisely defined criteria to compile a sample of 21 nomadic for-
ager societies from a cross-cultural database called the Standard Cross-Cultural
Sample, and they consider every instance of lethal aggression in the ethno-
graphic material. Rather than deciding a priori which lethal events constitute
manslaughter, homicide, feud or war, Fry and Söderberg instead analyse the
characteristics of each event. The goal behind this systematic approach is to
resolve the controversy about whether or not nomadic foragers are warlike
by minimizing the chance of sampling bias (‘cherry picking’ of cases) and to
eliminate the self-selection of ethnographic sources. The first conclusion is that
variation exists regarding lethal aggression in nomadic forager societies, with
one society of the 21 accounting for nearly half of all the lethal events. At the
other end of the spectrum, three societies had no lethal events. The second
noteworthy point is that over half of all lethal events that occurred in the 21
societies involved one person killing one person, and often for strictly personal
reasons.44
The overall conclusion is that a majority of lethal events in nomadic forager
societies are homicides stemming from personal disputes, a few others feud,
and only a small minority reflect warfare.45 Thus, nomadic forager social orga-
nization does not lend itself to warfare, a conclusion that is in accordance with
the paucity of archaeological evidence for warfare in the Pleistocene. Another

manifestation of the war, peace and human nature controversy involves a par-
ticular study that was published on the Yanomamö of South America, reporting
that killing correlates with reproductive success.46 If a Yanomamö is involved in
killing, he engages in a purification ceremony and thereafter carries the social
label unokai. Chagnon asserts that unokais, on average, have over three times
more children than non-unokais.47 This one study has been extensively cited to
support the idea that war is an evolved adaptation, but this study has also been
extensively critiqued. The unokais and non-unokais are not the same age.48 The
unokais are at least 10.4 years older than the non-unokais.49 It is predictable that
an older group of men would average more offspring than younger men, simply
due to having lived longer. The incorrect assertion that both groups are of com-
parable ages is not the only analytical flaw with the original study. Among the
Yanomamö, headmen, on average, have more wives and thus more children
than non-headmen. A mathematical analysis demonstrates that neither age
nor headman status was adequately taken into consideration in Chagnon’s50
report.51
Applications and implications for peace and anthropology
An important reflexive dimension is missing in commentaries that purport

to synthesize anthropological data.52 This fuels controversies that are symp-
tomatic of our own contemporary cultural beliefs about war, peace and human
nature. For instance, although the claim that killers have more kids does not
stand up to methodological scrutiny, this dubious assertion associating male
social power with aggression and death continues to be widely cited. The pos-
itive narrative about the vast reduction of violence underlying the work of
Pinker gives pride of place to Western progress from so-called archaic societies
to modern civilization.53 And, certainly, the global media misleadingly focus on
violence, war and terror, while contemporary legal international organizations,
although arguably still ineffective, signal a historical shift in attitudes towards
war and peace along the lines that Pinker asserts. Less useful and potentially
pernicious is Pinker’s uncritical explanation of human progress with respect
to violence reduction through the unique achievements of Western educated
elites, and to contrast these achievements with the failures of other societies,
past and present.54 Pinker’s use of the oft-cited work of historical sociologist
Norbert Elias on the civilizing process55 is equally misleading. While Elias cer-
tainly discussed increasing mechanisms of restraint in Western social history
over several hundred years, he defined the civilizing process primarily in terms
of indicators of revulsion towards violence.56 Thus, Elias, who was also based
at the Frankfurt School, shared the School’s critical inquiry into a civilizing
process gone terribly wrong in Europe, and notably in Nazi Germany.
The practice and findings of anthropology can intervene to challenge such

appealingly simple narratives with data that throws a different light on certain
interpretative biases. Retaining a critical dimension towards the institutional
and ideational achievements of the West does not imply a doom-and-gloom
vision of the future or a rejection of its contribution to the future. Rather,
it is finally to come out of a highly politicized account of the geopolitics of
human progress, one that has polarized not only civilizations but also cul-
tures, religions, ethnic groups, races, and even genders and classes. Moving
beyond simple narratives can prepare the ground for inclusive and reflex-
ive dialogue. Both our forebears and extant indigenous societies constitute
an ‘other’ for modernity. It is symptomatic in the context of Western expan-
sion and colonialism that ‘other’ societies were objectified. The usual approach
taken by modern discourse has been to adopt the culturally powerful position
of the objective scientific observer. The contribution of modern thought has
also been to generate critical distance with regard to cultural and historical
determinants, yet, in fact, there is a paucity of such critical distance. Instead,
prevalent narratives about aggression, war and violence from primatology, eco-
nomics, evolutionary psychology and other disciplines accept and play on the
unhelpful dichotomy between civilized and uncivilized.57 These biases must be
redressed for inclusive and non-binary explanations to be recovered, and for the
evidence of emergent peaceful, prosocial behaviour to be reported as it is man-
ifested in peaceful societies and peace systems outside of Western frameworks
and historical timelines of progress. Indeed, this issue might constitute the most
pressing ethical challenge in a contemporary field of knowledge production
characterized by complex pluralism and diversity.
A transborder approach that moves across frontiers, including boundaries
between the modern and the ancestral, harnesses and pools resources on con-
flict resolution and non-violent ethics across customary cultural and timeline
divides.58 Anthropology, with its vast documentation of indigenous societies,
including descriptions of non-violent modes of conflict resolution, approaches
to peacemaking, and creation of peace systems, in concert with existing non-
Western cultures, can remind the West of the diversity of successful approaches
to creating and maintaining peace. Harris and Wasilewski show how harness-
ing indigenous conflict resolution, justice-seeking, and peace-making beliefs
can lead to a productive relationship between traditional practices and con-
temporary frameworks.59 This civil society initiative demonstrates the potential
of pooling anthropological resources with existing indigenous knowledge to
broaden the contemporary epistemic field.60 Such alternative communicational
models challenge both the democratic status quo and the international nor-
mative order, and serve an innovative four-fold purpose. First, they generate
an ideational challenge to a presumed progressive civilizing process regarding
the human potential for peace and the function of war. Second, alternative
communicational models promote new actors at different levels of the medi-

ation and interpretation of accumulated knowledge on war and peace, thus
moving away from superficial levels of official cultural diplomacy. Third,
since alternative communicational models blend traditional paradigms into
a contemporary context, they explicitly and actively extend classical, demo-
cratic rights-based ethic values, such as respect and recognition, with those of
interdependence, relationality, reciprocity and cooperation. Finally, dynamic
inclusiveness, as in Harris and Wasilewski’s notion of indigeneity,61 allows
emergent solutions to be identified that go beyond stagnant paradigms, in par-
ticular, notions of the inevitability of war that are prevalent in Western forms
of knowledge.62
Political communities take shape within constellations of social meaning
that are elucidated by anthropological data. Commonly identifiable values
such as cooperation, relationality, prosociality, mutuality, responsibility and
respect need not stop at national, cultural, political, religious and other bor-
ders. Just as such values contribute to peaceful and orderly functioning within
a given society, they also become bridges in the promotion of peace and
cooperation among societies. These ethical concepts ultimately arise from the
internal requirements for peaceful and orderly functioning within any soci-
ety. Contextually addressing conflict with the input of anthropological data
unveils hidden forms of violence and also reveals untapped resources for
resolving conflict through local knowledge, customs, and institutions of dia-
logue and justice.63 Dialogic public spaces that highlight the complexity of
overlapping narratives strengthen and normalize reflexive, inclusive and coop-
erative responses and create the participatory conditions both for local values
and customs to interact with global norms and for contested memories to
be confronted. From Rwanda and South Africa to Uganda, from the Balkans
to Cambodia and East Timor, transitional and syncretic justice mechanisms,
while far from straightforward, illustrate how the local transformation of con-
flict harnesses customs, symbols, ceremonials and rituals alongside the formal
procedures of global institutions.64
The pooling of knowledge and resources on conflict transformation, by
encouraging a historical awareness of social complexity, builds a transborder
ethics on matters of pressing common concern, such as ecology and the reduc-
tion of violence.65 This awareness fosters political learning and citizenship66
and expands social and political identities within a global epistemic field. The
once historically ‘local’ cases of post-war Germany and of European unifica-
tion after two world conflicts show how denser forms of solidarity around
democratic and human rights values can transform communities to make
them centrally aware of the imperative to avoid violent conflict and collective
harm.67 The emergence of superordinate spaces such as the European Union,
and processes of reconciliation and reconstruction that work through atrocity
and war guilt, as occurred in Germany68 and post-Apartheid South Africa,69

reflect how local political will for conflict transformation can bring people
together, sustain political recovery and delegitimize violence.70 Moreover, these
historical cases of profound psychosocial upheavals exemplify how the civiliz-
ing process, understood as the reduction of violence, occurs after a crisis with
regard to what constitutes a civilized identity and society. They show that new,
peace-oriented institutions are not only possible, but emerge from a complex
process whereby social identities, beliefs and myths deemed unchangeable are
broken down and reconstituted in the direction of peace and non-violence.
Conclusion
Regarding the study of peace, anthropology has not really achieved its full
potential, since many fruitful areas remain untapped. There are new possi-
bilities for creating a world without war, a sustainable peace with sustainable
development. The painstaking processes of contemporary peacebuilding have
in common the resourcing of local values to build alternative, unifying peace-
ful institutions, and would benefit from more explicit utilization of methods,
concepts and data from anthropology. Further, an anthropology of peace can
serve the recovery of marginalized voices of traditional societies that have
been objectified by Western knowledge and misused to serve intractable biases
about an inherently aggressive human nature. The sheer historical longevity
of indigenous societies, as documented by anthropological research, provides
these societies with a special status with respect to human survival, composing
as they do a ‘repository of vast experience and deep insight’.71 This observation
applies to the local cultures and contexts in which peace operations are con-
ducted. Anthropology demonstrates that each and every society has conflict
management and resolution mechanisms, critically challenging notions of cul-
tural superiority, and renewing rather than undermining normative consensus
with regard to human well-being.
Anthropology speaks clearly to questions of human nature and the poten-
tial for peace. Indigenous conflict resolution practices shed light on the human
capacity for living in peace when the resolution and transformation of conflict
and violence are prioritized and supported. Several observations of practical
significance can be offered for reflection. War is neither particularly old nor
inevitable. Values, norms, practices and institutions can promote physical and
structural violence or, conversely, can be created to support non-violence,
human rights and just conflict resolution. In that values impact behaviour,
anthropology suggests that some value orientations are more supportive of
non-violent conflict resolution than are others. Making an ethical and nor-
mative shift along an aggressiveness-to-peacefulness continuum towards the
peaceful pole may be fraught with difficulties, but it is possible, as demonstrated
in both traditional and modern societies, as well as in post-conflict societies.

Moreover, peaceful societies and peace systems which reflect values favouring
peace over violence can be created. Not only can neighbouring societies live
together without war to the advantage of all, forming a higher level of social
identity through interaction, rituals and exchange, but they can do so both
within and across national and other borders. Peacemaking that incorporates
the intelligence of peaceful local practices and values with global norma-
tive systems recovers the dignity of all peoples, and builds an inclusive and
representative peace ethics.
Notes
1. Douglas P. Fry, The Human Potential for Peace (New York: Oxford University Press,
2006).
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Jonathan Haas, ‘War’, in Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, Volume 4, eds David
Levinson and Melvin Ember (New York: Holt, 1996), 1357–1361; Raymond Kelly,
Warless Societies and the Origin of War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2000).
5. Bruce Bonta, ‘Conflict Resolution among Peaceful Societies: The Culture of
Peacefulness’, Journal of Peace Research 33 (1996): 403–420; Fry, The Human Poten-
tial for Peace; Douglas P. Fry, ‘Life without War’, Science 336 (2012): 879–884; Douglas
P. Fry, ed. War, Peace, and Human Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
6. Bonta, ‘Conflict Resolution among Peaceful Societies’.
7. Fry, The Human Potential for Peace.
8. Bonta, ‘Conflict Resolution among Peaceful Societies’; Fry, The Human Potential for
Peace.
9. Thomas Gregor, ‘Symbols and Rituals of Peace in Brazil’s Upper Xingu’, in Anthro-
pology of Peace and Nonviolence, eds L. E. Sponsel and Thomas Gregor (Boulder, CO:
Lynne Rienner, 1994), 241–257.
10. Fry, The Human Potential for Peace; Fry, ‘Life without War’; Douglas P. Fry, ‘Coopera-
tion for Survival: Creating a Global Peace System’, in War, Peace, and Human Nature,
ed. Douglas P. Fry (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 543–558.
11. Fry, The Human Potential for Peace; Fry, ‘Life without War’; Fry, ‘Cooperation for
Survival’.
12. Kirk Endicott, ‘Peaceful Foragers: The Significance of the Batek and the Moriori for
the Question of Human Violence’, in War, Peace, and Human Nature, ed. Fry, 243–261;
Kirk Endicott and Karen Endicott, The Headman Was a Woman (Long Grove, IL:
Waveland, 2008); Robert Dentan Knox, ‘Cautious, Alert, Polite, and Elusive: Semai
of Central Peninsular Malaysia’, in Keeping the Peace, eds Graham Kemp and Douglas
P. Fry (New York: Routledge, 2004), 167–184.
13. Thomas Gregor, ‘Uneasy Peace: Intertribal Relations in Brazil’s Upper Xingu’, in The
Anthropology of War, ed. Jonathan Haas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990), 105–124, 109; Gregor, ‘Symbols and Rituals of Peace in Brazil’s Upper Xingu’.
15. Robert Murphy and Buell Quain, The Trumai Indians of Central Brazil (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1955), 10.
16. Gregor, ‘Uneasy Peace’; Gregor, ‘Symbols and Rituals of Peace in Brazil’s Upper
Xingu’.
17. Fry, ‘Life without War’.
18. Matthew Dennis, Creating a Landscape of Peace (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1993).
19. Ibid.; Wallace Paul, White Roots of Peace: The Iroquois Book of Life (Santa Fe, NM:
Clearlight, 1994).
20. Donna L. Harris and Jacqueline Wasilewski, ‘Indigeneity, an Alternative Worldview:
Four Rs (Relationship, Responsibility, Reciprocity, Redistribution) vs. Two P’s (Power
and Profit): Sharing the Journey towards Conscious Evolution’, Systems Research and
Behavioral Science 21 (2004): 489–503; Geneviève Souillac and Douglas P. Fry, ‘Indige-
nous Lessons for Conflict Resolution’, in The Handbook of Conflict Resolution, eds Peter
Coleman, Morton Deutsch and Eric Marcus, 3rd edn. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
2014), 604–622.
21. Samuel Bowles, ‘Did Warfare among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution
of Human Social Behaviors?’ Science 324 (2009): 1293–1298; Steven Pinker, The Better
Angels of Our Nature (New York: Viking 2011); Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson,
Demonic Males (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996); Terry Jones and Mark Allen, ‘The
Prehistory of Violence and Warfare among Hunter-Gatherers,’ in Violence and War-
fare among Hunter-Gatherers, eds Mark Allen and Terry Jones (Walnut Creek, CA: Left
Coast Press, 2014), 353–371.
22. Jonathan Haas, ‘War’; Jonathan Haas, ‘The Origins of War and Ethnic Violence’, in
Ancient Warfare, eds John Carman and Anthony Harding (Gloucestershire: Sutton
Publishing, 1999), 11–24; Jonathan Haas and Matthew Piscitelli, ‘The Prehistory of
Warfare: Misled by Ethnography’, in War, Peace, and Human Nature, ed. Fry, 168–190;
Kelly, Warless Societies and the Origin of War.
23. Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, figure 2.2.
24. David Dye, War Paths, Peace Paths (Lanham, MD: Alta Mira, 2009); Brian Ferguson,
‘Pinker’s List: Exaggerating Prehistoric War Mortality’, in War, Peace, and Human
Nature, ed. Douglas P. Fry (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 112–131; Haas,
‘The Origins of War and Ethnic Violence’; Kelly, Warless Societies and the Origin of War;
Herbert Maschner, ‘The Evolution of Northwest Coast Warfare’, in Troubled Times,
eds Debra L. Martin and David W. Frayer (Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, 1997),
267–302; Marilyn Roper, ‘Evidence of Warfare in the Near East from 10,000–4,300
B . C .’, in War, Its Causes and Correlates, ed. Martin Nettleship et al. (The Hague:
Mouton, 1975), 299–340.
25. Haas, ‘War’; Lawrence H. Keeley, War before Civilization (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1996); Kelly, Warless Societies and the Origin of War.
26. Brian Ferguson, ‘Violence and War in Prehistory’, in Troubled Times, eds Debra
L. Martin and David W. Frayer (Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, 1997), 321–355;
Ferguson, ‘Pinker’s List’; Haas and Piscitelli, ‘The Prehistory of Warfare’.
27. Ferguson, ‘Violence and War in Prehistory’.
28. Flannery and Marcus, ‘The Origin of War’; Haas, ‘The Origins of War and Ethnic
Violence’; Maschner, ‘The Evolution of Northwest Coast Warfare’.
29. Haas, ‘War’, 1360.
30. Fry, The Human Potential for Peace; Frank Marlowe, The Hadza (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2010).
31. Ibid.
32. Richard Lee and Richard Daly, ‘Introduction: Foragers and Others’, in The Cambridge
Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, eds Richard B. Lee and Richard Daly
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 1–19; Robert Tonkinson, ‘Resolv-

ing Conflict within the Law: The Mardu Aborigines of Australia’, in Keeping the Peace,
eds Kemp and Fry, 89–104.
33. Carol Ember, ‘Myths about Hunter-Gatherers’, Ethnology 17 (1978): 439–448.
34. Carol Ember and Melvin Ember, ‘The Conditions Favoring Matrilocal versus
Patrilocal Residence’, American Anthropologist 73 (1971): 571–594.
35. Ember, ‘Myths about Hunter-Gatherers’.
37. Ibid.
38. Robert Kelly, The Foraging Spectrum (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution,
1995).
39. Bowles, ‘Did Warfare among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution of
Human Social Behaviors?’.
40. Kelly, The Foraging Spectrum.
42. Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature.
43. Douglas Fry and Patrik Söderberg, ‘Lethal Aggression in Mobile Forager Bands and
Implications for the Origins of War’, Science 341 (2013): 270–273.
44. Douglas Fry and Patrik Söderberg, ‘Lethal Aggression in Mobile Forager Bands and
Implications for the Origins of War’, Science 341 (2013): 270–273.
45. Ibid.
46. Napoleon Chagnon, ‘Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Popula-
tion’, Science 239 (1988): 985–992.
47. Napoleon Chagnon, Noble Savages (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013).
48. Brian Ferguson, Yanomami Warfare (Santa Fe: School of American Research, 1995);
Fry, The Human Potential for Peace.
49. Fry, The Human Potential for Peace, chapter 15.
50. Chagnon, ‘Life Histories’.
52. Bowles, ‘Did Warfare among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution of
Human Social Behaviors?’; Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature; Wrangham and
Peterson, Demonic Males.
53. Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature.
54. Ibid.
55. Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).
56. Andrew Linklater, Critical Theory and World Politics (London: Routledge, 2007);
Andrew Linklater, The Problem of Harm in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge
57. Chagnon, Noble Savages; Bowles, ‘Did Warfare among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers
Affect the Evolution of Human Social Behaviors?’; Pinker, The Better Angels of Our
Nature; Wrangham and Peterson, Demonic Males.
58. Geneviève Souillac, A Study in Transborder Ethics (Brussels: Lang, 2012).
59. Harris and Wasilewski, ‘Indigeneity, an Alternative Worldview’.
60. Souillac and Fry, ‘Indigenous Lessons for Conflict Resolution’; Souillac, A Study in
Transborder Ethics.
61. Harris and Wasilewski, ‘Indigeneity, an Alternative Worldview’.
63. John Lederach, Preparing for Peace (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995); John
Lederach, The Moral Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
64. N. Roht-Arriaza and J. Mariezcurrena, eds, Transitional Justice in the 21st Cen-
tury (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Wendy Lambourne, ‘Towards
Sustainable Peace and Development in Sierra Leone: Civil Society and the
Peacebuilding Commission’, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 4, no. 2
(2008): 47–59; Wendy Lambourne, ‘Transformative Justice, Reconciliation and
Peacebuilding’, in Transitional Justice Theories, eds Susanne Buckley-Zistel et al.
(New York: Routledge, 2014), 19–39; Alexander Hinton, Transitional Justice (New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2010); Rosalind Shaw, Localizing Transitional
Justice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010); Olivera Simic and Zala Volcic,
Transitional Justice and Civil Society in the Balkans (New York: Springer, 2012);
Renée Jeffery and Kim Hun Joon, Transitional Justice in the Asia Pacific (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2013); Tazreena Sajjad, Transitional Justice in South Asia
(London: Routledge, 2013); Gerhard Anders and Olaf Zenker, Transition and Justice
(Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014).
65. Souillac, A Study in Transborder Ethics.
66. Paige Arthur, Identities in Transition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
67. Jürgen Habermas, The Postnational Constellation, trans. M. Pensky (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 2001).
68. Ibid.
69. Catherine Jenkins and Max du Plessis, eds, Law, Nation-Building and Transformation
(Cambridge: Intersentia, 2014).
70. Souillac, A Study in Transborder Ethics.
71. Harris and Wasilewski, ‘Indigeneity, an Alternative Worldview’, 21.
6
Arts and Theatre for Peacebuilding
Nilanjana Premaratna and Roland Bleiker
Introduction
Peacebuilding cannot be imposed from above. A sustainable peaceful order can

only be reached if it is embedded in the everyday life of a society. What is
needed, then, are political approaches that do more than just impose a set of
pre-determined political rights and structures, such as elections and democratic
institutions. Important as such features are, they can only work if they have
legitimacy at a grassroots level. For peacebuilding to be sustainable, it must
operate at numerous levels, and win over not only elites in power but also the
actual people who make up post-conflict communities.
The purpose of this chapter is to explore how artistic engagements can con-
tribute to such forms of grassroots peacebuilding. While academic debates on
such forms of aesthetic politics are relatively new,1 the practice of using art for
peacebuilding has a long tradition and reaches beyond Western high art. A wide
range of artistic and cultural expressions are part of every society. People engage
in creative activities, no matter where they are and what challenges they face.
This is the case even in times of war – indeed, especially in times of war – for
art provides a way of expressing essential human experiences.
There are, of course, numerous art forms that can potentially engage issues of
war and peace: painting, literature, poetry, music, dance and photography, to
mention just a few. In a short chapter, we cannot possibly engage all of them.
In order to make our discussion focused and meaningful, we thus combine a
general discussion about the links between arts and peacebuilding with more
specific examples drawn from theatre.
Using theatre for peacebuilding as an example, we highlight three realms
in which the arts can make a potential contribution to overcoming conflict,
and this in various forms and at various stages. We highlight three points.
First: art has the potential to broaden peacebuilding beyond the parameters
of conventional and more formal approaches. The arts can, for instance, tap
82
Nilanjana Premaratna and Roland Bleiker 83
into and transform the crucial but often neglected emotional legacies of war.
Second: local artistic engagements can provide context-specific solutions. In so
doing, they might be able to gain more legitimacy than many conventional
approaches to peacebuilding, which often rely on universal and pre-determined
models that are imposed by elites and from the outside. Third: various art forms
have the potential to bring out perspectives and voices that otherwise might
not be heard in prevailing approaches to peacebuilding.
While we highlight these three potential contributions of the arts, we do not,
however, claim that art is inherently good or progressive. Art can also be used –
and often has been used – as a form of oppression and domination. Consider, as
just one example, how the remarkable films made by Leni Riefenstahl rendered
aesthetic appeal to Nazi ideas. The arts are thus neither automatically positive
nor negative: they are inherently political, but they engage the political in very
different and more creative ways than conventional approaches do. This is why
they should be recognized and used as an active part of peacebuilding.
Preliminary comments: The significance of the arts for

peacebuilding
The arts offer potential answers to what has become an increasingly vocal
demand in peacebuilding: the need for bottom-up approaches. Prevalent mod-
els of peacebuilding have come to be challenged for their exclusive focus on
democratic procedures, individual rights and market economics. Also under cri-
tique are the ways in which these generic models are imposed from the outside
on a range of diverse and highly complex post-conflict societies. The ensuing
lack of engagement with the everyday life and concerns of people has often
led to significant problems in already fragile post-conflict situations.2 Some go
as far as arguing that prevalent peacebuilding efforts ‘often fail to build either
an effective state or sustainable peace’.3 At a minimum, scholars now see prob-
lems in the prevailing centralized, top-down approach to peacebuilding that
privileges existing power hierarchies. Structures that have come under critique
include those that provide the state with the sole decision-making authority
or those that involve international peacekeepers being brought in with a uni-
versal blueprint for resolving conflicts. Scholars have thus called for a ‘shift
in the analytical and empirical focus’ of peacebuilding, away from imposing
external models towards a greater engagement with both the unique circum-
stances of each conflict and the conflict resolution resources embedded in
them.4
Here is where the significance of the arts comes in. They have potential to
be embedded in and work through communities. Not all art forms take on this
character, of course. Some are procured by and for elites. But art happens at
all levels. The types of artistic activities that are happening at the grassroots
level can influence and are influenced by the socio-political dynamics they are
part of. Some argue that this is particularly the case in the Global South, where
theatre and other art forms are seen as imbued with meaning, passion and
transformation: a blend of traditional practices that evolve along with the needs
of the community.5 Consider two brief examples from how theatre was used in
South Asia as a form of local resistance against domination, first in India and
Sri Lanka during the colonial occupation6 and then again in Sri Lanka during
the insurgency.7
Various art forms can thus play a role in resisting forms of monopoly
rule. They offer alternatives to prevailing approaches, particularly if these
approaches are seen as problematic by a large part of the population. It is
in this sense that art has the potential to engage effectively with the often
divisive cultural narratives found in protracted conflict situations. Art does
not, of course, automatically generate more positive and peaceful narratives.
It can also be a source of divisiveness. Nor is art able to provide easy ready-
made answers or impose order. But art can be part of collective efforts to find
innovative solutions that are not visible or audible through pre-determined
models of peacebuilding. At a minimum, art has the potential to insinuate
itself into the heart of a community because it operates at the everyday level.
Artistic efforts, be they plays, paintings or theatre, often derive from and
express the lived experience of people. They seek to transform life where it
matters most: how people see and experience the everyday. Art, then, draws
from society but simultaneously reshapes the perception and thus also the
values of this society. This is an often-ignored starting point and an impor-
tant part of peacebuilding: transforming not just institutions but also the
way people feel about themselves and the society they live in. We now high-
light three realms in which art can contribute to this bottom-up approach to
peacebuilding.
Art and the broadening of peacebuilding discourse
The first contribution of art to peacebuilding lies in its potential ability to

broaden peacebuilding discourses. This takes place in two interrelated ways.
First: art can widen the boundaries of day-to-day communication by reach-
ing beyond verbalized and often narrowly defined policy approaches. For some
commentators, the prevailing conversation habits of a community are often
implicated in conflict dynamics: they easily revolve around problematic stereo-
types that fuel conflict.8 Prevailing phrases, idioms, jokes and gestures can all
contribute to the creation and perpetuation of the type of deep divisions that
prevail after a major conflict. This is why existing ways of communicating often
either prevent a deeper connection between parties in conflict or even fuel the
conflict further.9
Artistic engagements have the potential to break through these communi-

cation barriers. Visual art, for instance, offers an alternative to the type of
verbal discourses that have come to constitute a conflict. Some even believe that
‘nondiscursive modes of expression’ might be the only available way to make
meaning out of deeply traumatic events.10 But language-based art forms can
contribute as well. Literature and poetry, for instance, are about stretching lan-
guage such that it becomes possible to speak again. Consider how Paul Celan’s
poetry was all about dealing with the fact that in the immediate post-war period
the German language was not able to accommodate critical voices. The vic-
tims of the war had no voice in a language that was deeply implicated with
Nazi ideology. The point of Celan’s poetry, then, was to stretch the German
language so that it became possible to speak again, critically, humanely. Only
in this way could a society hope to move on from a past trauma and do jus-
tice to the ensuing healing process.11 This is why some commentators argue
that, unlike the detached, reduced form of representation offered through news
and policy reports, arts ‘humanises both victims and perpetrators after the
dehumanisation of war’.12
The second way in which arts push the boundaries of peacebuilding discourse
is by dealing directly with the issue of emotions. Indeed, emotions play a key
role in fuelling conflicts and the subsequent effort to overcome them. Emotions
such as fear, anger and humiliation often prevail after conflict, with a consid-
erable influence on how communities define themselves. The result is often
a sense of community based on an antagonistic juxtaposition to everything
that is different. Under such circumstances, it becomes very difficult to start a
genuine healing process.
While emotions play a key role in conflict, prevailing approaches to
peacebuilding are not well equipped to handle the issues at stake. Prevailing
discourses focus on institution building. They often consider emotions to be
either irrational or of a purely private nature, and thus of little relevance to
politics.13 But sustainable peace is unlikely to be achieved unless the emotional
core of a conflict is addressed in ways that go beyond establishing a rule of law
and building institutions.
Here, too, art offers great political potential, for it can express and perhaps
even transform some of the emotional legacies of conflict. Artistic expression
offers potential spaces where emotional pain can be witnessed and communi-
cated. The conflict is then brought down to a level where personal trauma can
be narrated and perhaps even transformed. Trauma thus becomes humanized.
For instance, a play that deals directly with the fate of victims has the potential
to transform the ‘overwhelming faceless numbers’ represented in conflict statis-
tics to ‘individual humans deserving empathy’.14 Gallagher and Service show
how theatre performances evoke feeling, and that the responses of participants
in such instances go beyond the capacity of rational cognition.15 Tapping into
emotions invites individuals to feel empathy by seeing things from the per-
spective of one another, inviting reflection. Likewise, Anderson and Nygaard
point out that theatre was used as a key platform in preparing for and lead-
ing towards a radical change in national politics in a number of countries
spanning different time periods.16 Post-conflict transformation is, indeed, a rad-
ical socio-political change from the conditions of war. This is why arts, when
used as an integral component of a broader conflict resolution process, can
be an important part of dealing with the emotional and political legacies of
conflict.
Sarwanam: Talking Emotions
Consider the Nepalese theatre group called ‘Sarwanam’. The group has
been active through the numerous political turbulences that Nepal has
gone through since the early 1980s. Founded by Ashesh Malla, a play-
wright and the group’s creative director, Sarwanam performs in its own
box theatre in Kathmandu. The theatre space works as a platform for
peacebuilding, bringing together people from different social, regional
and caste backgrounds to discuss issues related to the Nepalese conflict
and its consequences for the population.
The preferred theatre form of Sarwanam – referred to as ‘alternative
theatre’ by the group – illustrates how theatre seeks to go beyond prevail-
ing political discourses. A key aim of the group is to reach the emotions
of its audience. Sarwanam’s particular theatre form derives largely from
street theatre techniques. A notable feature here is the emphasis placed
on body movements. For instance, at times the absence of dialogue is
compensated by exaggerated non-verbal emotional expression.
An example is the play Remaining Pages of History. It is about a family
who became unwitting victims of conflict during the Maoist period. The
play is a highly stylized symbolic representation that elevates mime and
facial expression to the primary modes of communication. The resulting
intensification makes the drama moving and highly evocative. The narra-
tive invites the audience to resonate with the vivid emotional display of
the symbolic mime, thus potentially harnessing empathy for the victims
of conflict.
The play succeeds in capturing the emotional intensity of the partic-
ular conflict and period it engages. Feelings of pain, loss and fear are
expressed throughout the drama, often provoking anger at the injustices
committed. Here we see how, performed onstage, these emotions trigger
responding emotions from the audience. The absence of extensive props,
costumes and lighting further contributes to bringing the human body to
the fore. Feelings conveyed through the body, rather than conventional
political discourse, become the vehicle for communication. One could
even say that these non-verbal interactions reach the audience at a level
different from language-based interactions.
Organic and context-specific approaches instead of universal

blueprints
The second contribution that we identify is the ability of art to offer context-
grounded and context-specific insights that more pre-determined universal
models cannot.
Prevalent peacebuilding approaches are largely based on a blueprint of lib-
eral economic policies and democratic procedures. The underlying assumption
is that a well-worked-out generic model for peacebuilding can be applied to
all conflict scenarios and socio-cultural contexts. Numerous scholars do, how-
ever, point out that such universal models are embedded in particular values
and power relations: they embody ‘the practical and ideological interests of the
global north’.17 The ensuing disregard and disrespect for local culture and its
people are now increasingly seen as one of the reasons why externally imposed
peacebuilding initiatives fail so often, or at least meet with considerable local
discontent and resistance. This is why improvements in peacebuilding pro-
cesses are now often linked to the introduction of practices that engage with,
are embedded in and draw from local people and their numerous resources,
both intellectual and material.18
We outline how two arts-based approaches have the potential to
make peacebuilding more context-bound and culturally sensitive. Prevailing
peacebuilding approaches often essentialize the local to the extent that its peo-
ple simply become powerless objects of intervention. Even policy initiatives
that prioritize local ownership tend to highlight the need to introduce and
implement pre-determined liberal democratic principles and institutions. The
resulting understanding of the local in this is limiting and restrained. The peo-
ple for whom peacebuilding is intended are perceived to have neither agency –
the ability to shape their environment – nor the intellectual resources to do so.
Calls to take the local seriously frequently end up romanticizing the local as
some kind of ‘pure’ and ‘traditional’ realm. The actual lives of people, and the
complexities and diversities of their socio-cultural existence, are lost. The type
of understanding of civil society that emerges from such approaches is problem-
atic, for it privileges local elites, who then can become easy allies for external
peacebuilding actors. The narrative that binds this collaboration together is
inevitably tainted by the position of elites and their own interest. Such a civil
society engagement is unlikely to resonate with the hearts and minds of average
local people who make up the majority of a post-conflict population.19
Arts-based approaches can help here, as long as they are not products of elites,
but emerge from and are embedded in local practices. Key here in particular are
productions – be they music, visual art or theatre-based – that are performed
locally by local artists. Such productions are particularly powerful if they engage
with and even involve the population. The agency, then, does not lie solely
with the producers, but also involves the audience. In many parts of the Global
South, such everyday artistic exchanges are common practice.20 They are an
essential part of how communities create meaning and deal with their conflicts,
big and small. It is in this sense that artistic approaches have the capacity to
open up everyday spaces for peacebuilding, reaching further into and drawing
from the local, everyday experiences of people.
Art for peacebuilding draws from life, wisdom and experiences of the com-
munity in its production, firmly rooting it within a given context. The stories
told through art initiatives become a part of the meaning-making process of the
local communities. Once these narratives are fully integrated into the commu-
nal narratives, they are carried on as part of the everyday cultural expression
and transmission process. It is in this sense that arts for peacebuilding have
the potential to seep into the communal narratives and sustain locally driven
initiatives.21
But here, too, we want to stress that artistic engagement with the local does
not contain some inevitable positive contribution to peacebuilding. If their
content spreads hatred and fuels further conflict, the arts-based approaches
could just as well become obstacles to peacebuilding. The key point, though, is
that art is an essential part of local culture and thus crucial to sustaining the
local legitimacy and agency of peacebuilding efforts.
Jana Karaliya/Makkal Kalari: Creative Local Solutions for Working in

Challenging Circumstances
Jana Karaliya in Sinahala, or Makkal Kalari in Tamil, is a multi-ethnic,

bilingual mobile theatre group from Sri Lanka. The group lives and trav-
els together for most of the year. Two artists, Parakrama Niriella and
H. A. Perera, co-founded the group when the ceasefire between warring
Sinhalese and Tamil parties in Sri Lanka faltered. Since 2004, Jana Karaliya
has continued its work, engaging the various changing phases of the
conflict. This engagement became particularly crucial when most of the
internationally funded liberal peacebuilding initiatives started to fail.
The objective of Jana Karaliya theatre is to advance the basis for
peacebuilding by bringing together parties and narratives in conflict.
Doing so is far from easy in a highly volatile and fragile environment.

The group does not preach ‘peace’ to the community. Instead, by creat-
ing a multi-ethnic, bilingual group, it shows that coexistence among the
parties in conflict is possible. It leads by example.
Due to reasons of safety, during the war all performances purposely
refrained from narrating stories about the conflict. Instead, the group
performed situations of everyday interethnic coexistence and collabora-
tion. Jana Karaliya travels to remote areas, where audiences might never
have personally interacted with a member from another ethnicity. Being
bilingual enables the group to perform anywhere in the country. The
group also draws from and merges the different drama traditions of the
Sinhalese and Tamils, triggering new societal narratives.
In an ideal scenario, the group spreads more inclusive and pluralistic
societal narratives. Doing so inevitably takes time and is met with regu-
lar setbacks. But the group kept performing even at the peak of war in
2008 and 2009. Maintaining this commitment allowed Jana Karaliya to
remain accepted as a peace initiative by both conflict parties. With the
end of war in 2009, Jana Karaliya is gradually moving into discussing
the ensuing implications, particularly those related to ethno-linguistic
discrimination.
Encouraging multi-vocality in the place of definitive factual

answers
The third and final contribution we discuss lies in the potential of art to bring
out multiple voices and serve as a model for a more inclusive approach to
peacebuilding.
Prevalent peacebuilding models tend to be based on a unitary approach that –
intentionally or not – suppresses heterogeneity.22 The key components of liberal
approaches, such as the introduction of elections, institutions and free-market
principles, call for decisive and immediate action, often after years, if not
decades, of conflict. Such a rapid transition is unlikely to take into account the
nuances of the local conflict situation. This is why critics perceive this approach
more as a ‘system of governance’ than a ‘process of reconciliation’.23 The dis-
crepancy between so-called democratic governance and the needs and wants of
the local community is indicated by the declining interest in electoral participa-
tion in most post-conflict societies.24 Thus, the less heard voices, or the voices
of the minorities, often go unnoticed within the current peacebuilding regime.
But listening to the voices of minorities is a crucial part of post-conflict rec-
onciliation. Conflicts in most cases arise as a result of minority dissatisfaction
with central political structures. Instead of encouraging these voices and inte-
grating them into the conflict resolution process and governance, post-conflict
democratic practices tend to do quite the opposite: by automatically privileg-
ing the voice of the majority, democratic procedures result in eroding plurality.
This actively contradicts the need to facilitate expression of minority concerns
at the root of conflict. Thus, for peacebuilding to be sustainable, it needs to
facilitate multi-vocality and inclusiveness.
Art is uniquely suited to express multiple voices. It is more ambivalent than
other forms of communication. Visual art, for instance, always has multiple
interpretations. Other art forms, such as theatre, are based precisely on the idea
of bringing out multiple and at times even contradictory voices. Mark Chou
here speaks of a form of multi-vocality that contains deep democratic poten-
tial in its ‘ability to publicise multiple realities, actors and actions’ in such a
way as to challenge the existing political order.25 This multi-vocality is then
accentuated by the reception of the work of art, which always entails a level of
interpretation.
By bringing into dialogue silenced voices and narratives, multi-vocality can
potentially create space for new and more inclusive community narratives.
There are several ways in which this takes place. The realm of art is a rela-
tively safe place for expression of what might be censored or too risky to be
voiced elsewhere. This is particularly the case in intensive conflict situations,
where political speech is often censored and art tends to be one of the unreg-
ulated realms. Take theatre: it is a public forum that re-creates reality through
imaginations. As such, it is not bound by the constraints of the conflict con-
text or the social conventions. Thus, what may seem impossible in a real-life
encounter becomes possible within the imagined space of the theatre. It thus
becomes possible to incorporate silenced voices and perspectives in a way that
engages the audience in new ways.
The multiple voices brought into the public discourse through art gener-
ate the predictions for a more complex understanding of the varied aspects
involved in both a conflict and a peacebuilding process. This differs from uni-
versalistic, top-down approaches, which are not well suited to dealing with the
nuances of inclusion and exclusion.26 Lederach presents the notion of ‘para-
doxical curiosity’ as a way of going beyond the dualistic polarities associated
with conflict.27 Being a core element of the moral imagination, it invites peo-
ple to respect the inherent complexity of a given context. The multiple voices
art brings into the public discourse embody this plurality.
Art does not give concrete answers to concrete problems. That is its weakness,
but also precisely its strength, for it can present perspectives or narratives as
what they are: stories. The voices presented in an artwork or on stage in theatre
are rarely invested with absolute authority. In addition, any performance or
work of art always needs to be interpreted by the audience, which also reflects
only a particular set of perspectives and not the final, absolute response to a
situation or an issue. This, in turn, is the starting point of co-creating inclusive
narratives in place of the existing divisive ones.
Take again the example of theatre, which Cynthia Cohen perceives as ‘one
of the most powerful mediums for creating live contact between individuals
from opposing sides of a conflict’.28 It encourages gathering, working and acting
together. Theatre provides an opportunity to recast prevailing understandings
of the conflict so as to present a reconciliatory and cohesive vision. It allows
communities to create and reflect upon a collective experience that is ulti-
mately organic and locally owned. Scholars have commented on the potential
this space holds for transforming narratives and identities at a community and
a personal level.29 It is in this sense that multi-vocality becomes a powerful tool
in shaping popular discourse and constituting political beliefs while working
within the lifeworlds of communities. The expression of different voices and
perspectives and the consequent co-creation of inclusive narratives allow com-
munities to ‘restore through re-enactment’ the fragmented meaning and lives
in post-conflict contexts.30
Jana Sanskriti: Bring out Silenced Voices from West Bengal
Jana Sanskriti is a political theatre group based in West Bengal that focuses
on issues of structural injustice and power inequality. The group draws
from the repertoire of ‘theatre of the oppressed’ developed by Augusto
Boal, with forum theatre as its primarily used model. Jana Sanskriti has
adapted forum theatre to suit the particular context of West Bengal. The
group is led by its founder Sanjoy Ganguli and a core team who come
from the villages they work in.
Jana Sanskriti employs multi-vocality in an attempt to solve
community-level conflicts related to structural injustice. Forum theatre
facilitates active engagement with the audience during the course of a
play. The topic is always an issue of real and direct concern to a com-
munity. After a short play is staged, with a typical negative ending, the
audience is invited to come on stage and transform the ending by per-
sonally intervening in the narrative. The goal here is to find collaborative
solutions and empower less heard or silenced voices.
Jana Sanskriti works with communities from rural Bengal, such as agri-
cultural workers and daily-wage labourers. The plays are composed and
performed by locals, and thus reflect their life realities. They are per-
formed for that very community: thus, Jana Sanskriti’s theatre is a space
where exploiters and oppressed are brought together for a performance
that explicitly dramatizes ongoing issues of political and social justice.
The interventions that challenge the existing power hierarchy also come
from the local community members and take place in this public forum.
This role-playing is seen to be cathartic: what is expressed in the arena
is validated by the public conscience, thereby strengthening the silenced
voices to speak out in real life as well.
The constant expression of voices against social and political injustices
in theatre initiates a dialogue within the community. It brings real-life
situations into discussion in the public space of forum theatre. This, in
turn, triggers transformation of the oppressive structural narratives. For
example, gender discrimination, labour exploitation, and political and
institutional corruption are recurrent themes in Jana Sanskriti’s plays,
and the group notes a significant positive trend in the dowry and voting
practices of the community as a result of its work.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have looked at the significance of art for peacebuilding.

We highlighted three potential contributions. First, artistic approaches can
push beyond the entrenched discourses that have come to dominate and often
paralyse conflict-prone communities. Art is particularly suited to engaging the
emotional dynamics of a conflict. Addressing the emotional residues of trauma
is essential, but often neglected in prevailing approaches. Second, various art
forms can become part of local grassroots efforts to address the conflict where
and how it matters most: at the community level. The contribution here lies in
offering an alternative to prevailing approaches to peacebuilding, which are
often based on pre-determined models imposed by elites from the outside.
Third, art-based approaches can bring out multiple voices and offer venues
for including minorities that remain marginalized in prevailing approaches to
peacebuilding.
In making these three points, we inevitably had to simplify the complex
world of art and politics. For one, there are numerous art forms – from paint-
ing to poetry and dance, from literature to music and theatre. Each of them
operates in a unique aesthetic realm, and each of them offers unique ways of
engaging the politics of peacebuilding. There is no blueprint about how art
works, for its very essence lies in creativity and the ambition to break through
conventional ways of seeing, hearing and sensing the world. We have, thus,
made a few generic points, but have drawn in particular from the example of
theatre groups operating in peacebuilding contexts. These local artistic-political
engagements are, of course, not always successful. Art can be as regressive as
progressive, as authoritarian as liberating, and can fuel conflict as much as
solve it. But art is a crucial part of how people deal with all aspects of life,
including conflicts and the effort to overcome them. This is why it is crucial
for peacebuilding approaches to make an active effort to include art forms in
the process of bringing conflicting parties together, creating a discourse and,
eventually, a practice of reconciliation.
Acknowledgement
We are grateful to an anonymous referee for unusually thorough and helpful

feedback on an earlier draft.
Notes
1. Roland Bleiker, Aesthetics and World Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
2. See Roland Paris, ‘Peacebuilding and the Limits of Liberal Internationalism’, Interna-
tional Security 22, no. 2 (1997); Roland Paris, At War’s End: Building Peace after Civil
Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Stephen Baranyi, ed., The
Paradoxes of Peacebuilding Post-9/11 (California: Stanford University Press, 2008).
3. Susanna Campbell and Jenny H. Peterson, ‘Statebuilding’, in Routledge Handbook of
Peacebuilding, ed. Roger Mac Ginty (New York: Routledge, 2013), 343.
4. Ole Jacob Sending, ‘The Effects of Peacebuilding: Sovereignty, Patronage and Power’,
in A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding, eds Susanna Campbell,
David Chandler and Meera Sabaratnam (London: Zed Books, 2011), 56.
5. Rama Mani, ‘Women, Art and Post-Conflict Justice’, International Criminal Law Review
11, no. 3 (2011).
6. Dia Da Costa, Development Dramas: Reimagining Rural Political Action in Eastern India
(New Delhi: Routledge, 2010), 45.
7. See Rajini Obeyesekere, Sri Lankan Theatre at a Time of Terror (New Delhi: Sage, 1999);
Madhawa Palihapitiya, ‘The Created Space: Peacebuilding and Performance in Sri
Lanka’, in Acting Together: Volume I, eds Cynthia E. Cohen et al. (Oakland, CA: New
Village Press, 2011).
8. See Cynthia E. Cohen, ‘Engaging with the Arts to Promote Coexistence’, in Imag-
ine Coexistence: Restoring Humanity after Violent Ethnic Conflict, eds Martha Minow
and Antonia Chaves (Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass, 2003); Louise Diamond and John
W. McDonald, Multi-Trace Diplomacy: A Systems Approach to Peace (West Hartford, CT:
Kumarian Press, 1996).
9. Cohen, ‘Engaging with the Arts to Promote Coexistence’.
10. Ibid., 2.
11. Roland Bleiker, ‘ “Give It the Shade”: Paul Celan and the Politics of Apolitical Poetry’,
Political Studies 47, no. 4 (1999).
12. Mani, ‘Women, Art and Post-Conflict Justice’, 551–552.
13. Emma Hutchison and Roland Bleiker, ‘Emotional Reconciliation: Reconstituting
Identity and Community after Trauma’, European Journal of Social Theory 11, no. 3
(2008): 385–403.
14. Mani, ‘Women, Art and Post-Conflict Justice’, 552.
15. Kathleen Gallagher and Ivan Service, ‘Applied Theatre at the Heart of Educational
Reform: An Impact and Sustainability Analysis’, Research in Drama Education – The
Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 15, no. 2 (2010).
16. Anette S. Andersen and Jon Nygaard, ‘Narod Sobie – Theatre as the Nation in Itself:
Three Case Studies of Theatre and National Emotions’, Nordic Theatre Studies 21
(2009).
17. Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Hybrid Peace: The Interaction between Top-Down and Bottom-Up
Peace’, Security Dialogue 41, no. 4 (2010): 393.
18. Adam Moore, Peacebuilding in Practice: Local Experience in Two Bosnian Towns (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2013).
19. See Timothy Donais, Peacebuilding and Local Ownership: Post-Conflict Consensus-
Building (New York: Routledge, 2012).
20. Mani, ‘Women, Art and Post-Conflict Justice’.
21. Nathan C. Funk, ‘Building on What’s Already There: Valuing the Local in Interna-
tional Peacebuilding’, International Journal 67, no. 2 (2012): 397.
22. Jason Franks and Oliver P. Richmond, ‘Coopting Liberal Peace-Building: Untying the
Gordian Knot in Kosovo’, Cooperation and Conflict 43, no. 1 (2008); Markus Fisher,
‘The Liberal Peace: Ethical, Historical, and Philosophical Aspects’, in BCSIA Discussion
Paper 2000–07 (Kennedy School of Government: Harvard University, 2000).
23. Oliver P. Richmond, ‘A Genealogy of Peace and Conflict Theory’, in Palgrave Advances
in Peacebuilding: Critical Developments and Approaches, ed. Oliver P. Richmond
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 23–25.
24. Roger Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance: Hybrid Forms of Peace
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
25. Mark Chou, Greek Tragedy and Contemporary Democracy (New York: Bloomsbury Aca-
demic, 2012), 52; see also Donald J. Mastronarde, The Art of Euripides: Dramatic
Technique and Social Context (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
26. Chou, Greek Tragedy and Contemporary Democracy.
27. John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
28. Cynthia Cohen, Roberto G. Varea and Polly O. Walker, Acting Together: Performance
and the Creative Transformation of Conflict: Volume 1: Resistance and Reconciliation in
Regions of Violence (Oakland, CA: New Village Press, 2011), 42.
29. Cohen, Varea and Walker, Acting together: Performance and the Creative Transformation
of Conflict: Volume 2: Building Just and Inclusive Communities (Oakland, CA: New Vil-
lage Press, 2011); Victor W. Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of
Play (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982).
30. Cohen, Varea, and Walker, Acting together: Performance and the Creative Transformation
of Conflict: Volume 2: Building Just and Inclusive Communities, x.
7
Sociology: A Sociological Critique of
Liberal Peace
Nicos Trimikliniotis
This chapter will read sociologically the notions of peace, peacebuilding, con-
flict resolution (CR) and reconciliation, which, together with statebuilding,
development and transitional justice, are closely connected to the liberal peace
(LP) model. In brief, it provides a rudimental sociological critique of the liberal
peace project. Such a critique contains a projected alternative reading, which
includes the key elements for reconceptualizing peace properly accounting
for a dynamic and conflict-based reading of society. It attempts to contribute
towards a critique of LP that paves the way for reading the dialectics ‘peace/war’
and ‘ethnic conflict/reconciliation’ in deeply divided societies suffering from
ethnic-related violence. This is a sociology that draws freely from other dis-
ciplines, a social science perspective that is by nature interdisciplinary, with
conceptual and methodological frames capable of bridging the gap between
specializations. Simultaneously, it must be both theoretically and empirically
sound and policy-relevant. The chapter provides a schematic critique of some
important CR approaches and considers how a sociological reading can enrich,
restructure and reconceptualize peace-in-society in terms of critical peace. Given
that there is no quick-fix solution to be engineered from ‘Olympus’, a critical
sociological/social science reading of peace requires that we first examine soci-
eties in a careful and rigorous manner. This would enable us to understand the
kinds of internal logics so as to draw on the reflexivity and knowledge generated
within the societies themselves. Then we can proceed to read the dialectic of
conflict/peace from alternative emancipatory-and-peace perspectives that can
envision the sort of critical peace that builds on the work of social forces on the
ground.
A sociological critique of liberal peace
The literature on CR is vast and diverse. The field is impressive in size, com-
plexity and innovation of technical knowledge on various types of conflict and
toolkits for its resolution, management and transformation. This chapter makes
95
no claims as regards the total body of CR literature; CR is neither a single nor

a uniform discipline/field of studies; it is diverse and complex. There are many
approaches within peace and conflict studies (PCS), alongside others such as
conflict transformation and conflict management.1 The typologies and reme-
dies produced by the theorists and practitioners in the field over the last 80
years draw from different disciplines; empirical studies have examined more
or less every contestation in the globe. Also, a number of critical approaches
within political science have produced important critiques of the concept and
approaches of LP. We can, however, speak of ‘dominant’ schools taken up by
those in power around the world who share a vision of imposing their views
on societies, often engineering ‘good governance’, elections and aspects of
human rights, as understood by the ‘liberators’ from outside, and functioning
markets. These perspectives vary from vulture capitalism to other capitalistic
arrangements with more elements of democratic governance.2
Within the field, there are vital distinctions between traditional approaches
to PCS and critical PCS, offering very different readings of conflicts and peace
processes;3 hence, generalizations must be avoided. Nonetheless, reading these
from a sociological perspective outside the field, one can see a number of
approaches that appear to share a number of key elements, despite their distinct
differences. First, critiques working essentially within the liberal perspective,
even when critically challenging hegemonic perceptions, remain by and large
essentially pessimistic about any real alternatives.4 These critiques seem to be
locked in the Western-orientated liberal dilemmas which are sceptical regard-
ing the imposing of good governance, market economy and other institutions
on conflict-ridden societies, but see few, if any, alternatives. Hence, they tend
to pivot around questions such as ‘intervention versus non-intervention’ or ‘to
what extent are non-Western/Southern societies fit [read: “mature enough”] for
liberal governance?’ Second, from a sociological perspective, it appears rather
odd that the dominant paradigms in this vast field appear to have problematic
conceptualizations of society, power, conflict, social class and other social divi-
sions, state and civil society, as they have a poor sociological base. With some
notable exceptions, CR perspectives seem to be a long way from the current
state-of-the-art knowledge, from the insights of sociology as well as the other
related social sciences (anthropology, social psychology, geography and so on),
particularly from various critical schools of thought in these disciplines.
It must be recognized that sociology and sociologists have not provided a
comprehensive and ready-made alternative. In fact, it is rather intriguing that
within the discipline of sociology, the subjects of peacebuilding, CR and recon-
ciliation have not been issues of concern for mainstream sociology. It is only
recently that sociologists have endeavoured to bring them into the mainstream
of the discipline, in what remains an underexplored, under-theorized and pio-
neering work.5 This is apparent in the latest textbooks in sociology, which have
Nicos Trimikliniotis 97
grown in size, complexity and nuanced thinking. Many such texts contain no
conceptualization of peace and reconciliation in society at all. The latest text-
books that provide the standard introduction to the discipline contain chapters
on nations, war and terrorism;6 however, the notion of ‘peace’ is not concep-
tualized. Presumably, it merely means ‘absence of war’; even ‘war’ and ‘warfare’
have been rather neglected in mainstream sociological analyses, tending to
remain marginal,7 with the exception of some pioneering works, mainly drawn
from sociologists who were working within and around conflict-ridden or war-
torn societies.8 The same applies to the conceptualization of peace and peace
processes; with few exceptions, this has remained peripheral to or neglected by
the main body of sociology as a discipline.9 Pierre Bourdieu,10 critical of one
of the ‘founding fathers’ of sociology, Emile Durkheim, who was anxious to
bring sociology into the university, notes: ‘From the very beginning, sociology
has been an ambiguous, dual, masked science; one that had to conceal and
conceal its own nature as a political science in order to gain acceptance as an
academic science.’ The ethics of sociology itself must be closely scrutinized and
questioned.11
It is noteworthy that the sociologist Galtung was one of the founders and
influential thinkers in the flourishing field of CR. Galtung12 conceptualized
some of the key concepts; for instance, he distinguished between ‘negative
peace’, which requires that we understand which type or process of CR is appro-
priate, and ‘positive peace’, which is about social transformation. Moreover,
among the most creative current thinkers and practitioners in the field, some
have trained as sociologists; for instance, John Paul Lederach, a great innova-
tor, insisted to some extent, like Galtung, that we must speak of transformation
rather than resolution of conflict. There are many sociologists among the the-
orists and practitioners from the five generations of CR, from the precursors
of the 1920s right through to the current ‘cosmopolitans’ who dominate the
field, according to one of the most influential state-of-the-art textbooks on
contemporary CR.13 Also, a significant part of modern peace and war stud-
ies contains powerful sociological elements.14 Nevertheless, CR essentially grew
out of political science and is strongly influenced by international relations.
Traditional CR studies are primarily orientated towards actively intervening
in, participating in, and influencing the outcome of conflict situations and
divided polities and societies. It would be naïve to think that CR could be some-
how immune to LP, which is the dominant paradigm of how to resolve conflicts
in the globe. Academic and professional autonomy, both as a study/scientific
discipline and as a field of professional engagement, seems utopian, particu-
larly in this field. CR seeks to carry weight with and influence the current
powers, such as governments, the UN and other international organizations,
and the non-governmental organization (NGO) sector. Essential to carry out
field studies and to influence the field are the following: Recognition, funding
and professional placements in fields of conflict around the world, as well as

practical engagement in official and unofficial advising, counselling, access-
ing data and parties in conflict, and negotiations, as well as participation in
missions and mediations. As such, the most influential centres for CR are heav-
ily dependent on the powers that be (governments, the UN, the EU and so
on). It is not surprising that practitioners are lured to and are reproducing
often highly sophisticated and technically excellent paradigms and techniques,
which are convenient to the Western/Northern powers, capable of effecting
change/stability in conflicts with little accountability to the societies at which
they are supposed to be aimed. In this sense, the dominant paradigms of CR are
typically drawn to, and to a large extent driven by, the dominant paradigms of
political science and international relations, that is, the ‘liberal peace project’.
However, even critical perspectives from the postmodern and post-structuralist
critiques of power, which see no point in ‘grand narratives’, do not produce
any alternatives to LP. Moreover, in the spirit of deconstructionism, various
alternatives, whether in global social/political forces or in local forces, are
deconstructed and dismissed as either utopian-idealized versions of unworkable
practices, or corrupt ideologies.
A serious issue regarding this subject is the operation of the war and peace
industries; these have their own rules of engagement, and professionals within
them must be willing to play within this domain, obeying these rules. Large
numbers of CR professionals, coming from different disciplines, are employed
by international and national NGOs. In liberal theory, these organizations are
part of civil society, and are thus supposed to be ‘independent’ of the state.
However, the vast majority of them are in practice heavily dependent on gov-
ernments and interstate organizations such as the UN, the EU and others, due
to the funding and recognition that they receive. It is, therefore, not surpris-
ing that they are accused of being long arms of the same global, regional and
local forces that generate, maintain and reproduce conflicts and divisions and
are then selling themselves as ‘fixers’ of such conflicts and divisions. Studies
produced by CR think-tanks, as a rule, produce thinking on economic develop-
ment in conflict-ridden or divided societies based on neoliberal management in
economics and devising suitable geopolitical arrangements for regional stability
which reflect the regional power structure, rather than questioning the founda-
tions of the current order of things. Peace research organisations for instance are
often dependent on good relations and accountable to their Foreign Ministries
or other state, interstate funding agencies which may lead to dependency rela-
tions; they may also be ideological allied or politically connected. These factors
determine the agendas and the engagement of professionals in the field.
It would be misleading to blame the perpetuation of conflicts or divisions
entirely, or even mainly, on peacemakers or peace organizations. The problem
already exists before such agencies become involved. Imperial forces, as well
as CR experts and mediators, are locked with local forces in a system that ties
them together. For instance, local political elites, warlords, nationalist, racist or
other reactionary forces, or powerful individuals who have an interest in the
perpetuation of the conflict or the status quo, which have carved out territories
and profited from the spoils of war, become ‘stakeholders’ and win legitimacy
in ‘peace negotiations’ under the LP and CR models; hence, the war and peace
industries often reproduce the basic structures of the conflicts via the continu-
ation of conflicts and division or transformations of these in ‘statebuilding’ or
‘nation-building’, ‘empowering civil society projects’. No matter what the out-
come (resolution, maintenance of the status quo or even transformation), the
basic features of the industry are somehow reproduced: it seems that, no matter
what, there will always be ‘work’ to do, that is, profit and labour for the profes-
sionals in CR: in LP, mediators, professional advisors, experts, and regional and
local warlords under the supervision of regional and global superpowers man-
age to reproduce themselves, their interests and their ideologies. This is why a
critical sociological analysis is required: such perspectives make no assumptions
about the speed or effectiveness of solutions. Societal forces and energies can
be released in different directions depending on the context.
The problems of the CR logic derive from a number of factors. Some of the
key critiques of the LP models are as follows. First, interpretations of acts and
practices of historical violence often fail to appreciate institutional and sys-
temic aspects, the duration and type of ‘force’ that is manifested; they tend to
ignore or underestimate structural factors, such as colonialism, class and social
power, and, in general, political economy issues. For instance, borders and par-
titions (visible, overt and covert) are often manifestations of initial violent
‘acts’ and ‘practices’ of different forms, which may retain some of their his-
torical rationale/functions (for example, repressing and fragmenting), and they
are constantly transforming the shapes, forms and magnitudes of violence in
unexpected ways.15 Second, in recent globalization-dominated literature there
is inadequate sociological linkage between the macro and micro levels of vio-
lence in ethnically divided societies. Third, the dialectic between ‘violence
versus non-violence’ and ‘conflict versus cooperation’ is under-theorized and
under-researched. There are rather simplistic assumptions about what is the
‘rule/norm’ and what is the ‘exception’. Fourth, comparative studies of eth-
nic conflict-ridden societies generally lack sociological and contextual historical
depth and/or are not based on deeper knowledge of all the ‘case studies’ under
examination. Moreover, reduction of societies into ‘case studies’ reduces them
to mere ‘examples’ in already thought-out global paradigms or other stereo-
typical regionalized models, often disguising Eurocentric and ethno-centric
readings, as well as other heuristic distortions, such as intellectual dependency
and exceptionalism. Fifth, studies of ‘ethnic conflict’ are dominated by CR
paradigms taken from comparative political science. Here, as a rule, no reference
is made to insights provided by contemporary sociological debates. What is

required in this regard is a paradigm shift. Finally, the fragmentation derived
from disciplinary expertise and specialization tends to disconnect the speci-
ficity of the conflict from the reconciliation processes, as these are studied by
different sets of experts. Hence, the connections made are based on superficial
modelling rather than in-depth comparative sociological studies of conflict and
reconciliation as processes.
Assumptions about the nature of conflict, polarizations and divisions need
to be challenged. For instance, many reconciliation and CR models need to
get rid of any ‘ethnicist’ assumptions about ‘communities’, be they ethnic or
religious, which consider them as unified and homogeneous and ignore polit-
ical, ideological and social characteristics and identities, such as gender and
class. The rich debates around social identity, racism and anti-racism, gender,
nationhood and intersectionality can enhance reconciliation theorization and
praxis.16 Ramsbotham et al.17 responded to critiques of CR through an inno-
vative address of many of the criticisms into an all-encompassing synthesis.
They avoid the early behaviourism and accept the current prevailing think-
ing that ‘violence is not unavoidable and integral to the nature of conflict’,
taking conflict transformation18 as the ‘deepest level of CR tradition rather
than a separate venture’. Moreover, they attempt to ‘rescue’ CR traditions
from their ‘liberal peace underpinnings’;19 they advocate the need to ‘enrich
western and non-western traditions through their mutual encounter’. Criti-
cal perspectives within Western CR traditions, which question the above, are
often ridden with a sort of Western pessimism about the world and the suc-
cess of any kind of involvement, no matter how benevolent.20 These ideas
leave them essentially without any concrete alternatives, as they fail to prop-
erly understand these societies. Even sophisticated CR theory that recognizes the
importance of wider and diverse social, international and political factors tends
to essentialize and effectively reduce conflict to individual factors like psychol-
ogy rather than addressing the complex and multi-faceted social, economic
and political aspects. Hence, we often find recommendations for the creation
of decentralized models of government, ‘good governance’, market-based capi-
talist economies and definite state structures that are based on the premise that
these structures can be ‘designed to serve psychological, economic and rela-
tional needs of groups and individuals within nation-states’.21 The designing
of governmental structures in regime changes that followed US-led invasions
and the various aid developmental reform programs in societies ridden by eth-
nic conflicts are generally based on such perceptions. Rather than relying on
the development of the local or autonomous historical traditions and struc-
tures of governance, the programs funded, promoted and often imposed tend
to be models dictated from above: these models are designed by ‘experts’ and
premised on political, economic, cultural and socio-psychological assumptions
that allegedly fit ‘essential characteristics’ of the groups of people involved.

Therefore, both the ‘diagnosis’ and the ‘remedies’ for ethnic conflicts are rid-
den with specific interests, biases and simplistic assumptions about the kinds of
‘solutions’ to the various conflicts. One of the most common assumptions made
by CR theorists concerning the nature of ‘ethnic conflict’ is that these conflicts
result primarily from ‘historical hatred’ and ‘ethnic antagonism’, that is, eth-
nic or national groups which are assumed to be homogeneous and somehow
naturally compete.
A sociological (re)construction: Towards critical peace
Recent sociological studies have produced interesting readings that can enrich
the debates on peace, peacemaking and reconciliation, making it possible to
see through and go beyond the LP models of CR. Moreover, the field of inquiry
of sociology itself is expanded and deepened in what have traditionally been
under-developed fields. However, it is essential that we start from the basics
in sociological debates. In sociological debates, ‘conflict’ is juxtaposed with
‘order’. In fact sociology is often divided between those who see society in terms
of order and those who see it as essentially characterized by conflict. It was
George Simmel in 190322 who insisted that ‘sociological significance, inasmuch
as it either produces or modifies communities of interest, unifications, orga-
nizations, is in principle never contested’. In the old debates, functionalists
sought answers to what maintains order in society, including common values,
social cohesion/solidarity, and consent to hierarchical relations and ranking in
society, while ‘conflict theorists’ (Marxists, Weberians, followers of Simmel and
others) sought to understand the nature and modalities of ‘conflict’ derived
from oppressive, exploitative and unequal relations and polarizations resulting
from conflicting interests, ideologies, priorities and ways of life.
Coser’s classic work23 followed Simmel in laying the foundations for study-
ing ‘the functions of social conflict’. Until the development of the specialized
interest in ethnic-related phenomena, with the study of nations, nationalism,
ethnicity, race and racism,24 it was mainly historical sociologists who had an
interest in dealing with such phenomena. However, in contemporary studies of
collective violence and war, there has been no proper interface with sociolog-
ical scholarship, as Malešević suggests,25 nor has there been much sociological
interest in peace and reconciliation processes, as Brewer points out.26 Moreover,
at least so far, there has been no comparative sociological study linking eth-
nic conflict phenomena to peace and reconciliation practices and modalities.
Conflict is a generic term which entails different types, forms and intensities
of ‘violence’ and ‘force’ in societies – from the most extreme, such as wars,
mass murders and genocides, to other so-called ‘milder’ systematic forms of
exploitation, oppression, restriction, exclusion and discrimination. There are
good analytical reasons for distinguishing ‘violence’ from ‘conflict’, as conflict

is broader: ‘conflicts, wars and revolutions cannot be reduced to large scale
violence’. This may hide the extent of the blurring between intrastate and inter-
state in current armed conflicts, which are often hard to distinguish: proxy wars
are often fought in other countries. Violent/armed conflicts can be interstate
or intrastate, but the intrastate conflicts by far exceed the interstate ones: one
study shows that of the 128 conflicts taking place between 1989 and 2004, only
seven were interstate.27
Michael Mann,28 in his study of the most ‘extreme forms’ of violence, claimed
that there is a danger zone within which the structural conditions are cre-
ated for mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide to occur. Nevertheless,
while acknowledging that ‘milder forms of violence’ such as discrimination and
exclusion are still practised across the globe, Mann claimed that the ‘extreme’
forms of violence are somehow on the retreat in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries. Such readings are highly problematic, for the intensity of violence
is a matter that requires much closer scrutiny: very oppressive relationships,
such as slavery, trafficking and forms of incarceration and exploitation, forms
of racial and ethnic intimidation, sexual violence and so on are also ‘extreme’.
At least since Foucault’s studies of violence,29 discipline and punishment, ‘vio-
lence’ in society must be seen as something much more dispersed, transient
and dynamic than the taxonomic readings which categorize definite forms of
violence according to levels, quality and intensity. Specifically dealing with vio-
lence in ethnic-related conflict, what is often missed is that violence operates
in multiple ways, often unexpected and unintended, and frequently long after
the initial policy, ‘act’ or ‘practice’, if one can locate such a kick-off point.
Sometimes the impact or consequences of violence outlast the origins and the
institutions which originally set it in motion.
Post-colonial studies illustrate how colonialism by other means contin-
ues: national liberation movements may turn into oppressive regimes.30
Partitionism, borders and fencing, or ethnic oppression and exclusions oper-
ating as institutionalized forms, assume their own logic, unleashing new forms
of violent realities in the present and the future.31 There is little doubt that
‘whenever a delineation of boundaries takes place – as is the case with every
ethnic and national collectivity, processes of exclusion and inclusion are in
operation’.32 Borders, frontiers and boundaries are very specific creatures serv-
ing different purposes depending on the context and political reality.33 Another
dimension of violence as a force in society and history is that it can be an oper-
ative force, even in its absence: memories of violence are powerful tools in
shaping political, cultural and social institutions and performances, while the
fear and anger of outbursts of violence are an operative force at an individual
and collective level that is difficult to measure. Moreover, what must not be
generalized, but properly contextualized and seen as an interconnected social
whole, is the specificity of violence related to unequal socio-economic posi-

tions and power relations in terms of class, caste, gender, ethnicity, religion,
age, disability, sexuality and so on. Of course, at this level of generality, the
nuances of contextual sociological and historical analyses are limited to mere
categorizations. The dialectic of violence versus non-violence has been a key
debate in the arguments over the necessity of violence to overcome oppression,
colonization, exploitation and so on around the world. However, the use of vio-
lence has at some point generated structures of power or contradictions in the
system which essentially undermined the emancipatory, revolutionary and pro-
gressive potential of these forces/movements. Revolutionary movements, once
in power or on the way to power, are faced with systemic factors which gener-
ate more and/or new types of violence, oppression and exploitation; therefore,
in response to Fanon’s dictum sociologist Ari Sitas aptly insists that ‘violence
has not been cathartic’.34 In the twenty-first century, violence has also become
simultaneously more global and more local, as an integral part of the making
of global capitalism.35
Sociological interest in the general category of violence is not new: macro-
sociological and historical sociological systems of analysis have examined the
role of violence in the shaping of nation-states;36 recently, attention has shifted
also to the micro-sociological aspects.37 As argued elsewhere, a sociology of eth-
nic conflict and reconciliation processes as a singular mode of reading these
phenomena is distinctly absent.38 Recent studies have extended knowledge on
the subject, as recent sociological works are important in paving the way for
a sociology of war, peace and reconciliation.39 Malešević40 attempts sociolog-
ical insights into war and conflict, and Brewer into peace processes;41 they
endeavour to address the lacuna in political sociology and to intervene in
debates dominated by CR, international relations and comparative politics.
Even though they are very different in scope, style and themes covered, they
can be said to cover the state-of-the-art debates in current sociology on the
subject of ethnic conflict and reconciliation processes, if read together. Coming
from broadly Weberian perspectives, they both note the absence of sociolog-
ical readings in their respective subjects and aptly underscore the importance
of a comprehensive sociological inquiry into the reading of war/conflicts and
peace processes. Malešević examines the historical and contemporary impact
of coercion and warfare on the transformation of social life and vice versa,
and argues that despite the fact that ‘collective violence and war have shaped
much of recorded human history the mainstream sociology remains ignorant
of war’. He therefore provides a useful reading of organized violence by placing
it within a wide-ranging sociological analysis which links classical to contem-
porary theoretical debates with specific historical and geographical contexts.
Brewer provides a useful entry point for a sociology of peace processes, as he
stresses that the virtues of a ‘sociological enquiry’ into what he refers as to
‘peace processes’ would be enriched by understanding ‘social peace processes’

alongside ‘political peace processes’. Moreover, the book lays some important
groundwork, which can be summed up as follows. First, it usefully links peace-
ful transformations to social transformations and changing social relations, and
critiques the professionalization of reconciliation. Second, it develops a typol-
ogy, albeit in rudimentary form, of ‘post-violence’ society along three axes:
(i) relational–closeness, (ii) partial separation–territorial integrity and (iii) cul-
tural capital arguments. Third, it includes a basic analysis of the debates around
civil society, gender, emotions and memory in terms of ‘truth’ and victimhood.
Finally, it confirms the relation between war and peace processes. This is only
an entry point into the potential richness of a sociological inquiry.42
Sociological studies on gender, ethnic conflict and divisions, war and peace
provide us with insights into conflicts, wars and peace processes that are
essential if we are to understand and address these seriously. Moreover, the soci-
ological debates on class and race/ethnicity and the rich debates on nations,
nationalism and racism are vital if we are to understand and overcome eth-
nic/state/national conflicts, and as such, the study of peace processes must
properly engage with such issues.43 If the dialectics of war/peace and con-
flict/reconciliation are to be addressed sociologically, then the social divisions,
fragmentations and polarizations deriving from these must be dealt with.
Beyond the sociological interest on violence, also crucial are sociological stud-
ies on race, national, gender and class.44 Recently, attention to violence has also
shifted to the micro-sociological aspects.45
Sitas, extending his previous sociological studies dealing with conflict situa-
tions and the potential for reconciliation,46 has attempted to lay the founda-
tions for the work by asking: ‘what are the sociological underpinnings for the
consolidation of the ethic of reconciliation?’47 This is essentially the develop-
ment of a sociological perspective on the subject of conflict, peace processes
and reconciliation. Along these lines, I have argued for extending the sociolog-
ical conceptualization for understanding and comparing ethnically and other
deeply divided societies, particularly as to how societies deal with a violent and
divisive past. Such an endeavour not only enhances academic knowledge but
may impact policy as regards peace and reconciliation processes, in terms of
understanding the past as well as dealing with the present and future of post-
conflict societies. Overall, a sociological inquiry into conflicts, wars and peace,
and reconciliation processes requires a deeper insight into the societal forces
in place; thus, we should examine closely the network of relationships, mech-
anisms and processes promoting justice and address the root causes of possible
enmity, contestations and differences.
I have already referred to assumptions about the nature of conflict, polar-
izations and divisions. Dealing with the violent and divisive past is no easy
matter. Different societies deal with this subject very differently, but they are
also influenced by one another; ideas and social processes ‘travel’ or ‘migrate’
and influence other contexts, but they do so in different and unintended ways.
There is neither a consensus as to the ‘best route’ nor any ‘toolkit’ to be copied
and applied universally; however, there are factors often closely connected to
political, economic and cultural agendas in a world system based on hegemonic
relations. There are pitfalls in the various measures; moreover, there are prob-
lems in the adaptation of imported models of CR, peace and reconciliation.
Nor ought we to take for granted or idealize ‘indigenous recipes’ or processes.48
There is no quick-fix toolkit for conflict zones and default-lines in a world rid-
den with gross competition and inequalities of wealth and power, geopolitical
and social contestations, fragmentations and contradictions at all levels; par-
ticularly in times when the hegemonic structure of the world seems to be
shaking. No sociology can promise to fix that. However, a great deal can be
done once the LP model and its derivatives are theoretically dismantled and
rejected. Then we can begin properly to envision the alternatives generated by
critical peace.
Conclusion
In these days of socio-economic crisis, geopolitical turbulence and uncertainty,

and the rise in ethnic/state violence, questioning the foundations of the kind of
diagnoses, recipes and remedies developed in the context of LP becomes more
than essential. These frames and technologies of peace, still used as ‘remedies’,
are barely relevant, adequate or effective, even for the purposes of mere stability
of the interstate system. More to the point, they seem increasingly undesirable
and unfeasible in the current historical juncture for the peoples and regions
they are supposed to benefit. This chapter critiqued some of the prevalent and
accepted LP recipes for resolving ethnic/state, religious-political and other polit-
ical/social conflicts: the various devices on peacebuilding, CR, reconciliation,
transitional justice and development are part of the same paradigm, which is
being fundamentally questioned today. The various approaches were developed
within specific historical contexts, that is, the post-1960s and the post-1970s,
characterized by the rise of neoliberal economics, and in geopolitical and spa-
tial contexts, that is, the Western/Northern traditions projecting and studying
the East/South; the ‘internal’ dimension suffered from being often ignored, or
orientalized, or romanticized; the economic aspects of the proposed ‘solution’
were framed by neoliberal economics that measures the ‘peace dividend’. As a
result, this has tainted the relevant findings as to the nature of the conflict as
well as the recommended policy fireworks for addressing these, and the kinds
of recipes and remedies proposed.
The alternative to LP, broadly referred to as ‘critical peace’, requires that
we fundamentally reconsider the state of the art on successful peacebuilding,
peacekeeping and ‘restoring’ societies torn by war, conflicts or other violence.
Sociology, and particularly critical conflict sociology, is an essential ingredient
that can open up ways of seeing, thinking and acting in this direction. Despite
the enormous growth of research and knowledge at technical level as well as
in the variety of approaches, including critical approaches, what is still miss-
ing from many critiques is social self-reflexivity to develop specific thinking, and
contextualized policies and frameworks in the post-austerity-and-crisis era. This
requires that we rethink peacebuilding and peacekeeping in ways that actu-
ally transform thinking and the practice of peace seeking in the world. At the
core of this rethinking is the need to locate ‘peace’ within the processes of
transformation struggles which generate new socialities.
Notes
1. Further analysis would be required if we were to compare discourses within different
fields of social science; it would be necessary to tackle PCS with its internal subdivi-
sions, rather than CR; however, that would be beyond the scope of a single chapter
in this volume.
2. See Susanna Campbell, David Chandler and Meera Sabaratnam, ‘Introduction: The
Politics of Liberal Peace’, in A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding,
eds Susanna Campbell et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1–12;
Roland Paris, ‘Alternatives to Liberal Peace’, in Liberal Peace? The Problems and Prac-
tices of Peacebuilding, eds Susanna Campbell et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2011), 31–51.
3. For instance, see Oliver Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace (London: Routledge, 2011);
Roger Mac Ginty, Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding (London: Routledge, 2013).
4. See Campbell et al., ‘Introduction: The Politics of Liberal Peace’; Paris, ‘Alternatives
to Liberal Peace’.
5. A remarkable exception is the work of Colin Creighton and Martin Shaw, The
Sociology of War and Peace (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Sheridan House, 1987). Recently, the
sociological input by sociologists into peace and reconciliation has been reinvigo-
rated; see Ari Sitas, The Ethic of Reconciliation (Durban: Madiba Publishers University
of Kwazulu-Natal, 2008); Ari Sitas, ‘Beyond the Mandela Decade: The Ethic of Recon-
ciliation?’ Current Sociology 59, no. 5 (2012): 571–589; John Brewer, Peace Processes:
A Sociological Approach (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010); Nicos Trimikliniotis, ‘Can
We Learn from Comparing Violent Conflicts and Reconciliation Processes? For a Soci-
ology of Conflict and Reconciliation Going beyond Sociology’, in Lorenzo Milani’s
Culture of Peace, Essays on Religion, Education, and Democratic Life, eds Carmel Borg and
Michael Grech (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Nicos Trimikliniotis, ‘For a Soci-
ology of Conflict and Reconciliation: Learning from Comparing Violent Conflicts
and Reconciliation Processes’, Current Sociology 61, no. 2 (2013): 244–264.
6. For instance, the seventh and latest edition of Anthony Giddens and Philip
W. Sutton’s influential textbook Sociology is a massive 1232-page book, co-authored
with Sutton. The book has a chapter (23) on ‘Nations, War and Terrorism’, but does
not deal with or conceptualize the notion of ‘peace’.
7. See Siniša Malešević, The Sociology of War and Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge
8. For instance, see Avishai Ehrlich, ‘Israel: Conflict, War, and Social Change’, in
The Sociology of War and Peace, eds Colin Creighton and Martin Shaw (London:
Macmillan, 1987).
9. See Brewer, Peace Processes.

10. Pierre Bourdieu, In Other Words: Essays toward a Reflexive Sociology (Stanford Univer-
sity Press, 1990), 198.
11. Jacques Rancière, ‘The Ethics of Sociology’, The Intellectual and His People, Staging the
People, Volume 2 (London: Verso, 2012).
12. Johan Galtung, ‘Violence, Peace and Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research 6, no. 3
(1969): 167–191.
13. Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall, Contemporary Conflict Resolu-
tion: The Prevention, Management and Transformation of Deadly Conflicts (Cambridge,
UK: Polity, 2013), 424, refer to five generations of CR: the Precursors (1925–45), the
Founders (1945–65), the Consolidators (1965–85), the Reconstructors (1985–2005)
and the Cosmopolitans (2005).
14. John MacDougall and Morten G. Ender, Teaching the Sociology of Peace, War,
and Social Conflict: A Curriculum Guide (Washington, DC: American Sociologi-
cal Association, 2003), http://www.asanet.org/images/members/docs/pdf/teaching/
SylPeaceWar03.pdf accessed 5 March 2015.
15. See Etienne Balibar, ‘What is a Border’, in Politics and the Other Scene, Etienne Balibar
(London: Verso, 2002); Wendy Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (New York:
Zone books, 2010); Jon Calame and Esther Charlesworth, Divided Cities, Belfast,
Beirut, Jerusalem, Mostar, and Nicosia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2009).
16. See John Rex, Ethnic Minorities in the Modern Nation State (London and New York:
Macmillan Press, St Martin’s Press edition, 1996); Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-
Davies, Racialised Boundaries (London: Routledge, 1992).
17. See Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall, Contemporary Conflict Res-
olution. The Conflict Research Society (CRS) is the prime interdisciplinary forum link-
ing professionals and academics concerned with cooperation and conflict and pro-
vides a meeting point for sharing their work; see http://www.conflictresearchsociety.
org.uk/CRS%20book%20of%20the%20year.html, accessed 5 March 2015.
18. The term ‘conflict transformation’ refers to the transformation of the structure of
the conflicts, whereby one of the dimensions of the conflict (structure, attitudes and
behaviour) is altered.
19. The notion of LP is based on the idea of imposing the model of Western liberal
democracy as a framework for resolving conflicts. This model includes features
like elections, the rule of law/human rights and neoliberal market relations; see
Oliver Richmond, ‘Resistance and Liberal Peace’, in A Liberal Peace? The Problems and
Practices of Peacebuilding, eds Susanna Campbell et al. (London: Zed Books, 2011).
20. See David Chandler, ‘The Uncritical Critique of Liberal Peace’, in A Liberal Peace?
The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding; Oliver Richmond, ‘Resistance and Lib-
eral Peace’, in A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding; Richmond,
A Post-Liberal Peace; Roland Paris, ‘Critiques of Liberal Peace’, in A Liberal Peace? The
Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding.
21. Edward Azar, ‘Protracted Social Conflicts: An Analytical Framework’, in International
Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, eds Edward Azar and John Burton (Brighton:
Wheatsheaf Books, 1986), 33–34.
22. Georg Simmel, ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’, in The Blackwell City Reader, eds
Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002).
23. Lewis A. Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1956).
24. It has become a broad well-established branch of study with various subcategories
and a large number of journals and vast numbers of publications.
25. Malešević, The Sociology of War and Violence.

26. Brewer, Peace Processes.
27. Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006), 16, citing the study of Lotta Harbom and Peter Wallensteen, ‘Armed
Conflict and Its International Dimensions, 1946–2004’, Journal of Peace Research 42,
no. 5 (2005): 623–635.
28. This also derives from his important book The Dark Side of Democracy. However,
he made a similar bold claim during a keynote lecture at the Queens University:
Michael Mann, ‘The Age of Nation-States Is Not yet Over’, conference entitled Beyond
the Nation? Critical Reflections on Nations and Nationalism in Uncertain Times, 12–14
September 2007, Belfast.
29. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Random
House, 1975).
30. Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambigu-
ous Identities (London: Verso, 1991); Robert H. R. Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty,
International Relations, and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990).
31. Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty.
32. Anthias and Yuval-Davies, Racialised Boundaries, 39.
33. See Etienne Balibar, ‘What Is a Border’; Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty;
Calame and Charlesworth, Divided Cities, Belfast, Beirut, Jerusalem, Mostar, and Nicosia.
34. See Ari Sitas, The Ethic of Reconciliation; ‘Beyond the Mandela Decade: The Ethic
of Reconciliation?’; Brewer, Peace Processes; Trimikliniotis, ‘Can We Learn from
Comparing Violent Conflicts and Reconciliation Processes?’
35. Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy
of American Empire (London: Verso, 2012).
36. Apart from the founders of sociology, in the late twentieth century, for instance,
scholars such as Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy:
Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966);
Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1990 (Cambridge,
MA: B. Blackwell, 2008); Theda Skocpol, Vision and Method in Historical Sociol-
ogy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Michael Mann, The Dark Side
of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2005); Anthony Giddens, A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1981); Manuel Castells, Information Age, Economy,
Society and Culture, End of Millennium, The Power of Identity, Volume II (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1997) have contributed to the debates. Moreover, also important in
this field is the development of a critical reading in class, gender and race stud-
ies (see Rex, Ethnic Minorities in the Modern Nation State; Robert Miles, Racism
(London: Routledge, 1989); Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class;
Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Racialised Boundaries; Sylvia Walby, ‘Woman and Nation’,
in Mapping the Nation, ed. Gobal Balakrishnan (London: New Left Books, 1996);
Nira Yuval-Davis, Kalpana Kannabirān and Ulrike Vieten, The Situated Politics of
Belonging (London: Sage, 2006). A flavour of the various approaches is contained
in debates around ‘mapping the nation’. See Gobal Balakrishnan, Mapping the
Nation.
37. Randal Collins, Violence, a Micro-Sociological Approach (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 2008).
38. See Trimikliniotis, ‘For a Sociology of Conflict and Reconciliation’.
39. See Brewer, Peace Processes; Malesevic, The Sociology of War and Violence; Sitas, The
Ethic of Reconciliation; Trimikliniotis, ‘For a Sociology of Conflict and Reconciliation’;
‘Can We Learn from Comparing Violent Conflicts and Reconciliation Processes?’
40. Malešević, The Sociology of War and Violence.
41. Brewer, Peace Processes.
42. Beyond the case of Northern Ireland, the sociology attempted, particularly as regards
his conclusions on various examples he cites, is not based on empirical research, and
his conclusions about these cases are often rather superficial. For instance, contrary
to an array of studies, he cites Cyprus as an instance of successful partition without
any reference or argument.
43. From Cox to Stuart Hall, and from the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies
of the University of Birmingham to post-colonial studies. The Research Committee
on Racism, Nationalism and Ethnic Relations (RC05) of the International Sociolog-
ical Association has very much carried forward the work on this subject. See Oliver
C. Cox, Caste, Class, & Race: A Study in Social Dynamics (New York: Monthly Review
Press, 1959); University of Birmingham, The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism
in 70s Britain (London: Hutchinson in association with the Centre for Contempo-
rary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, 1982); Stuart Hall, David Morley
and Kuan-Hsing Chen, Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (London:
Routledge, 1996); Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, The Post-Colonial
Studies Reader (London: Routledge, 1995).
44. Sociology has strong traditions on critical reading in class, gender and race studies:
see Rex, Ethnic Minorities in the Modern Nation State; Robert Miles, Racism (London:
Routledge, 1989); Balibar and Maurice Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class; Rodolfo
Torres and Christopher Kyriakides, Race Defaced Paradigms of Pessimism, Politics of
Possibility (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2012); Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-
Davies, ‘Contextualising Feminism – Gender, Ethnic and Class Divisions’, Feminist
Review, 15 (1983): 62–76 and Racialised Boundaries; Walby, ‘Woman and Nation’;
Patricia Hill Collins and John Solomos, The Sage Handbook of Race and Ethnic Stud-
ies (London: Sage, 2010); Nira Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation (London: Sage, 1997);
Yuval-Davis, Kannabirān and Vieten, The Situated Politics of Belonging. For a flavour of
the various approaches contained in debates around ‘mapping the nation’ see Gobal
Balakrishnan, Mapping the Nation.
45. See, for instance, Randal Collins, Violence, a Micro-Sociological Approach (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2008); Michel Wieviorka, ‘The Sociological Analysis of
Violence: New Perspectives’, The Sociological Review 62 (2014): 50–64.
46. See Sitas, The Ethic of Reconciliation; ‘Beyond the Mandela Decade’; Ari Sitas, Dilek
Latif and Natasa Loizou, Prospects of Reconciliation, Co-Existence and Forgiveness in
Cyprus in the Post-Referendum Period, PRIO Cyprus Centre Report 4/2007, 2008, https:
//cyprus.prio.org/Publications/Publication/?x= 1167, accessed 24 November 2015.
47. A critical response to the abridged version of this work was elaborated in the form of
a debate in Current Sociology 59, no. 5 (2012).
48. Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace.
8
Economics: Neoliberal Peace and the
Politics of Social Economics
Brendan Murtagh
Introduction
In Whose Peace? Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding,

Michael Pugh, Neil Cooper and Mandy Turner note: ‘Peace processes and
peacebuilding practices need political roots in local societies and political
communities should have the freedom to set their economic priorities includ-
ing protection of economic activities from the negative effects of global
integration.’1 The punitive, even contradictory economic effects of liberal
peacebuilding have been well researched and evaluated in the international
relations (IR) and conflict literature.2 Pugh et al.3 argue that the priority is
to resist pro-market ideologies in Western peace interventions by focusing
specifically on local strategies that support ‘subaltern geographies of politi-
cal economy’. What is less clear is what these subaltern economies are in
practice, whether they are ever capable of reaching the necessary scale to
resist global capital, and how we know whether they are genuinely reformist.
Richmond and Mitchell4 show that the hybrid nature of liberal peacebuilding
inevitably involves a combination of acceptance, co-option and resistance, and
that the boundaries between these responses are notoriously fuzzy and con-
fused. Moreover, such complexities are accentuated by the intensification of
neoliberal peace, which privileges the market and growth in peacebuilding and
state formation.5 But, as Peck and Tickell6 show, far from being an oppressive
monolithic force, neoliberalism is variegated, ‘actually existing’ in and filtered
through local institutional, legal and political cultures. In its post-crash form,
it has had a makeover, but its principles, modalities and inherently crisis-prone
character remain intact, especially in the peacebuilding arena.7
These very inconsistencies make it negotiable, offering some terrain for
resistance and the potential, at least, to exploit its contradictions. This
chapter is concerned with the scope and capacity of alternative, localized
social economies to resist neoliberal formations and even reconfigure relations
110
Brendan Murtagh 111
between and within protagonists in post-conflict conditions. Amartya Sen8

pointed out that neither economic reductionism nor fatalistic formulations of a
‘civilian clash’ were adequate to explain the complexity of global conflicts, but
it is argued here that foregrounding economics and local modes of accumula-
tion offers some alternative to the inexorable logic of neoliberal, market-based
peace. There is equally a danger of fetishizing the local and devaluing the struc-
tural in accounts of conflict transformation and resistance. For Richmond,9
there is a methodological challenge in conceptualizing resistance and critical
agency in IR, and especially in addressing the lack of ‘space for an understand-
ing of the political legitimacy of resistance with troubling implications’. It is
argued here that it is difficult to see how such conceptualizations can avoid
the modalities of markets and how resources are produced, consumed and
exchanged.
The chapter also identifies the contradictory nature of legitimacy embed-
ded in social economics and practices of resistance when they aim to create
meaningful alternatives to liberal peace. It is clear that there is not an eth-
ically pure form of resistance set against a compromised, cooperated and
manipulated agency. What social economics in peacebuilding pays attention
to is the inevitable compromises involved in ‘steering’ critical agency through
multiple legitimation crises in order to expand local control over resources,
allocative systems and assets. The next section makes the point that more disci-
plined forms of ‘neoliberal’ peace have elevated market logics over the concern
for rights, democratic institutions and security that had accompanied liberal
strategies. The social economy is then defined, especially regarding its rela-
tions with public and private markets, the potential for networked agency,
and the tactics of resistance. A case study from the Northern Ireland conflict
demonstrates how it has been put to work in peace formation, but also the
struggle to maintain various legitimacies that limit its reformist capacity. The
chapter concludes by identifying social economics as a critical political space
in what Richmond terms ‘peace formation’, set against the neoliberal prac-
tices of imposed ‘peacebuilding’.10 Peacebuilding rests on free markets and the
wider benefits of accumulation, but peace formation highlights locally situ-
ated dynamics, a preference for conflict resolution and an emphasis on equity.
The implications for radicalizing the local and scaling social economics as
constitutive of peace forming are set out in the conclusions.
Neoliberalism and the politics of peace
The intensification of liberal peace and its concern for rights, the rule of law
and free trade into a neoliberal fix has seen globalization and the extension of
markets outmanoeuvre socialism, communism and totalitarianism. Neoliberal
peace has, itself, re-formed in response to crises, new territorial opportunities
and its own capacity for reproduction.11 In its early formulations, it rolled
back state-fronted economic management, subsidized welfare and public insti-
tutions. Anchored in advanced economies of the global North, it has now
rolled out, virus-like, as the preferred solution for the urban South, emerging
economies and states coming out of conflict. Violence, ethnic instability and
risk, to some extent, insulated these places from roll-out tactics, but once con-
ditions are ripe, the neoliberal medicine pours in. Peck and Tickell usefully
summarize its tenets, which have significant implications for understanding
international peacebuilding and conflict transformation:
• Promotes and normalizes a growth-first approach to conflict resolution

by restoring markets, opening borders to capital and de-risking places,
especially for inward investment
• Rests on a pervasive naturalization of market logics, justified on the grounds
of efficiency and even fairness
• Privileges lean government, privatization and deregulation
• Licenses an aggressive approach to inter-urban competition by local elites
and states
• Basis recovery policies on an increasingly narrow range of instruments
centred on capital subsidies, place promotion, labour market integration,
infrastructure and incentives for foreign direct investment
• Punishes places and leaders by excluding them from funding streams and
the replacement of local cadres
• Defines cities as key sites of economic and governance contradictions with
increasing surveillance and regulation sitting alongside organized resistance
to neoliberalization, especially in the context of post-conflict identities and
splinter movements (adapted from Peck and Tickell)12
As Brenner and Theodore argued, neoliberalism involves ‘path dependent,

contextually specific interactions between inherited regulatory landscapes and
emergent market oriented restructuring projects at a range of geographic
scales’.13 Its progress is neither linear nor predictable, but involves an inter-
action between internal institutional and political cultures and the objectives
of international peacebuilders and donors. In Northern Ireland, for example,
both political traditions have used post-conflict instability to bargain for state
resources, protection from spending cuts and special fiscal measures to reduce
both regional and corporation tax rates.14 In constant tension with these inter-
nal tactics, then, are the external attempts to discipline the region through
neoliberal forms of governance and regulatory relations15 linked to the removal
of inefficient welfare structures and discriminatory government in favour of
flexible forms of governmentality.16
Brendan Murtagh 113
Since the Second World War, the national level had been the pre-eminent
geographical scale for peacebuilding, but as globalization, technology and
the shift to the service economy destabilized the Fordist regime, multi-scalar
governance has steadily reworked international economic networks:
The erosion of political control and accountability and consequently, the

rise of more autocratic forms of governing signal a reordering of the state-
civil society nexus, whereby the state operates increasingly ‘at a distance’.
This is particularly evident through the emergence of new scalar and inter-
scalar arrangements of governance (at both sub-national and supranational
scales such as urban development bodies, public-private partnerships, the
European Union, the World Trade Organization or G-20 meetings) that
reorganize the institutional forms of governing as well as their scalar
gestalt.17
According to Swyngedouw, this post-political order has reduced politics to insti-

tutionalized management technologies, the search for consensus (especially via
compliant NGOs) and more effective securitization. Elite governance struc-
tures, academics and experts justify donor investments, peace programmes
and infrastructure based on competitiveness, wage restructuring and busi-
ness innovation. Civic society and the management of consensus are critical
in disciplining the local and minimizing fragmentation in order to remove
any disruption to roll-out processes by ‘inconvenient outsiders’.18 But these
outsiders inevitably become implicated in conflict, political expression and
disruption in ways that cannot be tamed by neoliberal institutions, polic-
ing or managerial governance. This is where resistance is possible and where
agonistic practice opens ‘up the cracks in the closed categories of thought
which governs legal, social and political systems. It is in the cracks of the
system that the potential lies for its transgression and transformation.’19 Cer-
tainly, there is evidence that civic society and non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) have formed a bulwark against marketized peace by critiquing its
effects, supporting counter-hegemonic movements and networking to resist
universal modernism.20 However, such structures are also critical in rendering
post-conflict environments governable terrain, designed to enable or reassert
markets, and in the ‘conduct of conduct’, part of the necessary assemblage
to ‘responsibilize’ the local (or more especially the poor) to sort out their
own crises. This is especially the case in economics, where resources are cre-
ated, allocated and exchanged and ultimately produce both even and uneven
effects. Social economics can be liberating and reformist but, equally, requires
compromises created by the constant need to maintain moral and pragmatic
legitimacy. These are, in turn, loosely aligned with the social and the economic;
the particular and the universal; and the local and the global. Making social
economics constitutive of peace forming denies separate categories of resistance

(say, binaries for or against donors): it is not one or the other; it is, and must
be, both.
Social economics as a site of resistance
The social economy has the following characteristics: goods and services are
traded or exchanged for a social purpose; it rewards stakeholders, not equity
shareholders; and, where appropriate, governance arrangements protect com-
munity benefit.21 It includes cooperatives, mutuals, associations and social
enterprises, specialist forms of finance, and intermediary organizations to sup-
port skills development. It also embraces a raft of non-commodified objectives,
including community sufficiency, ‘co-production’ via time banks and exchange
schemes, and the development of trust and reciprocation in service delivery.22
Social enterprises are a specific subset, and while they behave and work like
private enterprises, they generate profit for social redistribution, not private
gain. There are significant conceptual differences in the way in which the social
economy is defined and supported between the global North and the South,
and even within the North, between the US–UK and mainland Europe.23 The
US–UK approach, in broad terms, places social enterprises in the context of
welfare restructuring and sees their role primarily around tackling unemploy-
ment, labour market integration and the delivery of a range of social services.
Across Europe, the social economy has specific legal status, social finance is well
developed, and the sector has emerged independently from social protection
systems.24 In short, social enterprises can align with neoliberal strategies of wel-
fare displacement, or they can find ‘full expression as an emancipatory arena
of political activities’ based on social solidarity, mobilizing resources within
communities and stimulating participatory decision making.25
There are useful models of social enterprises in post-conflict recovery and
peacebuilding, but comparatively little in the way of a systematic evaluation of
their reformist potential or their regressive effects. Marcum26 highlighted the
growing importance of social investment rather than grant-giving approaches
in reconstruction, especially to support social enterprises and fair trade compa-
nies. Liberty and Justice is a fair trade-certified clothing provider employing 100
people in Liberia and incorporates worker ownership, training and education,
financial literacy classes and savings schemes. Similarly, Good27 describes a num-
ber of successful schemes across Africa involved in local food cultivation and
distribution, water supply and sanitation, recycling, export-oriented crafts and
clothing. Hearts28 also profiles a range of social enterprises, such as Peacebomb,
which sells metal bracelets made from recovered ordnance in order to fund
landmine removal programmes in Laos. Similarly, Peace Saught is a social busi-
ness that creates products from decommissioned weapons in Cambodia, but
Brendan Murtagh 115
places an emphasis on community participation, political advocacy and local

ownership. They have links with a design school in Phnom Penh and have
extended their product range to 30 designs made by four silversmiths and
three woodcrafters. Finally, Two Degrees Food makes and distributes ready-meals
for chronically undernourished children via a worldwide network of NGOs,
and in two years had distributed nearly 800,000 meals.29 The company is a
hybrid, based on a one-for-one scheme, so that every food bar distributed is
dependent on one being sold commercially. The nature of hybrid models raises
deeper issues about the ethics of social investment in the context of conflict
and reconstruction. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Devel-
opment (OECD) places a particular emphasis on the interconnected nature of
the social and private economies in international development, especially in
the context of emerging economies and the global South:
Social innovation seeks new answers to social problems . . . by identifying

and implementing new labour market integration processes, new compe-
tencies, new jobs and new forms of participation, as diverse elements that
each contribute to improving the position of individuals in the workforce.30
Social investment and innovation are increasingly tied to the performance

of the labour market, competiveness and economic efficiencies rather than
explicit ethical practices, the social use of profit or the creation of participatory
economies. Social enterprises thus face isomorphic pressures to conform to
donor agendas, and especially to disable or remove obstacles to marketiza-
tion. However, it is precisely because neoliberalism needs to appropriate and
exploit local cultures and environments that they risk ‘blow-back’ and unantic-
ipated forms of resistance. The question is how social enterprises implicated in
peacebuilding resist such disciplining and the wider neoliberal ideologies they
put into effect. As Richmond and Mitchell31 argued, resistance is not a force
wielded by a subject against an object; rather, ‘it is a reciprocal dynamic in
which actors are often simultaneously the object and the subject of resistance
and power’. In short, the clever agent can manipulate a dominant discourse,
even when they are being shaped by it. To do this, social enterprises must iden-
tify strategies of effectuation in order to achieve a ‘social pragmatic legitimacy’
by exchanging a good or service for money in the form of a donor grant, con-
tract or loan.32 To resist the pressures that come with accepting such exchange,
Dart then argues that social entrepreneurs must also initiate ‘moral legitimacy’
by ensuring their relevance to the communities they are designed to serve.
If social enterprises are to survive and become meaningful agents of change,
they need both public and private resources, and thus pay a price for such con-
tractual relations. These resources are needed for capital, to buy or construct
buildings (assets), pay staff, incubate enterprises, subsidize social programmes,
reinvest in plant and equipment, and cover overheads. Risk capital is as mean-
ingful to scaling the social economy as it is in the private sector, but accessing
it on preferential terms is a critical obstacle to its growth and replication. These
tensions and contradictions are evaluated in a brief consideration of the role of
social enterprises in the context of the Northern Ireland peace process.
Social enterprises and urban peacebuilding
The 1998 Belfast Peace Agreement set out a political settlement ending nearly
30 years of violence between Republicans/Nationalists/Catholics, who broadly
sought to reunify Ireland, and Loyalists/Unionists/Protestants, who wanted to
maintain the link with Great Britain. In 1994, following the first Republican
ceasefire, the European Union (EU), the US-based International Fund for Ireland
(IFI) and private donors such as the Atlantic Philanthropies weighed in to help
modernize infrastructure, develop a more competitive economy and establish
stable political institutions. The first EU PEACE Programme 1994–99 invested
403 million on priorities that included employment creation; urban and rural
regeneration; productive investment and industrial development; and finally
social inclusion, the Reconciliation component of which attracted 7.2 mil-
lion, or less than 2 per cent of the overall investment.33 The second PEACE
II Programme 2000–06 was also dominated by economic priorities, includ-
ing economic renewal; locally based regeneration; outward-looking (economic)
region; cross-border cooperation; and social integration, inclusion and recon-
ciliation. 426 million was allocated to Northern Ireland, but only 26 million
(6 per cent) was allocated to the two specific peace and reconciliation measures
(2.1 and 2.4). By way of contrast, 36 million was allocated to Measure 1.8
alone, in order to Create the Conditions of Regional Competiveness. The funding
for PEACE III (2007–13) was lower, at 332 million, but was also more explicit
about reconciliation. The two priorities were Reconciling Communities and Con-
tributing to a Shared Society, which highlighted the need to deal with the past,
build positive relations at the local level and develop neutral spaces.
Harvey’s34 review of the PEACE II Programme criticized the emphasis on the
economic over the social and the lack of a commitment to peace and recon-
ciliation compared with competitiveness and regional infrastructure. The more
explicit foregrounding of peacebuilding did not prevent criticisms of PEACE III,
which also failed to work towards a more shared society in explicit and engaged
ways.35 In particular, concerns were raised about the tangential relationship
between a large number of the grants and the notion of sharing, variously con-
figured as non-material arenas for exchanging ideas, research and best practice.
Comparatively few projects addressed actual spatial realities, including the 44
peace lines and interfaces that separate Catholic and Protestant communities
in Belfast. A number of writers point to the way in which peace, and a degree
Brendan Murtagh 117
of political stability, enabled the extension of neoliberal economics, forms of

governance and boosterist policies aimed at (over)stimulating the property mar-
ket, especially in south Belfast.36 However, in its actually existing state, the
neoliberalizing, religiously mixed and comparatively prosperous south is now
wedged uncomfortably among the poorer north, inner-east and west. The com-
munities left behind by conflict transformation (as nearly everywhere) have the
capacity to destabilize wider peace processes, as the exclusions that marginal-
ized them in the first place seem to have remained largely unaltered. They
are increasingly disconnecting from the growth economy and lack the skills
and education to meaningfully engage a new knowledge-intensive labour mar-
ket. Yet, the state resources flowing into such neighbourhoods are modest by
comparison with the south of the city. Indeed, there is now no dedicated pro-
gramme for the interfaces linked to a coherent strategy for dealing with the
complex social, economic and ethnic problems of the poorest communities.
Increasingly, these communities are left to their own devices to compete for
resources, build relationships and ultimately regenerate their neighbourhoods.
The Stewartstown Road is a major arterial route that separates the small Protes-
tant enclave of Suffolk (800 people) from the mainly Catholic Lenadoon area
(4,000 people). It is one of the most socially disadvantaged areas of the city
and experienced periodic violence, especially between young people at the
peace line. Contacts between the two communities began in the early 1990s
with women’s groups concerned about road safety, and after a joint campaign
(including a sit-down protest), pedestrian lights and traffic-calming measures
were introduced. The contacts, confidence and skills they gained enabled a
degree of trust and reciprocation and some momentum in identifying shared
needs and planning priorities. The gendered nature of the work is significant, as
the groups explored a range of actions, including the regeneration of a derelict
block of shops and flats owned by the housing authority and which effectively
formed the peace line; educational opportunities for women; and initiatives to
take children away from interface violence.
The first proposal to regenerate the derelict shops was facilitated by the
housing authority’s decision to transfer the property and related land to the
community, provided appropriate governance structures could be established.
This led to the creation of a partnership involving separate Community Forums
along with an overarching structure (constituted as a social enterprise), the
Stewartstown Road Regeneration Project (SRRP). The Management Board of SRRP
consists of four representatives from each Community Forum, four politicians
and four independent directors. The ownership of the asset enabled SSRP to
lever significant grant aid to develop the site for ground-floor retail and com-
mercial uses and the upper storey for offices and community space. More than
half the finance for Phase 1 (£475,000, 52 per cent) came from the IFI, with
£260,000 (29 per cent) from the EU PEACE II Programme and £168,000 (19 per
cent) from the Northern Ireland government. This phase opened in 2001, and
despite intimidation from Loyalist paramilitaries, community leaders broad-
ened the approach around the concept of a Peace Building Plan supported by
the Atlantic Philanthropies. The Plan set out the principles governing the
use of shared space, the need to respect the others’ identity, and the issues,
especially mixed housing, which would not form part of the process. Such
commitments attempted to maintain legitimacy, especially among the demo-
graphically vulnerable Protestant community, and strengthen the partnership,
constantly threatened by paramilitaries, themselves threatened by an emerging
class-based alliance. The Plan helped to inform Phase 2 of the project, which
involved the development of a 50-place child-care facility and two further retail
units.
Figure 8.1 summarizes the effects on the local economy. SRRP made a profit of
nearly £100,000 in 2011/12, which generated a ‘community fund’ of £60,000,
redistributed to the two Forums for a range of local projects, including train-
ing and education, support for children at school, welfare advice, and youth
diversion to reduce conflict at the peace line.37 Under the terms of the consti-
tution, one-third of any surplus made by trading is allocated to each Forum
and one-third is retained by the company (SRRP). However, more significant
local multiplier effects have been created by the social enterprise, including
90 new jobs, 78 of which are from the respective communities; which in turn
supported £1.5 million in salaries; while new shops and services reduced finan-
cial leakage from the neighbourhood economy. The organization now holds
fixed assets (valued at £2 million), which generates £1.7 million in recurrent
rental income, enabling a substantial reserve to be reinvested in future capital
projects. The Child Care Centre provides both employment and opportuni-
ties for women returners to work, and this is now one of the most profitable
elements of the overall enterprise.
Knox38 showed that the implementation of the scheme had a significant
impact on community attitudes to the interface development, the other com-
munity and the potential to extend dialogue. Violence at the interface has
been nearly eradicated: the number of recorded incidents fell from an average
of 30.1 per month in 2001 to just 0.6 per month in 2004. While Suffolk and
Lenadoon are still divided, the project has restructured the interface around its
‘use’ value and not as a resource for private profit or ethnic territorial control.
The economic effects are modest, but demonstrate the possibilities for social
enterprises to create local value and services that people have identified as
important. There are considerable isomorphic pressures on SRRP by paramil-
itaries (against cross-community contact), philanthropists (who want stronger
cross-community integration) and government (who impose increasingly strict
financial audit rules). The company must meet these expectations via a range
of legitimation tactics and compromises. Moral legitimacy kept local people on
Brendan Murtagh 119
Financial effects Organizational income £190,000
Profit from trading £99,000
Community surplus £60,000
Size of fixed asset 22,370 sq. ft.
Organizational reserves £202,000
Local salary base £1.5 million

Leverage
Recurrent rental income £1.7 million
Rental units 12 units

Service impact
Child-care places 50 child places
Total employment 90 FTE jobs
Figure 8.1 SRRP social impact analysis
board, incubated the project and allowed it to reach scale, but also held back
more ambitious assimilation outcomes, especially around housing. As Pugh
et al. noted,
Sites of hybridity display resistance, traditions, and customs where alter-

native forms of everyday life are respected. In their encounters with the
foreigner, subalterns accept, adopt, subvert, resist, mimic, and mock the
interventionism.39
The economic impacts would not have happened without nearly 20 years of
community relations work and expert facilitation, especially in its formative
years. It is too simplistic to see social economics in an essentialist way, discon-
nected from the social relations that keep places divided. But it also shows the
importance of resources, markets and, in particular, surplus (profit) to strategies
that counter sectarian, market or neoliberal hegemonies. To do this in mean-
ingful ways, the project needs to be better connected to wider economic and
political currents. SRRP is not linked to neighbouring social enterprises, never
mind global advocacy struggles, especially in the context of intergovernmental
organizations and their role in Northern Ireland. Jessop40 correctly argues that
‘the overall challenge is to connect particular local struggles, generalize them
and link them to a universal project of socio-ecological transformation opposed
to the logic of ever more accumulation’. The failure to connect local sites and
projects vertically and horizontally clearly limits such transformation, allowing
them, at best, to ‘tickle’ neoliberalism while leaving it unchanged and largely
unchallenged.41
Conclusion
Subaltern agency, local alterity and the everyday are clearly important to resist
neoliberal peace. Resistance, like neoliberalism, is messy, contradictory and
laden with compromises, and needs to be worked at in subversive and even
hidden ways.42 But, ‘everydayness’ remains a conceptual challenge that eco-
nomic frameworks can help to evaluate and operate in normatively useful ways.
Neoliberalism conditions the local, rehabilitates it and renders it ready for nat-
uralized market relations. The everyday is entangled in these processes, but it
is not oppressed by them, and while the room for manoeuvre may be limited,
economics can create circuits of value, emancipatory politics and a struggle
for local control over assets. Such ‘peace formation’ clearly faces downward
pressures from the local elites, ethnic entrepreneurs and donors, and, because
it embraces the market, it can appear useful in the assemblage of neoliberal
peace. The task is to construct alternative assemblages in social finance, social
enterprises, skills and, critically, the networks to both support the local and
challenge the imposition of purely market logics.
This does not imply that problem-solving resistance is subjected to a
neoliberal framework, only that social economics offers one site of economic
and political action to rework, restructure and even remove its oppressive
effects. Actually existing resistance and how it is embedded in everyday
economies are important to research further. Richmond is correct to call for
a deeper conceptual understanding of resistance, which is too often revealed
in descriptive ways, sometimes romanticized, and its mechanisms and contra-
dictions not fully explored. Resistance is reactive rather than reformist; it is
a method to achieve something else; a practice or tactic rather than an out-
come; and what it is for needs further articulation. Critics are right to see the
weaknesses of ‘militant particularism’, and jumping scales in social economics
requires new forms of finance, preferential legislation and skills. Such market
speak would, for some, be the ultimate in co-option rather than resistance, but
such assemblages are critical to explore in the everyday formation of sustainable
peace.
Notes
1. Michael Pugh, Neil Cooper and Mandy Turner, Whose Peace? Critical Perspectives on
the Political Economy of Peacebuilding (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2011), 39.
Brendan Murtagh 121
2. Oliver Richmond, ‘Critical Agency, Resistance and a Post-Colonial Civil Society’,

Cooperation and Conflict 46 (2011): 419–440.
3. Pugh et al., Whose Peace? 393.
4. Oliver Richmond and Audra Mitchell, ‘Introduction – Towards a Post-Liberal Peace:
Exploring Hybridity via Everyday Forms of Resistance, Agency and Autonomy’, in
Hybrid Forms of Peace: From Everyday Agency to Post-Liberalism, eds Oliver Richmond
and Audra Mitchell (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012), 10.
5. Oliver Richmond, ‘Failed State Building versus Peace Formation’, Cooperation and
Conflict 48 (2013): 378–400.
6. Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell, ‘Neoliberalizing Space’, Antipode 34 (2002): 380–404.
7. Jamie Peck, Nik Theodore and Neal Brenner, ‘Postneoliberalism and Its Malcontents’,
Antipode 41 (2010): 94–116.
8. Amartya Sen, Peace and Democratic Society (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2011),
24.
9. Richmond, ‘Critical Agency, Resistance and a Post-Colonial Civil Society’, 21.
10. Ibid., 382.
11. Bob Jessop, ‘Obstacles to a World State in the Shadow of the World Market’,
Cooperation and Conflict 27 (2012): 200–219.
12. Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell, Neoliberalizing Space.
13. Neal Brenner and Nik Theodore, ‘Cities and the Geographies of Actually Existing
Neoliberalism’, Antipode 34 (2002): 349–379, 351.
14. Colin Knox, ‘Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland: A Role for Civil Society’, Social Policy
and Society 10 (2010): 13–28.
15. Peck et al., Postneoliberalism and Its Malcontents.
16. Jessop, Obstacles to a World State in the Shadow of the World Market.
17. Erik Swyngedouw, ‘The Antinomies of the Postpolitical City: In Search of a Demo-
cratic Politics of Environmental Production’, International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research 33 (2009): 372.
18. Ibid.
19. Jean Hillier, ‘Multiethnicity and Negotiation of Place’, in Migration and Cultural Inclu-
sion in the European City, eds William Neill and Hans-Uwe Schwedler (Basingstoke:
Palgrave, 2007), 85.
(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2011).
21. Simon Bridge, Brendan Murtagh and Ken O’Neill, Understanding the Social Economy
and the Third Sector (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013), 47.
22. Ibid.
23. Ash Amin, The Social Economy: International Perspectives on Economic Solidarity
(London: Zed Books, 2009).
24. Ibid.
25. Peter Graefe, ‘The Social Economy and the State: Linking Ambitions with Institutions
in Quebec, Canada’, Politics and Policy 30 (2002): 247–262, 250.
26. Edward Marcum, Preventing Conflict through Enterprise Investments (New York: Human-
ity United, 2012).
27. Good, www.good.is, accessed March 2014.
28. Hearts, www.hearts.com, accessed March 2014.
29. Two Degrees Food (TDF), Does Good Report for 2012 (San Francisco: TDF, 2013).
30. OECD, Social Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation (Paris: OECD Publishing,
2010), 196.
31. Richmond and Mitchell, ‘Introduction – Towards a Post-Liberal Peace: Exploring

Hybridity via Everyday Forms of Resistance, Agency and Autonomy’, 26.
32. Raymond Dart, ‘The Legitimacy of Social Enterprises’, Non-Profit Management and
Leadership 14 (2004): 411–424.
33. PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), Update of the Mid-Term Evaluation of the PEACE
II Programme (Belfast: SEUPB, 2005), B.3.
34. Brian Harvey, Review of the PEACE II Programme (York: Joseph Rowntree Charitable
Trust, 2003).
35. Knox, Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland.
36. Brendan Murtagh, ‘Desegregation and Place Restructuring in the New Belfast’, Urban
Studies 48 (2011): 1119–1135.
37. Stewartstown Road Regeneration Project (SRRP), Annual Report and Financial State-
ments 31 May 2012 (Belfast: SRRP, 2012).
38. Knox, Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland.
39. Michael Pugh, ‘Local Agency and the Political Economy of Peacebuilding’, Studies in
Ethnicity and Nationalism 11 (2011): 308–320, 315.
40. Jessop, Obstacles to a World State in the Shadow of the Market, 215.
41. Swyngedouw, The Antinomies of the Postpolitical City: In Search of a Democratic Politics
of Environmental Production, 377.
42. David Chandler, ‘Peacebuilding and the Politics of Non-Linearity: Rethinking “Hid-
den” Agency and “Resistance” ’, Peacebuilding 1 (2013): 17–32.
9
Geography and Peace
Nick Megoran, Fiona McConnell and Philippa Williams
Introduction
Shortly after the Soviet Union’s 1979 southwards military intervention

into Afghanistan, diplomat Mikhail Kapitsa warned Foreign Minister Andrei
Gromyko that this supposedly ‘limited’ deployment would embroil the USSR in
a draining war similar to those fought by the British Empire. According to histo-
rian Artemy Kalinovsky, Gromyko retorted by asking whether Kapitsa intended
‘to compare our internationalist troops with imperialist troops?’ The latter is
said to have replied that Soviet ‘troops are different – but the mountains are
the same!’1
This exchange illustrates a common perception that all ‘geography’ has to
do with questions of ‘peace’ is the undeniable contention that terrain affects
combat and thus the course of wars or the ‘pacification’ of insurgencies. This
perception might be borne out by much of the history of geography. In an
extensive overview, Virginie Mamadouh observes that ‘[w]ar and peace do not
seem to belong to the vocabulary of geography’. The terms have no entries in
the Dictionary of Human Geography or in the Dictionary of Geopolitics.2 Like most
social scientists, geographers have apparently been better at studying war than
peace, with few exceptions devoting more intellectual resources to explicating
the geographical dimensions of the former rather than the latter. This is as true
of anti-war geographers by their critique as it is of pro-war geographers in their
‘advice to the prince’.
However, although the story is one of historical neglect, it is not one of
absence. In this chapter, we trace a range of different engagements of the
discipline of geography with ‘peace’, from realist understandings of peace as
temporary truces, to promoting geography as a tool in achieving positive peace,
through to critical reflections on the spatialities and power relations of peace.
Following Oliver Richmond’s3 work in international relations on how each
theoretical tradition – no matter how apparently militaristic – nonetheless
123
contains a theory of peace, in the first section of this chapter we consider the
place of peace in imperial and post-imperial geographies. In the second section,
we consider the recent profusion of engagements with peace, with scholars
from a range of perspectives attempting to insert ‘peace’ as a core concern of
geographical scholarship. Finally, in the third section, we ask how far geogra-
phers have gone in not only ‘talking the talk’ of peace but ‘walking the walk’
in their institutional practices.
Imperial and post-imperial traditions
While the academic discipline of international relations can trace its early roots
to peacebuilding efforts through international organization following the First
World War, the genealogy of geography begins firmly in its service to warfare.
Such was this legacy that French geographer Yves Lacoste4 titled a pamphlet
critiquing the discipline in France La géographie, ça sert d’abord, à faire la guerre
[‘geography serves, first and foremost, to wage war’]. Even before the institu-
tionalization of geography as a discipline, ‘[G]eographers played a significant
role in the early aggressive stages of the development of the modern western
state.’5 A key example of this was the participation of self-declared geogra-
phers in Napoleonic France, where the ‘spatial nature of many of the problems
engendered by imperial conquest – that is, the ongoing problem of annihilating
greater and greater geographic and cultural distances’6 meant that their carto-
graphic and information-gathering skills were in high demand. Such service to
imperialist and nationalist projects can be traced in other contexts and periods,
from the influence of the German school of Geopolitik on Nazi expansionist
strategies to the role of US geographers in the Office of Strategic Services.7
The scholarship of three particularly influential geographers – Friedrich Ratzel,8
Halford Mackinder9 and Nicholas Spykman10 – was central to these connections
between geography, the state and warcraft. Though working in and allied to dif-
ferent national contexts (Germany, Britain and the US, respectively), common
across the writings of these geographers and political strategists was a framing
of war as a natural phenomenon linked to the expansion of and competition
between states.11
However, while the early practitioners of geography promoted the discipline
as an aid to consolidating imperial power, to claim that their writings were
in all cases warrants for aggressive state expansion and the waging of war is
misleading. As Michael Heffernan notes, ‘they can equally be read as nervous
commentaries on Europe’s uncertain fate in the changing conditions of the
twentieth century’,12 and it is important to also recognize the ‘more pacific
ways of thinking and doing international relations’13 that are often implied –
if not overtly set out – in such texts of classical geopolitics. Concern with
the promotion of peace is particularly evident in the writings of the British
Nick Megoran, Fiona McConnell and Philippa Williams 125
geographer and Conservative member of parliament Halford Mackinder, and

the Dutch-American geographer Nicholas Spykman.
Mackinder turned his attention to questions of ‘the future peace of Europe’14
towards the end of the First World War. His proposals, set out in his 1919
book Democratic Ideals and Reality, drew on his earlier thinking on the impor-
tance of the ‘heartland’ or ‘pivot’ region of Central Asia, and argued that in
order for peace to be maintained post-1918, Western Europe needed to form a
counterbalance to Russia, which occupied the heartland. Mackinder therefore
advocated the creation of buffer states in Eastern Europe separating Germany
and Russia. His vision and interpretation of peace was, therefore, a classi-
cally realist one that was premised on maintaining the geopolitical status quo
through a fragile balance of power between competing (European) empires.
This was a negative view of peace as temporary truces between alliances of
untrusting states in an anarchic world system, with the injustice of imperialism
left unquestioned. This order was secured by military might and the use of vio-
lence as a deterrent. In this conceptualization, the geographer’s role became to
assist the state’s deployment of coercive power more effectively by providing a
correct understanding of the geographical aspects of international politics and
how military technologies could modify them.15
Such a framing of peace, both as the cessation of conflict and as a limited
resource which can be acquired through geopolitical competition, also forms
an important element of the scholarship of Nicholas Spykman. Writing during
the final years of the Second World War, and from a US perspective, Spykman
shared Mackinder’s vision of peace, not as an idealistic improvement in how
international relations functioned but, rather, in the use of force to ensure that
the US fared best in the ‘peace after the war in which we are now engaged’.16
In sum, therefore, conceptions of peace within political geography in the first
half of the twentieth century were significantly influenced by geopolitical con-
texts of declining empires, great-power competition and the horrors of the two
world wars. However, it is important to recognize that not all geographical
interpretations of peace in this period were grounded in realist perspectives.
Rather, ‘pluriformity’17 of conceptualizations of peace within human geography
can be traced, including idealist, liberal, anarchist and socialist variants.18
Crucially, these alternative approaches to peace framed geography not as a
means of understanding the dynamics of international politics so as to strate-
gize for national advantage, but, rather, as a tool in achieving a positive peace.
Perhaps the most notable proponent of geography as a facilitator of peace was
anarchist geographer Peter Kropotkin, who called for geography to be ‘a means
of dissipating [hostile] prejudices’ between nations that make conflicts more
likely, and ‘creating other feelings more worthy of humanity’.19 Similarly cri-
tiquing militarist readings of global space and promoting the peacemaking role
of geography, though from an idealist rather than an anarchist perspective,
was American geographer and geologist Wallace Atwood. Perceiving the disci-
pline of geography as key to fostering understanding and tolerance between
nations, Atwood stated in his Association of American Geographers’ presiden-
tial address in 1934 that geography has a ‘supreme responsibility’ to foster a
‘worldwide enthusiasm for peace’ and help stamp out ‘the damnable practices
of war’.20 Across the Atlantic, British geographer Frank Horrabin made a persua-
sive case for socialist internationalism as a route to peace in his 1943 ‘Outline of
Political Geography’, which countered Spykman’s and Mackinder’s realist con-
ceptions of peace by arguing that justice between nations is key to fostering
a lasting peace. Also influenced by the aftermath of the two world wars and
the potential for geography to play a role in peacebuilding was Griffith Taylor21
and his work on ‘geopacifics’. This time promoting a liberal concept of peace,
‘geopacifics’ was an innovative, if somewhat naïve, concept which advocated
the four-way division of Europe into autarkic regions, which would circumvent
competition and conflict.
Underpinning this shift from a war-oriented geography to a geography for
peace were both the scale of the Second World War and its proximity to the
intellectual hubs of academic geography in Western Europe and North America,
and the expansion and consolidation of the discipline itself in the second half
of the twentieth century. As Virginie Mamadouh puts it, post-war, the main
objective for applying geographical knowledge shifted from war winning to war
avoidance, with geography increasingly being viewed as ‘an educational tool to
foster international understanding and cooperation, in sum, as a science for
peace’.22
The nuclear stand-off of the late Cold War proved to be a particularly impor-
tant period in the development of a geographical approach to peace and
conflict research and a political commitment to peace within the discipline.
Work highlighting the relationship between bombing and the annihilation
of place23 led to a ‘call to arms’ for the wider geographical community to
take a stand on nuclear disarmament24 and promote awareness of issues of
war and peace to geography students.25 Key to establishing this critical geo-
graphical approach to peace was Pepper and Jenkins’ 1985 edited volume The
Geography of Peace and War, which brought together contributions from geog-
raphers in the UK, the US and the Soviet Union. This pioneering text focuses
on the spatial aspects of the Cold War arms race, the human and spatial con-
sequences of nuclear war, and the ways in which geographical research could
contribute to the advancement of peace. Meanwhile, writing from the perspec-
tive of quantitative geography, John O’Loughlin and Herman van der Wusten
argued in a series of articles26 that geography should make a contribution to
‘peace science’, entailing working with large databases on the occurrence of
conflict to investigate the spatial dimensions of war and provide foundations
for conflict resolution and common security. Another key text published in this
period, albeit one reflecting post-Cold War geopolitics, was The Political Geogra-
phy of Conflict and Peace,27 edited by Israeli political geographers Nurit Kliot and
Stanley Waterman. Weaving together case studies and more theoretical analy-
ses, this volume focuses on issues around territorial conflicts and geostrategic
considerations, with particular reference to the Middle East.
However, two caveats should be borne in mind. First, some scholars remained
strong advocates of the realist vision of peace presented by the Mackinderian
tradition, contending that it made the best sense of the Cold War.28 Second,
although the late Cold War proved a fertile period for innovative geographi-
cal responses to geopolitical events, it is notable that the scholarship discussed
above, which was published under the rubric of ‘conflict and peace’, concen-
trated its analytical attention on the former rather than the latter. It was not
until the ‘War on Terror’ that this began to change.
Profusion of approaches to peace: Space, discourse and agency
As with the militarism and nuclear stand-off of the Cold War, the geopolitical
reconfigurations occasioned by US-led military reaction to the September 2001
attacks also provoked a series of critical geographical responses which sought
to destabilize the grounds on which this war was justified and fought29 and to
expose the multiple sites and scales in and through which violence is expe-
rienced in both material and emotional ways.30 This shift was informed by
earlier post-structural and feminist-influenced geographies of cultures of vio-
lence and related identity formations.31 Building on this work, and on the
concerns of critical geopolitics scholars around the role of geographical knowl-
edge in facilitating strategies of warfare,32 this groundswell of scholarship on
new ‘war cultures’ served to make the absence of comparatively sophisticated
approaches to peace within geography more conspicuous. This prompted geog-
raphers to ask how they might contribute to thinking about peace in more
critical but also pan-disciplinary ways, which stretched beyond the political.
An edited volume by Colin Flint on The Geography of War and Peace33 served
to put peace back in the geographical frame, with chapters on diplomacy, peace
movements and post-war reconstruction. But, like earlier work in the discipline,
the emphasis remained on war and violence, and the subject of peace, though
present, assumed a taken-for-granted quality that was often devoid of politics.
Gerry Kearns’34 concept of ‘progressive geopolitics’ represents an important
departure from this position by showing that humanity is not predisposed
towards enmity. Further recognizing the (geo)politics of peace, Nick Megoran’s
‘pacific geopolitics’ is orientated towards understanding ‘how ways of thinking
geographically about world politics can promote peaceful and mutually enrich-
ing coexistence’.35 With attention now (re)turning more explicitly towards
‘peace’ in its own right, the Annals of the Association of American Geographers
published a special issue on Geographies of Peace and Armed Conflict,36 which

foregrounded peace empirically, but simultaneously reflected the discipline’s
incapacity to think expansively about what ‘peace’ actually means in language
other than ‘not war’.
Within this context, independent arguments were made calling for a rigorous
understanding of what peace means,37 for ‘critical geographies of peace’38 and
a need to return to geography’s unfinished pro-peace project.39 Underpinning
these calls was an anxiety about the dearth of geographical scholarship attend-
ing to the complexities of peace, a conviction that a geographical perspective
had much to offer other disciplinary approaches to peace, and a sense of
geography’s ethical obligation to contribute to peaceful cultures. This moment
engendered a turn towards building a more coherent and visible platform for
geographies of and for peace. Inspired by Martin Luther King’s advocacy of
‘positive peace’ as later conceptualized by Galtung,40 geographers began to
focus on how peace is socially and culturally constructed and how peace is
interpreted and experienced by different people in different places. One ini-
tiative to unpack these questions is our edited volume on the Geographies of
Peace, which contributes to understanding peace in different places and from
a range of political, social, environmental and cultural geography approaches.
This proliferation of more critical and diverse scholarship on peace has served
to foreground the value of a geographical perspective on peace which involves
a sensitivity to the spatial and scalar realities of peace, the centrality of poli-
tics, agency and power in (re)making peace, and a willingness to embrace the
entanglements of peace and war, violence and non-violence. Focusing briefly
on each of these approaches brings into view a wide range of contemporary
geographical scholarship.
First, a spatial sensitivity to peace accepts that ‘peace means different things
at different scales, as well as to different groups, and at different times and
places’.41 Geographers have examined the spatial and contingent production
of peace through international diplomacy,42 the drawing up of state territo-
rial boundaries,43 peaceful practices in the city44 and the complex realities of
the West Bank separation wall,45 as well as intimate experiences of peaceful
domesticities and their intersections with privilege.46 Yet, it is not simply that
peace happens in different spaces or constructs particular places that interests
geographers, but also the ways in which space is articulated and manipulated
for peace. Sara Koopman47 shows how diverse bodies are mobilized within
space to create strategic sites for peace in practices of protective accompani-
ment and transnational solidarity. Interpreting practices of peace within space
that is conceptualized as relational and unfolding48 serves to emphasize the
ways in which peace is an ongoing process that demands everyday input, nego-
tiation and labour, rather than a conclusive endpoint that is beyond or without
politics.49
Second, how peace interacts with different people and places on ‘the ground’
is intimately related to peace discourses: the ways in which peace is imag-
ined by diverse actors and circulated through networks of knowledge and
experience. Like their contemporaries in international relations, geographers
have been critical of the ways in which the liberal peace has been conceived
of, implemented and justified in different contexts.50 Geographers have also
engaged in detailed research on what liberal peace looks like on the ground in
terms of the practices and policies of ‘peacebuilding’ as instituted by states and
international organizations like the UN. This includes work on the situated
contradictions and contestations of post-conflict peacebuilding interventions
in Bosnia,51 Liberia,52 Cyprus,53 Burundi54 and East Timor.55 In their edited book
Reconstructing Conflict, Scott Kirsch and Colin Flint56 problematize the rela-
tionships between the liberal peace and ‘post-conflict’ reconstruction projects.
By thinking about war to peace transitions, they actively blur any kind of
distinction between ‘war’ and ‘peace’ and examine the social construction of
‘post-conflict’ spaces as embodiments of power relations. Geographers have
also examined how public policy processes seek to transform identities and
relations in post-conflict polities,57 and how cultural policy making does con-
structively inform more everyday peaceful realities.58 But discourses of peace
do not only originate with the state and international actors. Geography schol-
arship has shown how international language of human rights is appropriated
and reworked by NGOs to build local practices of peace.59 Others have exam-
ined how interlocking articulations of peace are differentially enacted through
time and space for political expediency60 and how vernacular expressions of
peace are (re)produced within cultural political economies.61
To grasp how discourses are circulated and deployed towards the genera-
tion of peaceful realities, it is necessary to understand the role of agency. For
example, Chih-Yuan Woon’s62 move to ‘people’ peaceful geographies serves to
destabilize perceptions of the military in the Philippines as war-mongers and
to illuminate relations between military personalities and civil society organi-
zations that work to maintain peace. Other geographers have highlighted the
complex and contingent role of religious brokers in facilitating peace,63 the
ways in which charismatic celebrities come to embody peaceful international
relations,64 and how political leaders may become synonymous with peaceful
imaginaries and agendas.65 This focus on agency privileges understanding the
everyday, embodied and emotional dimensions of peace; for instance, the com-
portment and everyday practices of international accompaniers are paramount
in making space for peace,66 and non-violent practices are often underpinned
by emotive infrastructures.67
Finally, running through these engagements with peace, space, discourse and
agency is an underlying concern with politics, notably the question of ‘who
gets what, where, and how’.68 Or, to put it another way, who gets what kind
of peace, where is peace (re)produced, and how is peace realized? Through the
kinds of situated and critical approaches outlined above, geographical schol-
arship on peace challenges notions of peace as romantic, idealized or utopic
and instead seeks to uncover the uneven politics of power that shape peace
and, more importantly, enable peace to be reproduced every day. Geographers
have documented the importance of understanding the intimate and complex
relationships between different forms of violence and struggles to reproduce
peace in different places. And they have recognized the existence of peace-
ful practices within violent landscapes, as well as less-than-violent interactions
within peaceful contexts.69 This collective approach, therefore, responds to con-
cerns within geography about constructing a ‘false dichotomy between war and
peace’,70 peace being ‘more than not-war’,71 and the imperative to do more
than simply turn our attention to ‘(something called) peace’.72 Accordingly,
geographers are increasingly debating how peace might be theoretically con-
ceived of within a plural discipline73 and how these subjectivities will inform
and transform the institutional practice of geography.
For peace: Geographies of practice
The peace tradition in geography that we have identified above insists that
geographical analysis should be harnessed not only to comprehending peace,
but also to understanding itself as a contribution to what Cortright74 calls the
‘movements and ideas for peace’. Geographers’ primary contribution to this
is the intellectual task of challenging militarist geographical formations and
identifying alternatives. But, building on that, in this section we consider wider
forms of academic practice as part of a peace commitment concerning, in turn,
professional bodies, publishing, education, and geography as a culture of peace.
Some members of the two largest professional bodies representing
Anglophone academic geography have sought to challenge the relation of these
bodies to state and corporate sponsors of violence. In 1996, British geogra-
phers failed in an attempt to force the Royal Geographical Society to desist
from accepting Shell sponsorship, following the allegations of the corpora-
tion’s implication in violence against Nigerian environmental activists.75 More
recently, among US geographers, a furious debate erupted over the US Army
Foreign Military Studies Office’s funding of the American Geographical Soci-
ety’s ‘Bowman Expeditions’, in particular the ‘México Indígena’ project to map
indigenous lands in Mexico.76 Joe Bryan77 accused the expedition’s leaders of a
serious breach of ethics and morals in misleading their informants and buying
into the US military’s counter-insurgency strategy, and demanded that the Asso-
ciation of American Geographers (AAG) investigate. The AAG’s then president,
John Agnew,78 protested that this matter was beyond the body’s remit as it had
neither initiated nor funded the Bowman Expeditions. Nonetheless, debate was
reignited by a subsequent AAG president, Eric Sheppard.79 That same year, the
AAG’s Executive Council voted on a motion to ‘examine . . . and to evaluate the
potential implications’ of geographers’ engagements with the military, but was
evenly split, thus failing to approve the motion. Joel Wainwright condemned
this as ‘momentous . . . The largest academic organisation of geographers seeks
the peace of silence.’80
The failure to reform professional bodies has been reflected in failures to
demilitarize the sites of presenting and publishing research. The discipline’s
main international body, the International Geographical Union (IGU), was due
to hold a meeting in Chile in November 2011. This led to an online petition
and an impassioned editorial in the journal Political Geography.81 Chile’s late
fascist dictator between 1973 and 1990, Augusto Pinochet, was himself a pro-
fessor of geopolitics,82 and the protestors demanded two changes to the IGU’s
activities. First, they protested at holding the meeting in the Military School of
Santiago, a place which, they alleged, as an operating site of the intelligence ser-
vices, was ‘strikingly marked by terror’ during the dictatorship.83 Second, they
drew attention to the fact that a 1979 Pinochet decree establishing the Chilean
Geographic Military Institute as the republic’s official representative to the IGU
remained in place. Although some geographers stayed away, the meeting went
ahead in the venue as planned.
However, a different example reminds us that such attempts to renegotiate
the links between academic geography and the military are not always unsuc-
cessful. In 2005, the UK’s Independent newspaper claimed that an international
weapons fair at Docklands ExCel Centre included delegates from seven coun-
tries on the UK’s list of the 20 most serious human rights abusers, and that the
exhibition could be used to purchase weapons such as cluster bombs. The exhi-
bition was organized by Reed Elsevier, a company that owns many academic
journals. A letter in one such journal, The Lancet, called on Elsevier to divest
itself of all business that threatens human life. Geographers Paul Chatterton
and David Featherstone84 wrote an intervention in Political Geography (also
an Elsevier journal) saying that they would henceforth no longer publish in
any Elsevier journal until the arms fair link was broken. Many geographers
wrote to Elsevier informing them that they would boycott certain journals
and publications, including withdrawing their submissions to the forthcoming
International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. This campaign proved successful,
with Elsevier divesting itself of its arms fair business in 2008. Public education
has likewise repeatedly emerged as a site where geographers have sought to
use their discipline to build cultures of peace. This was most marked in the
1980s and animated by concerns over the potential for superpower nuclear war
during the late Cold War. The right-wing US and UK governments of the 1980s
claimed that a militarized confrontation with the Soviet bloc was necessary and,
should it lead to nuclear war, survivable. As we saw in Part I above, this made
geographical analysis, with its twin elements of environmental science and

critical evaluation of geopolitical reasoning, powerfully equipped to challenge
government reasoning. The quality of resources created from this research,85
combined with the vitality of the peace movement, informed vibrant attempts
to promote peace education in schools. Two themed journal publications illus-
trate the engagement of academic geographers with peace pedagogy: Issues in
Education and Culture in 1986 (Canada) and Geography and Education in 1987
(UK). This movement sought to teach peace not only through its content, but
also through pedagogical practice: hence Jenkins’ exploration of ways to shift
‘from authoritarian teaching to teaching for cooperation’ so that geography
education can act to transform school relations and structures.86
More recently, the US and UK wars and remilitarization since 2001 have
occasioned renewed work among geographers to place peace more centrally
in schools curricula. Common to some of these activities has been reflection
on Rev. Martin Luther King’s geographical imagination of humanity bound
together through networks of mutuality, a vision that led him to tie his
campaign for ‘civil rights’ to his campaigns for economic justice and against
the Vietnam War.87 Inwood and Tyner use King’s insights to argue that mil-
itary presence on university campuses ‘legitimates violence and contributes
both directly and indirectly to the continuance of death and destruction on
a global scale’.88 Therefore, a ‘pro-peace’ agenda for geography places edu-
cation centrally, seeking transformation both by challenging structures and
patterns of thought that insist violence is inevitable, and also by confronting
the militarization of educational institutions. In the UK, the Northumbria
and Newcastle Universities’ Martin Luther King Peace Committee has been
running a programme of peace workshops with local Benfield School, bring-
ing school students together with geographers and professional peace activists
from around the UK and Ireland to critically reflect on how different types of
violence and inequality intersect and interact.89
Finally, we contend that in order to authentically be committed to the crit-
ical study and reflexive practice of peace, communities of geographers need
to embody the values they espouse. In her interrogation of different ‘peace
paradigms’ in international relations, Meena Sharify-Funk advances the idea
of a ‘paradigm of transformation’. For peace to take root, she argues, what is
required is profound transformation at both societal and personal levels.90
To build ‘peace cultures’91 in academic geography departments involves
recognizing the violence of contemporary practices. As some scholars have rec-
ognized, the progressively competitive culture of higher education in neoliberal
economies, underpinned by ‘spurious’ rankings based on grant earnings and
research output as well as market-driven notions of individual achievement,92
risks damaging the constructive cultures of collaboration, cooperation and gen-
erosity that are essential for educational and research practice. At the very least,
we need to recognize, as Simon Springer observes, how neoliberalism works

‘to destroy trust by making us compete with one another and profit from
each other’s vulnerability’.93 John Agnew observes that universities can become
infested with the same ‘pursuit of primacy’ that animates violent geopolitical
dramas of our age.94 If we are serious about a geography that is both about and
for peace, then, as Agnew argues more generally, ‘first we need to understand
and overcome our own bad habits of thinking and doing’.95
Conclusion
This chapter has documented the shifting contours of geographies of and for
peace. Despite seemingly unpromising beginnings as a tool of statecraft, the
discipline has a long commitment to thinking about peace and debating the
orientation of the discipline towards peace rather than war. Even those tradi-
tions that were wedded to state violence nonetheless worked in their own terms
with a concept of peace, however weak and divorced from justice that was.
In recent years, geographers have sought more explicitly to define a more
critical approach to what peace means, and have stimulated debate within
the discipline about the orientation and nature of our commitment to peace.
Given that a central focus of geography is to understand the operation and
effects of power, equity and justice in places and between spaces, some geogra-
phers have suggested that these matters should remain the centre of attention
rather than generating knowledge about ‘peace’ per se.96 Indeed, where peace is
taken to mean a lot more than ‘not war’, it does pose the risk of meaning both
everything and nothing.97
Nonetheless, we contend that geographical analysis makes three specific
contributions to a broader, interdisciplinary understanding of peace. First, it
highlights the ways in which power, equity and justice underpin and are repro-
duced through landscapes in highly uneven ways. Second, it foregrounds the
ways in which peace is spatially constructed and experienced, in material and
imagined ways. Third, as Koopman98 argues, thinking explicitly about peace in
conjunction with concepts such as welcome, hospitality, cooperation and sol-
idarity facilitates a wider understanding of how positive sociality is expressed
and may be productively nurtured through theory and practice.
The dominant notion of ‘peace’ in geography has changed over time as
geography itself has changed. It has increasingly (although not completely)
moved from Mackinder’s classical geopolitical realist balance of imperial powers
to a profusion of different theoretically informed positions that problematize
‘peace’ as shot through with power relations and also insist on an emancipatory
edge to scholarship. In this way, peace is increasingly being inserted into
mainstream debates within the discipline. Nonetheless, the professional prac-
tices of geographical scholarship are, under the growing neoliberalization
of the academy, increasingly marked by the decidedly un-peaceful practices

that human pride and ambition all too readily produce. Thus, if this were a
schoolteacher’s report on a pupil’s progress, our conclusion on the engagement
of geography with peace would be: ‘After an unpromising start recent progress
has been made, but much room for improvement remains.’
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Kerry Burton in sharing her

thoughts with us on the literature on geographical peace education and
schools.
Notes
1. Artemy Kalinovsky, A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 60.
2. Derek Gregory et al., eds, The Dictionary of Human Geography, 5th edn. (Oxford,
Wiley-Blackwell, 2009); John O’Loughlin, Dictionary of Geopolitics (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1993).
3. Oliver P. Richmond, Peace in International Relations (London: Routledge, 2008).
4. Yves Lacoste, La géographie, ça sert d’abord, à faire la guerre (Paris: Maspéro, 1976).
5. Anne Godlewska, ‘Napoleon’s Geographers: Imperialists and Soldiers of Modernity’,
in Geography and Empire: Critical Studies in the History of Geography, ed. Anne
Godlewska and Neil Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 31–53.
6. Ibid., 34.
7. Audrey Kobayashi, ‘Geographies of Peace and Armed Conflict: Introduction’, Annals
of the Association of American Geographers 99 (2009): 819–826.
8. Friedrich Ratzel, Politische Geographie (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1897).
9. Halford Mackinder, ‘The Geographical Pivot of History’, Geographical Journal 23
(1904): 421–437.
10. Nicholas Spykman, ‘Frontiers, Security, and International Organization’, Geographical
Review 32 (1942): 436–447.
11. Virginie Mamadouh, ‘Geography and War, Geographers and Peace’, in The Geography
of War and Peace: From Death Camps to Diplomats, ed. Colin Flint (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005), 26–60.
12. Michael Heffernan, ‘Fin de siecle, fin du monde: On the Origins of Modern Geopol-
itics’, in Geopolitical Traditions? Critical Histories of a Century of Geopolitical Thought,
eds Klaus Dodds and David Atkinson (London: Routledge, 2000), 47.
13. Nick Megoran, ‘Violence and Peace’, in Companion to Critical Geopolitics, eds Klaus
Dodds, Merje Kuus and Joanne Sharp (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 189.
14. Halford Mackinder, ‘Some Geographical Aspects of International Reconstruction’,
Scottish Geographical Magazine 33 (1917): 5.
15. Megoran, ‘Violence and Peace’.
16. Spykman, ‘Frontiers, Security, and International Organization’, 436.
17. Richmond, Peace in International Relations.
18. Nick Megoran, ‘War and Peace? An Agenda for Peace Research and Practice in
Geography’, Political Geography 30 (2011): 178–189.
19. Peter Kropotkin, ‘What Geography Ought To Be’, The Nineteenth Century (18 Decem-
ber 1885): 956.
20. Wallace Atwood, ‘The Increasing Significance of Geographic Conditions in the
Growth of Nation States’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 25
(1935):15–16.
21. Thomas Griffith Taylor, Our Evolving Civilisation: An Introduction to Geopacifics: Geo-
graphical Aspects of the Path toward World Peace (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1946).
22. Virginie Mamadouh, ‘Geography and War, Geographers and Peace’, in The Geography
of War and Peace: From Death Camps to Diplomats, ed. Colin Flint (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005), 41.
23. Yves Lacoste, ‘The Geography of Warfare. An Illustration of Geographical Warfare:
Bombing of the Dikes on the Red River, North Vietnam’, in Radical Geography, ed.
Richard Peet (London: Methuen, 1977); Kenneth Hewitt, ‘Place Annihilation: Area
Bombing and the Fate of Urban Places’, Annals of the Association of American Geogra-
phers 73 (1983): 257–284; Stan Openshaw and Philip Steadman, ‘On the Geography
of a Worst-Case Nuclear Attack on the Population of Britain’, Political Geography
Quarterly 1 (1982): 262–278.
24. Eleanor Kofman, ‘Information and Nuclear Issues: The Role of the Academic’, Area
16 (1984): 166.
25. David Pepper and Alan Jenkins, ‘A Call to Arms: Geography and Peace Studies’, Area
15 (1983): 202–208.
26. John O’Loughlin and Herman van der Wusten, ‘Geography, War and Peace: Notes
for a Contribution to a Revived Political Geography’, Progress in Human Geography 10
(1986): 484–510; John O’Loughlin and Herman van der Wusten, ‘Political Geography
of War and Peace’, in Political Geography of the Twentieth Century, ed. Peter Taylor
(London: Belhaven, 1993); John O’Loughlin, Dictionary of Geopolitics (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1993).
27. Nurit Kliot and Stanley Waterman, eds, The Political Geography of Conflict and Peace
(London: Belhaven Press, 1991).
28. Colin Gray, ‘In Defence of the Heartland: Sir Halford Mackinder and His Critics a
Hundred Years on’, in Global Geostrategy: Mackinder and the Defence of the West, ed.
Brian Blouet (London: Frank Cass, 2005); for a critical examination of ‘peace’ within
the Mackinderian tradition, see Nick Megoran, ‘Violence and Peace’, in Compan-
ion to Critical Geopolitics, eds Klaus Dodds, Merje Kuus and Joanne Sharp (Farnham:
Ashgate, 2013), 189–207.
29. Derek Gregory, The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq (Malden: Blackwell,
2004); Derek Gregory, ‘War and Peace’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geogra-
phers 35 (2010): 154–186.
30. Rachel Pain and Susan Smith, Fear: Critical Geopolitics and Everyday Life (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2008); Klaus Dodds and Alan Ingram, eds, Spaces of Security and Insecurity:
Geographies of the War on Terror (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009).
31. Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches & Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics
(London: University of California Press, 1989); Joanne Sharp, Condensing the Cold
War: Reader’s Digest and American Identity (London: University of Minnesota Press,
2000).
32. Gearóid Ó Tuathail, ‘Theorizing Practical Geopolitical Reasoning: The Case of the
United States’ Response to the War in Bosnia’, Political Geography 21 (2002): 601–628;
Simon Dalby, Creating the Second Cold War (London: Pinter, 1990).
33. Colin Flint, ed., The Geography of War and Peace: From Death Camps to Diplomats
34. Gerry Kearns, Geopolitics and Empire: The Legacy of Halford Mackinder (Oxford: Oxford
35. Nick Megoran, ‘Towards a Geography of Peace: Pacific Geopolitics and Evangelical
Christian Crusade Apologies’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 35
(2010): 382–398; Megoran, ‘War and Peace’, 185.
36. Samer Alatout, ‘Walls as Technologies of Government: The Double Construction of
Geographies of Peace and Conflict in Israeli Politics, 2002–Present’, Annals of the
Association of American Geographers 99 (2009): 956–968.
37. Megoran, ‘Towards a Geography of Peace’; Nick Megoran, ‘War and Peace?’
38. Philippa Williams and Fiona McConnell, ‘Critical Geographies of Peace’, Antipode 43
(2010): 927–931.
39. Joshua Inwood and James Tyner, ‘Geography’s Pro-Peace Agenda: An Unfinished
Project’, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 10 (2011): 442–457.
40. Johan Galtung, ‘Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict’, in Development and
Civilization (Oslo: PRIO, 1996).
41. Sara Koopman, ‘Let’s Take Peace to Pieces’, Political Geography 30 (2011): 194.
42. Alan Henrikson, ‘The Geography of Diplomacy’, in The Geography of War and Peace:
From Death Camps to Diplomats, ed. Colin Flint (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005), 369–395; Herman van der Wusten and H. van Korstanje, ‘Diplomatic Net-
works and Stable Peace’, in The Political Geography of Conflict and Peace, eds Nurit
Kliot and Stanley Waterman (London: Belhaven Press, 1991), 93–109.
43. John Donaldson, ‘Re-Thinking International Boundary Practices: Moving Away from
the “Edge” ’, in Geographies of Peace, eds Fiona McConnell, Nick Megoran and
Philippa Williams (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 89–108.
44. Sara Fregonese, ‘Urban Geopolitics, 8 Years on. Accounting for Hybridity, the
Everyday, and Peace’, Geography Compass 6 (2012): 290–303.
45. Alatout, ‘Walls as Technologies of Government’.
46. Jenna Loyd, ‘ “Peace Is Our only Shelter”: Questioning Domesticities of Militarization
and White Privilege’, Antipode 43 (2011): 845–873.
47. Sara Koopman, ‘Alter-Geopolitics: Other Securities Are Happening’, Geoforum 42
(2011): 274–284.
48. Doreen Massey, For Space (London: Sage, 2005).
49. Jenna Loyd, ‘Geographies of Peace and Antiviolence’, Geography Compass 6 (2012):
477–489; Philippa Williams, ‘Reproducing Everyday Peace in North India: Process,
Politics, and Power’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 103 (2013):
230–250.
50. Alex Jeffrey, ‘The Politics of “Democratisation”: Lessons from Bosnia and Iraq’, Review
of International Political Economy 14 (2007): 444–466; Simon Springer, ‘Violence
Sits in Places? Cultural Practice, Neoliberal Rationalism, and Virulent Imaginative
Geographies’, Political Geography 30 (2011): 90–98.
51. Gerald Toal and Carl Dahlman, Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and Its Reversal
52. Leif Brottem and Jon Unruh, ‘Territorial Tensions: Rainforest Conservation, Post-
Conflict Recovery, and Land Tenure in Liberia’, Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 99 (2009): 995–1002.
53. Emel Akć¸alı and Marco Antonsich, ‘ “Nature Knows No Boundaries”: A Critical Read-
ing of UNDP Environmental Peacemaking in Cyprus’, Annals of the Association of
American Geographers 99 (2009): 940–947.
54. Patricia Daley, ‘Political Violence in Post-Conflict Societies in Africa: The Limits of
Peace-Building and Stabilisation in Burundi’, Jindal Journal of International Affairs 2
(2013): 88–110.
55. Joseph Nevins, ‘Restitution over Coffee: Truth, Reconciliation, and Environmental
Violence in East Timor’, Political Geography 22 (2003): 677–701.
56. Scott Kirsch and Colin Flint, eds, Reconstructing Conflict: Integrating War and Post-War
Geographies (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011).
57. Brian Graham and Catherine Nash, ‘A Shared Future: Territoriality, Pluralism and
Public Policy in Northern Ireland’, Political Geography 21 (2006): 881–904.
58. Katherine Mitchell, ‘Marseille’s Not for Burning: Comparative Networks of Inte-
gration and Exclusion in Two French Cities’, Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 101 (2011): 404–423.
59. Nicole Laliberte, ‘Building Peace Geographies in and through Systems of Violence’,
in Geographies of Peace, eds Fiona McConnell, Nick Megoran and Philippa Williams
(London: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 47–65.
60. Fiona McConnell, ‘Contextualising and Politicising Peace: Geographies of Tibetan
Satyagraha’, in Geographies of Peace, eds Fiona McConnell, Nick Megoran and
Philippa Williams (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014).
61. Philippa Williams, ‘Reproducing Everyday Peace in North India: Process, Politics, and
Power’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 103 (2013): 230–250.
62. Chih-Yuan Woon, ‘Peopling Geographies of Peace: The Role of the Military in
Peacebuilding in the Philippines’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,
40 (2015): 14–27.
63. Deborah Johnson, ‘Sri Lanka – A Divided Church in a Divided Polity: The Bro-
kerage of a Struggling Institution’, Contemporary South Asia 20 (2012); Philippa
Williams, ‘Hindu-Muslim Brotherhood: Exploring the Dynamics of Communal Rela-
tions in Varanasi, North India’, Journal of South Asian Development 2 (2007): 153–176;
Williams, ‘Reproducing Everyday Peace in North India’.
64. Megoran, Nick, ‘Migration and Peace: The Transnational Activities of Bukharan Jews’,
in Geographies of Peace, eds Fiona McConnell, Nick Megoran and Philippa Williams
(London: I.B. Tauris, 2014): 212–228.
65. McConnell, ‘Contextualising and Politicising Peace’.
66. Sara Koopman, ‘Making Space for Peace: International Protective Accompaniment in
Columbia’, in Geographies of Peace, eds Fiona McConnell, Nick Megoran and Philippa
Williams (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014).
67. Chih-Yuan Woon, ‘Precarious Geopolitics and the Possibilities of Nonviolence’,
Progress in Human Geography 38 (2014): 654–670.
68. Clive Barnett, ‘Theorising Democracy Geographically’, Geoforum 39 (2008): 12.
69. Koopman, ‘Alter-Geopolitics’; Jonathan Darling, ‘Welcome to Sheffield: The Less-
than-Violent Geographies of Urban Asylum’, in Geographies of Peace, eds Fiona
McConnell, Nick Megoran and Philippa Williams (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014),
229–249.
70. Kirsch and Flint, eds. Reconstructing Conflict.
71. Koopman, ‘Let’s Take Peace to Pieces’.
72. Amy Ross, ‘Geographies of War and the Putative Peace’, Political Geography 30 (2011):
197.
73. Nick Megoran, ‘On (Christian) Anarchism and (Non)Violence: A Response to Simon
Springer’, Space and Polity 18 (2014): 97–105.
74. David Cortright, Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge
75. David Gilbert, ‘Time to Shell Out? Reflections on the RGS and Corporate
Sponsorship’, An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 8 (2009): 521–529.
76. Philip Steinberg, ‘Professional Ethics and the Politics of Geographic Knowledge: The
Bowman Expeditions’, Political Geography 29 (2010): 413.
77. Joe Bryan, ‘Force Multipliers: Geography, Militarism, and the Bowman Expeditions’,
Political Geography 29 (2010): 414–416.
78. John Agnew, ‘Ethics or Militarism? The Role of the AAG in What Was Originally a
Dispute over Informed Consent’, Political Geography 29 (2010): 422–423.
79. Eric Sheppard, ‘Doing No Harm’, Association of American Geographers: President’s Col-
umn, http://www.aag.org/cs/news_detail?pressrelease.id= 2490, accessed 5 October
2013.
80. Joel Wainwright, ‘ “A Remarkable Disconnect”: On Violence, Military Research, and
the AAG’, AntipodeFoundation.org, 2013.
81. Irène Hirt and Marcela Palomino-Schalscha, ‘Geography, the Military and Critique
on the Occasion of the 2011 IGU Regional Meeting in Santiago de Chile’, Political
Geography 30 (2011): 355–357.
82. Leslie Hepple, ‘South American Heartland: The Charcas, Latin American Geopolitics
and Global Strategies’, Geographical Journal 170 (2004): 359–367.
83. Hirt and Palomino-Schalscha, ‘Geography, the Military and Critique on the Occasion
of the 2011 IGU Regional Meeting in Santiago de Chile’, 357.
84. Paul Chatterton and David Featherstone, ‘Intervention: Elsevier, Critical Geography
and the Arms Trade’, Political Geography 26 (2007): 3–7.
85. For example, William Bunge, The Nuclear War Atlas (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988).
86. Alan Jenkins, ‘Peace Education and the Geography Curriculum’, in The Geography of
War and Peace, eds David Pepper and Alan Jenkins (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985),
202–213.
87. Joshua Inwood, ‘Searching for the Promised Land: Examining Dr Martin Luther
King’s Concept of the Beloved Community’, Antipode 41 (2009): 487–508.
88. Inwood and Tyner, ‘Geography’s Pro-peace Agenda’, 452.
89. See www.mlkpc.org, accessed 8 October 2014.
90. Meena Sharify-Funk, ‘Peace through Transformation: Identifying Sources of Com-
mitment to Peace’, International Studies Association, Toronto (March 2014).
91. Elise Boulding, ‘Peace Culture’, in Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace & Democracy, 2nd
edn., ed. Lester Kurtz (London: Academic Press, 2008), 1452–1465.
92. ACME Special issue on ‘The Impact Agenda and Human Geography in UK Higher
Education’, 13 (2014): 1.
93. Simon Springer, ‘Anarchism! What Geography Still Ought to Be’, Antipode 44 (2012):
1615.
94. John Agnew, Geopolitics: Re-Visioning World Politics, 2nd edn. (London: Routledge,
2003), 73.
95. Ibid., 132.
96. Ross, ‘Geographies of War and the Putative Peace’.
97. Koopman, ‘Let’s Take Peace to Pieces’, 193–194.
98. Ibid.
10
Peace and Development Studies
Caroline Hughes
Issues of peace and conflict have been fundamental to development studies

since the earliest days of the field. Key questions surrounding the relation-
ship between peace and development have related to causality: does under-
development threaten peace, or vice versa? Do they affect each other, in which
case are some countries doomed to a vicious circle of poverty and conflict?
From a different ideological perspective, the peaceful nature of development
has been called into question. This chapter will document the different ways
in which these questions have been answered, historically and contemporarily,
from the field of development studies.
Concerns over peace and conflict were confined to marginal and radical
approaches to development in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but more recently
became integral to both the conceptualization and the practice of development.
This prompted critical scholars to suggest that the mainstream aid industry
had co-opted peace as a legitimizing prop for development strategies that pro-
mote an aggressively neoliberal agenda. However, it is argued that the failure of
interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s to deliver security and
development side by side weakened the so-called ‘security-development nexus’
in mainstream development thinking. From the margins of development dis-
course, alternative approaches to development, including those informed by
concerns about climate change, are rearticulating a critique of development as
violence.
Development and the conceptualization of peace in the Cold War

era
Modern development theory and practice emerged from former colonizers’

efforts to prevent newly independent countries from joining the Soviet Bloc in
the Cold War.1 The economics of reconstruction associated with the Marshall
Plan and the rise of Keynesian economics in Europe produced a post-Second
139
World War era of ‘embedded liberalism’, in which economic growth and

resource distribution were the subjects of state intervention, via fiscal and
monetary policy, in the context of the Bretton Woods system.
In the US, modernization theory linked economics to socio-political struc-
tures, producing a theory of development in which liberal democracy was
predicted to emerge as a by-product of economic growth. Through state-led
development, ‘traditional’ societies, in which inequality, poverty, hierarchy
and ethnic difference produced perpetual conflict, would be ‘built’ into mod-
ern ‘nations’ in which welfare and order were assured.2 This was achieved
by supplying modern factors of production to traditional producers – irriga-
tion and energy to peasant farmers, for example. Modernization theory thus
anchored development to the cause of anti-communism, as proclaimed by the
subtitle to W. W. Rostow’s classic Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist
Manifesto.3
In the 1960s, revolutionary struggles across the Global South prompted a
re-evaluation. Modernization theorists began looking to short-term authoritar-
ian solutions, as exemplified in Samuel Huntington’s Political Order in Changing
Societies.4 Huntington argued that although ‘modernity’ might be more peace-
ful than backwardness, the modernizing process was destabilizing and violent,
requiring large-scale mobilization of social groups that nascent political and
social institutions then struggled to contain. In such situations, authoritarian
governance was needed to keep the lid on societal tensions and enact necessary
policies. Like modernization theory, Huntington’s theory acted as a justifica-
tion and apologia for American Cold War policies aligning development policy
with US military support for authoritarian regimes across the South.
Contemporaneously, neo-Marxist dependency theory, articulated by critics
such as Andre Gunder Frank and Samir Amin,5 posited under-development
as emanating from global structures of dominance and exploitation within
the international political economy. Neo-colonial relations of exploitation, in
which former colonial masters continued to expropriate profits from productive
activities in the under-developed periphery, were facilitated by new comprador
ruling elites who prioritized the interests of global capital above those of their
own people. Political independence thus bore no necessary relation to eco-
nomic development: indeed, persistent under-development was the most likely
outcome. Under-development represented not the failure to initiate processes
of modern economic production, but the result of them.
The work of Frank and Amin was part of the wider ‘dependency theory’
movement which engaged heavily with the newly emerging field of peace
studies in the early 1970s. Johan Galtung’s conception of ‘structural vio-
lence’, for example, in which ‘violence is built into the structure and shows
up as unequal power and consequently as un-equal life chances’, draws on
the dependency theorists’ conception of under-development as a consequence
Caroline Hughes 141
of contemporary economic structures, rather than as the original position of

modernization theory.6 Galtung’s shift away from conceiving of violence as a
product of intended agency, in favour of a conception of violence as structures
of disadvantage, entails that under-development becomes a violent violation of
peace.7
This perspective was to penetrate the mainstream of development thinking
in the 1990s. However, dependency theory reached its zenith in the call for a
New International Economic Order in the early 1970s.8 This was an attempt
by networks of post-colonial countries, such as the Non-Aligned Movement
and the Third World voting bloc in the United Nations, to reform the existing
trading system in their favour.9
Economic crises in the 1970s and the ideological counterattack of
‘Reaganomics’ pushed dependency theory and the New International Eco-
nomic Order back to the margins of development thinking. The neoliberal
orthodoxy articulated in the Berg Report produced by the World Bank in 1981
held that states were responsible for under-development, since they pandered
to ‘special interests’ that used political or bureaucratic processes to accumulate
resources, preventing the free market from rewarding efficient production.10
The solution was to roll back the state, removing these obstacles to mar-
ket functioning. This was implemented via structural adjustment programmes
imposed by the International Monetary Fund in countries across the Global
South during the 1980s. State enterprises were privatized, public sectors down-
sized and welfare services slashed to reduce state expenditure and free resources
for productive purposes in the private sector.11 At the same time, tight mone-
tary policies produced high interest rates and debt crises, pushing countries in
the South deeper into poverty and subjection to the conditionality of donor
assistance.
Peace and conflict concerns did not figure on this agenda until well into the
1990s. Structural adjustment was responsible for protests and rioting in a num-
ber of countries, including Senegal, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia, and prompted
collapses of governments in Sudan and Zimbabwe. Quantitative research sug-
gests a significant causal relationship between structural adjustment and the
onset of civil war.12 However, these pressures were containable in a Cold
War context, where the superpowers (the US in Egypt, for example, or the
Soviet Union in Ethiopia) were prepared to provide aid to support beleaguered
and increasingly repressive governments. Where these efforts broke down –
for example in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s – development issues were
sometimes co-opted to counter-insurgency measures, as evidenced by the land
reform programmes carried out under American auspices in South Vietnam in
the early 1970s.13 However, within the neoliberal mainstream during this era
there was remarkably little discussion of the potentially destabilizing effects of
development itself.
Post-Cold War approaches to development
The collapse of the Soviet Union altered aid flows and changed the pattern
of civil wars in the 1990s. In Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras,
Namibia and Mozambique, combatants were unable to sustain warfare without
superpower aid and entered negotiated settlements. Western governments pres-
sured authoritarian ‘strongmen’ in a range of African countries to clean up their
acts or lose external funding.14 In some countries this led to increased violence
over the expropriation and distribution of natural resource wealth.15 Civil wars,
insurgencies and military coups occurred in 17 countries in Africa in the 1990s.
Meanwhile, development practitioners were reviewing the disastrous experi-
ence of ten years of free-market fundamentalism in Africa with some concern
for the legitimacy of the development enterprise. A report produced by the
World Bank in 1989 stated:
Subsaharan Africa as a whole has now witnessed more than a decade of

falling per capita incomes, increasing hunger, and accelerating ecological
degradation. The earlier progress made in social development is now being
eroded. Overall Africans are almost as poor today as they were 30 years ago.16
The World Bank read this as evidence of insufficient neoliberal reform,17 but
others – including some within the Bank itself – regarded Africa’s crisis as sig-
nalling the failure of free market fundamentalism and forced structural adjust-
ment.18 This produced a new round of critical commentary. The Development
Dictionary: a Guide to Knowledge as Power, edited by Wolfgang Sachs, published
in 1992, represented a key attempt to attack the ‘cult of growth’ underpin-
ning both development theory and the development industry.19 However, a
critical reappraisal was averted by new ideas that combined to rehabilitate the
development project in the post-Cold War world.
One set of ideas emanated from the Asian Tiger economies of Hong Kong,
South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, whose dramatic growth in the 1980s,
gave rise to an Asian-sponsored neo-Weberian challenge to the ‘Washington
Consensus’ of small government, tight money and free markets. A Japanese-
sponsored report on the ‘East Asian Miracle’, produced by the World Bank in
1993, suggested that, contra World Bank dogma, appropriate state intervention
was instrumental in Asia’s successful development.20
Within the Bank, this challenge was headed off by embracing a new branch
of economics, named the New Institutionalism. Adopting the strapline ‘insti-
tutions matter’, the new thinking suggested that while markets were generally
the best allocators of resources, market failures did occur, and appropriate state
regulation could compensate for this through practices of ‘good governance’.21
This reasserted the primacy of the market in the majority of instances, while
Caroline Hughes 143
allowing for state intervention. The ‘good governance’ agenda found its coun-
terpart in security studies in the concept of ‘failed states’ – states that could
not keep their own populations minimally under control.22 The idea that such
states represented a threat to the West was influential in policy circles from the
early 1990s, contributing to an agenda of ‘bringing the state back in’. This was
to be done, as Robert Cox observed, by recasting the state as an agent of ‘global
welfare and riot control’.23
A second idea emerged from the United Nations Development Pro-
gram (UNDP). ‘Human development’ was a rights-based approach influenced
by the thinking of Amartya Sen, later developed in his book Development as
Freedom.24 The UNDP issued its first human development report in 1990, with
the radical statement that ‘people are the real wealth of nations’ and that devel-
opment should be measured, not in terms of economic growth, but in terms
of standards of living.25 Subsequently, the UNDP asserted that human devel-
opment was an issue of security, if security is focused on the human being.26
Here, UNDP drew upon the critical security scholarship of the Aberystwyth
School, whose call for a rethinking of security to focus on the emancipation
of people, rather than the securing of states, exposed the realist assumptions
of traditional security studies.27 The UNDP announced its embrace of ‘human
security’ as ‘a new design for development co-operation in the post-Cold War
era’,28 and stated: ‘The peace agenda and the development agenda must finally
be integrated. Without peace, there may be no development. But without
development, peace is threatened.’29
This integration was rendered possible by the reconceptualization of
peacekeeping in the early 1990s beyond the narrow confines of its traditional
practices. Prescriptions for United Nations interventionism in the early post-
Cold War era reached back to Galtung’s radical notions of ‘positive peace’,
which encompassed freedom from structural violence as well as physical vio-
lence.30 However, in the hands of the UN, positive peace was firmly hitched to
the ‘foundation-stone’ of the state, and to emerging systems of global gover-
nance articulating ‘the requirements of an ever more interdependent world’.31
This was a positive peace supplied from above, different from the grassroots
revolutionary movements that Galtung envisaged. It took the form of top-
down comprehensive peacekeeping operations into which the development
industry could be integrated. As such, it represented a co-optation of the con-
cepts put forward by critical scholars, in the interests of more interventionary
international policy designed to bolster the state system.
In the mid-1990s, badly needing to rehabilitate its image, the World Bank
staked its claim to the fashionable arena of peacemaking, developing a new
focus on the state’s role of reducing poverty through market regulation and
service delivery. Bank President James Wolfensohn’s assertion that there can
be no peace ‘without economic hope’ reflected and presaged the increasing
convergence between international agendas for peace and development. The

Bank’s 1998 report on its role in post-conflict reconstruction thus called for
‘explicit recognition of conflict as an issue in development’.32 Subsequently, a
Bank team identified a statistical likelihood of under-developed countries expe-
riencing repeated instances of civil war. Their report identified ‘marginalised
low-income countries’ as vulnerable to this ‘conflict trap’. Such countries had
two trajectories open to them – ‘to develop, joining the successful developers,
or at some stage to succumb to civil war’.33 This argument opened the way
for development interventions in the name of security across the Global South –
even in countries that were at peace.
Among non-governmental practitioners, similar interrogations of the rela-
tionship between peace and development were taking place. The doctrine of ‘do
no harm’, articulated by Mary Anderson, reflected concerns about the political
impact of development programming.34 These focused on dilemmas presented
by situations such as the refugee camps of Goma after the Rwandan genocide,
where humanitarian agencies provided relief to thousands fleeing Rwanda.
Among these refugees were perpetrators of genocide who used international aid
to gain control of refugee camps and subsequently destabilized the Democratic
Republic of Congo.35 The ethical conduct of development work was henceforth
to assume the non-neutrality of aid, placing responsibility on aid programmers
to ensure that projects were ‘conflict sensitive’, taking account of the fragility of
contexts in their inception and design, adding a significant element of political
discretion to the job of the international development worker.
For Mark Duffield, the convergence by development actors on an increas-
ingly defined recipe for international action represented a significant expansion
of ‘global governance’ in the field of development.36 Duffield argued that the
prominence of activities related to conflict prevention and resolution in the
new development paradigms of global governance were intrinsic to legitimizing
the project. This, he suggested, lent an urgency to the development enterprise,
required to defuse crises that would not only kill thousands, but might also
‘spill over’ borders into ‘our’ space. As such, conflict ‘saved’ development from
its own ‘unenviable record’ and permitted expansions in development budgets
and interventionary enthusiasm.37
The first decade of the twenty-first century represented the zenith of conver-
gence in can-do zeal for intervention to promote security and development.
The Millennium Summit, significantly affected by civil society campaigns such
as the ‘Make Poverty History’ and ‘Break the Chains’ campaigns in the Global
North, saw bilateral donors committing to higher spending on more effec-
tive aid. This prompted the goal of ‘Halving Poverty by 2015’, and the setting
of Millennium Development Goals focused on services essential for tackling
poverty, such as clean water and health service provision, specified as individ-
ual targets for every aid recipient country in the Global South. The Millennium
Caroline Hughes 145
Campaign’s conception of development as a ‘path to peace’, or as a ‘lad-

der’38 which can be negotiated by communities provided with the requisite
‘capacities’, represented something of a return to the technical and teleologi-
cal approaches of modernization theory. This was, in turn, incorporated into
a new combined approach to security and development, laid out in the UN
secretary-general’s reform agenda unveiled in 2005.39
The coincidence of the September 11 attacks and the commencement of
the War on Terror and the modernizing zeal of the Millennium Campaign
prompted the formal articulation of a ‘security-development nexus’ in policy
documents from the US National Security Strategy to the report of the UN
High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. Under George W. Bush,
state failure was marked as the topmost threat to America, unleashing a new
wave of intervention justified as defence of the American homeland. The neo-
conservative discourse of the Bush administration meshed rather easily with
the more liberal thinking of the United Nations at the close of the twentieth
century. The UN High Level Panel remarked:
Development and security are inextricably linked. A more secure world is

only possible if poor countries are given a real chance to develop. Extreme
poverty and infectious diseases threaten many people directly, but they also
provide a fertile breeding-ground for other threats, including civil conflict.
Even people in rich countries will be more secure if their Governments help
poor countries to defeat poverty and disease by meeting the Millennium
Development Goals.40
This report reinforced the notion that security and development are public
goods which benefit all people equally and can only be achieved together.
As such, they are amenable to enlightened policy intervention, provided that
policy is sufficiently detailed, well-coordinated and far-reaching. Development
for under-developed regions of the world is necessary, not only for ‘their’ secu-
rity but also for ‘ours’. This concern was couched not in terms of redressing
the inequality of resource distribution or economic structures that produced
under-development, but in terms of managing the risk posed by marginalized
populations with nothing to do but, potentially, make war. Such populations
were to be managed by more effective states, and provided with the capacities
to engage more effectively in global economies. As such, peace interventions
to prevent and resolve conflict and to rebuild war-torn societies were to take
explicit note of statebuilding as a means to secure peace.
These new approaches led development actors into engagement with new
military and peacekeeping interventions. Doing so required expansion of
intervention to incorporate broader mandates, closer supervision, increased
international coordination and longer time frames. This also provided the
rationale for closer relationships between development and security practi-

tioners in the field, evident since the 1990s. Development workers delivering
humanitarian relief in conflicts where authority had broken down already
looked to peacekeepers and other military interveners to assist and protect
them. Complex peacekeeping operations brought civilian development work-
ers together with soldiers to implement comprehensive political settlements.
These were replaced by the end of the 1990s with so-called ‘hybrid’ ‘peace
support operations’ which involved international, regional and private mil-
itaries partnering multilateral, bilateral and non-governmental development
agencies. Such operations prompted concerns about the ethics and practical-
ities of non-governmental organizations linking with military organizations to
deliver aid, generating both academic debate and a range of guidelines and
protocols.41
Relationships between security and development were institutionalized in
the establishment of a Peacebuilding Commission at UN Headquarters, incor-
porating representatives from the Security Council and the International Finan-
cial Institutions, with a mandate to identify countries at risk of state collapse,
plan for transitions, and ‘marshal and sustain’ aid for post-conflict reconstruc-
tion.42 The founding resolution of the Peacebuilding Commission emphasized
‘the need for a dedicated institutional mechanism to address the special needs
of countries emerging from conflict towards recovery, reintegration and recon-
struction and to assist them in laying the foundation for sustainable develop-
ment’.43 Thus institutionalized, the ‘security-development nexus’ described not
only a new way of thinking about the relationship between development and
peace but also a new way of working.44 This new form of direct intervention
to develop and ‘build’ states prompted the emergence of a commentary – both
supportive and critical – regarding intervention in the Balkans, Afghanistan and
Iraq as a new form of disavowed empire.45
The equation of development with security and the operational entangle-
ment of security and development actors were key elements of the ‘liberal
peace’.46 This went beyond the traditional policing of ceasefires, encompass-
ing not only the ending of wars but the attempted conflict-proofing of states,
societies, economies and individuals through the reconstruction of states and
societies according to liberal templates. From a development perspective, the
liberal peace was specifically neo-liberal, in that individual, national and global
securities were understood as emanating from the individual’s ability to engage
productively in the global economy. Although appropriating some of the lan-
guage of radical theories of the past, the development perspective on the
liberal peace retains the neoliberal faith in the market, when combined with
a liberal service-delivering state, to provide opportunities for human beings
to satisfy their needs and refrain from acts of violence, thereby achieving
peace.
Caroline Hughes 147
Critiques and alternatives
The ‘securitization of development’ has been critiqued both as a cover for the
predatory instincts of major powers and/or global capital with respect to the
territories and resources of the Global South, and as a discursive construct
that privileges liberal/colonial modes of existence over subaltern, marginal
and indigenous ways of being. Three recent developments have contributed
to empowering such critiques. The first is the significant shift in the geograph-
ical dispersion of power in the global economy, attendant upon the rise of the
BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as powerful forces in international eco-
nomic affairs, and the attainment by other previously least-developed countries
of ‘middle income status’. Nearly three quarters of the world’s poor now live in
middle-income countries,47 with significant implications for their treatment by
development agencies.
This changing geography of development has potentially important effects
for the development industry. One aspect of this is increased prominence of
voices and ideas from the Global South itself. African activists and practition-
ers like Wangari Maathai48 and Dambisa Moyo49 have entered the mainstream
debate on aid, a BRICS bank may potentially compete with the World Bank,
and new ideas from leftist governments such as the conditional cash transfer
programme in Brazil have entered the development mainstream.
The second key development is the global financial crisis, and the blow this
dealt to the Global North. Since the crisis, Western governments have retreated
from commitments made in 2000 to increase aid. New manifestoes are demand-
ing the replacement of development planning à la Jeffrey Sachs with a more
laissez-faire approach.50 For aid agencies like the Asia Foundation and the UK
Department for International Development (DFID), the new mantra is ‘effec-
tiveness’ and acknowledgement that effective aid requires working politically –
something that aid donors have up to now been unwilling to concede.51
The third key development is acknowledgement of the failure of interven-
tions in Afghanistan and Iraq, evident in the hesitant response of Western
governments to the Arab Spring. Despite precipitating civil conflict in several
countries, including a horrific war in Syria, the West has been reluctant to inter-
vene, a far different disposition from that at the turn of the millennium. The
idea that comprehensive political settlements can remake countries into stable
liberal entities appears, from the perspective of 2014, somewhat outdated.
In this era of crisis, alternative voices can be heard. Among these are radi-
cal critiques that draw attention to changing modes of capitalist production,
the emergence of class-based elite and subordinate social forces, and the use of
development thinking, policy and practice to manage the clash between these
forces. At stake here is the positing of techniques of development as a sub-
stitute for political process in the Global South. The claim that ‘governance’
and development are public goods achieved by technically correct policies,

rather than violently contested processes, ignores or submerges the reality of
dispossession in the interests of predatory capital that neoliberal approaches
to development have facilitated across the Global South.52 Although not pri-
marily concerned with defining peace, this approach foregrounds the everyday
violence of expropriation and exclusion that characterizes ongoing conflicts
over material factors of production, such as labour, land and natural resources,
across the Global South.
A further set of critiques are grounded in the work of Foucault. These regard
power as operating to construct compliant subjectivities among populations
in the South. There are three main strands to this critique. The first decon-
structs the discourse of development as a regime of truth produced by power.
Exemplified by the work of Arturo Escobar,53 this suggests that the development
industry’s key achievement was the construction of three ‘worlds’ of develop-
ment: in particular, the successful, powerful ‘model’ of the First World and
the weak, backward, poverty-stricken ‘Third World’, first posited by modern-
ization theory in the 1950s. Escobar offers the notion of ‘post-development’54
to undermine ‘development’s order of expert knowledge and power’, propos-
ing that alternatives could be found in the experience, practice and knowledge
of social movements in the Global South. This breaks with the structuralist
perspectives of dependency theory in challenging not only the diagnosis and
the solutions that mainstream development offered, but the characterization
of development/under-development as a binary distinction upon which the
whole development process depended.55
A related critique focuses on ‘governmentality’ – a system of micro-
technologies of interventionary power brought to bear on states, societies and
subjects in the Global South as a means to discipline behaviour and promote
the internalization of subjectivities that conform to the desires of dominant
actors in the Global North.56 The focus here is upon everyday working prac-
tices of donors in the field – the ways in which capacity builders, consultants,
country representatives and aid officials interact with local states and societies,
and the disciplinary procedures, formalities and habits that this induces. The
functioning of these ideas, institutions and practices, and the impact upon pop-
ulations in the South, has been the subject of a range of critical ethnographies
of aid practice.57
A further use of Foucault’s work has been the employment of the concept of
biopower. Mark Duffield has been a key proponent of this critique, regarding
development as a matrix of biopower, focused upon ‘the support and opti-
mization of the collective life of the nation’. He argues that the purpose of
development is not to equalize the conditions of life between populations
in the Global North and the Global South, but to stabilize the condition of
‘underdeveloped populations’ such that the extension of the kinds of welfare
customary in the North to the Global South is not required. This, he remarks,
Caroline Hughes 149
is intrinsically a matter of security: a matter of securing life in the South in a

manner which threatens neither the comfort nor the profitability of life in the
North.58
These post-structuralist approaches point to development as a practice which
marginalizes and submerges the experience and aspirations of subaltern actors,
thus producing structural violence and prohibiting emancipation. Duffield con-
ceptualizes this explicitly as a matter of violent oppression, describing the
terrain of interaction between the ‘insured’ and state-supported populations
of the North and the ‘uninsured’ or self-reliant populations of the South as
a terrain of ‘unending war’, most evident in the violent policing of migrants
who attempt to traverse the divide. For Escobar, however, the destructiveness
of capitalist regimes of development goes beyond the material level to ‘under-
mine the reproduction of socially valued forms of identity’, destroying the
‘elements necessary for cultural affirmation’ and rendering peasants as docile
bodies. Thus, ‘peasant resistance reflects more than the struggle for land and
living condition; it is above all a struggle over symbols and meanings, a cul-
tural struggle’.59 At stake is the ‘affirmation and autonomy’ of cultures that do
not place accumulation or consumerism at the centre of life.
A final critique brings together ideas of radical pluralism and sustainability
to ask how development might be reconceptualized in the context of impend-
ing ecological catastrophe.60 It calls for a radical reconceptualization of notions
of property, work and leisure, and well-being, drawing upon the aspirations of
social movements of indigenous peoples and the new international ‘precariat’61
and building on the experimental strategies of individuals and communities
who have been excluded or ‘disembedded’ from the mainstream economy, cel-
ebrating their refusal to accept the image of themselves that is propagated by
mainstream development thinking. From this perspective, development itself
constitutes violence – the violent incorporation of free peoples into an econ-
omy that stifles their identities and aspirations and denigrates their history
and culture. A peaceful world is a world in which alternative conceptions of
meaning are embraced.
Alternative manifestoes such as these have been recurrent features in the his-
tory of development thinking. Their resonance with the work of the Intergov-
ernmental Panel on Climate Change at a time when global capitalism appears
in disarray perhaps gives them new purchase on the twenty-first-century imag-
ination. However, there seems little prospect at present that such manifestoes
will have tangible effects on the practices of the development industry, beyond
the provision of new ideas for appropriation and mainstreaming.
Conclusion
The survey above illustrates how scholarly and policy debates about peace and
development have intertwined over the past half century. Three key points
emerge. First, mainstream ideas about development and peace as goals of policy,
as well as about the links between them, have consistently reflected the dom-
inant ideologies of the Global North. Second, in development studies and in
peace studies, a vein of critical scholarship has consistently contested the main-
stream, putting forward radical accounts of the links between development and
peace. Third, at key moments – and particularly in times of crisis – concepts
drawn from these subordinate approaches penetrate the dominant discourse,
through their incorporation into key reports or statements. However, when
this occurs, such concepts are instrumentalized in a manner that advances the
dominance of already powerful actors. Consequently, although such discursive
turns promise new, radical approaches to development and peace, their effect is
invariably blunted as the new terminology becomes routinized in the context
of existing structures of power.
Notes
1. Colin Leys, The Rise and Fall of Development Theory (Oxford: James Currey, 1996), 5.
2. Nils Gilman, Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 20.
3. Walt Rostow, Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1960); Leys, The Rise and Fall of Development Theory,
6.
4. Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1968).
5. Andre Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1967); Samir Amin, Neo-Colonialism in West Africa
(Harmondsworth: Penguin African Library, 1973).
6. Johan Galtung, ‘Violence, Peace and Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research 6, no. 3
(1969): 171.
7. Ibid.
8. See Robert Cox, ‘Ideologies and the New International Economic Order: Reflections
on Some Recent Literature’, International Organization 33, no. 2 (1979): 257–302.
9. Johan Galtung, ‘Self-Reliance: Concepts, Practice and Rationale’, in Self-Reliance, eds
Johan Galtung, Peter O’Brien and Roy Preiswerk (Geneva: Institute of Development
Studies, 1980), 24; Cox, ‘Ideologies and the New International Economic Order’, 263.
10. Elliott Berg, Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (Washington, DC: World
Bank, 1981).
11. Ben Fine, ‘The New Development Economics’, in The New Development Economics:
After the Washington Consensus, eds K. S. Jomo and Ben Fine (London: Zed, 2006).
12. Caroline Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie and Molly Bauer, ‘Economic Liberalization via
IMF Structural Adjustment: Sowing the Seeds of Civil War?’ International Organization
64, no. 2 (2010): 339–356.
13. Charles Stuart Callison, Land to the Tiller in the Mekong Delta: Economic, Social and
Political Effects of Land Reform in Four Villages in South Vietnam (Lanham: University
Press of America, 1983).
14. William Reno, ‘War, Markets and the Reconfiguration of Africa’s Weak States’,
Comparative Politics 29, no. 4 (1997): 493–510.
Caroline Hughes 151
15. See Virginia Gamba and Richard Cornwell, ‘Arms, Elites and Resources in the
Angolan Civil War’, in Greed and Grievance, Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, eds Mats
Berdal and David Malone (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000).
16. World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth (Washington, DC:
World Bank, 1989), 1.
17. Ibid.
18. Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003);
Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: How We Can Make It Happen in Our Lifetime
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2005), 81–82.
19. Wolfgang Sachs, The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power (London:
Zed, 1992).
20. World Bank, The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy (Washington,
DC: World Bank, 1993).
21. See World Bank, The State in a Changing World, World Development Report
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 1997).
22. Gerald Helman and Stephen Ratner, ‘Saving Failed States’, Foreign Affairs 89
(1992/3): 3–20; Natasha Ezrow and Erica Frantz, ‘Revisiting the Concept of the
Failed State: Bringing the State Back In’, Third World Quarterly 34, no. 8 (2013):
1323–1338.
23. Robert Cox, ‘Critical Political Economy’, in International Political Economy: Under-
standing Global Disorder, ed. Bjorn Hettne (London: Zed, 1995).
24. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1999).
25. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1990
(New York: United Nations, 1990).
26. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1994
(New York: United Nations, 1994).
27. Steve Smith, ‘The Contested Concept of Security’, in Critical Security Studies and World
Politics, ed. Ken Booth (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2005).
28. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1994.
29. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1994, iii.
30. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace (New York: United Nations, 1992).
31. Ibid.
32. World Bank, The Role of the World Bank in Conflict and Development: An Evolving Agenda
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 1998), 41.
33. World Bank, Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2003), 108.
34. Mary Anderson, Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace – Or War (Boulder: Lynne
Rienner, 1999).
35. Human Rights Watch/Africa, Rwanda: A New Catastrophe? (Washington, DC: Human
Rights Watch, 1994); Fiona Terry, Condemned to Repeat? The Paradox of Humanitarian
Action (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002).
36. Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and
Security (London: Zed, 2001).
37. Ibid., 117–118.
38. Sachs, The End of Poverty, 3, 14.
39. Michael Pugh, ‘The Political Economy of Peacebuilding: A Critical Perspective’,
International Journal of Peace Studies 10, no. 2 (2005): 23–42.
40. United Nations, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, report by the High
Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (New York: United Nations, 2004),
viii.
41. Cedric De Coning, ‘Civil-Military Cooperation and Peacebuilding Operations’, World

Politics Review, 19 May 2010; Laura Zanotti, ‘UN Integrated Peacekeeping Operations
and NGOs: Reflections on Governmental Rationalities and Contestation in the Age
of Risk’, International Peacekeeping 17, no. 1 (2010): 17–31; Daniel Byman, ‘Uncertain
Partners: NGOs and the Military’, Survival 43, no. 2 (2001): 97–114.
42. United Nations, Development Programme, Human Development Report 1994.
43. United Nations, Security Council Resolution 1645, 20 December 2005.
44. Maria Stern and Joakim Ojendal, ‘Managing the Security-Development Nexus: Con-
flict, Complexity, Cacophony, Convergence?’ Security Dialogue 41, no. 1 (2010):
5–29; David Chandler, ‘The Security-Development Nexus and the Rise of Anti-
Foreign Policy’, Journal of International Relations and Development 10, no. 4 (2007):
362–386.
45. Michael Ignatieff, Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan (London:
Vintage, 2003); David Chandler, Empire in Denial: The Politics of Statebuilding
(London: Pluto, 2006).
46. Oliver Richmond, The Transformation of Peace (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004).
47. Andy Sumner, ‘Where Do the World’s Poor Live?’ IDS Working Paper no. 393
(Brighton: IDS, 2012).
48. Wangari Maathai, The Challenge for Africa (London: Springer, 2011).
49. Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working How There Is Another Way for Africa
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2010).
50. William Easterly, ed. Reinventing Foreign Aid (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008); Moyo,
Dead Aid.
51. V. Bruce and J. Tolentino, From Analysis to Implementation: The Practice of Political
Economy Approaches to Economic Reform, Occasional Paper no. 3 (San Francisco: the
Asia Foundation, 2010); Sue Unsworth, ‘What’s Politics Got to Do with It? Why
Donors Find It So Hard to Come to Terms with Politics, and Why This Matters,’
Journal of International Development 21, no. 6 (2009): 883–894.
52. Naomi Klein, Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (London: Allen Lane,
2007); Wil Hout and Richard Robison, eds, Governance and the Depoliticization of
Development (London: Routledge, 2009); Mayke Kaag and Annelies Zoomers, The
Global Land Grab, beyond the Hype (London: Zed, 2014).
53. Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third
World, revised edn. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012).
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid.
56. Jeremy Gould, ‘Timing, Scale and Style: Capacity as Governmentality in Tanzania’,
in The Aid Effect: Giving and Governing in International Development, eds David Mosse
and David Lewis (London: Pluto, 2005); Jeremy Gould, The New Conditionality: The
Politics of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (London: Zed, 2005); David Craig and Doug
Porter, ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: A New Convergence’, World Development
31, no. 1 (2003): 53–69.
57. James Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘Development’, Depoliticization and Bureau-
cratic Power in Lesotho (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); David Mosse,
Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice (London: Pluto,
2004); Tanya Murray Li, The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development and the
Practice of Politics (Chapel Hill: Duke University Press, 2007).
58. Mark Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War: Governing the World of Peoples
(Cambridge: Polity, 2007).
Caroline Hughes 153
59. Escobar, Encountering Development, 167.

60. Gustova Esteva, Salvatore Babones and Philipp Babcicky, The Future of Development:
A Radical Manifesto (Bristol: Policy Press, 2013).
61. Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (London: Bloomsbury Aca-
demic, 2011).
11
Post-Colonialism: A Post-Colonial
Perspective on Peacebuilding
Vivienne Jabri
It is not coincidental that much ‘peacebuilding’ activity is targeted at post-

colonial societies. Some might argue that persistent conflict and fragmentation,
the failure of governance, ongoing violations of human rights, and the fail-
ure of economic development render inevitable the imperative to intervene in
order to ‘put things right’. It is this account or narrative of ‘failure’ that runs
through and informs interventionist practices, the remit of which is primarily
‘governance’. This is also a developmentalist account, one that assumes target
societies to be in the process of ‘catching up’, conforming to models drawn
up in international organizations, national governmental agencies and the
non-governmental sector that they sustain. The machinery of peacebuilding
is, hence, vast; it is institutionally now strongly embedded in the bureau-
cratic and normative order of the international. The aim in this chapter is
to provide an indication of how this machinery might be viewed from the
vantage point of locations in the post-colonial world. This is no easy task
theoretically, conceptually or methodologically, and as such, the pointers pre-
sented can only be indicative of the content of what a post-colonial perspective
on peacebuilding might or should look like. Two structural forces, discursive
and material, inform this vantage point: the colonial legacy and its continu-
ing impact on the present, and the unequal structure of the global political
economy.
To refer to a vantage point is to suggest that narratives, positions, articu-
lations, and responses to intervention and the various practices that come
under the label of peacebuilding are informed by and draw upon a deeply
rooted historical context that permeates and forms post-colonial subjectivity
and intersubjective relations. The chapter places the lens on a setting that
not only recalls, but often relives, a past wherein those on the receiving end
were deemed variously to be voiceless, incapable, or ready to be reshaped and
redesigned. This is tense and difficult terrain, in that the relations that come
under scrutiny, between ‘the internationals’ and ‘the locals’, are not directly
154
Vivienne Jabri 155
formal colonial relations reminiscent of direct colonial rule, colonial violence

and dispossession. However, in the microcosm of peacebuilding practices, there
remains a present imbued with this precise history, a legacy that informs post-
colonial subjectivity, and one that emerges, both expectedly and unexpectedly,
in situated interactions.
The argument here is that these interactions are shaped by what can be
referred to as a ‘colonial rationality’, one that places the government of pop-
ulations at its core, and that works its practices into the detail of institutional
design and calculation. However, the colonial rationality is much more than
this, for it also suggests a relationship of inequality, one that places primacy
on knowledge systems imported in and mobilized for the implementation of
a peacebuilding agenda seen to be in the service of peace, rights and order.
Evidently, the context is also one that is also informed by a ‘post-colonial ratio-
nality’ in which ‘peacebuilders’, and not simply the formerly colonized, are also
inheritors of a colonial legacy built on racialized inequalities.1 The post-colonial
rationality is, hence, one that is informed by this legacy and seeks to emphasize
the ‘sovereignty’ of the post-colonial societies that now in late modernity find
themselves in the midst of conflict and post-conflict peacebuilding operations.
This complex relational structure of the colonial/post-colonial emerges in and is
enabled by the machinery of government that informs peacebuilding practices,
and cannot be easily extracted from a discursive and material international
political economy built on global inequalities.
Peacebuilding as a machinery of government
As a number of authors have highlighted, the forms of intervention that come

under the remit of ‘liberal peacebuilding’ continue to be informed by a devel-
opmental as well as securitized understanding of conflicts in the post-colonial
world and the remedies advocated.2 This is well-worn ground and will not
be repeated here. Rather, the aim here is to provide a picture of how this
machinery works and how it has come to be the primary site wherein a dis-
tinct bureaucratic mobilization takes place and comes to be associated with
international responses to conflict and what are deemed to be appropriate
responses. As will become evident, when the analytical lens falls on structural
forces that are global in reach, it reveals the profound vulnerabilities of much
of the post-colonial world. Peacebuilding may interpellate the local variously
as problematic and as a source of danger; however, it is at the level of the tar-
get society (state and population) that the impact of fragmentation and social
disintegration is most immediately felt.
There is a certain prevalent international terminology that categorizes
responses to conflict. Peacebuilding, peacekeeping, peacemaking and so on
are all concepts that prevail in, and that derive their reference points from,
documents such as Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s An Agenda for Peace, which, since

its publication in 1992, has had profound consequences in framing not just
policy but the epistemological world of ‘peace’ as such. The point to highlight
here is that concepts generate effects and mobilize action and the institutions
and discourses that enable them. Peacebuilding, as an operational practice, is
qualitatively different from peacekeeping and the other forms of intervention
envisaged by Boutros-Ghali and others in that it generates practices that have
far greater interventionist capacity.
To use the concept of interventionist capacity as constitutive of
peacebuilding is to inject, I suggest, a distinctly post-colonial critique of its prac-
tices. This critique has two closely related variants that might be distinguished
in terms of their understanding of the post-colonial state and its place in the
international system of states. One variant sees national independence as an
elite-driven process that did not entirely decolonize the territories and popula-
tions of the colonized, but took on a shape that could co-opt local leaders. This
variant sees the post-colonial state as ‘mimetic’3 and emergent onto a struc-
ture, the international, that is itself a product of colonization. By extension,
peacebuilding practices would be judged in relation to the directionality of their
practices; they might work with existing elites and state institutions (if these
remain in place post-conflict), in which case they would reinforce the colo-
nial project at the expense of the ‘subaltern’. However, practices could also be
focused on working with the subaltern in order to specifically ‘decolonize’ rela-
tionships and institutional arrangements. What is unclear in this perspective
is how the post-colonial state, and specifically the bounded sovereign entity, is
conceived, other than through a lens that emphasizes its illegitimacy.
The second variant, and one that this author adheres to and defines, is
one wherein the post-colonial state, having emerged as a result of struggle,
is formed, and constituted, by the international and articulates agency in the
trajectories of its normative structuring. If the terrain of the international is
understood as one having as its primary features independent sovereign states,
their relationships and their participation in international institutions, then
the use of the concept of intervention acknowledges the ‘limits’ that the inter-
national as such enables, the transgressions of which constitute intervention.4
It was these limits that formerly colonized societies sought to achieve and ren-
der juridically and politically recognizable. This distinctly modern idea, one
based on self-determination and its suggested consequence, self-government,
lies at the heart of what it is to be a modern political community. Under-
stood within this variant of post-colonial thought, of which Edward Said
might be claimed as the primary inspiration, peacebuilding’s interventionist
character is conceived in terms of its incursion into the governance of the
post-colonial political community, and hence the re-enactment afresh of the
colonial encounter. Peacebuilding as an interventionist practice does not so
Vivienne Jabri 157
much violate this Westphalian understanding of the international as render its

regulative power less applicable to what are deemed to be ‘failed’, ‘fragile’ or
‘weak’ states. These are states that have variously fragmented and/or indicated
vulnerabilities in the face of internal and external forces.
The interventionist capacity of peacebuilding operations from East Timor, to
Cambodia, to Liberia and Bosnia, to give just a few examples, might differ from
conflict to conflict, but a common factor shared by all is that ‘government’ is
seen to be the adhesive force that can generate not just the end of conflict,
but the prevention of future conflicts and future societal breakdown. The range
of practices that constitute government can include arrangements relating to
financial irregularities; to the workings of the justice system, especially in rela-
tion to war crimes and crimes against humanity; to the demobilization and
disarmament of factions; to pedagogical training relating variously to diver-
sity and gender equality; to the relocation of populations; and to truth and
reconciliation commissions. Just as conflict in divided societies might impact
on every level of government, so, too, peacebuilding operations might direct
practices at every level of government. The aim, ultimately, is to reshape and
redesign society into a future state that is free from conflict, and specifically
from violence.
What the above suggests is that a state that experiences the full force of a
peacebuilding machinery is not a self-governing state, at least for the dura-
tion of the operation. It may have a nominal government, but the operations
of the international military and/or civil service taking place within its terri-
torial boundaries are not necessarily answerable to this nominal government,
but to external institutions, both international and national. The microcosm
of government is conducted primarily by internationals, wherein practices per-
meating almost every aspect of society are those informed by the procedural
and normative structures of the interveners.5 Where locals are involved, they
are predominantly secondary employees, often paid on local and hence far
cheaper terms. More significantly still, peacebuilding practices tend to define
the ‘local’ in tribal and ethnic terms, perhaps as a gesture of recognition of
local differences. However, the consequence is that what might have been the
achievement of post-coloniality, namely, the creation of a political commu-
nity based on the idea of the abstract (and liberated) state, is undermined by
peacebuilding practices that reinforce the cultural and tribal divisions of a pop-
ulation.6 It is as if the assumption is made that the ‘failure’ of the modern
post-colonial state derives from the negation of tribal and ethnic affiliations,
and hence, the underlining of these provides the ‘solution’.
Peacebuilding as a set of practices should not be confused with a colonial
administrative structure that is imposed on conflictual and post-conflict soci-
eties. Nor is there a formal trusteeship arrangement whereby self-government
is temporarily suspended while governing structures are put in place. Rather,
peacebuilding is a practice of global governance; it recognizes the independence

of the state, but draws on governing capacities that might be located elsewhere
and that can be mobilized in response to conflict. These governing capacities
are informed by discursive and institutional practices that, as indicated earlier,
are framed by a developmental and securitizing framework. They are, in other
words, and to use a Foucauldian understanding,7 shaped by the imperative to
govern populations, to manage their relationships, their spatial locations and
relocations, the ways they mourn the dead, and the narrative they build to
reconcile with their enemies, their former neighbours.8
When these functions are conducted by an abstract machinery that is mobi-
lized internationally through international institutions – the UN, the World
Bank, the EU – the relationship between government and the politics of legiti-
macy is distantiated. If the political is understood in terms of contestations over
the distribution of resources and ideas, and if this contestation is denied to a
political community, then the very emergence of local actors that make a claim
to political space is constrained, and, in consequence, so is the claim to legiti-
macy and answerability. To highlight this is not to say that the internationals
have no role to play in seeking to establish working structures of government.
They clearly do in contexts of total breakdown and social fragmentation where
individuals and communities become vulnerable to local warlords and crim-
inalized factions that rely on protection rackets. It is, however, to highlight
the all too significant fact that in any peacebuilding context there emerges a
tension between the remit of government (the peacebuilding remit) and that
of politics (the remit of the post-colonial state and contestations within it).
The latter may impede the former, just as the former might inadvertently dis-
rupt the latter. What is being suggested here is that this relationship between
peacebuilding and politics should be at the heart of the research programme on
peacebuilding.
Looked at from the vantage point of the post-colonial societies that become
targets of peacebuilding interventions, the machinery of government I describe
above might be viewed in a number of ways, all discernible through direct
engagement with the narratives that emerge in the particularity of the time
and place of peacebuilding operations. Research on ‘local agency’ aims to gain
a picture of how locals can be involved in peacebuilding practices. Much of
this research is based on ‘what works’: the functional, operational aspects of
peacebuilding. However, also of interest is how locals negotiate the terrain
between national governmental structures and the workings of internationals
in their midst, and how this terrain impacts on their narratives of self-identity,
locations of political community, and the meaning of such community and its
limits in the post-conflict context.9
The capacity of ‘locals’ to negotiate peacebuilding is influenced by the struc-
turing impact of the hierarchical relationship between the internationals and
Vivienne Jabri 159
the locals, even where ‘locals’ draw upon international discourses and insti-
tutions for empowering and enablement purposes. This is not to suggest that
these locals are articulating a form of ‘hybrid agency’,10 but to argue that agency
emerges in the multiplicity of ways in which ‘the international’ as such and
its normative rules and norms are mobilized by local actors in negotiating
the distinctly local political terrain. At the same time, the discourses of the
internationals can, and often do, transform local narratives in ways that are
reminiscent of the modernization schemes adopted in the immediate aftermath
of the anti-colonial struggles and the emergence of self-determining sovereign
states. Peacebuilding is, hence, another phase of modernization; the crucial dif-
ference in our late modern context is that the authors of this second phase
are not post-colonial leaders politically beholden to their newly decolonized
populations, the imaginary of which was the national entity. They are pre-
dominantly international bureaucrats, the imaginary of which is government
based on a script written in global or Western national institutions. The start-
ing assumption of the script is that conflict is caused by the failure of the
post-colonial state and its incapacity to govern.
The collapse of the post-colonial state as a consequence of conflict and social
fragmentation, the factionalization of authority, and the consequent emer-
gence of localized networks of rule through violence is not a new narrative,
as recognized by Mbembe and Fanon, among other iconic post-colonial voices.
What is relatively new, having taken root in the 1990s, is the idea that global
institutions have the capacity to step into the breach, enabling government
in contexts of breakdown. The point, as indicated above, is that such gov-
ernment seeks to depoliticize a highly charged and highly political context,
thereby contributing to a misunderstanding of underlying conflicts and the
implementation of mis-directed practices. As had been evident in the con-
text of Afghanistan, such misplacements have not so much denied agency to
local actors as contributed to practices that can perpetuate conflict and divi-
sion. As indicated earlier, the tendency to give primacy to customary notions
of authority directly impacts on the (re)emergence of a national entity that
has the legitimacy to govern. While the post-colonial world achieved inde-
pendence through struggle, and, by and large, claimed authorship of the
remits of self-determination from colonial rule, it cannot claim such authorship
in peacebuilding operations. To claim that such operations are only possi-
ble through participation by local entities is itself indicative of a hierarchical
relationship wherein the local is always the invitee in its own country.
Peacebuilding in this sense can disempower local communities even as it
claims to include and to empower. That said, it might be argued that the very
presence of peacebuilders generates particular articulations of political agency
that can shape future relationships and outcomes. Like the colonial encounters
of the past, the peacebuilding interventions of the present can be drawn upon
and utilized as a resource in local political contestations and in the reframing

of political community and its place internationally. How this complex local–
international nexus is negotiated is itself subject to wider structural forces that
limit the conditions of possibility for the populations of much of the post-
colonial world.
The international political economy of peacebuilding
The assumption that underpins peacebuilding is that a failure of government,

either as a consequence or as a cause of conflict, must remain central to the
shape of responses designed not just to alleviate the worst excesses of recent
violent conflicts, but to ensure peaceful futures. As seen above, while the spa-
tial manifestation of peacebuilding raises questions relating to continuities with
the colonial past, the temporal aspect, the idea that the future might be gov-
erned, raises questions relating to the scripts by which the future might be
shaped. Seen from the post-colonial world, this script is not just embedded
in discourses of human rights, but is significantly shaped by an international
political economy that is distinctly neoliberal in its discourses and preferred
practices. Peacebuilding as a machinery of government does not escape the
wider structuring power of a neoliberal global order. If anything, it is informed
by this order. Why is this of significance from the post-colonial perspective?
To answer this question takes us directly to the debate, within the post-
colonial literature, between frameworks that focused on discourse and critics
who argued that any meaningful post-colonial critique must take the structure
of the international political economy seriously. This theoretical debate came
to be understood as a dualism between post-structural and Marxist authors,
whereby the former placed the lens on discourse while the latter focused on
global inequalities.11 Without rerunning this familiar ground, the core ele-
ment that emerges from this debate is that to view it as a dualism is to
deny that discourses and material conditions are mutually implicated and,
as such, cannot be thought of as independent dynamics. Thus, when Spivak
asks ‘can the subaltern speak?’ her point is not to reify speech over the mate-
rial conditions that constrain and enable speech, but to illustrate their mutual
imbrication. Similarly, when Edward Said writes of a complex history of ‘orien-
talist’ discourse that generates culturally and racially informed and reinforced
hierarchies, his point is not to shun global economic inequalities, but to argue
that material and political dispossession is enabled by a discursive order that
not only shaped colonial times, but permeates to the present.12
When peacebuilders land in a zone of conflict, they do not emerge from
a social vacuum, nor are their actions informed by the problems they con-
front afresh on the ground. Peacebuilders might be seen as the embodiment
of global governance structures, the discourses and practices of which are
Vivienne Jabri 161
mobilized towards the shaping of the future. The subaltern might be said to
come into direct contact with the institutional ‘weight of the world’.13 Whether
the subaltern can speak in these circumstances, how they speak, where their
speech is directed, are all pertinent questions, the answers to which cannot be
predetermined. However, the form that speech takes and the content of its artic-
ulation are contingent on structural forces that are not simply discursive, nor
is their normative framing confined to human rights. These structural forces
define the material distribution of capacities, a distribution that informs the
ownership and control of resources. The context of peacebuilding is, hence,
also an international political economy wherein the primacy of the market is
the linchpin of a neoliberal global order.
We might therefore ask: what are the conditions of possibility that generate
the particular frameworks of interpretation whereby ‘failure’ is the predomi-
nant signifier of the post-colonial state and the people inhabiting it? Where
do these conditions locate culpability for such failure, and how do these
frameworks of interpretation inform the design and implementation of prac-
tices on the ground? It is clear that discursive formations, embedded and deeply
rooted discursive practices that are then regenerated and perpetuated, have
some significant role in enabling the types of interventions we have witnessed.
However, these discourses are also situated within and enabled by both institu-
tional continuities and what we might refer to as the conditions on the ground,
the actuality of practices in the post-colonial state that feed into and invite,
or legitimate, the interpretative schema of liberal interventionism. As will
be shown below, a number of dualisms run through peacebuilding practices
and operations that, when challenged, problematize the underlying discursive
edifice that informs the imaginary of intervention in the post-colonial world.
It is difficult to escape the discourse of failure when witnessing the contin-
ued immiseration and impoverishment of populations in contexts of richly
endowed post-colonial states. Kwame Nkrumah’s assertion that colonial rule
had ended, but nevertheless sub-Saharan states continued to be subject to
an unequal, and indeed neo-colonial, international political economy, while
acceptable as an interpretation, nevertheless faces serious scrutiny in a late
modern context, where local decisions relating to revenues from external
investments might be made, and where the welfare of populations is not always
given priority.14 Added to the complex mix of a global market place that is
deeply present, and state structures and governing elites that present minimal
regulation of investor activity, is an international institutional apparatus, the
remit of which is to sustain and encourage the primacy of the global market.
This structural context is not a ‘cause’ of the forms of breakdown and frag-
mentation that characterize conflicts in the post-colonial world, from Africa to
Asia and the Middle East. To suggest a linear causal relationship between the
structural location of these societies and the types of violent conflict witnessed
in these regions is clearly not satisfactory as a mode of explanation. What is

significant is to explore the relationship between these structural forces and
discourses of ‘failure’ that inform peacebuilding practices.
We might start by suggesting that ‘failure’ as a construct in the liberal
worldview suggests an inability to adapt to the imperatives of the global polit-
ical economy, one defining feature of which is that it is neoliberal; that is, it
demands the diminution of the role of the state in the regulation of the market,
including industry, extraction and agriculture, and the liberation of financial
transactions and the practices of the banking sector. For David Harvey, the
emergence of this distinctly neoliberal ‘transformation’ took place in the late
1970s; he even suggests 1978–80 as the defining years of a global and domes-
tic steer, the ramifications of which are felt across the world.15 What, then,
is neoliberalism, and what does the ‘doctrine’ tell us about the ‘structure’ of
the global political economy? Are discourses of ‘failure’ informed by the doc-
trine, or are they informed by objective measures relating to the workings of a
structure?
For David Harvey, neoliberalism is ‘a theory of political economic practices
that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating indi-
vidual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework
characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.
The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appro-
priate to such practices.’16 The doctrine is so powerful that it is not confined
to particular leaders of Western states, but permeates thinking across states,
international institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), and domestic institu-
tions, from hospitals to universities. It has become the ‘common-sense way
many of us interpret, live in, and understand the world’.17 The doctrine, in
other words, has acquired hegemonic standing: the taken-for-granted discur-
sive framework that informs decisions at crisis points and the most routine of
practices.
What is significant for our present purposes in Harvey’s analysis is his claim
that the road towards this hegemony is riven with ‘creative destruction’.18 What
does he mean by this, and how might we use it to think about discourses of ‘fail-
ure’ and their conditions of possibility? The destructions are primarily aimed at
former state institutions and regulatory frameworks: the state’s welfare remit is
a particular target too, but so are social institutions, such as trade unions, that
seek to preserve regulatory practices, the rights of workers, and the rights of
those who, for one reason or another, are out of work. Marketability and market
transactions are, or have become, the paramount concerns both domestically
and globally.
We can see from the above that practices that seek to govern post-colonial
societies and their public and private institutions are framed by this wider
Vivienne Jabri 163
global neoliberal imperative that seeks to undermine the public side of the
equation. Governance in post-conflict societies must be led primarily by pri-
vate institutions, and while, in theory, these might be local or transnational,
the distribution of resources will always favour the latter. In this neoliberal
context, the post-colonial state, varying in its territorial hold, its control of
civil society and its commitment to political and economic transformation,
and seeking to consolidate power internally, found itself, and indeed continues
to find itself, in the grip of a colonial legacy structurated in the continuities
of neo-colonialism. Herein lies the paradox of peacebuilding; in practices that
seek to govern the space of society and that of the state, purportedly in the
name of peace, the consequence is the undermining of any space wherein
legitimate political authority might be built. The absence of legitimacy then
contributes to the breakdown of social solidarity and any direct relationship
between citizen and state. Neoliberalism undoes the post-colonial imaginary,
one built on the struggle for self-determination and, as Nkrumah points out,
political emancipation.19
On reading Nkrumah, one of the greatest post-colonial leaders, we begin to
understand the fundamental problem that lies at the heart of peacebuilding
as a machinery of government, now globally sanctioned. Nkrumah’s analy-
sis of specifically sub-Saharan African political economies remains a powerful
pointer to the structural positioning of post-colonial societies in an interna-
tional political economy dominated by the former colonial powers and other
Western entities, public and private. His perspective is distinctly global, situ-
ating the post-colonial state’s aspirations, economic and political, within the
constraints of a colonial legacy of dispossession. This legacy is seen to impact
not just on the location of the post-colony in the global political economy, but
on the polity itself and the distribution of wealth as well as allegiance among
its population.
Advocates of peacebuilding practices, on the other hand, provide a wholly
different analysis, contriving a discourse that, on the one hand, asserts recog-
nition of the sovereignty of the post-colonial state, while, on the other, it
engages in the government of populations through the minutiae of their local
conflicts and divisions. The lens, in other words, shifts away from global struc-
tural forces towards what are deemed to be local dis-functionalities, such as
tribal division or corruption, even as social divisions based on ‘local’ identi-
ties are reinforced. We might say that the colonial rationality is all too visible
in practices whose remit is liberal government. More importantly, this ratio-
nality is not itself informed by the imperatives of the immediate context of
conflict, but by a wider global domain, where political agency as such is under-
mined in the name of technocratic proficiency. The institutional machinery
of peacebuilding is the articulation of this global domain translated into the
microcosmic government of local populations on the ground.
Concluding remarks
The colonial rationality I describe above is all-pervasive, and certainly not con-
fined to global hegemonic or former colonial powers. It is not an attitude or
merely a set of perceptions. Rather, it is an epistemic positioning that finds artic-
ulation in the microcosm of practices. Manifestations of this rationality might
be attributed to institutions and individuals, certainly the ‘internationals’ that
land in conflict zones. At the same time, we might identify a post-colonial
rationality, the potential of which can be a limiting reflection of the colonial
encounter as a formative and lasting legacy. References to sovereignty are now
continually present in peacebuilding documents, especially those of the UN.
The character of the peacebuilding remit is, however, so powerfully informed
by the colonial rationality that any potential limit that the post-colonial might
present is diminished into insignificance in the immediacy of practices. Even
assumptions related to the empowerment of ‘locals’ are informed historically
by a legacy of indirect rule in colonial societies, where the tribal and ethnic
division of populations was a technology in colonial domination.
That the colonial rationality informs the practices of peacebuilding oper-
ations is well captured in Zia Haider Rahman’s novel In the Light of What
We Know:
Did she think that Afghanistan was the only place that mattered? And did
she think that I might be flattered into coming? Worse still, did she think
that anyone could make such a difference? She did, they all did, this invad-
ing force of new missionaries. They were an army in all but name, not
the army carrying guns that cleared their path, nor one carrying food or
medicine. But they came bearing advice and with the arrogance to believe
that they could make all the difference.
The missionary zeal associated with the interventions of the recent past, and
those that continue into the present, assumes a self-legislating global remit
that, at least in certain parts of the world, especially in the Middle East
and South Asia, have had catastrophic consequences. We might widen the
scope of this investigation to consider perspectives on what is referred to as
‘global governance’. Here, too, as Muppidi has argued, we might distinguish
between colonial and post-colonial perspectives, in that the former have, in the
post-9/11 context, come to prevail in advocacies of a return to forms of impe-
rialism, or what we might conceive as late modern forms of colonization.20
Peacebuilding is now one of the prevailing modes through which ‘armies in
all but name’ come to govern the lands and populations of those still deemed
incapable of self-government.
To highlight the proximity of peacebuilding interventions to the colo-
nial encounter is not to elaborate on a normative perspective that somehow
Vivienne Jabri 165
condemns one approach and advocates another. Nor is it simply to pro-

vide a critique, though this is a crucial component of a critical reading of
peacebuilding in post-coloniality. Rather, what is at stake is the research pro-
gramme itself, for it is such critiques that enable closer scrutiny into the
relationship between internationals and locals in situated contexts of conflict
and the immediate aftermath of conflict.
At the same time, the contributions that a critique can make to the research
programme can be reinforced precisely with the advocacy of alternative concep-
tions of what a ‘post-colonial peace’ might look like. Reading Franz Fanon and
Achilles Mbembe, any post-colonial author, and certainly post-colonial popula-
tions, are all too aware of their inheritance of colonial violence and the violence
of some post-colonial states against communities that come under their con-
trol. For Fanon, looking to ‘Europe’ for answers is not desirable: ‘Come, then,
comrades, the European game has finally ended; we must find something dif-
ferent.’21 Interestingly, for Fanon, this does not mean a wholesale rejection of
everything European: ‘It is a question of the Third World starting a new his-
tory of Man, a history which will have regard to the sometimes prodigious
theses which Europe has put forward, but which will also not forget Europe’s
crimes . . . .’22
There are, hence, a number of ways in which we might consider a post-
colonial perspective on ‘peace’, and it seems constitutively formative to think
of such a perspective as one whose framing starts with the recognition of
‘independence’ as the ‘indispensable condition for the existence of men and
women who are truly liberated’.23 This suggests political independence, but also
liberation from colonial and post-colonial (or neo-colonial) dispossession. Inter-
nationally, the post-colonial rationality informing responses to conflict might
be conceived in terms of models of ‘conflict resolution’ wherein all parties have
a voice; and it might also be conceived in terms of the various historical roles
that post-colonial states have played in rendering the international responsive
to struggles for independence and against racist discrimination and domina-
tion. In this context, a post-colonial rationality might also reinforce the roles
that regional organizations can play in resolving regional conflicts and in devel-
oping an ‘independent’ voice in international politics. Peace, conceived in this
distinctly post-colonial perspective, remains a project ‘in process and on trial’,
to mis- and ab-use Julia Kristeva. There are no models or blueprints, only recog-
nition that what differentiates the temporal prefix post is a political subjectivity
based on some understanding of ‘independence’.
Notes
1. For an elaboration on the distinction between what she refers to as the ‘colonial’
and ‘post-colonial’ rationality, see Vivienne Jabri, ‘Peacebuilding, the Local, and the
International: A Colonial or a Postcolonial Rationality?’ Peacebuilding 1, no. 1 (2013):

3–16. That peacebuilding is acknowledged as a form of intervention that might be
conceived in a discourse of colonialism, specifically the mission to civilize, is sug-
gested in Roland Paris, ‘International Peacebuilding and the “Mission Civilisatrice” ’,
Review of International Studies 28, no. 4 (2002): 637–656.
2. For an account that locates peacebuilding in the context of developmental and
securitizing agendas, see especially Mark Duffield, Development, Security and Unending
War: Governing the World of Peoples (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007).
3. For Sankaran Krishna, ‘the social construction of past, present, and future for state
elites and educated middle classes in the third world are mimetic constructions
of what has supposedly already happened elsewhere, namely Europe or the west’.
Krishna suggests that this has produced what he refers to as ‘postcolonial anxi-
ety’. See Sankaran Krishna, Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka, and the Question
of Nationhood (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999) for an excel-
lent analysis of the Sri Lanka conflict interpreted from this particular post-colonial
perspective.
4. For a discussion of the post-colonial state and the defining power that the inter-
national as such provides, see Vivienne Jabri, The Postcolonial Subject: Claiming
Politics/Governing Others in Late Modernity (London and New York: Routledge, 2012).
5. Nowhere is this more clearly apparent than in Adam Curtis’s documentary, Bitter
Lake, on the history of intervention in Afghanistan, where a foreign teacher is seen
conducting an art class for Afghan women, where the subject is Marcel Duchamp’s
‘Fountain’, a porcelain urinal. She correctly refers to the ‘revolutionary’ impact of this
particular installation for Western art. Her audience, unsurprisingly, look surprised
and somewhat bemused. See Adam Curtis, Bitter Lake (BBC, 2015).
6. This is not to reify the post-colonial state, but to argue that the ways in which
power operates through peacebuilding practices may not be through a direct racial
definition of the population and hence its domination, but indirectly, through the
perpetuation of a local customary machinery whereby the local comes to be inter-
preted in terms of tribally instantiated customary rule that must undermine the very
idea of the nation as a distinct political community. See Mahmoud Mamdani, Citizen
and Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), on the uses of customary
rule and their implications for the post-colonial state in Africa.
7. See, for example, Vivienne Jabri, War and the Transformation of Global Politics (London
and New York: Palgrave, 2007) and Duffield, Development, Security and Unending
War, for elaborations on this Foucauldian understanding of governmentality and
applications of this concept to governing practices implemented in contexts of
conflict.
8. For the detail of such interventionist practices and local reactions thereto, see
Maria O’Reilly, Catastrophe, Memory and Gendered Activism: Peacebuilding in Bosnia-
Herzegovina (PhD thesis: King’s College London, 2014).
9. For greater elaboration on conceptualizations of ‘the local’ (its ‘romanticization’,
‘deromanticization’ and local ‘resistance’) that emerge in peacebuilding settings
such as the experiences in East Timor, Cambodia, Bosnia and Kosovo, see Oliver
Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace (London and New York: Routledge, 2011).
10. On the idea of ‘hybrid agency’, see, for example, various chapters in Oliver Richmond
and Audra Mitchell, Hybrid Forms of Peace: From Everyday Agency to Post-Liberalism
(London and New York: Palgrave, 2012); Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Hybrid Peace: The
Interaction between Top-Down and Bottom-Up Peace’, Security Dialogue 41, no. 4
(2010): 391–412.
Vivienne Jabri 167
11. One of the foremost critics of post-colonial perspectives influenced by post-structural

thought was Aijaz Ahmad. See Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures
(London: Verso, 1992). For a discussion of the debate, see, for example, Ilan Kapoor,
‘Capitalism, Culture, Agency: Dependency versus Postcolonial Theory’, Third World
Quarterly 23, no. 4 (2002): 647–664.
12. See, respectively, Gayatri Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ in Marxism and the Inter-
pretation of Culture, eds Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (London: Macmillan,
1988); Edward Said, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (London: Penguin,
1978).
13. I borrow this expression from Pierre Bourdieu et al., The Weight of the World: Social
Suffering in Contemporary Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999).
14. Kwame Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite (New York: Praeger, 1963).
15. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
16. Ibid., 2.
17. Ibid., 3.
18. Ibid.
19. Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite.
20. Himadeep Muppidi, ‘Colonial and Postcolonial Global Governance’, in Power in
Global Governance, eds Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005); Jabri, War and the Transformation of Global Politics.
21. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (London: Penguin, 1967), 252–253.
22. Ibid., 254.
23. Ibid., 250.
12
Religion: Peace through Non-Violence
in Four Religious Traditions
Caron E. Gentry
The purpose of this chapter is to understand religious approaches to peace

from four faith traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam (listed
in order of chronological establishment). This chapter argues that the four
faith traditions have much in common, and these commonalities can be wit-
nessed in each faith’s emphasis on non-violence and the disciplines that sustain
the commitment to non-violence. Peace in each tradition is connected to a
metaphysical hermeneutic, one that cannot be separated from how followers
demonstrate their faith through their care for other humans. Thus, an empha-
sis is placed on respect for human life that comes from and is sustained by a
person of faith’s commitment to her/his religious practices, including love, rec-
onciliation and benevolence. In order to demonstrate these commonalities, the
chapter will elucidate how each religion defines peace and how this informs its
pacifist approach. These commonalities also differentiate a religious approach
to peace from the liberal peace, mainly in how the traditions define the source
of peace and the spiritual connection with the said source. Finally, the chapter
will look at the tensions in religious non-violence, mainly that each tradition
also contains a strong ‘just war’ legacy.
While I have written as a feminist Christian political theologian, I am com-
mitted to ecumenical, inter-faith practices that highlight similarities across
religions rather than creating problematic distances and space. Thus, the lan-
guage in this chapter may reflect at times a Christian discourse, but this is not
meant to impose a particular perspective or to lessen others. All traditions are
of equal importance, and a better understanding of our commonalities will
inform a better peace. I believe it is important to attempt ‘epistemic justice’1
and to treat all four religions with honesty and respect.
This is intrinsically connected to ‘moral imagination’, which Lederach2
argues enables non-violence and peace to flourish through the letting go of
rigid dogmas and doctrines. He argues that3
168
Caron E. Gentry 169
the moral imagination rises with the capacity to imagine ourselves in

relationship, the willingness to embrace complexity without reliance on
dualistic polarity, and belief in the creative act, and acceptance of the inher-
ent risk required to break violence and to venture on unknown paths that
build constructive change.
Likewise, the exploration of four different yet related religious non-violent tra-
ditions reveals commonalities that should enable dialogue and recognition that
there is value in all of the traditions. Furthermore, I acknowledge that the cov-
erage of all four traditions may be seen as superficial, but note that this is so
only because of limited space.
Peace defined in four religious traditions
To begin, it must be clear that people of faith regard peace as both a temporal
state of being and a metaphysical one. Practitioners of the faiths as diverse as
the four under discussion here, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam,
are required to live a disciplined life where peace is the intended outcome.
In Hinduism, this is related to dharma (principles that order the universe, allow-
ing life and order to flourish) and ahimsā (non-violence), as inherited from
Buddhism by way of Jainism. In Buddhism, ahimsā is an enabling virtue for
karunā (compassion), one of the highest virtues.4 In Christianity and Islam,
metaphysical peace comes from the Deity – knowing that real peace is not
achieved until the ultimate reconciliation with God or Allah. However, to love
and respect their Deity requires them to love and respect all of humanity via
either Christian agape or Muslim muhabat. Still, in all four traditions, love
informed by a particular belief sustains a quest for peace in this world.
Generally, peace is achieved through justice, which is the absence of all forms
of violence and oppression. Violence is broadly defined ‘to include a wide range
of negative human actions harmful to other living beings, living organisms,
ecosystems, and the environment’.5 In all four traditions of pacifist peace seek-
ing, violence and oppression cannot be responded to in kind, but must be met
with love, patience and tolerance. This non-violent response takes creativity
and an acknowledgment of personal responsibility and vulnerability. While
pacifism is sometimes derided for being ‘passive’ and the stance of the weak,
a true, deep understanding of pacifism reveals it to be a brave one, born out
of commitment and fearlessness. This section of the chapter will look at how
understanding peace in this world is dependent upon a larger metaphysic.
Hinduism
Hinduism is the oldest faith tradition under study, and it bears a relationship
with Buddhism, in part because there was a close co-existence between the two
for centuries.6 Historically, peace has been related to shanti, which is an inner
tranquillity and calm achieved through meditation and avoidance of bad karma
(the force produced by a person’s actions that influences their future lives).
In modern times, Gandhi’s allegorical interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita led to
a socio-political interpretation of ahimsā, the practice of non-violence towards
animals and humans, thus providing a path away from bad karma.7 It was
Gandhi who fully introduced to Hinduism the practice of ahimsā, which had
been a lesser virtue for centuries, inherited from Buddhism by way of Jainism.8
According to Gandhi, the only path to peace in Hinduism is to seek truth, say-
taghara, but this truth cannot be driven by individualistic and thus divisive
desires.9 Further, oppression and violence are derived from bad motives; while
these actions harm others, they ultimately harm the self by inviting bad karma –
thus inhibiting true peace.10
Buddhism
In Buddhism, peace is related to both personal discipline and good governance.
Peace is connected to restraint and self-control, living with pure ethics, prac-
ticing non-violence and being at peace with the universe. Ahimsā is enabled
through mettā, loving kindness. Peace and mettā are intrinsically related, as
mettā allows a person to let go of conflict through the meditative practice
of purifying the mind of delusions that distort a human’s worldview.11 The
Buddha, in a passage from the Dhammapada, states:
Though well-dressed [that is, not wearing the rags of a [piously egotistical]
religious practitioner],
If he should live in peace, with restraint and self-control, living with pure
ethics,
Laying aside violence towards all living beings,
He is indeed a holy one, a renunciate, a member of the spiritual community.
Buddhists cultivate an inner peace, which enables an outer peace, of a mettā-

based ethic. Like the other religions, Buddhism recognizes that personal actions
have an impact on the world around them. Thus, Aung San Suu Kyi’s writ-
ings clarify how individual actions have a political result, particularly when
she highlights the important legacy of good governance with Buddhism. She12
writes that when society ‘fell from its original state of purity . . . a king was
elected to restore peace and justice’. Ahimsā was intrinsic to the duties of a
good ruler: ‘The good ruler vanquishes ill will with loving kindness [mettā],
wickedness with virtue, parsimony with liberality, and falsehood with truth.’13
Suu Kyi exemplifies the inner discipline of a practising Buddhist and how
Caron E. Gentry 171
this inner tranquillity results in the exterior, political practice of mettā and
ahimsā.
Christianity
Peace comes from God and from the reconciliation brought by the life and
death of Jesus. Peace is ultimately a metaphysical understanding of humanity’s
own salvation and reconciliation with the Trinity. This ultimate, unchangeable
understanding of peace through salvation requires Christians to act peace-ably
in this world.14 In Christianity, peace also means to live in harmony: living in
relationship with God in the imago dei requires that humans live in harmony
with those around them in community (communion).15 It is enabled through
agape, as will be discussed in the next section. Discussions of how to live in
harmony and peace can be found in the Beatitudes, the start of Jesus’ Sermon
on the Mount, which undoes human ideas of success, wealth and well-being.
The Beatitudes locate wealth in God’s Kingdom rather than in earthly joys; this
focus has led to the construction of the Sermon on the Mount as a call for social
justice and the eradication of structural violence through the loving actions of
Christians.16 Moreover, Jesus enjoins His listeners to act as pacifists:
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.
...
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons [sic] of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all
kinds of evil against you because of me.
(Matthew 5: 7–12)
Islam
Islam in Arabic translates as the ‘making of peace’ and/or submission to Allah –
the concepts are often considered one and the same. Peace, therefore, is a dom-
inant idea in Islam. A Muslim is one who is at peace with Allah, living in
‘complete submission to His will, which is the source of all purity and good-
ness, and peace with others implies the doing of good to fellow humans’.17
Peace is thus a physical, mental, spiritual and social harmony18 and is a result of
order and justice.19 Achieving it eliminates all forms of violence and anything
that might lead to conflict and the ‘corruption . . . it creates’.20 Heavy emphasis
is placed on a believer’s relationship with Allah, doing Allah’s will, and from
these, the believer’s relationship with other humans. Peace is therefore enabled
by human responsibility for their actions, and that responsibility, alongside

submission, leads to (good) political outcomes.21
The Golden Rule: Peace and non-violence and a disinterested self
In some ways, the religious traditions share quite a bit with the assump-
tions of liberal peace, which may not be so surprising, as it is a result of
the Judeo-Christian tradition read through an Enlightenment lens. Relying on
Richmond’s22 enumerated liberal peace assumptions from Peace in International
Relations, here are some commonalties:
• Peace is an ‘optimal’ condition.

• It is, depending on religious approach, globally achievable.
• It is defined by identity and religio-ideological interests.
• Each religious tradition sees peace as a truth, if possibly not entirely
objective.
But there are significant differences. Religious ideas of peace are connected
to a person of faith’s metaphysical understanding of the world which
humans inhabit. This differs quite substantially from a modern, Enlightenment
approach to peace. While each religion has historic and current ties to politics,
government and governance, some within each religion would see state and
collective security measures as a hindrance to the true achievement of peace.
For instance, some Christian pacifists23 see governments and security seeking as
the ‘politics of death’, which contradicts and contravenes true peace. Because
peace within the religious traditions transforms the self and aims to trans-
form society, peace is nothing short of transformative. While it takes effort to
achieve, it can be sustained. But sustainment will not be through a particular
government or economic style, as peace aims to eradicate all power structures,
something upon which the liberal peace may be all too dependent.
It is the use of non-violence and its root in love that will transform soci-
ety. Johann Galtung defines non-violence ‘as the use of positive influence to
increase the number of actions to the other’.24 It is the undoing of physical
oppression/force and structural violence because it opens up pathways away
from violence and towards fruitful solution.25 While elements of the liberal
peace may enable these solutions, most religious pacifists believe that only
grassroots methods that truly transform society from within will work, as exem-
plified in the lives of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Suu Kyi. The creation
of peace, therefore, is a spiritual requirement, filled and fulfilled by a spiri-
tual source. Pacifism in international relations scholarship is underserved,26 yet
recent studies have shown that non-violent resistance is often more effective
than political violence.27 Thus, civil disobedience or non-violent resistance is an
Caron E. Gentry 173
active commitment to ending physical and structural violence against self and
others. It is undeniably deeply normative – whether from a secular humanist
perspective or as embedded within these four (and other) religious traditions.
One way to illustrate the religious norm for non-violence is through the
‘Golden Rule’, which requires a person to treat others as s/he would like to be
treated. It may seem naïve, superficial and pedantic to rely upon the idea of the
Golden Rule; yet, the ‘Rule’ is found in civilizations and societies from ancient
to modern times and is shared by many faith traditions, not just the ones in
this chapter. However, texts from all four faiths express the same sentiment:
• From the Mahabharata: ‘One should never do that to another which one
regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma.
Other behaviour is due to selfish desire’ (Anusasana Parva, section CXIII,
verse 8).
• From the Udanavarga: ‘Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find
hurtful’ (5:18).
• From the New Testament: ‘Do to others what you want them to do to you.
This is the meaning of the Law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets’
(Matthew 7:12).
• From the Hadith: ‘the Prophet said: “As you would have people do to you,
do to them; and what you dislike to be done to you, don’t do to them” ’
(Kitab al-Kafi, vol. 2, p. 146).
It is from this universal Golden Rule that non-violence becomes an important

part of the achievement of peace. Seen as rooted in love, whether that is Hindu
ahimsā, Buddhist mettā, Christian agape or Muslim muhabat, all four religions
advocate for non-violent approaches to peace from this starting point.
Hinduism
It is in Gandhi’s life and actions that one can see a purposeful connection
between a metaphysical understanding of peace, truth and love and tempo-
ral life.28 From satyagraha and ahimsā, Gandhi found the strength (as an inner
discipline not based on aggressive physicality) to resist British colonial power.
Truth and ahimsā are inseparable: ‘opponents are viewed as human-beings sub-
ject to countervailing pressures, needs, and expectations, who cannot be judged
as more harshly than the self’.29 Gandhi’s non-violence ‘builds’ upon ‘cooper-
ation and reconciliation for mutual understanding and respect’.30 For Gandhi,
it is a positive action – not just the absence of harm but also a ‘positive state of
love, of doing good even to evildoers’.31 This informed Gandhi’s civil disobe-
dience, in which compassion was offered to the other side in spite of serious
disagreements about the politics of colonization.
Buddhism
There is absolutely no room for violence in Buddhism, because respect for all
life is paramount.32 The strength in Buddhism’s solution towards all forms of
injustice is in the practice of ‘love, kindness, chastity, truth, and forbearance’.33
Violence met with violence only leads to further injustice;34 thus, creative, non-
violent solutions are sought to address war and conflict.35 This means that
Buddhists may accept violence towards themselves as they intervene in an
unjust situation, but the only response to any violence is the practice of mettā.36
Again, Suu Kyi’s life is an exemplar. After all of the violence done to her, Suu Kyi
maintained a serene presence in Burmese politics through her constant profes-
sion of non-violent resistance. From this, she garnered international attention
(which is in many ways what protected her) and immense respect.
Christianity
Christian pacifism has been a long-standing tradition and is deeply rooted in
agape, the love of God and neighbour before the self. Christian pacifism is
often associated with the early church, or the church that formed after Christ’s
death during the hostile Roman Empire. Only when Constantine adopted
Christianity did the faith community have to begin to grapple with the pos-
session and maintenance of power. In modern Christianity, this grappling with
power has been labelled ‘Constantinianism’37 and is seen as a negative and
the opposite of what the church, as a community of believers, should be hop-
ing to achieve. Thus, within the Western Christian pacifist tradition today,
power is seen as ‘worldly’ and not something for Christians to pursue. Instead,
Christians are meant to resist power and power structures in their many forms
and live a life that serves as a peaceful, loving example.38 For some, such as
John Howard Yoder39 and Stanley Hauerwas,40 this looks like a life of service
dedicated to those on the margins.41 For others, this may mean civil resistance
and disobedience, along the lines of Martin Luther King, Jr’s activism. Both of
these paths put the life of Christ and His emphasis on the love and care for all
humans at the centre of their pacifist theologies.
Islam
Social justice is one of the strongest pathways to peace in Islam.42 The achieve-
ment of social justice happens through the practice of Islamic disciplines,
which are dependent upon ‘values such as unity, supreme love of the cre-
ator, mercy, subjection of passion, and accountability for all actions’.43 In order
to end the structural violence that allows injustice to flourish, some argue
that jihad guided by virtues and discipline is the best method.44 Jihad can
be achieved by heart, tongue or hand. Greater jihad occurs in the heart and
against one’s own weaknesses. According to Satha-Anand,45 jihad happens at
Caron E. Gentry 175
the command of both Allah and the Prophet, who ‘demand a perpetual self-
examination in terms of one’s potential to fight tyranny and oppression – a
continual reassessment of the means for achieving peace and inculcating moral
responsibility’. Satha-Anand46 connects it with understanding and patience.
Others within Islam associate jihad with disciplines that lead directly to non-
violence, such as courage, respect for humanity, resistance to oppression,
beneficence and wisdom. Love (muhabat) ranks highly among these virtues.47
However, this does not make Islam any less transformational as a religion, nor
does this lessen its intent to create a just social reality.48
From pacifism to violence: Humans’ attempt at infinitude
All four traditions see humans as limited, finite creatures who are not yet fully
aware of the human condition and the magnitude of the universe. All four
emphasize the need to open oneself up to this limitation, accept it and hope
to transcend it through reconciliation with the universe or the Deity. It is
only when humans ignore this finitude and transgress their boundaries that
war and violence occur. Pacifist non-violence is wonderfully optimistic, hoping
that humans will shun the use of violence. Yet, humans act violently. Thus,
one of the key debates on non-violence in the four religions is actually about
the lawful, or ‘just’, use of force, which will imperfectly preserve respect for
humanity.
Typically, the just use of force in all four religions means there is a thresh-
old to the use of violence that must be met. This often includes concepts that
can be generalized into just cause, right intention, respect for non-combatants
and proportional violence, which can all loosely fit within the just war tra-
dition. There are some who claim that the just war tradition only grew out
of Christianity, and perhaps more largely the Greco-Roman traditions. This is
short-sighted, as most, if not all, societies throughout recorded history have
grappled with the right use of force,49 and the following section will discuss
how these four religious traditions have struggled with the use of force to end
oppression.
Hinduism
As argued above, it was Gandhi who cemented the notion of ahimsā in the
Hindu tradition; previous to this ahimsā was meant for moksa, or people enter-
ing the final stages of their lives.50 Rambachan51 is clear that the relationship
between himsā (violence) and ahimsā is long-standing, as can be read in the
Rigveda and Bhagavad Gita. Force was seen as sometimes necessary, particularly
to protect the community, create justice and ‘def[end] . . . social and ritual order
[dharma]’.52 The Bhagavad Gita discusses the Mahabrata war as a dharma yuddha,
or a war ‘fought in defence of justice and righteousness and for the security
and well being of the community’.53 A dharma yuddha, like the Western just
war tradition, cannot be fought for attainment of power and wealth or for
conquest or the control of others. Additionally, it can only be fought as a
last resort, after peaceful means have been exhausted.54 Thus, there are very
clear restrictions on war that are meant to lead to a better peace, securing
dharma.
Buddhism
In her piece on Buddhism and violence in Burma and Sri Lanka, Juliane
Schober55 feels that it is a Western, abstracted notion only to associate
Buddhism with peace. Instead, violence continues to be a factor that confronts
Buddhist communities, including Tibet, Burma and Sri Lanka, sometimes elicit-
ing a response from them. There are historical instances of war within Buddhist
societies, including an early king who fought a brutal war. The king brought
his remorse to monks, who created a path for his rehabilitation.56 According to
Deegalle,57 this is one of the most problematic Buddhist scriptures, and should
only be read in the light of the monks’ fear of the king’s retaliation. Still, it is
this text that has been used to justify violence by both the Sinhala and Tamil
communities in Sri Lanka.58 In more recent history, Buddhist violence, recog-
nizing it as self-harm and not harm to others, can be witnessed in the choice of
numerous monks’ decision to self-immolate in protest over particular political
situations, including the Vietnam War and the rule of the Myanmar junta.59
But the overarching decision to undertake self-harm or communal protests
in Burma and Tibet is a communally driven desire to end oppression and
violence.
Christianity
As mentioned earlier, once Christianity became the religion of the (Holy)
Roman Empire, Christian theologians and rulers found it necessary to grapple
with the use of force. Adopting Grecian war principles, the just war tradition
gradually became loosely formalized. Instead of focusing on the development
of the tradition over nearly two millennia, it makes sense to focus on where
agape is in this tradition. James Turner Johnson60 focuses on the role of love
in a just war, as inherited through Augustine and Aquinas. This may seem
counter-intuitive, if not hypocritical, but Johnson61 believes that the making
and conduct of a just war should reflect Christian discipleship of contempla-
tion and intentionality. Agape prioritizes others over the self, and this priority
must be reflected in the normative restraints placed on war, mentioned earlier
in the introduction to this section.62 Further, according to another Daniel Bell,63
a just war is an ‘alien act of love’ because it limits the way the war is fought; it
is fought for the good of the enemy (which is a somewhat problematic notion
inherited from Augustine); and it shortens the duration of the war.64
Caron E. Gentry 177
Islam
As with the other three religions, there are different beliefs in the moral use of
force within Islam. Spreading peace is seen as a duty within Islam. In Islam,
the world is divided between dar al-Islam (abode of Islam) and dar al-salaam
(abode of peace) against dar al-harb (abode of war or the enemy).65 Within dar
al-Islam there is peace – all people have submitted to Allah and are practis-
ing Muslims. In order to spread peace, it is a Muslim’s sacred duty to extend
dar al-Islam into dar al-harb, even if this is through violent means. This is
where one may turn to lesser jihad against ‘infidels and enemies of the faith’.66
Lesser jihad, achieved through tongue and hand,67 is not always just a mili-
tary campaign but may include political and psychological warfare as well.68
It is not without some trepidation that this chapter only briefly covers this
topic as it is often misunderstood and misrepresented. It should be noted, how-
ever, that the waging of lesser jihad is a contested notion within Islam.69 There
are sanctions against the use of certain types of violence, including dictates
against aggression, and restrictions on types of weaponry, targets and types of
violence.70
In summation
All four religions recognize that individual actions have an impact on the world
around us and that there are normative implications in this. Because all four
religious traditions require a person to live in a particular way, guided by a
particular set of virtues and disciplines, this places constraints on behaviours
in which the person may engage. In looking at the achievement and mainte-
nance of peace, non-violence is one of the strongest paths in all four faiths. The
discipline this commitment requires should not be underestimated, and recog-
nizing the spiritual dimension that informs this discipline is key. The spiritual
dimension allows creative solutions to flourish because, within this thinking,
the person of faith is not beholden to social norms but is, instead, freed by their
faith. In a commitment to non-violence, one is able to witness love, a respect
for all of humanity, a commitment to social justice, and a creative response to
violence and suffering – in all four religions.
There is a tendency to see religious traditions as distinct entities with nothing
to bring them into conversation. As the Lederach quote at the beginning high-
lights, this is not helpful, as it creates false dichotomies that potentially hinder
dialogue and creative solutions to peace. This is not to say that these religions
are ‘the same’ or that should people of differing faiths ‘talk’ we would see world
peace. That is naïve at best and ignorant at worst. Instead, it is to argue that
by recognizing that each tradition is rooted within wilful obedience to a higher
mission – one that requires not just respect but love for all of humanity – we
can recognize the worth of all even within difference.
Notes
1. Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (Oxford: Oxford
2. John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2005), 28.
3. Nicholas F. Gier, The Virtue of Non-Violence: From Gautma to Gandhi (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2005), 29.
4. Ibid., 52–3.
5. Mahinda Deegalle, ‘Is Violence Justified in Theravāda Buddhism?’ The Ecumenical
Review 55, no. 2 (2003): 124.
6. Gregory C. Elliott, ‘Components of Pacifism: Conceptualization and Measurement’,
Journal of Conflict Resolution 24, no. 1 (1980): 27–54.
7. Gier, The Virtue of Non-Violence, 34; Varun Soni, ‘Religion, World Order, and Peace:
A Hindu Approach’, Crosscurrents, September 2010, 312.
8. Gier, The Virtue of Non-Violence.
9. Elliott, ‘Components of Pacifism’.
10. Gier, The Virtue of Non-Violence, 34.
11. Wildmind, Introduction to Loving Kindness Meditation, http://www.wildmind.org/
metta/introduction, accessed 10 March 2014.
12. Aung San Suu Kyi, ‘In Quest of Democracy’, Journal of Democracy 3, no. 1 (1992): 7.
13. Ibid., 9.
14. Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom (Notre Dame: The University of Notre
Dame Press, 1983).
15. Jean Bethke Elshtain, Who Are We? Critical Reflections and Hopeful Possibilities (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).
16. John R. W. Stott, Christian Counter-Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount
(Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 1978).
17. Mohammed Abu-Nimer, A Framework for Non-Violence and Peacebuilding in Islam,
Muis Occasional Papers Series, 2008, http://harmonycentre.sg/cms/uploadedFiles/
MuisGovSG/Research/Research_Publications/MOPS6%20IN_K5.pdf, accessed 3 April
2014.
18. Ibid., 18.
19. Ibid., 12.
20. Ibid., 26.
21. Ibid., 28.
22. Oliver P. Richmond, Peace in International Relations (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), 8–9.
23. Stanley Hauerwas and Romand Coles, Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordi-
nary: Conversations between A Radical Democrat and a Christian (Eugene: Cascade
Books, 2008), 7.
24. Elliott, ‘Components of Pacifism’, 33.
25. Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 29; Hauerwas and Coles, Christianity, Democracy,
and the Radical Ordinary, 100.
26. Caron E. Gentry, Offering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), 90.
27. Maria J. Stephen and Erica Chenoweth, ‘Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic
Logic of Non-Violent Conflict’, International Security 33, no. 1 (2008): 7–44.
28. Anthony J. Parel, Gandhi’s Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), x.
29. Elliott, ‘Components of Pacifism’, 30–31.
Caron E. Gentry 179
30. Varun Soni, ‘Religion, World Order, and Peace’, 310–311.

32. Deegalle, ‘Is Violence Justified in Theravāda Buddhism?’ 123, 129.
33. Ibid., 128.
34. Ibid., 129.
35. Ibid., 127.
36. Ibid., 128.
37. John H. Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978); Hauerwas and
Coles, Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary, 21.
38. Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom.
39. Yoder, The Politics of Jesus.
40. Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom; Hauerwas and Coles, Christianity, Democracy, and
the Radical Ordinary; Stanley Hauerwas and Jean Vanier, Living Gently in a Violent
World: The Prophetic Witness of Weakness (Downer’s Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press,
2008).
41. Hauerwas and Vanier, Living Gently in a Violent World, 46.
42. Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Non-Violence and Peacebuilding in Islam: Theory and Practice
(Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2003), 49.
43. Abu-Nimer, Non-Violence and Peacebuilding in Islam, 49.
44. Chaiwat Satha-Anand, ‘The Non-Violent Crescent: Eight Theses on Muslim Non-
Violent Actions’, in Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam: Precept and Practice, eds
Abdul Aziz Said, Nathan C. Funk and Ayse Kadayifci (Washington, DC: University
Press of America, 1990), 10.
45. Satha-Anand, ‘The Non-Violent Crescent: Eight Theses on Muslim Non-Violent
Actions’, 10.
46. Ibid., 20–21; Abu-Nimer, Non-Violence and Peacebuilding in Islam, chapter 2.
47. Abu-Nimer, Non-Violence and Peacebuilding in Islam; R. Islam Ahmad, ‘Non-Violence,
and Global Transformation’, in Islam and Non-Violence, eds Glenn D. Paige, Chaiwat
Satha-Anand and Sarah Gilliat (Honolulu: Centre for Global Nonviolence, 2001), 39.
48. Abu-Nimer, Non-Violence and Peacebuilding in Islam, 49.
49. Laura Sjoberg, Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq: A Feminist Reformulation of Just War
Theory (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006), 8.
50. Anantanand Rambachan, ‘The Co-Existence of Violence and Non-Violence in
Hinduism’, The Ecumenical Review 55, no. 2 (2003): 117.
51. Ibid., 115.
52. Ibid., 116.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Gentry, Offering Hospitality.
56. Deegalle, ‘Is Violence Justified in Theravāda Buddhism?’ 125.
57. Ibid.
59. Juliane Schober, ‘Buddhism, Violence, and the State in Burma (Myanmar) and Sri
Lanka’, in Religion and Conflict in South and Southeast Asia: Disrupting Violence, eds
Linell E. Cady and Sheldon W. Simon (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007).
60. Daniel M. Bell, Jr, Just War as Christian Discipleship: Recentering the Tradition in the
Church rather than the State (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2009).
61. James T. Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1981), pp. xxxi, 31.
62. Gentry, Offering Hospitality, 115–124.

63. Bell, Just War as Christian Discipleship, 176–177.
64. Gentry, Offering Hospitality, 122–124.
65. Majid Khadduri, ‘Islam and the Modern Law of Nations’, American Journal of Inter-
national Law 50, no. 2 (1956): 359; Bassam Tibi, ‘War and Peace in Islam’, in The
Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives, ed. Terry Nardin (Cambridge:
66. Khadduri, ‘Islam and the Modern Law of Nations’.
67. Satha-Anand, ‘The Non-Violent Crescent’, 10.
68. Khadduri, ‘Islam and the Modern Law of Nations’, 359.
69. Tibi, ‘War and Peace in Islam’; John Kelsay, Arguing the Just War in Islam (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).
70. Tibi, ‘War and Peace in Islam’, 180.
13
Gender: The Missing Piece in the Peace
Puzzle
Annika Björkdahl and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic
Introduction
Several scholars from various theoretical perspectives have proposed pieces of

the peace puzzle.1 As scholars fit together the sometimes disparate pieces of this
puzzle, the missing pieces become more visible, and gender is among them.
While gender studies, feminist international relations (IR) scholars, and peace
and conflict researchers informed by a gender perspective have contributed
to this puzzle, epistemological, ontological and methodological barriers have
often prevented this work from attracting a mainstream audience.2
By bringing in feminist theory and a gender perspective, new critical ques-
tions have been raised: Whose peace? Peace for whom? How do men and
women experience war and peace differently? What is a gender-informed def-
inition of peace? Such questions have helped broaden the concepts of peace,3
contributed to refashioning the agenda of peace education and identified con-
flict resolution practices that are gender-sensitive.4 Furthermore, such critical
questions have gendered notions of politics, power and security, added the
dimension of militarism by connecting gender and militarism, patriarchy and
war,5 and mapped the different effects of conflict on men and women, as well
as the marginalization of women in conflict resolution and peace processes.6
These endeavours advance the critical peace research agenda, and looking
through the gender lens brings to light ‘new’ aspects of peace which have
ontological and epistemological implications.
This chapter will provide a gendered reading of peace research in order to
investigate various understandings of peace and situate peace in gender studies.
Such a reading, although limited due to space constraints, challenges estab-
lished dichotomies of war/peace, private/public and masculinity/femininity.
Peace and gender studies have both ties and tensions, and we aim to dis-
entangle some of the essential debates that merge the two. In so doing, we
foreground structure and agency and provide a gendered reading of their
181
interconnectedness with peace. Thus, this chapter will make visible three
key theoretical moves that gender studies have made in engendering and
reconceptualizing peace. First, we depict other spaces where peace takes place
(formal–informal, public–private, everyday), and by doing so we can criti-
cally assess the peace dividend. Second, we challenge temporal limits and the
dichotomy of war/peace to reveal the continuities of violence and the femi-
nization of poverty. The third move assists us in making visible other agents
and agency in the margins foregrounding plural subject positions. As part of
this endeavour, we trace the development of peace as a gendered concept over
time. A specific characteristic in gender studies of peace is the belief in emanci-
pation and transformation, which it shares with the pacifist movement. Gender
analyses attempt to redefine peace so that it reflects the empirical world and
becomes open to the voices of those who, in fact, experience conflict and war
in its variations and manifestations. Such an analytical concern involves a cri-
tique of dominant discourses of peace regarding their focus on abstract realities
of states. A gender analysis of peace foregrounds both context and agency,
demonstrating that abstract notions of peace ‘from above’ do not and can-
not respond to context, which may be war, but also violence in the home, or
poverty.
A gendered understanding of peace diverges substantially from the liberal
peace, as it makes peace visible in the everyday and built from below.7 It brings
to the fore equality, social welfare and equity, and by being emancipatory, it
also provides for shifts in existing power and gender relations. In this chapter,
we discuss how this relates to current debates on liberal peace, and find that
the relationship to the liberal peace paradigm is two-fold. On the one hand,
gender studies embraces universal values of human rights, which are at the
centre of the liberal agenda, yet on the other hand, critics have challenged
liberal peace for being gender-blind, and post-colonial thought has identified
echoes of colonialism. We also illustrate how the gendered conceptualizations
of peace have impacted on research and practices pertaining to human security,
Responsibility to Protect (R2P), the UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR)
1325 and liberal peacebuilding.
Gender
A given point of departure for a gendered reading of peace is the notion of

gender.8 Gender is a central system of power in all human activities. It is a
cross-cutting analytical frame that helps us see how power relations develop in
the lives of individuals, what activities they are likely to engage in, and how
much power they are able to exert over their own life choices. Many fem-
inists regard the gender order as constituted by and dependent on a power
hierarchy of masculinities and femininities in which the ideal of hegemonic
Annika Björkdahl and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic 183
masculinity is superior.9 Ideas of gender are a way of categorization that also

informs, and in turn is shaped by, the larger material and social processes – for
example globalization, militarization or peacebuilding. These ideas form a
symbolic system of meanings that produces and distributes power among indi-
viduals, organizations, institutions and states: a system of meanings that ‘makes
sense’ and legitimates hierarchies and systems of subordination.10 It is a cen-
tral discourse that defines not only how we organize our daily lives, but also
how we perceive the world at large11 – providing ‘a familiar set of metaphors,
dichotomies and values which structure ways of thinking about other aspects
of the world, including war and security’.12
Pacifism and feminism – Historical and contemporary ties and

tensions
Ever since Mary Wollstonecraft’s writings on the rights of women as well as

the French Revolution (1792), engagement with the concept of peace has been
an intrinsic part of feminist theory. This engagement became vocal as part of
the protest movements that developed in response to the two world wars in
the twentieth century. The feminist and pacifist movements formed strong
bonds through a shared anti-militaristic transformative agenda that stood up
against the patriotism of the time. One key agent was the Women’s Interna-
tional League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).13 The suffragettes drew attention
to the fact that women were excluded from decision making on war and peace,
and regarded the prevention of future wars and female suffrage as inextricably
linked.14
Women peace activists during the First World War, such as Jane Addams,
Emily Green Balch, Lida Gustava Heymann and Anita Augspurg, combined
advocacy for women’s suffrage with peace activism and promoted a vision of
peace based on progressive, social justice feminism. This vision of peace rested
on a discourse of shared humanity and the idea that sustainable peace went
beyond the cessation of violence and that inequity, including gender inequity,
would lead to renewed conflict.15 Their understanding of war demonstrated
continuities of violence, including that war did not stop at the battlefield or
with a ceasefire and peace agreement. In an early observation of spatial continu-
ities across the public/private dichotomy, the author Virginia Woolf connected
public tyranny with private tyranny.16
These early debates rested generally on a discourse of maternalism that
further developed in the post-war feminist peace theories. Women’s ‘innate’
qualities were coupled with peace, and patriarchy was identified as a social sys-
tem that kept men in power through glorifying aggression. ‘Maternal thinking’
was understood as a key cornerstone in peace, and women’s essential qualities
as caregivers had to be at the centre of any lasting peace.17
Yet, for many critics, the coupling of women with attributes of nurturing
was an intellectual cul-de-sac that actually reinforced gendered exclusions from
power. Simone de Beauvoir had analysed how the construction of women
as representing nature relegates them to the private spheres of society,18 and
Jean Bethke Elshtain showed how essentialist thinking on peace as depen-
dent on women’s innate peacefulness reinforces security discourses, and that
dichotomies such as the female ‘beautiful soul’ and the male ‘just warrior’
are powerful drivers in the patriotic mobilization for war.19 Hence, claims of
women’s moral superiority did not challenge gender hierarchies, but simply
inverted them.20
The ‘third wave’ feminism added complexity to the understanding of peace.
Post-colonial feminist analysis, for example, brought in an intersectional per-
spective to connect gender with class, sexuality and race.21 Such analyses also
astutely identified how discursive constructions of the (brown) female subject
as always in need of being ‘saved’ or ‘civilized’ have travelled from colonial
times into the logic of present-day peace interventions.22 Deconstruction of the
gendered subject is still at the centre of the ongoing critical discussion on how
masculinities and femininities are constructed in relation to war and peace;
making visible the multiple roles that women can play in war and peace, not
only as nurturing mothers but also as violent agents and fighters in liberation
wars, also showed the limited agentive space that is available for women by
unpacking three dominant narratives of women’s agency: ‘the mother’, ‘the
monster’ and ‘the whore’.23
Despite these gains, we still see today that peace research and policy are,
to a great extent, gender-blind, and the conventional response in both camps
has been to ‘add women and stir’. In what follows, we will further unpack the
meaning of peace in gender and feminist research, and show how a gender
perspective has helped unveil structures and agents that conventional peace
research has been slow to recognize.
A gendered reading of peace
The concept of peace, defined as the absence of war, is in itself gendered, and
efforts to promote broader notions of peace or peace(s), such as positive peace,
emancipatory peace, gendered peace or gender-just peace, are seen as utopian,
and have thus been regarded as irrelevant to rigorous analysis of war and peace.
Viewing peace through a gender lens moves beyond the negative peace towards
what Johan Galtung coined as positive peace. In contrast to the limited negative
peace, which refers to the absence of specific forms of violence associated with
war, the positive peace requires not only that all types of violence are minimal
or non-existent, but also that the major potential causes of future conflict are
removed.24 An egalitarian vision of ‘positive peace’ embodies equality between
ethnic and regional groups; however, equality among the sexes is mentioned
far less often.25 Although Galtung neglected the issue of gender, his research
opened up a space for discussion of gender in relation to structural peace and
positive peace.26 The idea of a culture of peace, for example, included edu-
cation for peace, the replacement of military values with social justice and
equality, and sharing of political and economic power, while tackling poverty
and inequality.27 But as Galtung privileges structure, less attention is devoted
to agents of peace. In contrast to most models of peace, which locate them-
selves at the macro level, feminist notions often turn the conceptualization
of peace upside down by locating peace at the micro level in the everyday.
Gendered readings of positive peace expand the conceptualization of peace to
foreground gender hierarchies, disclose relations of subordination, and reveal
the continuities of violence, while highlighting various agencies of peace.28
Direct and indirect violence – Transformations over time
Many feminist peace and conflict scholars would argue that aspects of both
the direct and the structural violence that spill over from wartime into peace-
time cannot be made visible within the notion of negative peace. For example,
patriarchal structures, practices and discourses cannot be captured within the
minimal definition of peace as absence of violence. Patriarchy is a case of struc-
tural violence, although some aspects of it may be manifested as direct physical
violence. Betty Reardon claims that ‘peace and patriarchy are antithetical by
definition’.29 Gender inequality, in all of its many manifestations, is a form
of violence, no matter how invisible or normalized that violence may be.30
For Cynthia Enloe, a feminist theorization of peace requires detailed under-
standing of patriarchal structures and of the ways in which gender, especially
the construction of masculinity, interplays with capitalism, colonialism and
militarism.31
Sexual violence is one of the most extreme and effective forms of patriarchal
control, and it also includes male victims. In the gendered discourse ‘rape as
a weapon of war’, such violence is moving into the public sphere and gaining
visibility in peace and justice processes. Thus, sexual violence is one form of vio-
lence that depicts the continuities of war as it spills over into peacetime while
becoming invisible as it travels from the public back to the private sphere in
the shape of increased domestic violence.32 Conceptualization of peace from a
feminist perspective thus recognizes that sexual violence as a deliberate strategy
in war is connected in a range of ways to sexual violence in other contexts.33
Adding militarization to the feminist research agenda highlights militaristic
cultures, which legitimize gender-based violence. Such cultures re-create and
rework gender relations locally as well as globally, and function as a structural
constraint to peace.34
The gendering of peace makes visible the long-term consequences of war over
time and destabilizes the temporal underpinnings of understandings of peace.
The period after a conflict can be a period when women are more vulnerable to
the effects of violent conflict than during the conflict itself.35 Regarding peace
as ‘also the absence of poverty and the conditions which recreate it’, Enloe
brings to the fore the feminization of poverty prior to, in the midst of, and post-
conflict, and she provides us with a definition of peace as ‘women’s control over
their own lives’.36 Thus, a gender-just peace would require not just the absence
of armed and gendered conflict locally and globally, but also the absence of
poverty and the conditions which re-create it.
Locating the gendered agent of peace
Structural, singular or state-centric understandings of peace tend to obscure a

register of agentive subjects and potential multiple versions of peace. Gender
studies make visible and open up a rethinking of agency in relation to peace(s).
From such a point of departure, relations between gender, power and inequality
are unveiled, and the political and cultural work that makes gender and con-
structs and distributes agency is exposed. As focus is rescaled from the state to
the personal, the everyday, agentive subjects that ‘do peace’ and make change
beyond formal spaces are made visible.37
Women can be, and often are, agents of peace.38 Women’s agency, exercised
in its transformative, critical and creative elements, can be put to work in the
promotion of peace. Although women may not always interact with the world
of formal transitional processes, they take actions in their own lives in order to
construct a peace that is grounded in the everyday and addresses the causes and
the injustices of the conflict. By making women visible as agents with a stake in
peace beyond the role of the passive victim, a more multi-faceted understand-
ing of the meaning of peace may be obtained and ‘new’ spaces can be identified
where meaningful peace is formed. By searching in the margins, we may spot
gendered agents who do not take part in any formal settings, but who are still
instrumental in weaving the social fabric of durable peace from below.39
At the same time, one must not conflate women with narrow understandings
of female agents as inherently ‘beautiful souls’.40 Such gendered definitions of
agency underwrite cemented hierarchies of masculinities and femininities, as
agentive subjects’ narratives of intentions and desires are read and interpreted
according to sometimes outspoken, sometimes silent, rules.41 Debates about
how a focus on women as victims of violence constitutes a denial or scripting
of women’s agency are revealing.42 In such debates, agency appears to reside
solely in the actions of the perpetrators, and the agency that women exhibit
by resisting and coping with victimization and through collective opposition
to violence or conflict is denied. Likewise, men who move beyond expectations
of masculinity, be it as victims (of sexual violence) or as agents against war and

militarization, may be ostracized or marginalized.
Implications of gendering peace – Contemporary ties

and tensions
The ontological as well as epistemological insights gained from ‘looking

through the gender lens’ have implications for research, policies and practices
of peace. Perspectives developed within feminist peace research have, over the
last two decades, fed into a number of doctrines that shape understandings of
peace as well as interventions for peace. One can note clear gains from allow-
ing gender insights to inform these theories and practices, but also a number of
deep flaws that point to the need for a radical rethinking of peace.
The observation that democracies do not go to war with each other is among
the most powerful contributions to understanding war and peace. Yet, gender
research challenges the democratic peace as inevitably gender-blind. The demo-
cratic peace read through a gender lens depicts the exclusion of women and the
presence of men, and particular ways in which men and women are present in
nations, institutions, processes and events, and particular expectations associ-
ated with the roles of women and men. A major reason for excluding women
in peace negotiations is, for example, a widespread belief that ‘those who did
not make war should have nothing to do with the making of peace’. But Sanam
Naraghi Anderlini notes that ‘war makers rarely have the requisite experience
and expertise in peace-making or coexistence. Yet, they are charged with the
responsibility and power to bring peace.’43 Thus, calls have been made that
‘No Women, No “Democratic” Peace’,44 and feminist researchers advance the
thesis that societies with gender equality are more peaceful.45 This research,
comparing micro-level gender violence and macro-level state peacefulness in
global settings, makes it clear why it is necessary to democratize the peace
process and the post-conflict situation by bringing in gender perspectives.
A closely related field is security studies. Gendered readings of peace have
enabled a theoretical conceptualization more reflective of security concerns
that emanate from the ‘bottom up’.46 Emerging from this rethinking is a broad-
ened and deepened security agenda centred around the concept of human
security, meaning that security encompasses not only states but also individuals
and groups.47 Human security is a concept that ‘gives political voice to the oth-
erwise politically marginalized’ and ‘forces us to address the broader contexts
of vulnerability’.48 The above conceptualizations of gendered agency and the
structural limitations of negative peace have provided important input in this
debate. Yet, Hudson warns: ‘including women as a category of identity within
security discourse without also integrating gender as a unit of analysis creates
silences, which in fact reinforces the dominance of masculine universalism’.49
The gendered caveat in security studies is carried into the discourse and
practices of the international doctrine of R2P, which, as a consequence of the
human security debate, was adopted in 2005. It puts the security of individu-
als before the sovereignty of states. Yet, the R2P discourse does not recognize
distinctions between the sexes and incorporates biases in favour of existing
gender relations.50 Despite its gender-blindness, the achievement of peace and
security of women is integrated into the goals of R2P. The impact of gen-
der equality and empowerment in reducing the risk of conflict could make
an important contribution to the preventive pillar of R2P and various early
warning systems.51
The most noticeable advances for gendering peace are linked to the Women,
Peace and Security agenda (WPS) and the UNSCR 1325, and as such, it has been
thoroughly researched.52 The resolution, adopted in 2000 as a result of global
lobbying from grassroots women’s organizations as well as elite actors, calls
for all aspects of peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction to be under-
taken with a sensitivity towards gender.53 The resolution has in many ways
been a milestone in its recognition of not only the inordinate impact of war
on women, but also the pivotal role women should and do play in building
sustainable peace. As such, it is a potentially powerful tool for political and
normative change.54 Nonetheless, the resolution and its concomitant discourse
have been criticized for accepting and even endorsing the role of women as pas-
sive victims in need of saving, as well as homogenizing women’s experiences:
only allowing for a ‘scripted agency’ that does not challenge set patterns of
masculinities and femininities.55
The liberal peacebuilding agenda has been partly constituted by and partly
constitutive of these global policy developments, and ideas of human secu-
rity and the UNSCR 1325 are part of the liberal peacebuilding machinery.
In this sense, the concept of liberal peace has been used to encompass women’s
rights. Indeed, gender equality is often held up as an intrinsic value of liberal
peacebuilding, and the plight of women and girls has repeatedly been used as
a raison d’être for interventions.56 Yet, in practice, liberal peacebuilding under-
takings by international actors at elite level have repeatedly failed to pursue
gender equality as part of the peace process, and the UNSCR 1325 is often
ignored. As attempts to rearrange gender relations are perceived as possibly
jeopardizing the entire peace process, the issue of women’s rights rarely enters
peace negotiations, making gender invisible in the peace settlement and in the
post-conflict situation. Instead, local women’s rights advocates that pursue an
agenda of universal rights rely to a large degree on global networks and contacts
at informal and grassroots levels. Thus, despite the fact that local feminist peace
activists’ agendas often converge with the universal rights and liberal peace
paradigm, gender equality is an issue that tends to be downplayed by interna-
tional actors in response to local processes of (re)traditionalization and social
conservatism. This is a paradox of gendered power at the core of contemporary

liberal peacebuilding.
Conclusion
Gender and feminist research have opened up a rethinking of structure and

agency in relation to war and peace. The contributions have been manifold
and have developed into a productive and powerful critique of standard under-
standings of peace. In our overview, we have pointed to some key theoretical
contributions. First, this research has deconstructed underlying notions of
femininity and masculinity that shape our understanding of war and peace.
Second, it has forced us to look beyond the margins and notice women as
agentive subjects with multiple agendas, thereby foregrounding a discussion
on plural subject positions. This has made it possible to access sometimes unex-
pected spaces where peace is made, thereby rescaling spaces to the everyday and
tracing connections between the personal and the international. Third, such a
reading has also challenged temporal limits and revealed continuities of direct
and structural violence from war to peace, enabling a critical discussion on
sexual violence and the feminization of poverty.
These insights have profound implications for the liberal peace paradigm.
They mean that peace as the absence of war does not measure up, and that the
dominant discourse and practice of the liberal democratic peace can no longer
set the standard. Such peace is fragile and tentative, lacking the conditions
which enable it to be continually recreated. The feminist peace research agenda
is, on the contrary, transformative and emancipatory, and argues that peace is
not established after the eradication of large-scale violent conflict alone, but
when the women and men of post-conflict societies themselves perceive there
to be an everyday peace that includes gender equality and equal rights and
opportunities. A reassessment of the peace dividend is hence called for. We con-
clude that a conceptualization of peace from a gender perspective provides us
with tools and insights to understand and explore plural peace(s).
Notes
1. Debates about peace span both classical and contemporary literatures and a range of
intellectual debates, and it is beyond the scope of this proposal to recapture these
debates. Richmond (2005) provides an excellent overview of the genealogy of peace
in IR.
2. C.f. Karen Warren and Cady Duane, ‘Feminism and Peace: Seeing Connections’,
Hypatia 9, no. 2 (1994): 4–20; Laura Sjoberg, Gendering Global Conflict. Toward a
Feminist Theory of War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013).
3. Beverly Woodward, ‘Peace Studies and Feminist Challenge’, Peace and Change 3, no. 4
(1976); Elise Boulding, Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History (Syracuse: Syracuse
University Press, 2000); Elise Boulding, ‘The Gender Gap’, Journal of Peace Research
21, no. 1 (1984): 1–3.
4. Betty Reardon, Sexism and the War System (New York: Teachers College Press, 1985).
5. Cynthia Enloe, ‘Feminist Thinking about War, Militarism, and Peace’, in Analysing
Gender: A Handbook of Social Science Research, eds Beth B. Hess and Myra Marx
Ferree (Newbury Park: Sage, 1987), 526–547; Annika Kronsell, Gender, Sex and the
Postnational Defense. Militarism and Peacekeeping (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012).
6. Christine Sylvester, War as Experience: Contributions from International Relations and
Feminist Analysis (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012); Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and
Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (London: Pandora, 1993); Cynthia
Enloe, Nemo’s War, Emma’s War. Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War (Berkeley, Los
Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2010); Christine Bell and Catherine
O’Rourke, ‘Peace Agreements or “Pieces of Paper”? The Impact of UNSC Resolution
1325 on Peace Processes and Their Agreements’, International and Comparative Law
Quarterly 59 (2010): 941–980.
7. Tarja Väyrynen, ‘Gender and Peacebuilding’, in Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding:
Critical Developments and Approaches, ed. Oliver P. Richmond (Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2010); Oliver P. Richmond, Peace in IR (Routledge: Abingdon and
New York, 2008).
8. Gender is here understood as the socially constructed roles, behaviours, practices
and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men. This
contrasts with sex, which refers to biological characteristics.
9. Raewyn Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 1987).
10. Carol Cohn, ed., Women & Wars (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013).
11. Judith Butler, Gender Troubles (New York: Routledge, 1990).
12. Carol Cohn and Sara Ruddick, cited in Cohn, Women & Wars, 11.
13. Annette Weber, ‘Feminist Peace and Conflict Theory’, Encyclopedia on Peace and
Conflict Theory, 2006, http://www.scribd.com/doc/68185720/Feminist-Peace-and-
Conflict-Theory, accessed 13 August 2014.
14. Ingrid Sharp, ‘Feminist Peace Activism 1915–2010: Are We Nearly There Yet?’ Peace
and Change 38, no. 2 (2013): 155–180.
15. Ibid., 165.
16. Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (London: Penguin Classics, 2008, 1st edn 1938).
17. Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace (Boston: Beacon Press,
1989).
18. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group,
2010, 1st edn 1949).
19. Jean Bethke Elshtain, Women and War (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987).
20. Laura Duhan Kaplan, ‘Woman as Caretaker: An Archetype That Supports Patriarchal
Militarism’, Hypatia 9, no. 2 (1994).
21. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo and Lourdes Torres, eds, Third World Women
and the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991).
22. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Toward a History of the
Vanishing Present (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999); Sandra Withworth,
Men, Militarism and UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner
Publishers, 2004).
23. C.f. Maria Eriksson Baaz and Maria Stern, Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War?
Perceptions, Prescriptions, Problems in the Congo and Beyond (London: Zed Books,
2013); Linda Åhälland and Laura S. Shepherd, eds, Gender, Agency and Political Vio-
lence (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry,
Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics (London: Zed Books,
2007).
24. Johan Galtung, ‘Violence, Peace, and Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research 6,
no. 3 (1969): 167–191.
25. Donna Pankhurst, ‘The “Sex War” and Other Wars: Towards a Feminist Approach to
Peacebuilding’, Development in Practice 13, no. 2–3 (2003): 154–177.
26. Catia Confortini, ‘Galtung, Violence and Gender: The Case for a Peace Stud-
ies/Feminism Alliance’, Peace and Change 31, no. 3 (2006): 333–367.
27. Sharp, ‘Feminist Peace Activism 1915–2010’, 157.
28. Confortini, ‘Galtung, Violence and Gender’.
29. Reardon, Sexism and the War System, 37.
30. Heidi Hudson, ‘A Double-Edged Sword of Peace? Reflections on the Tension between
Representation and Protection in Gendering Liberal Peacebuilding’, International
Peacekeeping 19, no. 4 (2012): 443–460.
31. Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases.
32. Eriksson Baaz and Stern, Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War?; Inger Skjelsbæk, ‘Sex-
ual Violence and War: Mapping out a Complex Relationship’, European Journal of
International Relations 7, no. 2 (2001): 211–237.
33. Liz Kelly, Surviving Sexual Violence (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988); Liz Kelly, ‘Wars
against Women: Sexual Violence, Sexual Politics and the Militarised State’, in States of
Conflict. Gender, Violence and Resistance, eds Susie Jacobs, Ruth Jacobson and Jennifer
Marchbank (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000).
34. Enloe, ‘Feminist Thinking about War, Militarism, and Peace’.
35. Sheila Meintjes, ‘War and Post-War Shifts in Gender Relations’, in The Aftermath:
Women in Post-Conflict Transition, eds Sheila Meintjes, Anu Pillay and Meredeth
Turshen (London: Zed Books, 2001).
36. Enloe, ‘Feminist Thinking about War, Militarism, and Peace’, 538.
37. Annika Björkdahl and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic, ‘Gendered Justice Gaps in
Bosnia Herzegovina’, Human Rights Review 15, no. 2 (2013): 201–218; Stefanie
Kappler, Local Agency and Peacebuilding: EU and International Engagement in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, Cyprus and South Africa (Abingdon: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Roger
Mac Ginty and Oliver P. Richmond, ‘The Local Turn in Peacebuilding: A Crit-
ical Agenda for Peace’, Third World Quarterly 34, no. 5 (2013): 763–783; Oliver
P. Richmond and Audra Mitchell, eds, Hybrid Forms of Peace: From Everyday Agency
to Post-Liberalism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
38. Cynthia Cockburn, The Space between Us. Negotiating Gender and National Identities
in Conflict (London, New York: Zed Books, 1998); Donna Pankhurst, ed., Gendered
Peace: Women’s Struggles for Post-War Justice and Reconciliation (Routledge: New York
and London, 2009).
39. Björkdahl and Mannergren Selimovic, ‘Gendered Justice Gaps in Bosnia
Herzegovina’.
40. Elshtain, Women and War.
41. Laura J. Shepherd, ‘Introduction: Rethinking Gender, Agency and Political Vio-
lence’, in Gender, Agency and Political Violence, eds Linda Åhäll and Laura J. Shepherd
(Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 6.
42. Kelly, ‘Wars against Women’, 46; Björkdahl and Mannergren Selimovic, ‘Gendered
Justice Gaps in Bosnia Herzegovina’.
43. Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, Women Building Peace: What They Do and Why It Matters
(Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2007).
44. Rita Manchanda, No Women, No ‘Democratic’ Peace (based on a presentation at
the IIAS seminar on Challenges to Democracy in South Asia, New Delhi, 15–16
January 2011), http://www.india-seminar.com/2011/619/619_rita_manchanda.htm,
accessed 2 June 2014.
45. Mary Caprioli, ‘Primed for Violence: The Role of Gender Equality for Predicting
Internal Conflict’, International Studies Quarterly 49 (2005): 161–178; Valerie Hudson,
Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli and Chad F. Emmett, eds, Sex and World Peace
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
46. Lene Hansen, Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War (London:
Routledge, 2006); Gunhild Hoogensen and Kirsti Stuvøy, ‘Gender, Resistance and
Human Security’, Security Dialogue 37, no. 2 (2006): 207–228; Annick Wibben,
Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach (London and New York: Routledge,
2011).
47. Ann J. Tickner, Gender in International Relations. Feminist Perspectives on Achieving
Global Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).
48. Taylor Owen, ‘Human Security – Conflict, Critique and Consensus: Colloquium
Remarks and a Proposal for a Threshold-Based Definition?’ Security Dialogue 35, no. 3
(2004): 373–387.
49. Hudson, ‘A Double-Edged Sword of Peace?’
50. Sara E. Davies and Eli Stamnes, ‘Special Issue. The Responsibility to Protect and
Sexual and Gender-based Violence, Introduction’, Global Responsibility to Protect 4
(2012); Eli Stamnes, ‘The Responsibility to Protect: Integrating Gender Perspectives
into Policies and Practices’, Global Responsibility to Protect 4 (2012): 172–198.
51. Jennifer Bond and Laurel Sherret, ‘A Sight for Sore Eyes: Bringing Gender Vision to
the Responsibility to Protect Framework’, INSTRAW (March, 2006).
52. Carol Cohn, Helen Kinsella and Sheri Gibbings, ‘Women, Peace and Security Resolu-
tion 1325’, International Feminist Journal of Politics 6, no. 1 (2004): 130–140; Nichola
Pratt and Sophie Richter-Devroe, ‘Critically Examining UNSCR 1325 on Women,
Peace and Security’, International Feminist Journal of Politics 13, no. 4 (2011): 494;
Louise Olsson and Theodora-Ismene Gizelis, eds, ‘Special Issue on UNSCR 1325’,
International Interactions 39, no. 4 (2013).
53. United Nations (31 October, 2000). Security Council Resolution 1325, UN Doc.
S/RES/UN 1325.
54. Torunn L. Tryggestad, ‘Trick or Treat? The UN and Implementation of Security Coun-
cil Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security’, Global Governance 15, no. 4
(2009): 539–557.
55. Laura J. Shepherd, ‘Sex, Security and Superhero(in)es; From 1325 to 1820 and
Beyond’, International Feminist Journal of Politics 13, no. 4 (2011): 504–521; Sheri
L. Gibbings, ‘No Angry Women at the United Nations: Political Dreams and the
Cultural Politics of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325’, International
Feminist Journal of Politics 13, no. 4 (2011): 522–538.
56. Laura J. Shepherd, ‘Veiled References: Constructions of Gender in the Bush Admin-
istration Discourse on the Attacks on Afghanistan post-9/11’, International Feminist
Journal of Politics 8, no. 1 (2006): 19–41; Hudson, ‘A Double-edged Sword of Peace?’
14
Education: Cultural Reproduction,
Revolution and Peacebuilding in
Conflict-Affected Societies
Tejendra Pherali
Introduction
This chapter reviews some of the key debates in the growing field of education
and conflict studies. In recent years, the interrelationship between education
and conflict has been explored widely in the academic as well as the practi-
tioner literature.1 More importantly, development practitioners are increasingly
recognizing the need to understand this complex nexus in order to inform
educational programming in conflict-affected environments.2 In the era of
globalization, education serves as a mechanism for social, political and eco-
nomic control, which is exercised in the consensual mutuality between political
elites and corporate interests. In this context, societies struggle to cultivate
humanity against the dominance of neoliberalism as well as to make school-
ing relevant to disenfranchised populations while recognizing the social and
cultural situationality of education. In this chapter, I will discuss the following
key issues relating to education, social change and conflict, particularly focus-
ing on: (1) interactions between education and conflict – that is, education as
victim and perpetrator; (2) education as liberation, resistance and revolution;
and (3) education as peacebuilder and pedagogies for peacebuilding.
Education as victim: Attacks on education
Since the fall of Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the nature of armed
conflicts has changed from interstate wars to, largely, intrastate civil wars. Wars
are no longer fought in demarcated zones, resulting in increasing civilian casu-
alties that largely include women and children. UNICEF estimated that over
two million children were killed in conflicts between 1998 and 2008, while
another six million were disabled, and over 300,000 were recruited as child
soldiers.3 In educational terms, children living in conflict-affected countries
are the worst affected. Almost 50 million primary and secondary school-age
193
children living in conflict-affected countries are being denied the opportunity

to go to school, which represents 50 per cent of the world’s total number of
school children.4
The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack reports on a global study
of threats or deliberate use of force against educational stakeholders as well
as schools and universities. For example, over 1,000 schools have been turned
into detention and torture centres, while 2,445 were reported to have been
destroyed by 2013 in the Syrian conflict.5 The United Nations reported that
over 10,000 children lost their lives in the Syrian conflict between March 2011
and January 2014.6 Violent conflicts disrupt educational processes. School-
ing often becomes paralysed when educational infrastructure is destroyed and
teachers, children and educational authorities are caught in violent conflict.
Despite being enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
enforced by numerous international laws and treaties, education is frequently
targeted by non-state armed groups as well as the state security forces. Assaults
on education are carried out for ideological, political, ethnic or military rea-
sons, but the direct victims of violence are usually innocent children and
teachers. For example, Israeli military attacked three UN schools in Gaza in
July/August 2014, killing 45 people, including 17 children.7 State armed forces
in several countries, including Colombia, Ethiopia, India and Mexico, continue
to occupy schools for military purposes and are involved in attacks on teachers
and students.8
In some conflicts, schools are destroyed for promoting Western knowledge
and cultural values, such as educating girls, and teaching alien curricula, lan-
guage and culture. Abduction is one of the resorts of rebel forces who have
no access to ‘propaganda channels of state media or the coercive power of
states’.9 For example, the Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda abducted
10,000 school children for ‘indoctrination’ along with ‘abuse and brutality’.
In a recent incident, more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted from Chibok,
Northern Nigeria by Boko Haram militants who disapprove of modern educa-
tion as a cultural invasion of their Islamic beliefs. Teachers and school children
are abducted for radicalization, to be used as combatants or support person-
nel in military operations, and girls, in particular, are forced to become sex
slaves.10 More than two thirds of Rwanda’s teachers were reported to have either
been killed or fled during the genocide in 1994, while some schools in Angola
and Cambodia were deserted due to the presence of land mines in the school
areas. In Timor-Leste, the secondary school system was paralysed due to the
failure to return of the trained and qualified secondary school teachers, who
were predominantly Indonesians.11 In Nepal, approximately 32,000 children
were reported to have been abducted from schools to enforce participation in
the political campaigns of the Maoist rebels, and an estimated 3,000 teachers
had been displaced from the schools in rural areas, directly impacting on the
Tejendra Pherali 195
education of an estimated 100,000 students.12 The Taliban attack on young

Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai and her classmates in October 2012 repre-
sented the scale of risks children face in conflict zones. The deliberate assaults
on teachers, students and educational infrastructure, as well as the occupation
of educational facilities by the armed forces, have destabilized the notion of
schools as safe places for children during conflict. Where schools are suscepti-
ble to attack, the provision of education in such contexts should, rather, take
an unconventional and imaginative approach. The campaign for formal school-
ing as ‘education in emergencies’ must be reconsidered when the schools are
tactical targets of conflicting parties.
In recent years, education has also become an integral part of counter-
insurgency strategy, resulting in militarization of education aid in conflict-
affected countries.13 The most prominent donor countries, such as the US, the
UK, Australia, the Netherlands and Canada, have adopted a ‘3D’ approach in
which the ‘development’ agenda has an implicit goal of strengthening national
‘defence’ and effective ‘diplomacy’. Consequently, development aid has been
redirected to countries that pose security threats to the Western world, while
support for many of the world’s poorest countries is predicted to be either
stagnant or in decline. A recent Development Assistance Committee (DAC)
report reveals that aid is expected to rise in Asian countries such as India,
Jordan and Pakistan, while ‘a worrying trend’ of decline is projected for the
aid-dependent countries in sub-Saharan Africa, yet it is expected to increase
for Cameroon, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria and Tunisia.14 Educational inter-
ventions also feature within the military tactics to win ‘hearts and minds’ of
the local communities to fight insurgencies. Military involvement in dispersing
education aid, as observed in Afghanistan and Iraq, is a worrying trend, which
has increased risks to school children and aid workers, undermined the goals
of poverty reduction and skewed aid towards ‘frontline’ states.15 The changing
dynamics, intentions and geographical foci of global conflicts seem to deter-
mine DAC countries’ priorities for development aid. In other words, aid follows
violent conflicts, especially those that pose direct threats to political ideologies,
values and beliefs of the donor countries. The volatility of aid in low-income
countries is not only counterproductive to development goals but also ethically
questionable, as educational programmes that shape children’s future require
long-term commitments.
Education as perpetrator: The contentious nexus and cultural

reproduction
In the last decade, there is a growing body of literature that analyses educa-
tion as having two or multiple faces: education systems can be both ‘victim’
and ‘perpetrator’.16 Formal education plays contesting roles that range from its
contribution to conflict mitigation, statebuilding and building more resilient

societies17 to a socially destructive role of maintaining unequal access and
quality to education, offering a segregated and unjust educational provision,
manipulating history and textbooks, denying education to certain social and
ethnic groups, and repressing minority languages and culture.18 The imposi-
tion of a dominant language on diverse ethnic and indigenous groups through
formal education serves as a repressive force and is a way of destroying their
resource base and eroding the very essence of their life, which constitutes cul-
ture, traditions and identity. Most importantly, in many societies, privileged
social or ethnic groups manipulate historical knowledge, which is validated
and formalized through teaching, learning and assessment in schools. This pro-
cess legitimizes certain historical narratives while systematically negating the
others.
Educational resources, including textbooks, often glorify military victories
and engage in collective demonization of the opponents, which serves as a
political instrument to manufacture ideological consent in favour of the state.
As Lall shows, the curricular revisions in India under the Hindu fundamental-
ist government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (1998–2004) and in Pakistan
during the military junta under General Zia-ul-Haq (1977–1988) were driven by
ideological interests of the regimes that created antagonistic identities between
Pakistani and Indian youth.19 The revised school curricula served as ideologi-
cal machinery for both political leaderships in ‘fundamentalization’ of national
identities, through which the regimes manufactured the consent of their citi-
zens. The biased curricular contents enforced by authoritarian states fabricate
a chauvinistic national identity that is repressive of and deceptive regarding
diverse representations of civic lives. The dominance of hill high castes and
their native language over ethnic minorities in Nepal, the depiction of Tamils
as the historical ‘other’ in Singhalese textbooks, anti-Jewish and anti-Roma doc-
trines in Nazi textbooks, misrepresentation of the Second World War atrocities
caused by Japanese troops in China and Korea, and negative ethnic stereotypes
in Rwandan text books before the genocide in 1994 all exemplify the misrepre-
sentation and production of historical prejudices through education. Education
in these contexts legitimates partial knowledge that also shapes and normalizes
distorted perceptions against marginalized groups. In this process, education
exacerbates ethnic distinctions and social hierarchies, generating the necessary
conditions for violent conflict.
Duffield argues that the contemporary neoliberal global economy and exclu-
sionary ‘polity’ have resulted in increased violence globally.20 This is expressed
in the ravaging of indigenous populations in India, Brazil or Ethiopia in order
to protect corporate interests or, in political terms, authenticated by selec-
tive interventionist policies that choose to interfere in conflict in Libya but
not in Sri Lanka. Education plays an implicit but central role in reproducing
these deeply rooted hierarchical and manipulative structures in both national

and global spheres.21 In doing so, education maintains socioeconomic divi-
sions as well as fuelling political tensions that often lead to violent conflicts.
This understanding has important implications for education policies and pro-
gramming in general, but more specifically in conflict-affected environments,
where educational reforms need to be understood beyond the framework of
service delivery. Uncritical, technocratic and apolitical education inculcates
submission to the economic and political interests of the corporate sector
and disconnects learners from the basic principles of humanity, such as love,
compassion, mutuality and social justice.
Reproduction theorists tend to suggest that children and young people are
passive recipients of educational processes, in which they learn to conform
to social structures.22 Bourdieu’s theory of cultural reproduction is concerned
with the relationship between educational attainment and class inequali-
ties. Bourdieu argues that the education systems of industrialized societies
mediate the reproduction of the original class membership by recognizing
cultural capital and higher-class social and cultural attributes. Cultural capi-
tal consists of familiarity with the dominant culture in a society where the
level of affiliation with and competence in this culture varies across strati-
fied social groups. Education systems discount the preconditions of learners
and assume the homogeneous possession of cultural capital irrespective of
children’s class affiliation. Bourdieu argues that education ‘is in fact one of
the most effective means of perpetuating the existing social pattern, as it
both provides an apparent justification for social inequalities and gives recog-
nition to the cultural heritage, that is, to a social gift treated as a natural
one’.23 Higher-class children who inherit cultural capital in their homes are
better positioned to gain higher educational credentials that enable them to
hold dominant positions in society, which contributes to reproducing their
social class.
In low- and middle-income countries, social hierarchies are manifested in
the forms of ethnic, caste-based or regional divisions in which opportunities
for modern education and development are more likely to be seized by histor-
ically privileged socio-cultural groups. In the former colonies of the European
Empire, these groups would draw upon their cultural capital, gained through
historical socialization with the colonial powers, in brokering or resisting impe-
rial hegemonic control. In post-colonial times, the colonial systems persisted
and were only replaced by neo-colonial national actors who would monopo-
lize key realms of society. Ordinary people were never liberated. The advent
of educational development supported by aid in the post-colonial era largely
benefited these privileged groups, enabling them to exploit new opportunities
created by economic globalization while perpetuating deeply rooted structural
inequalities in these societies.
When the prospects of social mobility are blocked, people lose patience with
progress and development and look for ‘escape’ or ‘individual spatial mobility’;
in other words, as Ferguson notes, ‘Not progress, then but egress.’24 As the spa-
tial mobility for the oppressed is controlled by powerful economic and political
structures, ‘other avenues may involve violently clashing the gates of the “first
class,” smashing the bricked-up walls and breaking through if temporarily, to
the “other side” of privilege and plenty’.25
Education as liberation: From resistance to revolution
The cultural landscapes of the classroom serve as a microcosm of the broader

community within which the educational processes take place. Classroom
encounters characterize hierarchically structured values, norms and skills that
define and produce the stratified workforce demanded by the market economy.
This is evident in the practice of stratified educational expectations across chil-
dren from stratified social groups. Bowles and Gintis explain this phenomenon
as the correspondence theory: that schools do not only allocate different cat-
egories of learning that correspond to different hierarchies across gender, race,
ethnicity and caste, but also symbolize the broader class-based structures of
the society.26 However, the failure to acknowledge confrontational interactions
between structural and ideological control of schooling and its stakeholders,
such as teachers and students, makes the theories of reproduction ‘pessimistic
and fatalistic’.27 The idea that pupils and educators are passive recipients of
hegemonic curricula imposed by the state, and can therefore do nothing about
the role of education in reproducing social inequalities, is essentially flawed.28
It is important to recognize that ‘resistance to the structural determinants
of the education system can also emerge within the autonomy of a school,
where the space of the classroom and of its surrounding communities can be
exploited and expanded by educators in order to exercise counter-hegemonic
pedagogies’.29
Socio-political movements provide a meaningful space for youth from
marginalized communities who are used to subconscious resistance to the cul-
tural hegemony of schooling. Ironically, within their dominant patterns of
cultural reproduction, schools unintentionally produce oppositional groups
that challenge hegemonic and cultural domination of privileged groups in soci-
ety. Political uprisings often capitalize on youth frustration that stems from
unemployment, socio-economic exclusion and bleak aspirations for the future,
which are exacerbated by exclusionary social policies and educational practices.
Educational institutions are not only the centres for production of an eco-
nomic workforce, but also important political junctions where teachers and
learners actively engage in the critical debates surrounding the issues and state
policies that impact upon their lives. The failure of ‘development promises’,
particularly the lack of economic opportunities, only serves political vio-

lence. Urdal shows that ‘youth bulges’30 increase the risk of political violence,
and, particularly, the expansion of higher education without the ability to
absorb graduates into appropriate employment significantly increases the risk
of destabilization.
Education as peacebuilder: Concepts and pedagogies
Educational policies that promote equitable access to education can benefit

socio-economically disadvantaged populations, helping to minimize potential
ethnic tensions. Schools can promote instruction in the mother tongue, espe-
cially in the early years, rather than imposing a dominant national language
on minority groups. Bush and Saltarelli argue that the provision of schooling
in the child’s first language ‘helps to develop inclusive ethos’ and hence, ‘it is
difficult to marginalize children with different languages, cultures and histo-
ries if these are integral parts of the education process’.31 The authors further
mention that ‘bilingual education will help ethnic groups participate as citizens
of the countries in which they live presenting them with the knowledge and
means to defend their interests as well as revitalizing and strengthening their
own cultures’.32
Nevertheless, peacebuilding education initiatives in conflict-affected envi-
ronments lack explicit links to peacebuilding theories and tend to focus on
immediate humanitarian needs, with ‘a greater emphasis on protection and
reconstruction’ rather than ‘transformation’, which ‘requires a more explicit
commitment to political, economic and social change’.33 Such interventions
are underpinned by the liberal views of schooling that assume that public edu-
cation creates opportunities for individual development and social mobility,
and empowers those who have been traditionally denied access to economic
and political power. In this process, educational reforms are concerned with the
potential contribution of education to mitigating conflict, not only by enhanc-
ing human capital and, hence, enabling economic growth through educational
investment, but also by increasing the capabilities of individuals to achieve
their functioning (for example, being safe, staying healthy, being educated,
being able to have a job and contribute to society, and so on).34
The popular model of educational development in conflict-affected environ-
ments draws on the hybrid logic of development that predominantly favours
the free market, liberal democracy, individualism and competition, but also
with some recognition of human rights, civil liberties and gender equality.35
Educational reforms in such contexts coincide with the processes of liberal
peacebuilding that promotes Western models of economy and governing sys-
tems, which are often rationalized against the objective of ‘a self-sustaining
peace within domestic, regional and international settings, in which both overt
and structural violence are removed and social, economic and political models
conform to international expectations in globalized, transnational settings’.36
It is evident from the peacebuilding missions and their programming in post-
conflict countries, including Namibia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, El
Salvador, East Timor and Cambodia, that most influential international devel-
opment agencies ‘have supported the transformation of war-shattered states
into liberal market democracies’37 in which public funding for education has
declined, private provision is favoured and market-oriented education policies
and disciplines are prioritized. It is ironical that the conflicts that were caused
by economic and political inequalities in these societies are being prescribed
neoliberal policy solutions that have categorically failed to reduce inequalities.
Education for peacebuilding is characterized by an action-oriented multidis-
ciplinary learning process that goes beyond the knowledge-based classroom
activity about peace, in order to build the capacities of learners who are able
to interrupt the continuum of violence (symbolic, structural and physical).
The curriculum for peacebuilding should combine classroom-based interactions
with practical activities that relate to social, cultural and political issues and are
based in the local communities. Bush and Saltarelli note that peacebuilding
education should involve ‘a bottom-up rather than top down process driven
by war-torn communities themselves, founded on their experiences and capac-
ities. It would be firmly rooted in immediate realities, not in abstract ideas or
theories.’38 Gill and Niens also provide a useful synthesis of diverse theoretical
concepts to develop a coherent framework for analysis of peacebuilding educa-
tion. Drawing upon diverse pedagogical practices embedded in peacebuilding
education initiatives, they propose a ‘dialogic humanizing pedagogy’ that
builds on the foundations of critical theory and the Freirean pedagogy of par-
ticipation, emancipation and transformation.39 The role of education should
expand from a narrow view of preparation for employment in the corporate
world to inculcating fundamental attributes of humanity – love, compassion
and humility. Krishnamurti mentions that ‘education is not merely acquiring
knowledge, gathering and correlating fact; it is to see the significance of life as
a whole’.40 He further suggests:
In over-emphasizing technique, we destroy man [sic]. To cultivate capacity

and efficiency without understanding life, without having a comprehensive
perception of the ways of thought and desire, will only make us increasingly
ruthless, which is to engender wars and jeopardize our physical security.41
Peace cannot be taught without engaging in critical debates and dialogues

about the causes of conflict. Reconciliation and relation-building are impor-
tant to rebuild societies that are ruined by violent conflict. For sustainable
peacebuilding, alongside macro-level structural reforms that are committed
to social justice, inclusive democracy and improving life conditions of

marginalized populations, it is also important to promote a ‘humanizing and
transformative agenda’42 in order to strengthen social foundations for peace.
However, the existing educational systems are not conducive to ‘dialogic
pedagogy’ and would require a fundamental shift in order to accommodate
new approaches to learning and teaching for peace.43 This requires liberation of
schools from the hegemonic control of the political elite, whereby critical ped-
agogues ‘must help subordinated groups to deconstruct dominant ideologies’.44
In this regard, teachers need to be viewed as intellectuals in their capacities as
educators who have important social functions. Aronowitz and Giroux provide
us with four useful categories to understand the role of teachers as intel-
lectuals: ‘hegemonic intellectuals’, who represent ideologies of the dominant
groups and re-create educational environment and social class; ‘accommodat-
ing intellectuals’, who accept the system uncritically and refrain from political
action by proclaiming professionalism; ‘critical intellectuals’, who are conscious
about inequality and injustice and provide the same education regardless of
students’ backgrounds, but hesitate to embark upon collective struggle; and
‘transformative intellectuals’, who help students to resist hegemony and take
proactive actions to empower students to take control of their education.45
Transformative teachers are
. . . able and willing to reflect upon the ideological principles that inform
their practice, who connect pedagogical theory and practice to wider social
issues, and who work together to share ideas, exercise power over the condi-
tions of their labour, and embody in their teaching a vision of a better and
more humane life.46
Peacebuilding education is essentially a progressive project that is likely to face

challenges from the elitist political and social systems. The idea of empowering
the grassroots by engaging them in action-oriented learning can pose threats to
the established orthodoxies, which may turn antagonistic to the emancipatory
pedagogical approaches. Additionally, the rise of global governance of educa-
tion, as pursued through international development agencies, impedes diverse
forms of learning and meanings of education, while imposing market-driven
educational policies in developing countries. Such policies often nurture sym-
biotic relationships between privileged social groups and the exclusive oppor-
tunities created by the meritocratic economic market (for example, lucrative
jobs in multinational companies and international/non-governmental orga-
nizations (I/NGOs) are likely to be occupied by highly qualified individuals
with foreign language skills, usually from elitist educational backgrounds).
Hence, educational reforms from a peacebuilding perspective must coincide
with socio-economic and political reforms that address structural inequalities
and enhance inclusive democracy. In post-conflict settings where conventional

political structures have been ruptured, more favourable environments and
opportunities are likely to be available for progressive educational reforms.
Conclusion: Education for peacebuilding
Education can be a key force for unifying people from across dividing lines and
transforming the culture of violence. However, it can also generate favourable
conditions for violent conflict. Recognizing this complex role of education
enables us to engage in conflict-sensitive educational programming in order to
address the ‘negative face’ of education and enhance its ‘socially constructive
impact’. This chapter has demonstrated that education is both a victim and a
cause of conflict, but more importantly, it can play a key role in rebuilding post-
conflict societies and nurturing the culture of mutual respect and peace. While
education must be protected from violence, recognizing the broader context
(for example cultural, economic, political and social) within which education
is situated leads us to understand education as a transformative force.
The knowledge, ideologies and perspectives that are represented by ‘our
major educating institutions’ in society are ‘partial representations of social
reality’ which ‘simultaneously frame, fragment, and distort the perceptions
and concerns of more subordinated groups’.47 They inherently legitimize the
thinking and monopoly of the dominant political class. It is the task of
peacebuilding educators to systematically challenge learners and provide them
with the necessary intellectual tools to question dominant structures that repro-
duce inequalities and normalize injustices. Post-conflict educational contexts
can and should provide such a free space for transformative educators.
Peacebuilding education should help liberate minds from the tyranny of
dominant ideologies that block progressive thoughts and erode learners’ con-
fidence to seek alternative meanings of human life. Educators should not only
provide an impetus for the criticism of these dominant ideologies, but also offer
intellectual tools for, and be part of, the critical movement for social transfor-
mation. For building peace, there is an urgent need to rethink and re-evaluate
the philosophy of modern education if it is to envision a peaceful future for
humanity. As Krishnamurti suggested,
Technical knowledge, however necessary, will in no way resolve our inner,

psychological pressures and conflicts; and it is because we have acquired
technical knowledge without understanding the total process of life that
technology has become a means of destroying ourselves. The man who
knows how to split the atom but has no love in his heart becomes a
monster.48
Notes
1. Lynn Davies, Education and Conflict: Complexity and Chaos (London: Routledge,
2004); Mario Novelli and Mieke Lopez Cardozo, ‘Conflict, Education and the Global
South: New Critical Directions’, International Journal of Educational Development 28
(2008): 473–488; UNESCO, The Hidden Crisis: Armed Conflict and Education. Edu-
cation for All – Global Monitoring Report 2011 (Paris: United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2011); Save the Children, Attacks on Edu-
cation: The Impact of Conflict and Grave Violations on Children’s Futures (London,
2013).
2. INEE, The Multiple Faces of Education in Conflict-Affected and Fragile Contexts
(New York: International Agency Network for Education in Emergencies, 2010);
UNESCO, The Hidden Crisis.
3. Karen Mundy and Sarah Dryden-Peterson, ‘Educating Children in Zones of Conflict:
An Overview and Introduction’, in Educating Children in the Conflict Zones: Research,
Policy, and Practice for Systemic Change, eds Karen Mundy and Sarah Dryden-Peterson
4. Save the Children, Attacks on Education.
5. GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014 (New York: Global Coalition for Protecting
Education from Attack, 2014).
6. UN, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict in the Syrian
Arab Republic’ (United Nations, 2014).
7. Human Rights Watch, ‘Israel: In-Depth Look at Gaza School Attacks’, http://www.
hrw.org/news/2014/09/11/israel-depth-look-gaza-school-attacks, accessed 10 Decem-
ber 2014.
8. GCPEA, Education under Attack.
9. Julia Maxted, ‘Children and Armed Conflict in Africa’, Social Identities: Journal for the
Study of Race, Nation and Culture 9, no. 1 (2003): 61.
10. GCPEA, Education under Attack; Watchlist, Caught in the Middle: Mounting Violations
against Children in Nepal’s Armed Conflict (New York: Watchlist on Children and
Armed Conflict, 2005).
11. Peter Buckland, Reshaping the Future: Education and Post-Conflict Reconstruction
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005).
12. Deepak Thapa and Bandita Sijapati, A Kingdom under Siege: Nepal’s Maoist Insurgency,
1996 to 2004 (London: Zed Books Ltd, 2004).
13. Mario Novelli, ‘Are We All Soldiers Now? The Dangers of the Securitization of Educa-
tion and Conflict’, in Educating Children in Conflict Zones: Research, Policy, and Practice
for Systemic Change: A Tribute to Jackie Kirk, eds Karen Mundy and Sarah Dryden-
Peterson, International Perspectives on Education Reform Series (New York: Teachers
College Press, 2011).
14. OECD/DAC, 2014 Global Outlook on Aid: Results of the 2014 DAC Survey on Donors’ For-
ward Spending Plans and Prospects for Improving Aid Predictability (Paris: Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development/Development Assistance Committee,
2014).
15. UNESCO, The Hidden Crisis.
16. Lynn Davies, ‘The Different Faces of Education in Conflict’, Development 53, no. 4
(2010): 491–497; Kenneth D. Bush and Diana Saltarelli, Two Faces of Education in
Ethnic Conflict: Towards a Peacebuilding Education for Children (Florence, 2000); Novelli
and Cardozo, ‘Conflict, Education and the Global South’.
17. INEE, The Multiple Faces of Education in Conflict-Affected and Fragile Contexts.
18. Bush and Saltarelli, Two Faces of Education in Ethnic Conflict.

19. Marie Lall, ‘Educate to Hate – The Use of Education in the Creation of Antagonis-
tic National Identities in India and Pakistan’, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and
International Education 38, no. 1 (2008): 103–119.
20. Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and
Security (London: Zed Books, 2001).
21. Davies, Education and Conflict.
22. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America. Educational Reform
and the Contradictions of Economic Life (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976);
Pierre Bourdieu and Jean Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and
Culture (London: Sage, 1977).
23. Pierre Bourdieu, ‘The School as a Conservative Force: Scholastic and Cultural Inequal-
ities’, in Contemporary Research in the Sociology of Education, ed. John Eggleston (Oxon:
Routledge, 1974), 32.
24. James Ferguson, Global Shadows: Africa in the Neo-Liberal World Order (London: Duke
25. Ferguson, Global Shadows, 192.
26. Bowles and Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America.
27. Joao Viegas Fernandes, ‘From the Theories of Social and Cultural Reproduction
to the Theory of Resistance’, British Journal of Sociology of Education 9, no. 2
(1988): 169.
28. Tejendra Jnawali Pherali, ‘Schooling in Violent Situations: The Politicization of Edu-
cation in Nepal, before and after the 2006 Peace Agreement’, Prospects 43, no. 1
(2013).
29. Ibid., 54.
30. Henrik Urdal, ‘A Clash of Generations? Youth Bulges and Political Violence’,
International Studies Quarterly 50, no. 3 (2006): 607–629.
31. Bush and Saltarelli, Two Faces of Education in Ethnic Conflict, 18.
32. Ibid.
33. UNICEF, The Role of Education in Peacebuilding: Literature Review (New York: United
Nations Children’s Fund, 2011), 7.
34. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
35. Jeremy Rappleye, ‘Different Presumptions about Progress, Divergent Prescriptions for
Peace: Connections between Conflict, “Development” and Education in Nepal’, in
Education, Conflict and Development, ed. Julia Paulson (Oxford: Symposium, 2011).
36. Oliver P. Richmond and Jason Franks, ‘Liberal Hubris? Virtual Peace in Cambodia’,
Security Dialogue 38, no. 1 (2007): 29.
37. Ronald Paris, ‘International Peacebuilding and the “Mission Civilisatrice” ’, Review of
International Studies 28, no. 4 (2002): 639.
38. Bush and Saltarelli, Two Faces of Education in Ethnic Conflict, 23.
39. Gill and Niens, ‘Education as Humanization: A Theoretical Review on the Role of
Dialogic Pedagogy in Peacebuilding Education’, Compare: A Journal of International
and Comparative Education 44, no. 1 (2014): 10–31.
40. Jiddu Krishnamurti, Education and Significance of Life (London: HarperOne, 1952), 18.
41. Ibid.
42. Gill and Niens, ‘Education as Humanization’, 25.
43. Ibid.
44. David Livingston, ed., Critical Pedagogy and Cultural Power (London: Macmillan
Education Ltd, 1987), 55.
45. Stanley Aronowitz and Henry Giroux, Education Still under Siege (Westport: Bergin
and Garvey, 1993), 45–48.
46. Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren, eds, Critical Pedagogy, the State and Cultural Struggle
(New York: State University of New York Press, 1989), xxiii.
47. Livingston, Critical Pedagogy and Cultural Power, 55.
48. Krishnamurti, Education and Significance of Life, 20.
15
Children and Peace
Bennett Collins and Alison Watson
Introduction
On 20 November 1989 the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the

Child (UNCRC) came into operation, promising children worldwide recogni-
tion of their civil, cultural, economic, health, political and social rights. The
UNCRC is ‘the most rapidly and widely ratified human rights treaty in his-
tory’1 – with only the US still to ratify – and from the outset seemed to herald
the consideration of children as distinct rights-bearing subjects, couched as it is
in terms of the acknowledgement of children’s rights as a fundamental part of
the process of securing their future. Over 25 years later, however, the promises
of that document seem hollow. Children’s rights may be a more accepted con-
cept, but the realization of those rights continues to be unfulfilled, and their
welfare remains in a state of jeopardy. In a press release describing the state of
the world’s children, UNICEF declared the year 2014 to be2
a devastating year for millions of children . . . Children have been killed while
studying in the classroom and while sleeping in their beds; they have been
orphaned, kidnapped, tortured, recruited, raped and even sold as slaves.
Never in recent memory have so many children been subjected to such
unspeakable brutality.
This statement was made before the Taliban attack on an army-run school that
killed 132 children in Peshawar, Pakistan on 16 December 2014,3 or the car-
bomb attack in Raada, Yemen that hit a school bus, killing at least 15 pupils
on the same day.4 In view of such heinous crimes, conceptualizing peace from
the perspective of the place of ‘children’ in the international system may seem
like a pointless intellectual exercise, but as this chapter will demonstrate, it
is necessary to consider the short-term and long-term approaches that have
engaged children who are affected by violence in order to make sure that it is
not perpetuated.
206
Bennett Collins and Alison Watson 207
In order to begin this discussion, this chapter will start with an analysis of
the impact of conflict upon children, so that we can consider the ways in
which children may be deliberately targeted as political actors and the reasons
for this. Such an examination is important, because understanding the signif-
icance of children during times of ‘conflict’ helps to elucidate the potential of
peaceful solutions as they relate to children in conflict’s aftermath. Such solu-
tions include the reintegration of child soldiers, as well as transitional justice
measures designed to address those who have been affected by an aggressive
stance, whether by state or non-state actors. This chapter will examine some
specific examples of such measures, before considering the broader issues of
what peace may look like when considered from the perspective of the child.
The final section concludes.
‘Terror, sheer absolute terror’5
Much has been made of the incidence of ‘new wars’ as the pre-eminent form
of conflict in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.6 One feature of
such ‘new wars’, it is argued, is an increase in the number of civilians affected
by them. Although there is some debate about whether it is the nature of war
that has changed, or the way that we examine it,7 nevertheless, the number
of civilian casualties caused by contemporary warfare and, within that, the
number of those civilians who are children is significant. For example, at the
time of writing, in the ongoing war in Syria more than 11,000 children have
been killed so far.8 In the conflict in Palestine, a quarter of those who have
died are children,9 while countless numbers of children have been killed in
the ongoing conflict in the DRC.10 Moreover, in the aftermath of conflict, chil-
dren are the group most likely to suffer from its long-term consequences, such
as inadequate healthcare provision, insufficient access to education and forced
dislocation.
There are a variety of reasons why children are placed in such close proxim-
ity to conflict. Sometimes children are simply in the wrong place at the wrong
time – ‘collateral damage’ in a wider war. Sometimes the lines have become so
blurred between combatant and non-combatant that even the presence of chil-
dren in a conflict zone may be seen as evidence of potential ‘hostile intent’.11
As Vayrynen notes,12 this blurring of the boundaries between combatant and
non-combatant creates:
‘zones of ambiguity’ where neither peace nor war prevails in the tradi-
tional sense. The state apparatuses are often collapsed and the vacuum is
filled with different kinds of actors. The border between combatants and
non-combatants becomes murky, and the ‘non-combatants’ contribute to
warfare in many ways (such as providing medical services, food and shelter).
Sometimes, for a number of reasons, children are seen as legitimate targets of

deliberate attack. Examining the reasons for this is the first step in concep-
tualizing their significance to contemporary notions of peace. First, children
could be targeted because they themselves have taken part in hostilities and
are thus viewed as enemy combatants.13 The phenomenon of child soldiering
knows few boundaries. Over the last two decades, children have been reported
as participating in the majority of armed conflicts in almost every region in the
world. According to the Paris Principles, which uses the categorization ‘children
associated with armed forces or armed groups’ rather than ‘child soldier’, such
children can be defined as14
Any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used
by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited
to children, boys and girls used as fighters, cooks, porters, messengers, spies
or for sexual purposes. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has
taken a direct part in hostilities.
Often, children who are either separated from, or abandoned by, their parents,
or orphaned, are vulnerable to recruitment by rebel, and sometimes national,
army groups. The latter may supply the basic food and shelter that such sepa-
rated children require, thus providing a social welfare function that may not be
offered anywhere else.15 As Singer notes, a16
pressing problem is the environment of violence, humiliation and lack

of opportunity that surrounds many children in troubled regions. This is
heightened by failing education systems and economic stagnation across
many parts of the world.
In such circumstances, children are highly vulnerable to recruitment to armed

groups, ‘finding meaning and identity’ in what they perceive as ‘the struggle
for justice’ and therefore placing themselves directly in the line of fire.17
Second, children are sometimes deliberately targeted as a way of instilling
fear within a community. As the chief executive of the NGO War Child recently
noted,18
Killing children and targeting them has moved from collateral damage to
a deliberate action of warfare . . . So we see that now in Pakistan, we saw it
also in the Central African Republic, we see it still in Syria and now in the
conflict in Iraq. If you really want to terrorise a population, a very effective
way to do that is to get them worried about what’s going to happen to their
children.
Third, children may be targeted because they are seen as representative of the
continuity of a particular ethnic or religious identity. As UNICEF noted in its
1996 ‘State of the World’s Children Report’,19
When ethnic loyalties prevail, a perilous logic clicks in. The escalation from
ethnic superiority to ethnic cleansing to genocide, as we have seen, can
become an irresistible process. Killing adults is then not enough; future
generations of the enemy – their children – must also be eliminated.
Such policies are not new, but, rather, represent the continuation of similar poli-
cies conducted throughout history. The Phips Proclamation of 1755, for exam-
ple, made by the then lieutenant governor of the Province of Massachusetts,
Spencer Phips, set out to target the Native Penobscot population and ‘required’
his Majesty King George II’s subjects ‘to embrace all opportunities of pursuing,
captivating, killing and Destroying all and every of the aforesaid Indians’. Chil-
dren were not spared, and the Proclamation went on to declare the bounties
involved:20
For every Male Penobscot Indian above the Age of twelve years that shall be
taken within the Time aforesaid and brought to Boston Fifty Pounds.
For every Female Penobscot Indian taken and brought in as aforesaid and for
Every Male Indian Prisoner under the age of twelve Years taken and brought
in as aforesaid Twenty five Pounds.
For every Scalp of such Female Indian or Male Indian under the Age of twelve
years that Shall be killed and brought in as Evidence of their being killed as
aforesaid, Twenty pounds.
This was in keeping with the earlier proclamations made over the border in
Canada when Governor Edward Cornwallis offered a reward ‘for every Indian
Micmac taken, or killed’.21 In Nazi Germany – where between 1 and 1.5 million
children died in the Holocaust – young children were especially targeted. They
had little value as slave labour and posed a threat to Nazi plans to annihilate
the Jewish population.22 Obsessed with the notion of creating a pure ‘Aryan’
society, the Nazis thus deliberately targeted Jewish children for destruction, in
order to prevent the growth of a new generation of Jews in Europe. Similarly,
in Rwanda, Fergal Keane recorded the words of one survivor called Frank talk-
ing about the Hutus and their concern that Tutsi children would grow up to
challenge them:23
You know they wanted to kill all of the children. They were sorry they had
not killed all of our families back in 1959 so there would have been nobody
left to go abroad and form a resistance . . . This time they wanted to finish the
job . . . get rid of the Tutsi’s once and for all.
Of course, targeting children as a way of destroying ethnic continuity is

not only confined to their physical destruction. Throughout history, children
have been the victims of policies aimed at depriving them of their cultural
and political identity. For example, the residential school system that was
central to the idea of assimilating Native identities in the settler states of
Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US is a clear illustration of this.
In the United States, the Carlisle Industrial School was founded in 1879 by
Richard Henry Pratt with the clear goal of assimilation. ‘In Indian civiliza-
tion I am a Baptist’, said Pratt, ‘because I believe in immersing the Indians
in our civilization and when we get them under holding them there until
they are thoroughly soaked’.24 In Canada, the government adopted a policy of
‘aggressive assimilation’ in which Native children were sent to federally funded
church-run schools as a way of diminishing – and eventually abolishing –
Native culture. Similarly, in Senegal, an educational system was put in place
that would assimilate the local population into French culture. A lieutenant
governor of Senegal in 1902 was quoted as telling Senegalese students at a local
school:25
The French language is the language of the entire world, and you are not
an educated or distinguished person, whatever your race, unless you know
how to speak French . . . To speak French, my young friends, is to think in
French . . . it is to be something more than an ordinary man, it is to be asso-
ciated with the nobility and destiny of our country . . . Love France with all
your strength because she loves you well.
In this light, children are more than a humanitarian statistic, and should be
treated as more than mere pawns on a chessboard. Rather, they should be
treated as perhaps one of the most significant sets of actors, who can be both
a means and an end to conflict. While their capability to fight in conflicts is
significant, it is more the symbolic meaning that they hold as the future of
family lines, and the personification of their cultures, that make the targeting
of children a much graver and more vicious tactic. In essence, their destruction
has the potential to unravel the very fabric of their society. At the same time,
their role in the post-conflict state remains just as relevant to the future of
the respective communities of which they are a part. The question is whether
their welfare, as significant actors, is considered in conflict and post-conflict
environments.
The impact on children of the conflict or ‘post-conflict’ state
It may seem obvious what the impact of conflict upon children will be –
whether they have been deliberately targeted or not. During conflict, the risk
to children’s physical well-being is ongoing, and exacerbated by the collapse
of medical infrastructure. In the aftermath of conflict, this situation continues:
children may be living in precarious physical spaces, in damaged buildings or
where landmines are present. They may not have access to clean water or ade-
quate food, and may be displaced in overcrowded refugee camps, where the
risks of communicable disease are greater. Children who grow up in conflict
zones are also at high risk of depression and of post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD). For example, in a 1993 study, Nader et al. examined the impact of con-
flict on Kuwaiti children and found evidence that a significant number (more
than 70 per cent) reported ‘moderate to severe post-traumatic stress reactions’,
which were exacerbated by ‘witnessing death or injury’ as well as ‘the viewing
of explicit graphic images of mutilation on television’.26 Additional problems
include sleep disorders and an inability to concentrate, which together can
have an impact upon educational attainment (assuming, of course, that in a
post-conflict situation, the opportunities for such attainment exist).27 More-
over, the impact of conflict on children is not short-term. There is increasing
evidence that the traumatic events of childhood for one generation are car-
ried into the lives of future generations. Thus, for child soldiers, their trauma
may impact upon their own children, either in terms of how they parent or
because they continue to suffer emotional distress that their children then wit-
ness. As Song et al. noted, when examining issues of trauma and resilience
for former child soldiers and their children in Burundi, breaking this cycle of
intergenerational trauma by addressing ‘how to raise children, the effects of
parental post-traumatic stress and depressive symptoms on offspring, and the
stigma associated with the families of former child soldiers’ may be key.28
Similarly, for those children targeted in conflict, the impact can reverberate
through the years, requiring intervention in later family life. Thus, studies sug-
gest that survivors of the Holocaust continue to display symptoms of PTSD
almost 70 years after the trauma took place.29 Rakoff et al. reported on the
transmission of the effects of the trauma of the Holocaust to the ‘second gener-
ation’, while other research goes one stage further in examining the families of
victims of the Holocaust and the impact upon them of experiences of historical
trauma.30
This recognition of historical trauma is a significant one, and remains under-
examined in the peace and conflict studies literature. Oglala Lakota scholar
Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart defines ‘historical trauma and unresolved grief’
as a ‘cumulative wounding across generations’, recognizing, in this case, the
American Indian experience as ‘analogous to the survivor syndrome and sur-

vivor’s child complex endured among those who endured the Jewish Holocaust
and their progeny.’31 Child survivor’s complex, according to Brave Heart and
de Bruyn, is where ‘descendants of survivors feel responsible to undo the tragic
pain of their ancestral past, often feeling overly protective of parents and grand-
parents, and are preoccupied with death and persecution’.32 Maria Yellow Horse
Brave Heart sees this as having a significant contemporary result, in that she
draws parallels between the high mortality rates on American Indian reserva-
tions – due to alcoholism, substance abuse and suicide – and their experience of
historic trauma, resulting from centuries of genocide as well as ongoing racial
and cultural discrimination.33 Recent research, for example by Bombay et al.,
confirms this in terms of the intergenerational impact of Indian Residential
Schools (IRSs) in Canada, where34
the consequences of numerous and sustained attacks against a group may

accumulate over generations and interact with proximal stressors to under-
mine collective well-being . . . the intergenerational effects of IRSs provides
support for the enduring negative consequences of these experiences and
the role of historical trauma in contributing to present day disparities in
well-being.
The impact of the traumatic events that have been experienced during child-
hood by those in a situation of conflict and/or ongoing marginalization has a
continuing effect that must be addressed in building a long-term sustainable
peace. However, most approaches to building peace marginalize issues sur-
rounding children: they are little discussed in peacebuilding policies, they
are seldom asked to participate in peacebuilding projects, and peacebuilding
strategies are rarely informed by knowledge regarding either their wartime
experiences or their post-conflict needs. Instead, those attempting to secure
peace tend to assume that a programme of post-conflict recovery requires only
the redressing of general systemic wrongs that will eventually ‘trickle down’ to
benefit children along with the rest of the population. Age, however, is one of
the ‘fault-lines of the human condition’ that Galtung has argued are so critical
to debates regarding the nature of peace.35 As has been demonstrated, the value
of children as actors in conflict and post-conflict settings has certainly been
underestimated. Given this, the important question is thus: how can children
be made central to policy as societies and states transition to peace?
The transition to peace
There are a number of policies central to contemporary peacebuilding that

could be more inclusive in terms of the place of children within them.
This chapter will focus upon two: the disarmament, demobilization and
reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants, and transitional justice mechanisms.
DDR has become a key component of both peace processes and post-conflict
reconstruction.36 Yet such programs have proved problematic in ways that
are particularly significant in this present analysis. The presence of child
combatants may be denied by the parties involved in a conflict, meaning
that those children who participated receive little appropriate post-conflict
attention. This was the case in Mozambique, where the use of children was
effectively overlooked as part of the peace process, despite the knowledge
that children had been employed.37 For those who are recognized, child ex-
combatants who have actively taken part in hostilities must, in the aftermath
of war, be reintegrated into their home communities. What, however, is their
status? They may be children under international law, but they may be crim-
inals, too. For example, one study of DDR in Uganda discovered that policies
aimed at reintegrating children back into their home communities were failing
because they were seen as not having been held accountable for their crimes
during the conflict.38 Like any other soldier, they thus face the societal impact
of reintegration; but whereas most post-conflict policies provide demobilized
adult soldiers with a package of benefits designed to aid such integration, there
is often no clear-cut policy for child soldiers, and particularly not for older
children. For example, former combatants in Sierra Leone did not receive ade-
quate funding for their reintegration, something that was recognized by Kofi
Annan in his report prior to Resolution 1389 on the UN Mission in Sierra Leone
(UNAMSIL). In some instances, youth job creation may simply not be a prior-
ity for either donors or the presiding government. Moreover, this reintegration
process should not be considered to be short-term. As noted, the legacy of con-
flict is long-lasting, and there must be long-term support and protection over a
long period if the transition from conflict to post-conflict is to adequately break
the cycle of violence.39 As Theidon notes,40
DDR programs imply multiple transitions: from the combatants who lay
down their weapons, to the governments that seek an end to armed con-
flict, to the communities that receive – or reject – these demobilized fighters.
At each level, these transitions imply a complex and dynamic equation
between the demands of peace and the clamor for justice. And yet, tradi-
tional approaches to DDR have focused almost exclusively on military and
security objectives, which in turn has resulted in these programs being devel-
oped in relative isolation from the growing field of transitional justice and its
concerns with historical clarification, justice, reparations and reconciliation.
In communities facing the aftermath of traumatic events, transitional justice

mechanisms have become one method by which to attempt to heal racial,
ethnic, religious or national divides. These take a variety of forms – truth com-
missions, post-war community reconciliation mechanisms (e.g. Fambul Tok in
Sierra Leone), national court procedures – and are seen as a significant way
of confronting historical grievances and responding to the legacy of traumatic
events by improving current social and economic well-being. Again, however,
any focus upon children in such mechanisms is normally minimal, something
that Machel argues is deeply problematic, given that the41
potential success of such processes depends on the extent to which they

prioritize children. We know from experience that if children are excluded
from a country’s agenda, if their rights are not addressed, a fault line will run
through the heart of the nation. The measure of a country’s strength and
vision is not its military might but its investment in children’s capacities, in
their development.
There are, however, two recent truth and reconciliation commission (TRC)
models that, though different in approach, place issues of child welfare at their
heart. Each breaks new ground within the field of transitional justice, and both
actively seek to address the ‘soul wound’ of intergenerational trauma that so
often inhibits attempts to address cross-cultural reconciliation. The two models
could thus potentially provide a way forward in terms of the architecture of
future peacebuilding institutions and processes and how they initiate reconcili-
ation processes not only with the children immediately involved, but also with
their families and the perpetrators of the policies themselves.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRCC), which began
its mandate in 2009, focuses on the abuses that took place against Aborigi-
nal children (i.e. First Nations, Métis and Inuit) in Canada’s IRSs, and is the
first transitional justice process in the world to concentrate specifically upon
the ‘experiences of children’.42 With a mandate that examines the more than
100 years of history of the IRS system – which came into operation after the
passage of the Indian Act in 1876 and officially ended in 1996 – the man-
date of the TRCC covers ‘one of the longest durations ever examined’ in a
transitional justice process.43 It is also the first TRC to be established as the
result of a court judgement, namely, the Indian Residential Schools Settle-
ment Agreement. On the other side of the border, for the Wabanaki people in
Maine – Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot – their lived expe-
rience has been one of both historical and present-day marginalization. This
included child welfare policies that, despite the passage of the Indian Child
Welfare Act in 1978, saw Native children sent into foster care at a much higher
rate than non-Native children. In 2012, in an attempt to address the impact of
such policies, the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconcilia-
tion Commission (MWTRC) came into operation. The MWTRC is a landmark
process: the first state-endorsed TRC in the US, and one of the first TRCs to be
constructed without the initiation or involvement of the state.
At first glance, these processes may appear to have little relevance for the tra-
ditional post-conflict state – particularly since these processes are taking place
in ‘non-transitioning’ societies – but this reflects an emphasis in the discourse
‘on applying transitional justice only when there is massive repression, con-
flict or war’ rather than upon the ‘the everydayness and bureaucratization of
genocide and of massive human rights violations’.44 Such an emphasis results
in an examination of existing transitional justice mechanisms that takes place
through a very narrow lens. Indeed, this narrowness within the discourse may
be one of the main reasons why the potential significance of children to con-
ceptualizations of peace is overlooked. IR remains a discipline rooted in the
examination of issues of power and governance, and children – because of
their perceived lack of access to the traditional structures that support such
power and governance – remain marginal to it. What, then, does peace mean
from children’s perspectives, and has this been addressed in any way in exist-
ing post-conflict narratives? This exact question was asked recently of Syrian
refugee children by World Vision.45 Their answers are telling: ‘reading a book
on my porch’; feeling ‘peaceful when I sleep in my bed’; ‘living under the same
roof as my parents’; ‘I will go back to school and play with my friends’; ‘when all
of the people are united’. These answers also speak to the disconnect between
the often ‘top-down’ nature of contemporary peacebuilding practice and the
need that exists for communities to heal at the grassroots level after traumatic
experiences. In the latter case, placing children centre stage may be particularly
beneficial. Thus, for example, in Mozambique, the ‘Circus of Peace’ was aimed
at youth in local communities, with a show that outlined conflict-resolution
skills and ways of moving forward towards peace and reconciliation. Peace edu-
cation has also been used as a way of changing societal attitudes by providing
‘alternative and peaceful discourses of change’46 that would preclude the out-
break of future violence. This is important, because without a change in the
nature of education, reconciliation is much more difficult, as education has tra-
ditionally been used as a way for divided societies to entrench their political
position. As Gallagher notes,47
The historical role of education systems has been to promote social cohesion
either by inculcating children into the national community through a pro-
cess of assimilation, or by preparing them for their appropriate station in life
within the ordered hierarchy of society or, perhaps more often, both at the
same time.
For this reason, a key element in transitional justice processes has been the
need to create an accurate historical narrative that reflects events as they have
taken place, and that therefore aims to remove the injustice that an inaccurate
historical narrative reinforces.
Conclusion
Looking at peace from the perspective of children – and from the perspective of
the issues that impact upon them – should not be seen as an exceptional activ-
ity in the field of peace and conflict studies. Children, and the power that they
wield in societies around the world, must be considered a priority for academics
and practitioners alike seeking to understand how successful a post-conflict
society will be in rebuilding itself and mending the tangible and intangible
wounds of conflict. While consideration must be given to the fact that chil-
dren are impacted in significant numbers by political decisions that result in
their injury, and that this is not only an incidental part of conflict but a central
and deliberate one, fields that examine conflict and post-conflict societies and
states must take care to ensure that child welfare issues and the general sta-
tus of children are considered in the attempt to measure cultural and political
destruction. Only then can adequate structures be put in place that understand
the gravity of the welfare of children as well as their families, and that can react
appropriately by bringing all parties together to discuss the potential reper-
cussions of the damage committed against the youngest generations and what
steps need to be taken to ensure their future health and well-being. Without
such considerations, peacebuilding structures and institutions will reflect the
tribulations of only those who began and ended conflict, and will exclude the
wounds that the children of that conflict have suffered – setting a dangerous
precedent for their futures and the future of generations to come.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Oliver Richmond and Jasmin Ramović for their
advice in putting this chapter together, as well as the anonymous referees for
their comments on an earlier draft. A portion of this work is concerned with a
larger project examining transitional justice mechanisms in the US and Canada.
The authors would like to thank their interns on that project – Walt Andrews,
Arjun Chaudhuri, Kylie Courtney, Will Moore, Sandra Norrenbreck and Kerryn
Probert – for their continuing work.
Notes
1. United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, http://www.unicef.org/crc/,
accessed 21 January 2015.
2. UNICEF, http://www.unicef.org/media/media_78058.html, accessed 22 January
2015.
3. Jon Boone and Ewen MacAskill, ‘Pakistan Responds to Peshawar School Massacre
with Strikes on Taliban’, The Guardian, 16 December 2014, http://www.theguardian.
com/world/2014/dec/16/pakistan-taliban-peshawar-massacre-attack, accessed 25 Jan-
uary 2015.
4. Ahmed Al-Haj, ‘Yemen Car Bomb: Primary School Children Killed in Attack on
School Bus’, The Independent, 16 December 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/
news/world/middle-east/yemen-car-bomb-primary-school-children-killed-in-attack-
on-school-bus-9929253.html, accessed 25 January 2015.
5. Jonathan Miller, ‘Children: Victims of War’, Channel 4, 17 December 2014, http:
//www.channel4.com/news/children-victims-of-war-syria-iraq-pakistan, accessed 22
January 2015.
6. Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 2006).
7. Erik Melander, Magnus Öberg and Jonathan Hall, ‘Are “New Wars” More Atrocious?
Battle Intensity, Genocide and Forced Migration before and after the End of the Cold
War’, European Journal of International Relations 15, no. 3 (2009): 505–536.
8. Marisa Taylor, ‘Report: Over 11,000 Syrian Children Killed in War, Most by Explo-
sives’, Al Jazeera America, 24 November 2013, http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/
2013/11/24/report-over-11-000syrianchildrenkilledinwarmostbyexplosives.html,
9. Andrew Marszal, ‘The Children Killed in Gaza during 50 Days of Conflict’, The
Telegraph, 26 August 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/
gaza/11056976/The-children-killed-in-Gaza-during-50-days-of-conflict.html, accessed
29 January 2015.
10. See, for example, SOS Children’s Villages Canada, ‘20 Children Killed in DRC
Violence: UNICEF’, 22 May 2012, http://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/20-children-
killed-drc-violence-unicef, accessed 10 January 2015.
11. Bob Dreyfuss, ‘The US Military Approves Bombing Children’, The Nation,
4 December 2012, http://www.thenation.com/blog/171582/us-military-approves-
bombing-children#, accessed 10 January, 2015; Karen McVeigh, ‘US Military
Facing Fresh Questions over Targeting of Children in Afghanistan’, 7 Decem-
ber 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/07/us-military-targeting-
strategy-afghanistan, accessed 29 January 2015.
12. Tarja Väyrynen, ‘Special Issue: Peace Operations and Global Order: Gender and UN
Peace Operations: The Confines of Modernity’, International Peacekeeping 11, no. 1
(2004): 125–142.
13. Jo Boyden and Joanna de Berry, eds, Children and Youth on the Front Line: Ethnography,
Armed Conflict and Displacement (Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2004).
14. ‘Paris Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed
Groups’, February 2007, http://www.unicef.org/emerg/files/ParisPrinciples310107
English.pdf, accessed 23 January 2015.
15. There are similarities here to the wider phenomenon of ‘youth gangs’. As Hagedorn
notes, ‘[s]ome gangs institutionalize and become permanent social actors in com-
munities, cities, and nations rather than fading away after a generation. These gangs
often replace or rival demoralized political groups and play important, albeit often
destructive, social, economic, and political roles in cities around the world.’ See John
M. Hagedorn, ‘The Global Impact of Gangs’, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice
21, no. 2 (2005): 153–169.
16. Peter W. Singer, Children at War (New York: Pantheon, 2005).
17. Michael Wessells, ‘Child Soldiers, Peace Education, and Postconflict Reconstruction
for Peace’, Theory into Practice 44, no. 4 (2005): 363–369.
18. Miller, Jonathan ‘Children: Victims of War’. http://www.channel4.com/news/
children-victims-of-war-syria-iraq-pakistan, accessed 19 December, 2014.
19. UNICEF, ‘Children in War’, http://www.unicef.org/sowc96/1cinwar.htm, accessed
23 January 2015.
20. Abbemuseum, ‘Phips Proclamation 1755’, http://abbemuseum.org/research/wabanaki/
timeline/proclamation.html#sthash.5zwiPGn5.dpuf, accessed 10 January 2015.
21. Gov. Edward Cornwallis, ‘Scalp Proclamation 1749’, http://www.danielnpaul.com/
BritishScalpProclamation-1749.html, accessed 10 December 2014.
22. Walter Lacquer, A History of Terrorism (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001).
23. Fergal Keane, ‘The Children’, Rwandan Stories, http://www.rwandanstories.org/
aftermath/the_children.html, accessed 14 December 2014. Similar sentiments can
be seen more recently in the conflict in Syria, where, in the port city of Latakia, a
two-year-old girl was shot dead by a military officer who announced that ‘he did not
want her to grow into a demonstrator’.
24. Carlisle Indian School, http://www.black-hawk-design.net/BlackHawk/native_school/
page30.htm, accessed 14 December 2014.
25. Vincent B. Khapoya, The African Experience (London: Pearson, 2012), 108.
26. Kathleen O. Nader, Robert S. Pynoos, Lynn A. Fairbanks, Manal Al-Ajeel and
Abdhulrahman Asfour, ‘Acute Post-Traumatic Reactions among Kuwait Children
Following the Gulf Crisis’, British Journal of Clinical Psychology 32, no. 4 (1993),
417–429.
27. A. A. Thabet, Y. Abed and P. Vostanis, ‘Transitional Subjects: The Disarmament,
Demobilization and Reintegration of Former Combatants in Colombia’, International
Journal of Transitional Justice, 1 (2007): 66–90, 2004.
28. Ibid.
29. A. Fridman, M. J. Bakermans-Kranenburg, A. Sagi-Schwartz and M. H. Van
IJzendoorn, ‘Coping in Old Age with Extreme Childhood Trauma: Aging Holocaust
Survivors and Their Offspring Facing New Challenges’, Aging & Mental Health 15
(2011): 232–242.
30. See, for example, J. Chaitin, ‘Facing the Holocaust in Generations of Families of
Survivors – The Case of Partial Relevance and Interpersonal Values’, Contemporary
Family Therapy 22, no. 3 (2000): 289–313; Y. Danieli, ed., International Handbook of
Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma (New York and London: Plenum, 1998).
31. M. Y. H. Brave Heart, ‘Wakiksuyapi: Carrying the Historical Trauma of the Lakota’,
Tulane Studies in Social Welfare 21–22 (2000): 245–266.
32. M. Y. B. Brave Heart and L. M. DeBruyn, ‘The American Indian Holocaust: Healing
Historical Unresolved Grief’, American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research
8 (1998).
33. B. Collins, S. McEvoy-Levy and A. Watson, ‘Constructing the Maine Wabanaki-State
Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Perceptions and Understand-
ings’, in Indigenous Peoples’ Access to Justice, Including Truth and Reconciliation Com-
missions, eds W. Littlechild and E. Stamatopoulou (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2014).
34. A. Bombay, K. Matheson and H. Anisman, ‘The Intergenerational Effects of Indian
Residential Schools: Implications for the Concept of Historical Trauma’, Transcultural
Psychiatry 51 (2014): 320–338.
35. Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and
Civilization (London, New Delhi, Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1996).
36. Robert Muggah, ‘Managing Post-Conflict Zones: DDR and Weapons Reduction’, in
Small Arms Survey Yearbook 2005: Weapons at War (Small Arms Survey, 2005), 276.
37. Alison M. S. Watson, ‘Children and Post-Conflict Security Governance’, European
Security Governance: The European Union in a Westphalian World, eds Charlotte
Wagnsson, James A. Sprerling and Jan Hallenberg (London: Routledge, 2009),
114–126.
38. G. Akello, A. Richters and R. Reis, ‘Reintegration of Former Child Soldiers in Northern
Uganda: Coming to Terms with Children’s Agency and Accountability’, Intervention
4, no. 3 (2006): 229–243.
39. Ibid.
40. Theidon Kimberley, ‘Comorbidity of PTSD and Depression among Refugee Children
during War Conflict’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 45, no. 3 (2004):
533–542.
41. Ibid., p. x.
42. http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p= 39, accessed 14 December
2015.
43. Ibid.
44. Rosemary Nagy, ‘Transitional Justice as Global Project: Critical Reflections’, Third
World Quarterly 29, no. 2 (2008), 275–289.
45. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= N7k6AQhQvvQ, accessed 21 January 2015
46. Tony Gallagher, ‘Approaches to Peace Education: Comparative Lessons’, in Peace
Education in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies, eds Claire McGlynn, Zvi Bekerman,
Michalinos Zembylas and Tony Gallagher (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 5.
47. Ibid.
16
Social Psychology and Peace
Shelley McKeown Jones and Daniel J. Christie
Introduction
Social psychologists seek to understand how social phenomena are related to

attitudes and behaviours, and are impacted by group presence and belonging.
Interest in social psychology flourished in the 1940s.1 Motivated by the Holo-
caust, researchers wished to understand why individuals would perform such
acts of evil, and under what conditions these acts would be most likely to
occur. This surge in research paved the way for social psychology’s contribu-
tion to the understanding of peace: a contribution not always recognized by
social psychologists.2
This chapter outlines how social psychology has been involved in peace
research. We begin by considering the development of social psychology’s
focus on understanding and improving intergroup relations. Then we discuss
how the psychological study of peace is conceptualized, how this differs from
understandings of liberal peace, and some current debates within the field.
Understanding intergroup relations
For decades, social psychologists have engaged in research focusing on under-

standing intergroup relations. This research was often driven by the personal
experiences of researchers during the Second World War and a desire to under-
stand psychological factors that play a role in human aggression. The growing
number of studies on these topics in social psychology effectively nudged the
whole field of psychology from a rather narrow conceptualization of the causes
of behaviour that drew heavily from personality theories to a broader view that
included the power of the situation.
Social influence and the power of the situation
From the 1930s, the study of social influence took centre stage in social
psychology and focused on two key concepts: conformity and obedience. In his
220
Shelley McKeown Jones and Daniel J. Christie 221
autokinetic effect studies, Sherif3 asked participants to estimate how far a sta-
tionary point of light moved in a dark room. To test the effects of conformity,
he asked some participants to report their estimate, first alone and then in
groups. Those who reported alone first converged to a group norm when tested
the second time in groups; those who reported in a group first maintained the
group answer when alone. Similar findings of conformity were observed years
later by Asch4 in his line judgement studies, where individuals were observed
to conform to group pressures in their estimates of the length of a line even
when this meant giving an incorrect response. These studies helped to clarify
the conditions under which individuals are more likely to conform to group
pressures.
A couple of classic studies on obedience also underscored the power of group
norms and altered the way social psychologists viewed evil. In 1961, Adolf
Eichmann, head of the Third Reich’s main security office during the Second
World War, was tried in a courtroom in Jerusalem for his role in the depor-
tation of Jews to Nazi concentration camps. During his trial, observers were
astonished at how ordinary Eichmann appeared. Hannah Arendt referred to
this as the ‘banality of evil’. Although this idea was controversial, psychologist
Stanley Milgram found support for the banality of evil in a laboratory study
at Yale University, known as the obedience experiments. Milgram wanted to
know how far a person would go when given orders by an authority figure to
shock another person. He used a learning experiment in which the participant
was a teacher who had to administer increasingly intense shocks to a learner
in the next room each time the learner gave a wrong answer. (Unbeknownst
to the teacher, the learner actually did not receive shocks.) Milgram observed
that the majority of participants were willing to administer a lethal shock to
the learner, a finding that has been replicated in recent studies.5 Although the
question of whether Milgram really did test obedience has recently come under
fire, his findings highlighted how far an individual would go when asked by an
authority figure to harm someone.
Some years following Milgram, Philip Zimbardo set up a controversial experi-
ment that focused on the power of the social situation in explaining tyrannical
behaviour. He studied the behaviour of participants, who were randomly
assigned as prisoners or guards, in a mock prison at Stanford University. Fol-
lowing days of abuse, Zimbardo felt it was ethically necessary to end the
experiment before its completion. He argued that the situation had turned good
people into bad apples. Zimbardo later used this study to explain the atrocities
observed at the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prison.
Although subsequent studies identified some of the limitations of studies on
conformity and obedience, these studies highlighted the power of the situation
and moved scholars away from earlier understandings of evil as being part of
one’s personality.
Intergroup bias
In addition to research on social influence, the Second World War sparked a

desire to understand the importance of individual and intergroup processes in
intergroup bias, referred to as the problem of the century.6 Two theories that
are particularly noteworthy due to their heuristic value are the authoritarian
personality theory and the social identity theory.
As the scale of the atrocities committed by the Third Reich became appar-
ent, psychologists cast about for explanations of such extreme, aggressive and
intolerant behaviour. Adorno and colleagues7 provided evidence for a trait they
called the ‘authoritarian personality’, which consisted of a syndrome with nine
components that were believed to have played a role in the mass killings.
Although the measurements of the nine components were a strong predictor
of ethnocentrism and anti-Semitism, further research by Altemeyer8 demon-
strated that only three of the nine components were reliably interrelated:
submissive attitude towards authorities, a rigid adherence to conventional val-
ues, and aggression towards those who violate conventional values. Altmeyer’s
construct, ‘Right Wing Authoritarianism’, was later contested by Duckitt,9 who
suggested that previous research failed to understand why these three com-
ponents correlated, and argued that authoritarianism should be thought of in
terms of how an individual relates to their group and individual group mem-
bers. This was an important step, as it moved the analysis of mass violence away
from a reductionist view (i.e. personality) and towards an explanation based on
group norms and strength of identification, an explanation that is consistent
with many features of social identity theory.
Tajfel and Turner’s10 social identity theory argues that we tend to divide
our world into groups, and we feel that we belong to some of those groups.
The strength of our social identities is said to influence how likely we are to
behave in line with our group norms. This can create an ‘us and them’ men-
tality, whereby we see ourselves as interchangeable with ingroup members and
distinct from outgroup members. The theory also posits that individuals com-
pare themselves with other groups as a means to boost self-esteem. When a
favourable comparison is difficult to achieve, individuals may change the com-
parison dimension. For example, the ‘Black is beautiful’ campaign in the 1960s
was one way to bolster ingroup love and increase self-esteem.
While ingroup amity and outgroup enmity can vary independently, under
certain conditions such as threats to the well-being of the ingroup, outgroup
derogation is a typical result. Hence, social identity has been used to understand
why group membership can lead to conflict and/or violence.
Intergroup conflict and violence
Social identity theory explains the emergence of conflict through a group

membership lens. The theory argues that when it is not possible to leave
the group, when the situation is perceived as illegitimate and when rela-
tions are unstable, conflict can occur. Conflict, however, does not always
lead to violence. Psychologists distinguish between conflict, which involves
the perception (real or imagined) of incompatible goals and may be used in
constructive ways to build a relationship, and violence, which is overt and
behavioural and includes the intention to harm another person or group.11
In an attempt to explain how certain conditions can lay the groundwork for
conflict and evolve into violence, some psychologists have integrated concepts
and theories from multiple levels of analysis (individual, group, nation). For
example, Staub12 differentiates mass killing, which does not emphasize group
membership, from genocide, which aims to eliminate a whole group of people
who share a common social identity. In the case of genocide, he proposes that
difficult life conditions can give rise to the frustration of human needs, which
in turn can result in grievances and intergroup conflict when members of the
aggrieved group explain their frustrations by developing an ideology that iden-
tifies members of another group as responsible for their adverse conditions.
Intergroup conflict ensues, gradually evolving as members of the aggrieved
group engage in minor forms of discrimination, and later, more severe kinds
of violence that can culminate in mass killing or genocide. Certain features
of social organization and the culture within which perpetrators and victims
are embedded can make this progression from conflict to violence more likely.
For example, all other things being equal, mass violence and genocide are
more likely in hierarchically arranged societies that have norms encouraging
passivity among those who witness violence.
Theories and research on obedience, conformity, identity and the power of
the situation can be used to understand how such horrific acts of evil arose.
Importantly, we can use these understandings to prevent the escalation or
maintenance of intergroup violence and to help bring about peace.
Improving intergroup relations
Understanding how to improve intergroup relations has been a priority for

many social psychologists. Much of this work has focused on the conditions
that favour the reduction of prejudice and bring about social change.
Intergroup contact
Conflict and violence often go hand in hand with high levels of segregation
and resulting negative intergroup attitudes. Accordingly, many societies have
adopted interventions that are designed to improve intergroup relations espe-
cially through the facilitation of intergroup contact. This is normally based
upon the principles of the contact hypothesis,13 which posits that bringing
groups together, under favourable circumstances, can reduce prejudice. These
favourable circumstances include support by local authorities or institutions,

equal status between groups within the contact situation, common goals, and
cooperation/no competition.
The classic Robbers Cave Experiment14 provides an interesting example of
how cooperation works in intergroup contact. The experiment involved 22
fifth-grade school boys who were taking part in a summer camp. The boys
were split into two groups and only interacted with members of their own
group for one week. The situation was structured so that boys engaged in com-
petitive group activities which ultimately resulted in violent behaviour. The
leaders used various strategies to improve relations, but it was only when the
groups had to work together to fix the camp truck, which had broken down,
that intergroup friendship began to develop. Later research has also supported
the importance of cooperation in prejudice reduction.15
The contact hypothesis has been described as one of the most successful
theories in social psychology.16 In a meta-analysis of 516 contact studies, the
majority illustrated a negative relationship between contact and prejudice.17
The effect has been found to be influenced by a number of important mediators,
including intergroup anxiety,18 forgiveness19 and trust,20 as well as moderators
such as social and religious identification21 and group membership salience.22
Additionally, friendship formation (direct and indirect) has been established as
a way to facilitate the generalization of positive attitudes towards one outgroup
member to the outgroup as a whole.23 Moreover, investigators have shown
that simply imagining having an outgroup friend can promote more positive
intergroup attitudes.24
Despite the positive effects of contact, behavioural observations of intergroup
behaviour in everyday life spaces have shown contact to be problematic when
faced with reality, where high levels of segregation are the norm.25 Never-
theless, research on intergroup contact and the improvement of intergroup
relations is an example of the way in which social psychologists have con-
ducted rigorous research within the positivist tradition to enhance our under-
standing of conditions that favour peace and harmonious relations between
groups.
Changes in the definition of peace
If one uses the number of publications in a field as a measure of interest,

throughout most of the twentieth century, psychologists had little interest in
the concept of peace. The Cold War era, particularly during the 1960s and
1980s, was a watershed for psychological conceptions of peace.26 Numerous
psychological concepts, themes and analyses were used in an effort to more
deeply understand the causes and remedies for a nuclear arms race that threat-
ened the survival of humankind.27 A sample of concepts and ideas included
enemy images, mirror images, trust and distrust, destructive communication

patterns, mutually distorted perceptions and fear, coercive interactions, effort
justification (too much invested to quit), and the psychological bases of the
doctrine of deterrence. During the Cold War, peace was viewed as the absence of
violence, or negative peace. A broader definition that equated peace with social
justice and comported with Galtung’s28 notion of positive peace was viewed by
psychologists as a distraction from the pre-eminent concern of avoiding nuclear
annihilation.29 However, when the Cold War ended, many Western psycholo-
gists turned their attention towards the worldwide issue of structural violence,
a ubiquitous and insidious form of violence that kills people through the depri-
vation of human need satisfaction. Structural violence is driven by relatively
permanent arrangements in the distribution and access to resources that are
necessary for human survival.
In the light of the growing appreciation among Western psychologists that
focal peace issues varied with geohistorical context, the concept of peace was
enlarged to include negative and positive forms. Furthermore, it was recog-
nized that the roots of violent episodes in many parts of the world could be
traced to relatively permanent structural arrangements that deprived people of
basic human needs and aspirations. Therefore, in order to promote and sustain
peace, it seemed essential to adopt a systems framework in which non-violence
was used by individuals and groups as a means to promote deep-rooted struc-
tural and cultural changes that could result in more equitable arrangements in
relations between individuals and groups.30
The social-psychological study of peace
Although social psychologists have been involved in the study of peace for
decades, they have not always viewed their work as ‘peace psychological’.31
Vollhardt and Bilali32 define the psychological study of peace as
the field of psychological theory and practice aimed at the prevention and
mitigation of direct and structural violence between members of differ-
ent sociopolitical groups, as well as the promotion of cooperation and a
prosocial orientation that reduces the occurrence of intergroup and societal
violence and furthers positive intergroup relations. (p. 13)
The authors argue that there are three key areas in which social psychologists
are involved in peace research: core social-psychological concepts (e.g. conflict
resolution, contact hypothesis, social dominance orientation, social justice),
directly relevant concepts (e.g. aggression, prejudice, power, social identity the-
ory) and indirectly relevant concepts (e.g. attitudes, group dynamics, political
participation, social influence).
By contrast, Cohrs and Boehnke33 used a 2 × 2 matrix in which they crossed

negative and positive with catalysts and obstacles. Catalysts refer to social-
psychological factors that facilitate negative and positive peace; obstacles refer
to social-psychological factors that form barriers to negative and positive peace.
Cohrs and Boehnke34 use this matrix to demonstrate how social-psychological
concepts, theories and themes have contributed to our understanding of peace.
For example, social dominance theory fits in the cell that depicts an obsta-
cle to negative peace; interventions to prevent mass violence such as genocide
fall into the category of a catalyst for negative peace; ethnic discrimination
is regarded as an obstacle to positive peace; and conditions that favour the
promotion of human rights are regarded as catalysts for positive peace.
What is clear from these frameworks is that there have been substantial
empirical and theoretical works derived from the social-psychological literature
to aid the understanding of peace and conflict. Perhaps most notable is psy-
chology’s concentration on the human and contextual factors associated with
war and peace. Such understandings differ from other disciplines in which,
arguably, the role of the individual and group dynamics are often ignored, and
such is the case in liberal peace research.
Social psychology and liberal peace
A question that arises in any scholarly inquiry into behavioural or social phe-
nomena is the level or unit of analysis that will be chosen for systematic
research. As Lewin35 noted, ‘The first prerequisite of a successful observation
in any science is a definite understanding about what size of unit one is going
to observe at a given time’ (p. 157).
For social psychologists, the primary units of analysis are at the individual,
group and intergroup levels, and therefore little attention has been given to
the liberal peace hypothesis, which is typically examined at the international
level of analysis and posits that democracies do not go to war with one another.
Conversely, scholars in international relations have not given much attention
to insights derived from social-psychological research, even though elite deci-
sion makers who decide when to pursue peace and war are influenced by a
host of social-psychological variables. The downside of limiting one’s inquiry
to a fixed level of analysis is the inability to detect relations that exist between
levels. To complicate matters, a target event at one level of analysis may have
multiple determinants both within and across levels of analysis.36
While there has been some empirical support for liberal peace, and the world
has witnessed a reduction in the incidence of interstate war and war-related
deaths, the meaning of peace currently stands in crisis in the liberal peace lit-
erature,37,38 and, from our perspective, the idea that peace is governance makes
too many assumptions about what is happening at the micro level of analysis,
where the dynamics of human psychology are in play, and relies too heavily
on what happens at the state or institutional level to make judgements about
individual and group behaviours. More specifically, this approach ignores how
individuals interact in everyday life spaces, how they engage with particular
groups, how they react to leaders, how leaders make decisions, and how deci-
sions are influenced by social and cultural norms. A consequence of this is
that liberal peace often makes assumptions about what is happening on the
ground. This is problematic, because it is these very bottom-up processes that
can help determine under what conditions liberal peace is likely to work, or not.
Therefore, a key question for the study of liberal peace is how to move beyond
the narrow confines of state relations and embrace a multi-level approach to
understanding peace.
Richmond39 points to a number of ways in which psychology has contributed
to a more holistic understanding of peace. Examples include examining the
behaviour of individuals, officials and states; differentiating between types of
violence; and addressing human responses to war and peace. Importantly, psy-
chological frameworks facilitate an understanding not only of how states relate
to one another, but of how they relate to the individual in society and how the
individual in society influences state processes.
Hermann and Kegley40 discuss a number of specific ways in which psychol-
ogy could be more involved in the liberal peace debate. First, they claim that
psychologists can offer substantial input on the role of individual decision mak-
ers, something often ignored in the liberal peace literature. Second, they suggest
that there has been a distinct lack of research focusing on how leaders per-
ceive and react to certain situations, something which could be informed by
psychological understandings of decision making, cognition and social iden-
tity. Third, they consider how leaders react in crisis situations and outline
the importance of understanding individual differences associated with lead-
ers. Moving beyond the traditional interpretation of liberal peace, Hermann
and Kegley highlight how psychological research on social identity and enemy
images can aid the understanding of why people go to war. They acknowl-
edge that understanding democracies is important, but to fully understand
why they may not go to war with one another requires a deeper, multi-level
approach.
One example of research that employed a multi-level approach was con-
ducted by Herrmann and Keller.41 These investigators surveyed 514 members
of the US political elite in order to determine whether their attitudes towards
trade shaped their strategic choices. Their findings indicate that the decisions
of the elite to engage, contain or use force with geostrategically important
countries depended in large part on the degree to which they held a positive
attitude towards free trade. Those who most valued free trade favoured engage-
ment rather than containment or the use of force, thereby lending support to
the liberal peace hypothesis or the notion that trade encourages peaceful rela-
tions at the macro level of analysis. These findings suggest that the liberal peace
hypothesis may gain support when key decision makers view international rela-
tions through the lens of trade rather than power politics. In short, perceptions
at the micro level play a role in decisions that are manifest at the macro level.
Current debates in the social-psychological study of peace
A number of issues are currently being contested in the social-psychological

study of peace. Because of space limitations, in this section we highlight
only two of the issues that are being debated: methodological issues and the
difficulty of integrating research findings across levels of analysis.
Methodological issues
Although a range of research methods are used in social-psychological peace
research, the methods of choice are experiment and survey research, together
accounting for 61 per cent of the methods employed.42 Researchers use these
methods in an attempt to verify or falsify hypotheses, thereby contributing to
the accumulation of scientific knowledge. A key assumption is that the scien-
tific approach can be used as a means of acquiring and accumulating knowledge
because there are knowable objective realities ‘out there’ that can be discovered.
From a social constructionist perspective, the experiment and survey research
methods are often misguided, because they aim to provide a reflection of the
world but are stripped of context and ignore the possibility that knowledge
is an artefact of communal exchange. The social constructionist approach, as
exemplified in methods such as discourse analysis, views all realities, including
psychological phenomena, not as a result of knowable external realities but as
a result of discursive constructions.43
Social-psychological research on attitudes towards war provides an inter-
esting contrast between a traditional scientific and a social constructionist
approach to knowledge generation. The former approach seeks to strip away
context in an effort to gain an unvarnished, objective, neutral and truer assess-
ment of the subject’s real attitude; the discourse approach argues that no
expression of an attitude can be acontextual. As a result, there is a growing
number of publications on the social psychology of peace that take discursive
considerations into account.44
Moreover, efforts are underway to bring a more critical perspective to the
knowledge-generation process and ensure that methods comport with the
maxim of ‘pursuing peace research through peaceful means’. The ‘peaceful
means, peaceful ends’ approach is reflexive and based on questions such as:
how equitable is the power configuration in research efforts? Who formulates
the research questions? Who benefits from such formulations? To what extent
are subjectivities honoured? And how are the research findings communicated,
to whom and with what purposes?45
The levels of analysis question

Another tension in social-psychological peace research arises from differences
in investigators’ preferred level of analysis. Vollhardt and Bilali46 note that
one limitation of research is that the focal level of analysis typically cen-
tres around individual factors, such as racism and discrimination, rather
than taking into account structural issues. For instance, gender violence may
take place at the interpersonal level, yet violence against women is struc-
turally driven and normative, with power differences depriving women of
the economic means of extricating themselves from violent relationships, and
norms that encourage violence against women by suggesting that women
are of less value than men.47 Clearly, destructive relationships between peo-
ple are always embedded in a larger geohistorical context, and sustainable
peace requires changes at both the macro and the corresponding micro
levels.
While social-psychological peace research can be criticized for failing to take
into account macro-level variables, research may also be criticized for not
being sufficiently micro in its analysis. Earlier, we discussed social psychology’s
emphasis on the power of the situation, as contrasted with dispositional fac-
tors, in determining behaviour. However, dispositional factors may play a role
in peace at the individual level, which, in turn, may cascade across levels from
micro to macro.
Nelson48 has carried out the most thoroughgoing research and analysis of
the literature on the importance of ‘personal peace’ in relation to interper-
sonal and international peace. His research demonstrates a moderate degree
of consistency between personal and interpersonal peace: people who expe-
rience a high level of inner peace tend to be more peaceful towards others,
and people who are high in interpersonal peace tend to experience more per-
sonal peace, a set of relationships that are presumed to be mediated, in part,
by an agreeable personality. There is also a substantial amount of evidence in
support of a relationship between interpersonal peacefulness and peaceful atti-
tudes about international relations and the converse, though the evidence is
equivocal about the relationship between personal peace and attitudes towards
international peace.
Taken together, findings from research that begins at the macro level and
works down to micro levels as well as research that moves in the other direc-
tion – from micro to macro – underscore the importance of collaborating
across disciplines. While cross-disciplinary work is likely to engender difficul-
ties in communication, the search for robust concepts and relations between
them that are able to integrate across levels seems more likely to deepen our
understanding of the interplay of micro- and macro-level events than research

that remains within the narrow confines of one level of analysis.
Conclusion
Although peace scholars tend to emphasize macro-level events, social psy-

chologists have conducted research and developed theoretical frameworks that
have deepened and sharpened our understanding of social-psychological pro-
cesses involved in war and peace. Within the area of social psychology, we
expect epistemological and methodological issues to remain hotly contested.
At the same time, these contests are opportunities to build collaborative rela-
tions within the field while reaching out to other fields of inquiry as we join
together and embark on a journey to understand the multi-levelled nature of
peace.
Notes
1. Stephen Gibson, ‘ “I’m Not a War Monger But . . . ”: Discourse Analysis and Social
Psychological Peace Research’, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 22
(2012): 159–173.
2. J. Christopher Cohrs and Klaus Boehnke, ‘Social Psychology and Peace: An Introduc-
tory Overview’, Social Psychology 39 (2008): 4–11.
3. Muzafer Sherif, ‘A Study of Some Social Factors in Perception’, Archives of Psychology
27 (1935): 187.
4. Solomon E. Asch, ‘Effects of Group Pressure, upon the Modification and Distortion
of Judgments’, in Groups, Leadership, and Men. Pittsburgh, ed. Harold S. Guetzkow
(Lancaster: Carnegie Press, 1951), 177–190.
5. Jerry Burger, ‘Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today’, American Psychol-
ogist 64 (2009): 1–11.
6. Susan T. Fiske, ‘What We Know Now about Bias and Intergroup Conflict, Problem of
the Century’, Current Directions in Psychological Science 11 (2002): 123–128.
7. Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson and Nevitt Sanford,
in The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper and Row, 1950).
8. Robert A. Altemeyer, Right-Wing Authoritarianism (Manitoba: University of Manitoba
Press, 1981).
9. John Duckitt, ‘Authoritarianism and Group Identification: A New View of an Old
Construct’, Political Psychology 10 (1989): 63–84.
10. Henri Tajfel and John C. Turner, ‘An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict’,
in The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, eds William G. Austin and Stephen
Worchel (Monterey: Brooks-Cole, 1979).
11. Richard V. Wagner, ‘Direct Violence’, in Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology
for the 21st Century, eds Daniel J. Christie, Richard V. Wagner and Deborah Du-Nann
Winter (Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, 2001).
12. Ervin Staub, Overcoming Evil: Genocide, Violent Conflict and Terrorism (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2011).
13. Gordon A. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1954).
14. Muzafer Sherif, O. J. Harvey, B. Jack White, William R. Hood and Carolyn W. Sherif,
Intergroup Cooperation and Competition: The Robbers Cave Experiment (Norman: Uni-
versity Book Exchange, 1961).
15. Robert Slavin, ‘Effects of Biracial Learning Teams on Cross-Racial Friendships’, Jour-
nal of Educational Psychology 71 (1979): 381–387; Russell H. Weigel, Patricia L. Wiser
and Stuart W. Cook, ‘The Impact of Cooperative Learning Experiences on Cross-
Ethnic Relations and Attitudes’, Journal of Social Issues 31 (1975): 219–244; Shelley
McKeown, Ed Cairns, Maurice Stringer and Gordon Rae, ‘Micro-Ecological Behavior
and Intergroup Contact’, Journal of Social Psychology 152 (2012): 340–358.
16. John F. Dovidio, Samuel L. Gaertner and Kerry Kawakami, ‘Intergroup Contact: The
Past, Present, and the Future’, Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 6 (2003): 5–21.
17. Thomas F. Pettigrew and Linda R. Tropp, ‘A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact
Theory’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90 (2006): 751–783.
18. Alberto Voci and Miles Hewstone, ‘Intergroup Contact and Prejudice toward Immi-
grants in Italy: The Mediational Role of Anxiety and the Moderational Role of Group
Salience’, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations 6 (2003): 37–54.
19. Tania Tam, Miles Hewstone, Ed Cairns, Nicole Tausch, Greg Maio and Jared
Kenworthy, ‘The Impact of Intergroup Emotions on Forgiveness in Northern Ireland’,
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 10 (2007): 119–135.
20. Tania Tam, Miles Hewstone, Jared Kenworthy and Ed Cairns, ‘Intergroup Trust in
Northern Ireland’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 35 (2009): 45–59.
21. Ed Cairns, Jared Kenworthy, Andrea Campbell and Miles Hewstone, ‘The Role of
In-Group Identification, Religious Group Membership and Intergroup Conflict in
Moderating In-Group and Out-Group Affect’, British Journal of Social Psychology 45
(2006): 701–716.
22. Tam, Hewstone, Kenworthy and Cairns, ‘Intergroup Trust in Northern Ireland’.
23. Rhiannon N. Turner, Miles Hewstone, Alberto Voci and Christina Vonofakou, ‘A Test
of the Extended Contact Hypothesis: The Mediating Role of Intergroup Anxiety, Per-
ceived Ingroup and Outgroup Norms, and Inclusion of the Outgroup in the Self’,
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95 (2008): 843–860.
24. Rhiannon N. Turner and Richard J. Crisp, ‘Imagining Intergroup Contact Reduces
Implicit Prejudice’, British Journal of Social Psychology 49 (2010): 129–142
25. John A. Dixon, Kevin Durrheim and Colin Tredoux, ‘Beyond the Optimal Con-
tact Strategy: A Reality Check for the Contact Hypothesis’, American Psychologist, 60
(2005): 697–711.
26. Daniel J. Christie and Cristina J. Montiel, ‘Contributions of Psychology to War and
Peace’, American Psychologist 68 (2013): 502–513.
27. Roger W. Russell, ‘Role for Psychologists in the Formulation and Evaluation of Pol-
icy’, Journal of Social Issues 17 (1961): 79–84; Ralph K. White, Psychology and the
Prevention of Nuclear War (New York: University Press, 1986).
28. Johan Galtung, ‘Violence, Peace and Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research 6
(1969): 167–191.
29. Mahlon B. Smith, ‘Foreword’, in Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology for
the 21st Century, eds Daniel J. Christie, R. V. Wagner and Deborah Du-Nann Winter
(Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, 2001), V–VII.
30. Daniel J. Christie, ‘What Is Peace Psychology the Psychology of?’ Journal of Social
Issues 62 (2006): 1–17.
31. Cohrs and Boehnke, ‘Social Psychology and Peace’.
32. Johanna K. Vollhardt and Rezarta Bilali, ‘Social Psychology’s Contribution to the
Psychological Study of Peace: A Review’, Social Psychology 39 (2008): 12–25.

35. Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science (New York: Harper, 1951).
36. John T. Cacioppo and Gary G. Berntson, ‘Social Psychological Contributions to the
Decade of the Brain: Doctrine of Multilevel Analysis’, American Psychologist 47 (1992):
1019–1028.
37. Oliver Richmond, ‘Post-Liberal Peace: Eirenism and the Everyday’, Review of Interna-
tional Studies 35 (2009): 557–580.
38. Oliver Richmond, Peace and International Relations: A New Agenda (New York:
Routledge, 2008).
39. Richmond, ‘Post-Liberal Peace’.
40. Margaret G. Hermann and Charles W. Kegley Jr, ‘Rethinking Democracy and Inter-
national Peace: Perspectives from Political Psychology’, International Studies Quarterly
39 (1995): 511–533.
41. Richard K. Herrmann and Jonathan W. Keller, ‘Beliefs, Values, and Strategic Choice:
US leaders’ Decisions to Engage, Contain, and Use Force in an Era of Globalization’,
Journal of Politics 66 (2004): 557–580.
42. Vollhardt, Johanna K., and Rezarta Bilali. ‘Social Psychology’s Contribution to the
Psychological Study of Peace: A Review’, Social Psychology 39, no. 1 (2008): 12–25.
43. Kenneth J. Gergen, ‘The Social Constructionist Movement in Modern Psychology’,
American Psychologist 40 (1985): 266–275.
44. Scott L. Moeschberger and Rebekah A. Phillips DeZalia, Symbols That Bind, Symbols
That Divide: The Semiotics of Peace and Conflict (New York: Springer, 2014); Olivera
Simić, Zala Volčič and Catherine R. Philpot, Peace Psychology in the Balkans: Dealing
with a Violent Past While Building Peace (New York: Springer, 2013); Diane Bretherton
and Siew Fang Law, Research Methods in Peace Psychology (New York: Springer, 2015).
45. Bretherton and Law, ‘Research Methods in Peace Psychology’.
46. Vollhardt and Bilali, ‘Social Psychology’s Contribution to the Psychological Study of
Peace’.
47. Charlotte Bunch, ‘Women’s Rights as Human Rights: Toward a Re-vision of Human
Rights’, Human Rights Quarterly 12 (1990): 486–498.
48. Linden L. Nelson, ‘Peaceful Personality’, in Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology, ed.
Daniel. J. Christie (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 823–827.
17
Humanitarianism and Peace
Jenny H. Peterson
Introduction
Popular images of humanitarian aid workers handing out food in refugee camps
and vaccinating children in isolated areas, often in the midst of ongoing politi-
cal violence, portray a clear synergy between the goals of the humanitarian and
the aims of the peacebuilder. While the practices they engage in are often dif-
ferent, there is an overlap in terms of their ethical stance towards violence and
their political commitment to engage in activities which will alleviate human
suffering. This chapter will reflect on these commonalities, arguing that such
an overlap is indeed present but that the shared sense of purpose is also regu-
larly questioned. Through these reflections, the chapter will uncover the ways
in which the goals of liberal peace are simultaneously adopted, adapted and
challenged by humanitarians.
A basic definition of humanitarianism acts as a foundation for identify-
ing how humanitarians shape their understanding of peace: ‘Humanitarian
assistance, broadly defined seeks to save lives, alleviate suffering and main-
tain human dignity in response to need. Humanitarian assistance is guided by
the core principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence.’1
In relation to the arguments of this chapter, the above definition and sim-
ilar definitions from other humanitarian organizations are notable for the
absence of the words ‘peace’, ‘conflict’ or ‘violence’. Indeed, one could argue
that humanitarians are simply not concerned with peace – they are, rather,
concerned with processes which improve human well-being and reduce indi-
viduals’ suffering regardless of its causes. Let us not forget that humanitarian
work does not take place only in contexts of political violence, but also in
instances of ‘natural’ disasters and seemingly peaceful situations characterized
more by levels of under-development than by overt violence. For humani-
tarians, peace and conflict are considered as context: characteristics of the
environment which impact their work or render their presence necessary. The
233
central humanitarian task is not to build peace, but to alleviate human suffering
and maintain human dignity in all circumstances.
Despite this, one can still identify an understanding of what peace is in this
field. If one is forced to speak in the language of peace and conflict stud-
ies, it is clear that the conceptualization of peace to which humanitarians
gravitate is that of human security. Defined as ‘prioritizing the security of peo-
ple rather than states’2 and creating the conditions in which individuals are
free from want and fear,3 the basic goals of human security sit comfortably
with the humanitarian focus on protecting individual well-being and dignity.
In this way, we see an obvious overlap with contemporary manifestations
of the liberal peace which, on top of promoting democratic institutions and
free markets, also adopt the human security approach, justifying interventions
and programming in terms of promoting individual needs (such as adequate
healthcare, education and personal safety) as opposed to simply securing state
interests.4 In the embracing of the ideals of the human security approach,
we can identify obvious congruence between humanitarianism and the liberal
peace.
However, having identified this congruence, one must simultaneously note
the heterogeneity that exists within the aid industry. Over the past two cen-
turies, and most notably since the end of the Cold War, the humanitarian
industry has undergone substantial changes, resulting in a fragmented industry,
rife with internal disagreements. If one considers post-earthquake Haiti alone,
where there were over 900 international non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) vying for space and funds,5 the difficulty of presenting generalizations
about humanitarianism becomes clear. Important divisions must be analysed.
For example, the ‘traditional humanitarian’ who upholds the core four princi-
ples above all else and focuses on palliative care now exists alongside the much
more political ‘new humanitarians’ who encourage or even instigate political
action to resolve humanitarian crises.6
Within these new humanitarians, we can also identify the ‘solidarist human-
itarians’ who choose to bear witness, act in solidarity with the communities
with whom they work, openly challenge nation-states or other powerful politi-
cal actors, and often work closely with non-state actors in defiance of their host
countries and donors.7 The above contradictions are played out in an increas-
ingly competitive aid arena in which actors vie for limited donor funds, with
new actors (including the private sector and non-Western NGOs) challenging
the previous economic and moral supremacy/legitimacy of traditional human-
itarian actors. These divisions, and how they both impact and are impacted
upon by the liberal peace approach, inform the rest of this chapter. As will be
seen, the debates within and between the above humanitarian factions result in
two competing understandings of the relationship between humanitarianism
and the liberal peace.
Jenny H. Peterson 235
Humanitarianism and the liberal peace as synergetic
Emerging in the 1990s with the end of the Cold War, human security recast
aid (in its peace, security, development and humanitarian forms) as a set of
processes motivated and practised beyond orthodox geopolitics and the tradi-
tional focus on state interests. This rhetorical shift has facilitated changes in
the way that political actors concerned with peace view and choose to interact
with humanitarian actors.
Until the 1980s the international promotion of human rights issues and
the call for a more active humanitarian policy was a marginal cause . . . . For
the Left, the non-political stance of these groups, formally neutral in the
struggle to liberate the developing world from Western imperialism, was con-
demned as predominantly conservative. For the Right, the neutral position
of humanitarians was equally galling . . . Since the end of the Cold War, lead-
ing Western governments and political parties of both the Left and Right
have declared their support for [humanitarianism].8
With the supposed neutrality of humanitarian organizations on the big

geopolitical questions of the day no longer an issue, humanitarian organi-
zations were recast as allies in the creation of the ‘New World Order’. The
traditional apolitical stance of humanitarians, who wanted to improve individ-
ual lives regardless of political persuasion, appeared to merge seamlessly with
what has largely been portrayed as an apolitical set of peacebuilding processes.
The supposed ending of the great ideological battle recast aid as a technocratic
and thus neutral exercise.
Almost immediately, we saw the emergence what I refer to as an agenda of
synergy,9 in which humanitarian, peace, security and development aid became
depicted as complementary, mutually reinforcing and interdependent. As a
result, many actors came to see humanitarian relief as a way of supporting
and facilitating wider peacebuilding agendas.10 This perceived link became
institutionalized in the international aid architecture, with powerful organi-
zations such as the UN,11 the EU and the World Bank, as well as major
NGOs such as CARE and OXFAM, affirming the complementarity between
emergency humanitarian relief and the wider goals of peace and sustainable
development.12
While less explicit, one witnesses an underlying belief in synergy within
the statements of humanitarian organizations. For example, in the Interna-
tional Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRCRCS) Code of
Conduct, it is noted that they ‘strive to implement relief programmes which
actively reduce beneficiaries’ vulnerability to future disasters and which create
sustainable lifestyles’.13 Empirical case studies of humanitarian programming
have also contributed to the belief in synergy, with humanitarian provision

of primary healthcare services in northern Afghanistan14 seen as providing a
peacebuilding function in the ways they provide social safety nets and out-
lets for other civilian concerns to be raised. Similar findings have been noted
in reference to ‘Children as Zones of Peace’ projects, in which ceasefires are
negotiated to allow the delivery of goods (primarily immunization and other
health-related programming).15 Such programmes, often classified as disaster
diplomacy, see the processes of negotiation that are essential for humanitarian
actors gaining access to populations in need as having peacebuilding impli-
cations insofar as they create channels of communication between normally
hostile parties and lead to small but significant trust-building mechanisms.
One of the most often cited cases of successful disaster diplomacy can be
found in studies of Aceh, with varied debates on the impact on peacebuilding
resulting from cooperation between warring parties following the 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami.16 In this case, responding to the human security needs of
the population following the disaster (in the form of food, shelter and
medical care) was seen by some as creating good will and communication
between warring parties that allowed the human security goals of personal
security and self-determination, desired by the peacebuilding industry, to be
furthered.
Synergies between humanitarians and peacebuilders have been concep-
tualized in various ways. In some models, the work of humanitarian and
peacebuilding actors, while contributing the same general endpoint of human
security, remains distinct, with actors working alongside each other but not in a
fully integrated or joined-up way. For example, humanitarians might continue
to act independently of other actors and maintain their strict humanitarian
identities, but at the same time emerge as ‘alternative diplomats’,17 build-
ing local forms of peace on their own through their mediation activities and
engagement at the grassroots level. They act independently, perhaps in congru-
ence with liberal peacebuilding aims, but also with the possibility of creating
alternative or ‘everyday’ modes of peace which are locally constituted and prac-
tised. Other understandings of humanitarian/peacebuilding interaction cast the
synergy more in terms of communication and coordination rather than being
interdependent or mutually reinforcing. In these instances, synergy is primar-
ily manifested in terms of informing other actors of one’s activities in order
to prevent any accidents, wasted resources due to similar project plans, or bla-
tant contradictions in programming that would threaten the lives or goals of
actors operating independently but within the same space. The most developed
models for understanding such coordination can be found in the work on civil–
military cooperation (CIMIC), which has modelled the coordination of civilian
and military actors engaged in projects in the same theatre.18
However, it is the truly synergistic programming (that is, the ways in which
humanitarian and peacebuilding aid are seen as mutually reinforcing or interde-
pendent) that has garnered most attention. The first and primary articulation of
this type of relationship can be found in the idea of the ‘relief–development
continuum’ in which each type of aid actor is seen as having a key role to play
in the linear progression from emergency/chaotic violence to stable peaceful
relations, which then act as a foundation for long-term sustainable develop-
ment, in turn ensuring a perpetual liberal peace. In this model, short-term
humanitarian programming (often used synonymously with relief) is seen as
playing a role in stabilizing volatile situations, creating a steady foundation
on which to implement further, longer-term peace.19 The human security tasks
of providing life-saving food and medical care are viewed as essential to the
human security tasks of ensuring personal safety, self-determination and eco-
nomic stability. The continuum model has been severely criticized from a
conceptual point of view,20 primarily for its linear approach and the existence
of chronic emergencies in which humanitarian assistance is needed for years or
decades, not weeks or months.
In analyses of the latest set of peacebuilding instruments, which focus
their attention on the first stages of post-conflict peacebuilding, the essen-
tial moments of perceived synergy between humanitarian and peacebuilding
agendas can be witnessed. This set of policies, broadly referred to as ‘sta-
bilization’ but also including ‘early recovery’ strategies and ‘quick impact
projects’, all see coordinated efforts between a range of humanitarian, secu-
rity and peacebuilding actors.21 The Stabilization and Recovery Funding Facility
(SRFF), which was created in 2009 in the DRC, provides a clear example of
this.22 The SRFF amalgamated funding and coordination mechanisms under
one umbrella for projects ranging from improving security, supporting political
processes, strengthening state authority, facilitating the return of refugees and
internally displaced people (IDPs), combatting sexual violence, and economic
recovery. Similar approaches have been used by UK agencies in both Iraq and
Afghanistan.23
Writing about the implications for humanitarian actors involved in such
projects, researchers from various humanitarian think-tanks and organizations
have noted that stabilization is ‘a means of achieving or supporting liberal
peace-building objectives . . . stabilisation is, in essence, about powerful states
seeking to forge, secure or support a particular political order, in line with
their particular strategic objectives’.24 And it is here that we start to see dis-
quiet coming from the humanitarian arena regarding the belief in and growth
of the synergy agenda. As discussed in detail in the next section, concerns
have emerged that despite the neutral and seemingly acceptable language of
the human security agenda, the acceptance of synergy has actually led to
humanitarians being involved in a distinctly political and ideologically driven

project of liberal peacebuilding and Western dominance.
Humanitarianism and the liberal peace in conflict
Contradicting the belief in synergy between humanitarianism and the lib-

eral peace are those who, at best, believe the two processes should remain
separate and, at worst, feel that humanitarianism and liberal peacebuilding
contradict and negatively impact one another. These beliefs are based on
two broad observations – that the goals of humanitarianism are negatively
impacted by contemporary modes of liberal peacebuilding and that, conversely,
humanitarian programming can be detrimental to the goal of building a liberal
peace.
The first of these arguments rests on a simple concern regarding division of
labour and expertise, with humanitarians’ engagement in broader mandates,
including peacebuilding, being seen as a distraction from their core tasks of
protecting human dignity and saving lives.25 More problematically, this critique
is linked to the concern that the push for synergy is not a technocratic, neu-
tral process based on shared values, but, rather, has embedded humanitarian
actors in a deeply political and ideological liberal project – that humanitarian
actors are at risk of becoming the foot soldiers of a neo-imperial liberal mission.
Macrae and Leader elaborate on this concern, suggesting that:
‘[i]n their promotion of an integrated approach to peace, it is assumed that

the objectives of aid, diplomacy, military and trade policies are necessar-
ily compatible . . . . This serves to obscure the potential conflicts of interest
between humanitarian goals and states’ interests. By sleight of hand, it
is assumed that donor government objectives are identical to those of
humanitarian victims.26
Variably referred to as either the militarization, securitization or politicization

of humanitarian action, this school of thought reflects concerns that humani-
tarian organizations are being used by other actors to achieve military, security
and political goals. This problem is raised primarily by traditional humanitarian
actors, who hold the core principles of humanity, independence, impartiality
and, most importantly, neutrality in high regard. They see politicization as a
serious threat to the moral legitimacy of humanitarian actors, which, in turn,
threatens their ability to operate effectively as they attempt to build human
security.
While any instance of the blending of humanitarian and liberal
peacebuilding mechanisms can be analysed in terms of whether and how
it might threaten core humanitarian principles, the growth of military
humanism27 in the form of armed humanitarian intervention based on the

growing norm of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ emerges as the most salient
example of the politicization of humanitarianism. Humanitarian purists often
balk at the use of the term ‘humanitarian’ to justify further violence, believ-
ing that the term is (wrongly) used to bring legitimacy to what are actually
strategic political projects that further the narrow interests of states and multi-
lateral organizations. For example, analysis of the intervention by the European
Union Force (EUFOR) in Chad/Central African Republic in 2008–09, which was
billed as a humanitarian intervention, arguably was less about the protection of
civilians in the region and more about furthering French geostrategic and eco-
nomic interests or justifying the existence of, and expenditure on, a regional
security apparatus.28 Similar arguments regarding other notable humanitarian
interventions in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq are now commonplace.
The concerns of the traditional humanitarians are not purely principled ones
based on moral argumentation regarding the importance of the four core prin-
ciples. Concrete operational concerns regarding the impact of politicization are
also a major worry.29 Their fears are two-fold. The first regards concerns over
the setting of the humanitarian agenda, with fear that aid will flow based on
politico-security imperatives rather than on humanitarian need. This is partic-
ularly true for smaller NGOs, which rely heavily on the funding structures of
dominant political powers. An example of this is the impact that the War on
Terror is having on the humanitarian industry. As one study notes, ‘humanitar-
ian funding from donor governments is increasingly being made conditional
on assurances that it is not benefiting listed individuals or organizations’.30
This linking of humanitarian aid to the War on Terror is seen as particularly
impacting Islamic humanitarian organizations. Doctors have been convicted of
supporting terrorism by providing medical treatment to individuals defined as
terrorists by the US, and in Gaza,31
[r]estrictions have also created additional bureaucracy for humanitarian

agencies which now have to devote staff time and resources to apply-
ing for exemptions and checking that their partner organizations are not
listed . . . . Trustees of other Islamic charities have become profoundly risk
averse, leading some organizations to stop their operations in Gaza.32
Of course, the use of humanitarian aid to achieve security ends is not a new
phenomenon. During the Cold War, humanitarian aid was provided to states
allied with the respective superpowers, and governments would also channel
aid through neutral NGOs to support populations whom they could not be seen
as funding directly.33 Further, humanitarians have regularly been excluded by
states for security and strategic purposes, with the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) being denied access to both the Philippines and Algeria
at various points in its history.34 Still, what these contemporary debates point
to are the legitimate unease that many humanitarian actors have in relation
to participation in the liberal peace project. While the shared goal of human
security may act as a conceptual bridge in some ways, factions within the
humanitarian realm have shown resistance to being associated with it as a polit-
ical project. Further, liberal peacebuilding mechanisms and actors are proving
a divisive force within the humanitarian realm, using both political and eco-
nomic power to limit or completely exclude non-liberal humanitarian actors
from operating in certain areas. In this sense, liberal peace has a disciplining
power over elements of the humanitarian industry.
The second concern regarding the politicization of humanitarianism relates
to the fear that if political leaders and populations of countries who require
assistance believe humanitarian actors to be involved in wider political projects,
humanitarian actors will be denied access to populations in need. This concern
is summarized by Jessen-Petersen, who argues that the ‘presence of a notice-
able number of humanitarian NGOs from the North and the West give weight
to perceptions in many countries in the South that humanitarian operations
are an integral part of a political strategy to maintain and increase the power
and dominance of the North and West’.35 This perceived link between human-
itarians and external political actors by local populations threatens access to
communities – as has already been witnessed in Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan
and Sri Lanka. And in areas where access is still granted, suspicion of these
links is one factor deemed responsible for deaths of humanitarian aid work-
ers, as these workers come to be seen by local communities or armed groups
as tools of unwarranted (Western) intervention. The decision by the ICRC to
move its delegation in Iraq to neighbouring Jordan is just one example of
this growing concern over aid worker insecurity caused by the politicization
of humanitarianism.36
The above distrust or conflict between humanitarian actors and liberal
peacebuilding mechanisms should not, however, be seen as flowing in just
one direction. Humanitarian work has also, at times, been seen as counter-
productive to peacebuilding objectives. For some, too much faith has been put
into the ability of humanitarians to contribute substantially to peace – beyond
simple palliative care. As Spencer notes, humanitarianism should not replace
concerted political action and diplomacy in the prevention and resolution of
violence.37 With the funding of humanitarian relief dramatically increasing,
there is a concern that short-term relief projects are being seen as a substitute
for longer-term engagement and diplomacy.
More problematic are the ways in which humanitarian action has exacer-
bated conflict, working against the establishment of peace. A great deal of
research has documented the ways in which humanitarian aid can fuel con-
flict or prevent sustainable peacebuilding.38 A range of negative impacts of
humanitarianism on peacebuilding have been identified, including instances

of ‘contributing to the economy of war, bestowing unrepresentative legitimacy
on warring parties and fuelling tensions between communities by the perceived
favouring of one community over another’.39 These are generally seen as hav-
ing serious but often short-term consequences that can be dealt with through
changes to programming details (making humanitarian aid more ‘conflict sen-
sitive’,40 for example). However, broader processes of humanitarianism which
challenge the more fundamental aspects of liberal peacebuilding have also been
noted as problematic.
The first of these relates to the ways in which humanitarian aid can cre-
ate dependence, with humanitarian aid fulfilling functions of the state and
thus preventing the building or renewal of a requisite social contract. Duffield’s
detailed exploration of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) illustrates this concern:
According to one local aid worker, local government officials present them
with ‘wishing lists’ of medical, educational, water and training resources . . . .
There is scepticism regarding the motives of the authorities and a belief
that much of the assistance requested is the proper responsibility of gov-
ernment.41
While the human security provided by humanitarian actors in the form of

food aid, shelter and medical care provides much-needed short-term relief for
communities, humanitarianism can, in fact, absolve states of responsibilities
that would lead them to be efficient and accountable to their constituencies.
Statebuilding, a core facet of liberal peacebuilding, requires the development
of strong state institutions that are directly accountable to local popula-
tions. Thus, in the promotion of their understanding of human security,
humanitarian practices come into conflict with the liberal peace.
Further, the concept of universal human rights and the inherent value placed
on democracy and freedom within the liberal peace framework often leads
to frustration with the traditional humanitarian insistence on neutrality. For
some, following the core humanitarian principles amounts to staying silent in
the face of injustice. Related to this, the presence of respected humanitarian
actors and their cooperation with illiberal regimes is seen by some as granting
undue legitimacy to these regimes, perhaps even emboldening them to commit
further abuses. For example, Palmieri’s research asks the uncomfortable ques-
tion: Did the government in Baghdad ‘take advantage of the presence of the
ICRC for its own propaganda or even perhaps for its own preservation?’42 The
ICRC’s neutral stance is further challenged by a questioning of both the logic
and the impact of historical ICRC reports that seem to place great emphasis on
noting the chemical weapons capabilities of both Iran and Iraq, even though
only one of these belligerents was making extensive use of them.43
The liberal peace, with its clear universal code of human rights, is often at
odds with traditional humanitarians’ insistence on neutrality and impartial-
ity, which from a liberal point of view verges closely on moral relativism, at
best, and complicity in human rights abuses, at worst. This conflict between
elements of the humanitarian arena and the liberal peace again highlights the
significant fractures within the humanitarian industry between the tradition-
alists and the new humanitarians, who often share the distaste for the strict
adherence to neutrality and impartiality of the traditionalists.44 As such, it
would be fair to argue that within the solidarist and politicized factions of the
humanitarian world, there is much greater congruence with the liberal peace
agenda, particularly on how to achieve human security – by speaking out for
and actively supporting liberal human rights, even at the risk of being denied
access to populations in need.
Fractured humanitarianism and the liberal peace
Following the end of the Cold War, humanitarianism was increasingly viewed
as a partner in furthering the liberal peace agenda, its principled focus on pro-
tecting individual lives and dignity meshing well with the growth of the human
security approach that emerged within the liberal peacebuilding architecture.
However, this partnership has not been universally accepted by either side. The
above discussion illustrates that humanitarianism is at times willingly support-
ive of, and at other times co-opted or coerced into, the liberal peace project.
In other cases, humanitarian actors are blatantly excluded by liberal agents,
with other humanitarians actively resisting or distancing themselves from lib-
eral peacebuilding. Each of these four relationships is briefly addressed below,
illustrating the fluid and often divergent perspectives on ‘peace’ held within
the humanitarian industry.
Analysis of the synergy agenda reveals that many humanitarian actors have
accepted their role as liberal peace agents. These actors primarily come from
the ‘new humanitarian’ faction of the industry (though some within this group
also challenge the liberal peace, as discussed below). While valuing the four core
principles of humanitarianism to a degree, this faction of humanitarians do not
see them as absolute. Believing that humanitarian action is inherently and nec-
essarily political, they align themselves with agents of the liberal peace who also
argue for justice and the protection of universal human rights. When faced with
the question ‘is humanitarianism about saving lives, or is it also about saving
societies in order to save lives?’45 this faction largely answers ‘the latter’, argu-
ing that humanitarianism, to truly uphold its mandate, must address the wider
political issues at stake and not just engage in palliative care. This approach
reflects a major shift in thinking, with humanitarianism changing from some-
thing that used to be seen as a good in and of itself (a deontological approach)
to a consequentialist ethic46 in which doing the most good is deemed preferable

to simply being good.
This shift to a consequentialist ethic is behind the acceptance of their role
in the peacebuilding agenda for some humanitarian actors. However, for other
actors, their integration is better understood not as a principled political choice
but, rather, as a result of co-optation and coercion, with some actors being
forced into the synergy agenda, given the overwhelming political-economic
power of dominant liberal actors in the international system. The growth of
humanitarianism has resulted in a highly competitive industry, with thousands
of small NGOs seeking financial support, primarily from Western donors and
agencies. Support of the liberal peace through playing by liberal rules and sup-
porting the synergy ideal increases one’s chances of survival. For humanitarian
actors that do not show such willingness, or, indeed, are seen as a threat to the
liberal project, the risk is exclusion – either by being denied funds or access,
or, in more extreme cases, by being charged and imprisoned for assisting non-
liberal or illiberal actors. The risks of co-optation and exclusion are more likely
to be felt by smaller NGOs that are more dependent on Western powers or in a
weaker position to resist, although this chapter has also shown that humanitar-
ian heavyweights such as the ICRC have also been subject to these processes.
Here, it is also worth noting that agents of the liberal peace can simply look
elsewhere if the traditional pool of humanitarian actors is unwilling to act syn-
ergistically. The growing number of for-profit humanitarian enterprises can be
relied upon to support liberal political aims should other humanitarian actors
be unwilling.
Finally, some factions within the humanitarian arena are actively resisting
and challenging the liberal peace and its disciplinary power. Many humanitar-
ian actors remain unwilling to partner or even be associated with peacebuilding
projects. Traditional humanitarian actors still actively fight to uphold the four
core principles, finding the politicization of humanitarian aid a major threat
to their human security mandate. In relation to peace, these actors believe that
‘[i]ncorporating humanitarian action into the framework of “liberal peace” is
both ineffective as a means of managing conflict at the periphery, and dimin-
ishes the ability of humanitarian action to reduce suffering in conflict areas’.47
However, it is important to note that the traditional humanitarians do not hold
a monopoly on resisting the liberal peace. Politically active factions of the new
humanitarians are also noteworthy for their increasing confrontations with lib-
eralism – primarily the solidarist elements, who have recognized the human
suffering that can also result from liberal peacebuilding approaches. These
humanitarian actors actively question liberal policies such as the trade embar-
gos in Iraq, Western cooperation with regimes such as Israel and Sri Lanka, and
liberal-sponsored ‘humanitarian’ interventions that have caused so many civil-
ian deaths. Finally, the dominance of liberal peacebuilding may increasingly be
challenged by humanitarian actors, as new donors such as China, Brazil and

Turkey offer humanitarian agents alternative conceptions of world order and
protection.
The fracturing of the humanitarian field based on its varied approach to,
or degree of, acceptance of the liberal peace framework reflects an internal
struggle that has always been present within the humanitarian industry. For
humanitarians, the questions of who deserves protection and how best to pro-
tect them have always been central, unresolved philosophical and operational
problems. Confrontations with the liberal peace are merely the latest stimulants
for answering these questions or clarifying divisions within the humanitarian
arena. While humanitarianism is united in its definition of peace as the pro-
tection of human life and dignity, its understanding of how this is achieved
reveals serious divisions which impact the civilian populations whom it aims to
protect. This varied understanding by humanitarians regarding how to achieve
peace also has ramifications for the proponents of the liberal peace, who, when
engaged with humanitarians, will simultaneously find eager allies, reluctant but
acquiescing partners and concerted elements of resistance.
Notes
1. OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), ‘Peacebuilding
and Linkages with Humanitarian Action: Key Emerging Trends and Challenges’,
OCHA Policy Development and Studies Branch, OCHA Occasional Policy Brief-
ing Series, no. 7 (2011): 4; see also Elizabeth G. Ferris, The Politics of Protection
(Washington: Brookings Institute, 2011).
2. Mark Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War: Governing the World of Peoples
(Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 111.
3. Amitav Acharya, ‘Human Security: East versus West’, International Journal 56, no. 3
(2001): 442–460.
4. Jenny H. Peterson, ‘Creating Space for Emancipatory Human Security: Liberal
Obstructions and the Potential of Agonism’, International Studies Quarterly 57, no. 22
(2013): 318–328.
5. Soren Jessen-Peterson, ‘Humanitarianism in Crisis’, United States Institute for Peace
Special Report 273 (Washington: United States Institute for Peace, 2011).
6. David Chandler, Empire in Denial: The Politics of State Building (London: Pluto Press,
2006).
7. Chandler, Empire in Denial; Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The
Merging of Development and Security (London: Zed, 2001); and Development, Security
and Unending War.
8. Chandler, Empire in Denial, 21.
9. The author here has chosen to use the term ‘synergy’ to represent a range of con-
cepts such as the ‘coherence agenda’, complementarity and joined-up programming.
While all slightly different in their application, they represent a belief that different
forms of aid (peacebuilding, humanitarian, development) are or can be mutually
reinforcing and interdependent.
10. Allan Cain, ‘Humanitarianism & Development Actors as Peacebuilders?’ Review of
African Political Economy 28, no. 90 (2001): 577–586; Joanna Macrae and Nicholas
Leader, ‘Apples, Pears and Porridge: The Origins and Impact of the Search for
“Coherence” between Humanitarian and Political Responses to Chronic Political
Emergencies’, Disasters 25, no. 4 (2001): 290–307; Phillip White and Lionel Cliffe,
‘Matching Response to Context in Complex-Political Emergencies: “Relief”, “Devel-
opment”, “Peace-building” or Something In-between?’ Disasters 24, no. 4 (2000):
314–342.
11. UN, 1991 as quoted in White and Cliffe, ‘Matching Response to Context in
Complex-Political Emergencies’, 316. See also United Nations, ‘Strengthening of the
Coordination of Humanitarian and Disaster Relief Assistance of the United Nations’,
1996. Report of the Secretary-General, Economic and Social Council, E/1996/77.
12. Macrae and Leader, ‘Apples, Pears and Porridge’; White and Cliffe, ‘Matching
Response to Context in Complex-Political Emergencies’.
13. IFRCRCS, 1996 as quoted in White and Cliffe, ‘Matching Response to Context in
Complex-Political Emergencies’, 318–319.
14. M. J. Morikawa, S. Schneider, S. Bedker and S. Lipovac, ‘Primary Care in Post-Conflict
Rural Northern Afghanistan’, Public Health 125, no. 1 (2011): 55–59.
15. J. A. Gulaid and L. A. Gulaid, ‘Children as a Zone of Peace: A Framework for Promot-
ing Child Health and Welfare in Developing countries’. Global Public Health 4, no. 4
(2009): 338–349.
16. Arno Waizengger and Jennifer Hyndman, ‘Two Solitudes: Post-Tsunami and Post-
Conflict Aceh’, Disasters 34, no. 3 (2010): 787–808.
17. Phillipe Ryfman, ‘Non-Governmental Humanitarian Aid: An Alternative Diplo-
macy?’ Politique Etrangere 3 (2010): 565–578.
18. Alexandra Gheciu, ‘Divided Partners: The Challenges of NATO-NGO Cooperation in
Peacebuilding Operations’, Global Governance 17, no. 1 (2011): 95–113.
19. Cain, ‘Humanitarianism & Development Actors as Peacebuilders?’; White and Cliffe,
‘Matching Response to Context in Complex-Political Emergencies’.
20. Mark Duffield, ‘Aid Policy and Post-Modern Conflict: A Critical Review’. Discus-
sion Paper No. 19, 1998 (School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham,
Birmingham); M. Glad, A Partnership at Risk? The UN-NGO Relationship in Light
of UN Integration: A NRC Discussion Paper (2012); Joanna Macrae, ‘The Death of
Humanitarianism?: An Anatomy of the Attack’, Disasters 22, no. 4 (1998): 309–317;
Macrae and Leader, ‘Apples, Pears and Porridge’; White and Cliffe, ‘Matching
Response to Context in Complex-Political Emergencies’.
21. Ferris, The Politics of Protection; Stuart Gordon, ‘The United Kingdom’s Stabilisation
Model and Afghanistan: The Impact on Humanitarian Actors’, Disasters 34, no. s3
(2010): 368–387.
22. Sarah Bailey, ‘Humanitarian Action, Early Recovery and Stabilisation in the Demo-
cratic Republic of Congo’, HPG Working Paper, July 2011.
23. Gordon, ‘The United Kingdom’s Stabilisation Model and Afghanistan’.
24. Sarah Collinson, Samir Elhawary and Robert Muggah, ‘States of Fragility: Stabili-
sation and Its Implications for Humanitarian Action’, Disasters 34, no. s3 (2010):
280.
25. OCHA, ‘Peacebuilding and Linkages with Humanitarian Action’; Sommaruga, 1997.
26. Macrae and Leader, ‘Apples, Pears and Porridge’, 295.
27. Chandler, Empire in Denial.
28. Giovanna Bono, ‘The EU’s Military Operation in Chad and the Central African
Republic: An Operation to Save Lives?’ Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 5, no. 1
(2011): 23–42.
29. Cornelio Sommaruga, ‘Humanitarian Action and Peacekeeping Operations’,
International Review of the Red Cross, No. 317, 1997, www.icrc.org/eng/resoures/
dcouments/misc/57jnj7.htm, accessed 4 October 2014; see also Bailey, ‘Human-

itarian Action, Early Recovery and Stabilisation in the Democratic Republic of
Congo’;
30. S. Elhawary and V. Metcalfe, Counter-terrorism and humanitarian action: Tension,
impact and ways forward. HPG Policy Brief 43 (London: Humanitarian Policy Group,
2011), 1; see also Bailey, ‘Humanitarian Action, Early Recovery and Stabilisation in
the Democratic Republic of Congo’.
31. Pantuliano, Mackintosh and Elhawary, 2011.
32. Ibid., 10.
33. Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War.
34. Sultan Barakat, Sean Deely and Steven A. Zyck, ‘ “A Tradition of Forgetting”: Stabilisa-
tion and Humanitarian Action in Historical Perspective’, Disasters 34, no. s3 (2010):
297–319.
35. Jessen-Petersen, ‘Humanitarianism in Crisis’, 2.
36. Marie-Pierre Allié, ‘Introduction: Acting at Any Price’, in Humanitarian Negoti-
ations Revealed: The MSF Experience, eds Claire Magone, Michael Neuman and
Fabrice Weissman (London: Hurst & Company, 2011); Glad, 2012; Jessen-Petersen,
‘Humanitarianism in Crisis’; Sommaruga, ‘Humanitarian Action and Peacekeeping
Operations’.
37. Tanya Spencer, ‘A Synthesis of Evaluations of Peacebuilding Activities Undertaken
by Humanitarian Agencies and Conflict Resolution Organizations’, Active Learning
Network on Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action, 1998.
38. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1999); Karen Buscher and
Koen Vlassenroot, ‘Humanitarian Presence and Urban Development: New Opportu-
nities and Contrasts in Goma, DRC’, Disasters 34, no. s2 (2010): 256; Duffield, Global
Governance and the New Wars; Ferris, The Politics of Protection; Jonathan Goodhand,
‘Stabilising a Victor’s Peace? Humanitarian Action and Reconstruction in Eastern
Sri Lanka’, Disasters 34, no. s3 (2010): 342–367; Macrae and Leader, ‘Apples, Pears
and Porridge’; Ken Menkhaus, ‘Somalia: “They Created a Desert and Called It
Peace(building)” ’, Review of African Political Economy 36, no. 120 (2009): 223–233;
Naz K. Moderizadeh, Dustin A. Lewis and C. Bruderlein, ‘Humanitarian Engagement
under Counter-Terrorism: A Conflict of Norms and Emerging Policy Landscape’,
International Review of the Red Cross 93, no. 883 (2011): 623–647; White and Cliffe,
‘Matching Response to Context in Complex-Political Emergencies’.
39. Maria Lange and Mick Quinn, ‘Conflict, Humanitarian Assistance and Peacebuilding:
Meeting the Challenges’, 2003: 5.
40. Ibid.
41. Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars, 245.
42. Daniel Palmieri, ‘Crossing the Desert – The ICRC in Iraq: Analysis of a Humanitarian
Operation’, International Review of the Red Cross 90, no. 869 (2008): 149.
43. Ibid.
44. Chandler, Empire in Denial.
45. Collinson, Elhawary and Muggah, ‘States of Fragility’, 2010: 286.
46. Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars, 75.
47. McCrae and Leader, ‘Apples, Pears and Porridge’, 304.
18
International Law: To End the Scourge
of War . . . and to Build a Just Peace?
Wendy Lambourne
Introduction
International law began as a discipline concerned with the goal of peace,

and has become the basis for organizing, managing and regulating relations
between states in the maintenance of international peace and security. Inter-
national law underpins a number of strategies and institutions focusing on
different and sometimes contradictory, but related, priorities in the global quest
for peace, including the concepts of state sovereignty, non-intervention and
self-determination; the processes of collective security, humanitarian interven-
tion and responsibility to protect (R2P); and the treaty-based systems to prevent
and prosecute genocide, protect human rights and pursue arms control and
disarmament.
So, how is peace understood in international law? Essentially, peace is seen
as the ideal state of relations between states, in which disputes are settled
via international law rather than the use of force. As Grotius wrote in 1625,
‘where judicial settlement fails, war begins’ (DIB II.1.2.1). The primary focus
has thus been on peace as negative peace – the absence of war – and has been
regarded as inevitably intertwined with the concept of security. Since the cre-
ation of the United Nations (UN) in 1945 following the end of the Second
World War, the use of force has been prohibited under international law, except
in the case of self-defence or when authorized by the UN Security Council.1
International law has also come to see internal state violence, and the commit-
ment of mass atrocities, as threats to international peace and security justifying
UN Security Council authorization of the use of force, and to embrace (albeit
sometimes reluctantly) the pursuit of positive peace within states based on lib-
eral democratic peace principles, which aim to prevent war by addressing its
causes.
The UN international peace architecture has evolved to cover not only the
peaceful settlement of disputes and other methods of conflict prevention and
247
peacemaking, and the traditional methods of peace enforcement through sanc-

tions and the use of armed force, but also the post-Second World War inven-
tions of peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The notion of security as defined in
the activities of the UN has expanded beyond military security to embrace eco-
nomic and other non-military threats to peace, such as climate change and
movements of people across borders, and human security has been proposed as
a new concept that should be seen as central to the quest for peace with justice
in the post-Cold War era.
But this evolution in scope and focus of international law has been neither
linear nor universally accepted, especially in relation to the most recent turn to
focus on intrastate peace as a necessary foundation for interstate peace. Interna-
tional law is open to contestation based on interpretation and relies on states’
acceptance and compliance to be effective. There is a significant gap between
the aspirational development of legal institutions and processes, state practice
and enforcement, especially in the realm of collective security.
Since Grotius wrote his treatise On the Law of War and Peace in the early sev-
enteenth century, international law has developed binding laws on the conduct
of war (jus in bello) and to legally outlaw war except in certain very prescribed
circumstances (jus ad bellum), drawing on the medieval ‘just war’ doctrine.2 The
concept of a ‘just peace’ (jus post bellum) is less well developed, as discussed later
in this chapter, but reinforces the notion that the pursuit of peace is linked with
the attainment of justice.
International law has at the same time evolved in terms of a growing focus
on prevention, through addressing root causes and developing regimes for
economic and social development and protection of human rights. Although
international law has been unable to prevent mass atrocity crimes and fulfil the
promise of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide (1948), it has enabled prosecutions designed to deter as well as
punish those responsible.
The legitimacy and assumed neutrality of international legal discourse and
practice have been questioned, however, by those who point out that states
which did not participate in its creation continue to be disadvantaged by
the inbuilt historical legacy of inequality.3 And the intended imposition of
a normative regime based on liberal democratic peace theory, through the
institutional peace practices of the UN, has been criticized for its lack of cross-
cultural and local specificity and effectiveness in promoting a more sustainable
and transformative peace.4
In the following sections, the evolution of the role of international law in
each of these dimensions of peace and security will be reviewed, with a partic-
ular focus on the debates and challenges which have been encountered in the
past and continue to influence the field today.
Wendy Lambourne 249
The emergence of international law and the quest for peace
As the modern state emerged from the control of the church in the early sev-
enteenth century, Grotius sought to develop a set of moral principles which
would replace religion as a guide to when and how states could use armed
force. His treatise On the Law of War and Peace drew on natural law principles
to propose that the supreme law of states is to maintain peace, which would
be best achieved by respecting the individual sovereignty of each state – what
eventually evolved to become the Vattelian/Westphalian state system.
Grotius and a number of other political and moral philosophers, including
Immanuel Kant, were driven by the vision of a more peaceful international
order regulated by international law ‘to tame the anarchy of political relations
among nations’.5 In his treatise on Perpetual Peace written in 1795, Kant pre-
empted the creation of the League of Nations more than a century later when
he called specifically for a move towards institutionalizing the pursuit of peace
to replace the practice of reliance on a succession of peace treaties:
For these reasons there must be a league of a particular kind, which can be
called a league of peace (foeduspacificum), and which would be distinguished
from a treaty of peace (pactumpacis) by the fact that the latter terminates
only one war, while the former seeks to make an end of all wars forever. This
league does not tend to any dominion over the power of the state but only to
the maintenance and security of the freedom of the state itself and of other
states in league with it, without there being any need for them to submit to
civil laws and their compulsion, as men in a state of nature must submit.6
Kant’s vision depended on states voluntarily accepting a normative order of

constraints in relation to war and peace through an international rule of law
that would make it possible for armies to be abolished and war to be ended.
The idea of international law, albeit seen by Kant as applying exclusively to so-
called ‘liberal States’, thus played a critical role in the move from peace being
regarded by earlier religious philosophers as an idealist, aspirational, utopian
goal to something that might be achievable through cooperation – a cosmopoli-
tan, bounded peace – and war becoming increasingly regarded as an illegitimate
tool of politics.
Yet there was a contradiction between the new Enlightenment focus on peace
as a citizen’s right, no longer just a matter for kings and princes, and the lib-
eral idea that all men [sic] are born free and equal. Liberal internationalism
associated peace with self-determination, which could be used to justify the
use of force in order to attain a more peaceful and just order. This approach
arose in response to the violence inflicted through the colonial conquests of
self-nominated civilized nations in the name of ‘peace’, driven by territorial

and industrialized nationalism as a source of war rather than order. These ten-
sions we see repeated in later incarnations of international legal norms and
humanitarianism which support the use of force in the name of collective secu-
rity and R2P, thereby undermining to some extent the Kantian vision of a more
peaceful international order with its push towards development of permanent
institutions to resolve conflict and prevent war.
Peaceful settlement of disputes, and arms control and

disarmament
The maintenance of international peace and security became increasingly insti-

tutionalized through the development of modern international law in the
twentieth century. Great faith was originally placed in the potential for mech-
anisms of international arbitration and dispute settlement to end the need
for war. The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 called for the pacific
settlement of disputes and created the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in addi-
tion to developing laws and customs on the conduct of war and limitations
on weapons. Following the 1910 Universal Peace Congress, the Peace Palace
was opened in The Hague in 1913, reinforcing the vision and commitment
to international law as the basis for establishing global peace through arbitra-
tion and legal settlement of disputes. The first Hague Peace Conference and
subsequent meetings also regarded disarmament as one of the most impor-
tant mechanisms for preventing the outbreak of war and thus for promoting
peace.
In the most radical move yet, the League of Nations was established in
1919, based on a new vision of international organization, after existing mea-
sures based on diplomacy proved to be insufficient to prevent the outbreak
of the First World War. Idealistic in its liberal aspirations, the League was cre-
ated with the mandate to promote international cooperation with a view to
achieving international peace and security, along with the Permanent Court
of International Justice (PCIJ) to provide states with a peaceful alternative to
war for resolving disputes. The League focused on compulsory arbitration and
provision of a judicial settlement mechanism, accompanied by the threat of
collective security measures if states did not comply. The PCIJ was thus created
as an integral part of the League’s approach to the maintenance of interna-
tional peace and security, to strengthen the potential for pacific settlement of
disputes, but its decisions were not regarded as binding. Nevertheless, more
than 60 disputes were brought before the League or the PCIJ, and many were
settled peacefully. However, the international legal obligation on states to avoid
resort to war, as introduced by the League, was only conditional, and did not
prove to be effective in stopping Japan, Italy and Germany from invading and
Wendy Lambourne 251
occupying other sovereign states, leading ultimately to the outbreak of the

Second World War.
By calling on states to reduce their national armaments ‘to the lowest point
consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common actions of
international obligations’ (Article 8), the founders of the League hoped that
states would be incapable of waging an aggressive war and more likely to pur-
sue peaceful means. But again, the conditionality of this incentive, and the
voluntary nature of compliance, undermined its efficacy. States such as Japan
and the Soviet Union simply withdrew from the League when they wished to
accumulate armaments and pursue their territorial ambitions through the use
of armed force.
Numerous measures to promote disarmament were instigated during the
time of the League, but all were abandoned in the face of non-compliance by
aggressor states. Following the Second World War and the creation of the UN,
disarmament and arms control measures have been more successful, due in no
small part to the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons. International
treaties have been agreed to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and
to ban chemical weapons, biological weapons and anti-personnel landmines.7
Efforts to control conventional armaments have proven to be more challeng-
ing, but recently achieved a breakthrough with the adoption by the UN General
Assembly of the Arms Trade Treaty in 2013.8
Efforts to prevent war through measures to support both arbitration and
dispute resolution, and arms control and disarmament, have otherwise been
far less successful than the development of international humanitarian law
designed to ameliorate the impact of war, as discussed in the next section.
International humanitarian law (jus in bello)
In the second half of the nineteenth century, following the devastating experi-
ences in the Crimean War and the Battle of Solferino in particular, restrictions
were imposed on how states were to conduct war (jus in bello). The Interna-
tional Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was critical in the development of
what became known as international humanitarian law (IHL), aimed at avoid-
ing unnecessary suffering of combatants in the field by protecting the wounded
and banning the use of certain kinds of weapons, such as exploding bullets.
IHL is concerned with regulating the methods and means of warfare as well
as the protection of the victims of armed conflict, including prisoners of war,
non-combatant civilians and, eventually, also combatants in non-international
conflicts.
These regulations on the conduct of war were the first significant devel-
opments in international law relating to issues of peace and security. The
instrumental link between human rights and peace has been reinforced by
post-Cold War developments in international law relating to the criminaliza-

tion of breaches of IHL, as well as the R2P and post-conflict peacebuilding,
discussed in subsequent sections.
Following the end of the Second World War, prosecutions in Nuremberg and
Tokyo of the crimes committed by the Axis powers during the war signalled
the beginning of the development of international criminal law (ICL), which
has been directly related to the maintenance of peace and prevention of war.
At the international military tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo, the leaders of
Germany and Japan responsible for starting the wars in Europe and the Pacific
were charged with crimes against the peace, as well as war crimes (breaches of
IHL) and crimes against humanity.
In the post-Cold War era, with its newfound potential for unity in the UN
Security Council (UNSC), the development of ICL through transitional jus-
tice mechanisms has confirmed the direct relationship between prosecutions
for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, on the one hand, and
the maintenance of international peace and security, on the other. The UNSC
creation of ad hoc international criminal tribunals in the early 1990s to pros-
ecute genocide and other crimes committed during conflicts in the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) was justified on the grounds that these
crimes were a threat to international peace and security, and that prosecution
would contribute to peace and reconciliation as well as justice. The UNSC was
also involved in referring cases to the first permanent International Criminal
Court (ICC) established under the Rome Statute of 1998, thereby further con-
solidating the perceived link between peace and justice. A culture of impunity
for war crimes and crimes against humanity, by contrast, is seen as under-
mining international as well as domestic peace and security, challenging what
Sikkink identifies as the ‘justice cascade’ driven by the international legal ‘duty
to prosecute’.9
Jus ad bellum: Ending the scourge of war
At the end of the First World War, US President Woodrow Wilson laid out his
vision for a new international body: the League of Nations. Prior to this, states
retained the right to use force for territorial expansion and settlement of dis-
putes. The creation of the League institutionalized the first attempt to prevent
war, but it failed to institute an outright ban; rather, it gave states a ‘cooling
off period’ in which to reconsider whether resort to war was, indeed, necessary.
Recognizing the inadequacies of the provisions in the League Covenant, states
agreed to the 1928 Treaty Providing for the Renunciation of War as an Instru-
ment of National Policy (Pact of Paris or Kellogg–Briand Pact), which was the
first international agreement to include a clear prohibition on the use of armed
force.10 This was also unsuccessful, however, despite its claim to near-universal
Wendy Lambourne 253
membership, unlike the League, and neither mechanism was able to prevent
the outbreak of the Second World War. The international legal limits on war
continued to be subordinated to political realist raison d’état, and were revealed
to be more aspirational than enforceable.
During the Second World War, the Allied Powers met to discuss how they
would end the war and also how they would set about to ensure peace in the
future – to prevent another world war. These meetings resulted in the cre-
ation of the UN, which included articles in its Charter calling on states to
settle their international disputes by peaceful means and refrain from the use
of armed force except in self-defence (Article 51) or with the authorization of
the UNSC (Article 42). The UN embodies the principle of collective security
as the primary means to prevent the outbreak of war, whereby states guar-
antee to unite to defend the sovereignty of a state whose territorial integrity
has been breached or threatened by another state. The UNSC can invoke
Chapter VII to authorize the use of force in the form of sanctions (Article 41)
or armed force as a last resort to restore international peace and security (Arti-
cle 42). In an effort to improve on the functioning of the League, the UNSC
was designed to ensure the credibility of these collective enforcement mea-
sures by making UNSC decisions binding on member states, giving the right of
veto to the major powers and making provision for the creation of UN military
forces.
International law governs the rules of peace enforcement as outlined in the
UN Charter. There is an inherent contradiction in the principle of collective
security which underpins the jus ad bellum, however. While the UN and interna-
tional law may have gone beyond the situation where states are free to wage war
on each other, the use of force is still permitted in the context of individual self-
defence (Article 51) and collective self-defence (Article 42). The emerging norm
of R2P takes the realm of permissible war even further by explicitly expand-
ing the definition of a breach or threat of international peace and security to
include mass human rights violations amounting to genocide or other crimes
against humanity. In all these situations, it seems that the use of armed force
has not been outlawed, and that peace is seen as qualified and contingent rather
than being an absolute, non-negotiable value. In short, peace is seen as an end
goal and not as a process – states are still permitted to use force in the quest to
attain peace and security as long as it is authorized by the UNSC or justified in
terms of self-defence.
Thus, while the UN approach to the maintenance of international peace and
security requires states to prioritize the peaceful settlement of disputes, it still
retains the use of armed force as an option in order to implement the system
of collective security. Admittedly, the UN is much stricter than the League in
terms of proscribing the use of force, yet in practice it seems that states regard
the use of armed force as inevitable, if not preferable, as a means of controlling
other states which may be threatening or violating the peace within or across
their borders.
Since its creation, the UNSC has authorized the use of force in response to
cross-border aggression, to support peacekeeping operations and/or to protect
civilians from human rights violations seen as a threat to international peace
and security in a number of states, including South Korea, Iraq/Kuwait, Congo,
Haiti and, most recently, Syria and Côte d’Ivoire. But there have been many
more occasions when the UN has failed to act, especially during the Cold War
and more recently in response to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the US-
led intervention in Iraq in 2003, where international law has been undermined
and overruled by national interests, ideological coalitions, resource constraints
and lack of political will.
Despite its visionary mandate and subsequent evolution of a sophisticated
peace architecture, the UN has failed to prevent the ‘the scourge of war’, and,
despite the remarkable development of international human rights law and the
promise of the 1948 Genocide Convention, it has failed to prevent subsequent
genocides and other mass violations of human rights which have undermined
peace for many peoples in the world. On the other hand, the UN has succeeded
in preventing a third world war and has survived into the twenty-first century
with an ever-increasing number of international legal and political tools at its
disposal in its quest to maintain international peace and security. And the pro-
hibition on the use of force has become not only part of customary law but also
a fundamental peremptory norm of international law (jus cogens) from which
no derogation is allowed.11
Jus post bellum: Building peace with justice
Through creative diplomacy and imagination, the UN and its member states
have developed a comprehensive suite of peace mechanisms to complement
those originally included in the Charter in order to fulfil the vision of the UN’s
founders to prevent war and maintain international peace and security. These
include the invention of peacekeeping, originally the interposition of armed
forces between warring parties in order to monitor a ceasefire. Peacekeeping
later evolved to encompass more constructive efforts to build a positive peace
in addition to maintaining a negative peace, through such activities as supervis-
ing elections, disarming and demobilizing warring factions, and assisting with
humanitarian aid and development.
The subsequent development of post-conflict peacebuilding has explicitly
focused on addressing the root causes of conflict through support for such
measures as democratization, socio-economic reconstruction, security sector
reform, rule of law and ending of impunity through transitional justice. While
Wendy Lambourne 255
basking in good intentions, this highly intrusive UN mechanism has been

accused of imposing statebuilding measures without sufficient regard for local
context, participation and ownership, raising questions about respect for the
fundamental legal principles of self-determination and non-intervention.
In the post-Cold War era and the first part of the twenty-first century,
a number of challenges to absolute state sovereignty have gained ground,
resulting in new international legal norms underpinning increasingly inter-
ventionist approaches to the maintenance of international peace and security.
In addition to the increasing focus on post-conflict peacebuilding, the R2P
doctrine originally proposed in 2001 was adopted by the UN General Assem-
bly at the 2005 World Summit. While continuing to be contested as a norm
of international law, the doctrine has influenced state discourse and practice
in terms of the proposed responsibility to prevent and rebuild, in addition
to the more controversial responsibility to react discussed in the previous
section.
The responsibility to rebuild and increasing involvement of the UN in post-
conflict peacebuilding have raised the issue in international law of the existence
of jus post bellum to complement the better-developed jus ad bellum and jus in
bello discussed in previous sections.12 Jus post bellum is an old concept which
can be traced back through the classical writings of St Augustine to Vitoria and
Suarez in the sixteenth century, Grotius in the seventeenth and Vattel in the
eighteenth century.13 It has been linked to modern just war theory through
the writings of Walzer, and is undergoing a renaissance in the early twenty-
first century in the wake of increasing international involvement in conflict
termination and peacebuilding interventions.14
Jus post bellum is situated within a confluence of different branches of inter-
national law as well as domestic law, and reflects the uncertainties, complexities
and contradictions of the post-conflict peacebuilding environment.15 It has
thus been regarded with scepticism by some international lawyers because of
its lack of clear norms and standards. And yet, the conceptualization and appli-
cation of jus post bellum can be seen as critical to understanding the role of
international law in addressing the dilemmas of post-conflict peacebuilding.
Defined as ‘the set of norms applicable at the end of an armed conflict . . . with
a view to establishing a sustainable peace’, jus post bellum includes the inter-
secting norms of IHL, ICL, occupation law and international human rights
law.16
Linked with the idea of a just cause for war (jus ad bellum) and that war must
be fought justly (jus in bello), jus post bellum suggests that it must therefore be
followed by a just peace.17 However, the international legal, as well as politi-
cal, underpinnings of such a just peace are firmly grounded in the dominant
Western ideal of a liberal peace, as discussed in the following section.
International law and the liberal peace
International law has been driven by the liberal democratic peace ideal, espe-
cially as it becomes involved in supporting peacebuilding as the means to
prevent war. The UN was created by the victors in the Second World War, who
stipulated that the members of the new body must value peace, freedom and
democracy, and these values continue to dominate the peacebuilding agenda.
Their experiences with the failures of the League, and the actions of belligerent
states between the wars and in the prosecution of the Second World War, con-
vinced the leaders of the Allied nations that fascism and lack of democracy were
the drivers of war. The Cold War further entrenched these values, at least in the
West, which emerged victorious and committed with almost missionary zeal in
the post-Cold War era to imposing the apparently successful neoliberal politi-
cal and economic formula on all of the ‘failing’ states which found themselves
embroiled in internal conflict.18
The UN peace architecture reflects the values of the liberal democratic peace,
from its approach to conflict prevention and peacemaking through mediation,
to peacekeeping and peacebuilding, which advocate elections, democratiza-
tion and political participation along with economic reforms and the rule of
law to ensure that the conditions for peace will flourish.19 According to Jeng,
‘neo-liberal international law approaches often imply a modification of lib-
eral values to advance normatively induced conflict resolution approaches’
linked to addressing root causes.20 These have become a ‘dominant template
for peacebuilding’ which justifies and promotes a particular version of peace
underpinned by enhancing human freedom through individual human rights.
This approach has broadened in recent decades to incorporate transitional jus-
tice linked to development of the rule of law in post-conflict states, in addition
to democratic governance and advancement of a neoliberal economic order.
The liberal peace paradigm is thus inherent in the imposition of the rule of law
as part of peacebuilding,21 and can undermine the prospects for transitional
justice to contribute to peace because of its potentially destabilizing impact,
institutionalization of new security dilemmas, external imposition and cultural
inappropriateness.22
The centrality of state sovereignty in international law and the funda-
mental grounding of liberal peacebuilding in international law suggest that
peacebuilding cannot be divorced from statebuilding and the principles of
human rights and promotion of the (Western liberal) rule of law. Despite calls
for increasing civil society participation and empowerment in the quest for a
more sustainable or transformative peace,23 and the proposal for a more pro-
gressive liberal peace project based on a ‘local social contract with an organic
resonance’,24 this chapter concludes that the liberal principles and norms
embedded in international law could make it impossible to contemplate such
Wendy Lambourne 257
an emancipatory peacebuilding agenda without first generating a revolution in

international law – and, as Ruti Teitel suggests, a radical reconceptualization of
jus post bellum.25
Notes
1. It has been suggested that the emergent norm of responsibility to protect allows for
the use of force in the absence of UNSC authorization or the right of self-defence,
but both the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and the Interna-
tional Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty are clear that the UNSC
is central to obtaining consensus on the use of military force under R2P. United
Nations, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility. Report of the Secretary-General’s
High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (New York: United Nations, 2004);
ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention
and State Sovereignty (Ottawa, Canada: International Development Research Centre,
2001).
2. Laws to control war and its conduct were developed much earlier in other civiliza-
tional contexts in ancient China and India and in Islamic law.
3. L. McGregor, ‘Reconciliation: Where Is the Law?’ in Law and the Politics of Reconcilia-
tion, ed. S. Veitch (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007), 117.
4. O. P. Richmond, The Transformation of Peace (London/New York: Routledge, 2007);
O. P. Richmond, ‘The Rule of Law in Liberal Peacebuilding’, in Peacebuilding and the
Rule of Law in Africa: Just Peace? eds. C. L. Sriram, O. Martin-Ortega and J. Herman
(London/New York: Routledge, 2011), 44–59.
5. D. Cortright, Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
6. I. Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, Section II, 1795, www.constitution.org/
kant/perpeace.htm, accessed 19 January 2015.
7. United Nations Office for Disarmament Issues, http://www.un.org/disarmament/
HomePage/treaty/treaties.shtml, accessed 19 January 2015.
8. N. D. White, International Conflict and Security Law (Cheltenham, Glos: Edward Elgar,
2014), 21.
9. K. Sikkink, The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World
Politics (New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 2011); D. F. Orentlicher, ‘Settling Accounts:
The Duty to Prosecute Human Rights Violations of a Prior Regime’, Yale Law Journal
100, no. 8 (1991): 2537–2615; Note, however, that ending impunity may be regarded
more broadly in international law than prosecutions in the formal Western legal sys-
tem. J. Braithwaite, ‘Conclusion: Hope and Humility for Weavers with International
Law’, in The Role of International Law in Rebuilding Societies after Conflict: Great Expec-
tations, eds B. Bowden, H. Charlesworth and J. Farrall (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
10. White, International Conflict and Security Law, 28.
11. Ibid., 33.
12. C. Stahn, ‘ “Jus ad Bellum”, “Jus in Bello” . . . “Just Post Bellum”? Rethinking the Con-
ception of the Law of Armed Force’, European Journal of International Law 17, no. 5
(2007): 921–943.
13. L. May, ‘Transitional Justice and the Just War Tradition’, in Critical Perspectives
in Transitional Justice, eds N. Palmer, P. Clark and D. Granville (Cambridge, UK:
Intersentia, 2012), 17–29.
14. M. J. Allman and T. L. Wright, After the Smoke Clears: The Just War Tradition and Post
War Justice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010).
15. V. Chetail, ‘Introduction: Post-conflict Peacebuilding – Ambiguity and Identity’, in
Post-conflict Peacebuilding: A Lexicon (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009), 18.
16. Ibid.
17. B. Orend, ‘Jus Post Bellum: The Perspective of a Just-War Theorist’, Leiden Journal of
International Law 20 (2007): 571–591.
18. R. Paris, ‘International Peacekeeping and the “Mission Civilisatrice” ’, Review of
International Studies 28 (2002): 637–656.
19. Ibid.
20. A. Jeng, Peacebuilding in the African Union: Law, Philosophy and Practice (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 36.
21. Richmond, ‘The Rule of Law in Liberal Peacebuilding’.
22. C. L. Sriram, ‘Transitional Justice and the Liberal Peace’, in New Perspectives on Liberal
Peacebuilding, eds E. Newman, R. Paris and O. P. Richmond (Tokyo: United Nations
23. Richmond, The Transformation of Peace.
24. Richmond, ‘The Rule of Law in Liberal Peacebuilding’, 58.
25. R. G. Teitel, ‘Rethinking Jus Post Bellum in an Age of Global Transitional Justice’, in
Globalizing Transitional Justice: Contemporary Essays (Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press, 2014), 139–148.
19
Indigeneity and Peace
Morgan Brigg and Polly O. Walker
Introduction
Indigenous peoples pre-date the contemporary world system of nation-states,

and yet are now bound with this global scheme through asymmetric power rela-
tions of colonialism. As colonial exchanges saw the expropriation of Indigenous
lands and the concentration of wealth in European hands from 1492, notions
of progress, private property and nationhood relied upon Indigenous reference
points to conjure the image of a barbaric, romantic or simply earlier past that
was ‘naturally’ succeeded in the passage to a modern world.1 The European
colonial episode inflicted incredible damage on Indigenous societies, frequently
pushing Indigenous peoples to the brink of extinction through genocidal vio-
lence, but it also bound Indigenous and European peoples in the generation
of European self-understandings that continue to reverberate and dominate in
world politics. The asymmetry of many colonial encounters certainly means
that many exchanges occurred – and continue to occur – on European terms,
but Indigenous peoples have consistently pushed back, troubling and haunting
a Eurocentric world order from a marginal position.
In recent decades, Indigenous peoples have regathered and remobilized
in local, national and international fora. Most notable here is the remark-
able development of transnational Indigenous activism in the late twentieth
century, culminating in the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indige-
nous Peoples by the United Nations General Assembly in 2007.2 This and other
developments have brought that which was previously represented as other,
inferior and past unmistakably and decidedly into the present.3 To encounter
Indigenous approaches to peace, then, is to engage alternative and distinct
understandings of peace, conflict and political order, and to be moved, in
both thought and life, in ways that are often unfamiliar to mainstream schol-
arship. At a time when much thought and practice about peace and order
are converging on some version of the liberal peace, Indigenous approaches
259
to peace offer important resources for thinking-otherwise about how human

beings can produce and maintain political community.
This chapter articulates Indigenous approaches to peace, with an inevitable
level of circumspection. Peace is not understood in fixed ways by Indigenous
peoples, because context and experience are crucial to Indigenous knowledges.
There are thousands of Indigenous peacemaking processes, orientations and
techniques around the world, with no pan-Indigenous paradigm. Sustaining
this multiplicity, and the accompanying multiplicity of place and experience,
is central to who Indigenous people are. The phenomenon of Indigeneity is
similarly diverse. The UN Working Group for Indigenous Peoples includes the
historical experience of colonialism and contemporary subordination in rela-
tion to a state structure as key elements of its definition of Indigeneity, and
yet for many Indigenous people, unique and time-immemorial links to par-
ticular land or place are arguably more central to Indigeneity. Acknowledging
this diversity, rather than indulging social science demands for definitive or
generalizable knowledge, is a matter of respect. It follows that this chapter
does not attempt to offer the final word about Indigeneity and peace, but,
instead, aims to evoke rather than specify, to suggest rather than to define,
and to offer a contextual perspective – we write, respectively, from Australia
and the US. It is nevertheless possible to speak of Indigenous approaches to
peace, perhaps because Indigenous peoples tend to share a strong orienta-
tion to land and place, often as the first peoples of a place and as people
tightly bound with it. Where European thought tends to foreground the Word,
logos, and abstract reason that travels regardless of location, Indigenous peo-
ples are more inclined to foreground Place.4 This does not make Indigenous
people ineluctably local, or make Indigenous thought unsystematic, because
kinship networks extend beyond the human, relating people not only to
other people, both near and far, but also to the non-human world and the
cosmos.5
Amongst multiplicity, the commonalities in philosophical tenets shaping
Indigenous approaches to peace include relatedness, balance (or harmony)
and the living cosmos. After sketching these tenets, this chapter discusses
how Indigenous approaches to peace diverge from and resonate with the
liberal peace, including how they confound conventional liberal understand-
ings of democratic exceptionalism. We then turn to the debates that arise as
Indigenous people grapple with challenging choices about the meaning of
Indigenous approaches to peace in political contexts overwhelmingly dom-
inated by institutions and practices of European origin and the assimilatory
capacities of modern liberalism. Asymmetric power relations abound, and yet,
because Indigenous approaches to peace have endured and have at various
times in history been operationalized in rather more equitable exchange with
European-derived approaches than currently occurs, we conclude by noting
Morgan Brigg and Polly O. Walker 261
opportunities for advancing peace through further recognition of Indigenous

peoples and approaches to peace.
Indigenous peace
Indigenous peoples are not intrinsically ‘peaceful’, as is sometimes evoked

in primitivist ideas of peoples living harmoniously and ‘close to nature’.
As Bruno Latour notes, Indigenous peoples tend to be unacquainted with
‘nature’ because they do not cleave the known world in two through a
nature/culture divide.6 Indeed, the idea of any people or set of relations having
a fixed and unchanging character does not often resonate among Indigenous
peoples. At the same time, certain realms – such as the cosmic or the time of
ancestors – may be designated as enduring and unchanging, even as these are
periodically renegotiated.7 In the space afforded by this paradox, the pursuit
of peace involves the search for balance among human and other-than-human
forces. Although Indigenous peoples engaged in violence, and continue to do
so, large-scale organized violence is also contained in a range of ways to bal-
ance high degrees of individual autonomy against societal pressures to return
to a state of relative peace. The various forms of Indigenous peacemaking tend
to build on concepts of relatedness, balance or harmony, and a living cosmos.
The starting point for many Indigenous approaches to peace is acknowledge-
ment of, and responsibility towards, multiple connections among human kin,
ancestors, generations to come, and beings and processes of the wider world.
Disrespect of these relationships is seen as an underlying factor in conflict,8
and efforts to maintain, repair or renew them – whether through the advice
and direction of senior knowledge holders, interactive processes from discus-
sions to ceremonies, or personal reflection and self-regulation – are integral to
managing conflict and building peace. Ceremonial practices often give expres-
sion to relationships in the organization of ritual space, as can be reflected, for
instance, in the Indigenous conflict management processes that take place in
a circle, designed to reinforce the importance of respectful, equitable relation-
ships.9 Managing conflict among multiple relationships can be challenging and
confusing (and certainly often appears so to non-Indigenous people) because
it generates a high level of contingency and complexity. Nevertheless, this
same complexity also provides both protagonists in conflict and those trying
to advise and assist in managing conflict with a wide range of resources that
can be drawn upon in efforts to recalibrate behaviour and relationships, and to
restore peace.
Indigenous concepts of relatedness are not necessarily limited to the ‘in-
group’, with respectful relations extended to ‘the other’ in the pursuit of peace.
There are numerous historical examples of Indigenous peoples adopting ene-
mies into their families and communities as part of post-conflict settlements,
with some adoptees rising to positions of prominence. In contemporary efforts

to address colonial injustices, Indigenous peoples have extended kinship rela-
tions to the descendants of colonizers in seeking to build sustainable relation-
ships of respect and reciprocity that may help to restore balance to asym-
metrical power relationships. In some contemporary Indigenous peacemaking
ceremonies, elders and leaders intervene on behalf of the descendants of the
White settlers and soldiers who massacred their ancestors, acknowledging that
the restoration of these relationships is a necessary aspect of rebalancing the
devastation of colonial violence.
Relatedness and multiple connections bring into play the concepts of balance
and harmony, yet this does not indicate a state of being without disruption or
conflict. Conflict is assumed to be natural, but people nonetheless aspire to
balance and harmony through an intention to rebalance all aspects of experi-
ence. For example, in Navajo traditional peacemaking ceremonies, ‘the word
hozho is often translated as “harmony” . . . [meaning a state in which] every-
thing is in its proper place, functioning well with everything else’.10 A similar
concept is found in Aboriginal Australian philosophy whereby all perspectives
are considered to be ‘valid and reasonable’, albeit not necessarily equal, with
orchestrated contestations between views being one way of restoring balance.11
Balance does not, then, always require emotional restraint in conflict manage-
ment and peace, although there are differences among Indigenous peoples in
the kinds of emotional expressions that are acceptable. Managing conflict may
involve encouragement for people to ‘be real’ with their emotions,12 giving
full expression to frustrations in order that balance can be rearticulated on a
sustainable basis.
To cope with the complexity and – at times – frustration of maintaining bal-
ance among multiple relations, balance may also be sought through humour,
including through trickster stories or other traditional narratives in which the
main character represents the flux of the cosmos by behaving in an unsanc-
tioned manner. In this way, humour is used to remind participants to seek
balanced responses to unexpected occurrences, and to remember that the only
constant in life is change. Humour may also be used to balance the heaviness of
grief or despondency that may be part of conflict. Alongside fluidity, one corol-
lary of the search for balance and harmony is that everybody is understood to
have a place and to be emplaced such that one is never a total isolate.13 A per-
son may behave with disregard to relationships, thus causing imbalance, yet
balance can be restored by engaging respectfully with the extended networks
of relations. Finding balance, then, is often highly valued as part of an individ-
ual’s emotional, spiritual, physical and intellectual life pursuits.14 Indigenous
philosophy posits peacemaking as restoring balance that supports both physi-
cal and mental health, with embodied and physical aspects of peacemaking also
critical elements in developing balance. This may include participants dancing,
singing or being involved in other performative rituals as part of peacemaking

processes. The restoration of people’s balance also often extends beyond those
humans physically present to take in the wider world, including the support
of revered elders who have died, with many Indigenous forms of peacemaking
beginning by ritually ‘calling in the ancestors’.
Indigenous peoples’ conflict theory and praxis are based in an understand-
ing that many – and in some cases all – aspects of the cosmos are alive. This
is one of the tenets of Indigenous peacemaking that tend to be most challeng-
ing for Westerners to engage: knowledge arises from sustained, emplaced, lived
participation with the natural world.15 In other words, much of the knowl-
edge that informs Indigenous thought ‘sits in places’16 and is engaged through
active, respectful dialogue and exchange between humans and the natural
world. These interactions are not seen to be driven solely by humans; instead,
beings and processes of the natural world are considered to exercise agency in
analysing and interacting with humans.17
Indigenous approaches to peace might be described as seeking an emplaced,
relational consensus that moves towards balance. This consensus is more than
an amalgamation of human intentions; it draws upon the knowledge that arises
in living places with which the human participants have a relationship of
respect and reciprocity. Indigenous consensus relies on what has been described
as ‘right time’, when multiple aspects of the world come together to support a
particular decision or set of actions.18 To this extent, Indigenous peoples tend
to navigate for consensus in a pluralistic living world, a process that requires
a holistic, flexible and fluid approach. A pure consensus may not always be
attained or possible, but striving for it in a living cosmos requires that all
involved speak and are heard.
Indigenous peace and liberal peace
Indigenous approaches to peace diverge in many respects from those of the lib-
eral peace outlined in Introduction to this volume. Nevertheless, Indigenous
approaches also include key principles and practices that pre-date, and in some
cases inform, modern Western understandings and practices of democracy and
diplomacy.19 The Iroquois Confederacy, or the League of Peace and Power, is
the most well-known case,20 including for its possible influence on the United
States Constitution. Despite this entwined heritage, Indigenous knowledge and
approaches to peace are routinely marginalized or disavowed in liberal peace
and wider scholarship of political and international relations. The uncom-
fortable, yet still underappreciated, reason for this phenomenon is that the
disciplines of political science and international relations (IR) have ‘internal-
ized many of the enabling narratives of colonialism’.21 One result is that IR
is ‘a long way from disciplinary conversations in which Indigenous peoples
would see their participation as valuable to them’.22 This pattern seems likely
to continue in the foreseeable future to the extent that political science and IR
continue to attempt to speak for all through a colonially enabled economy of
knowledge production.
In these circumstances, it is unsurprising that, beyond certain similarities,
there are marked differences between liberal and Indigenous approaches to
peace. Key contrasts lie in differing philosophical commitments and assump-
tions about the nature of human beings and political life, and the possibilities
for replicating models and approaches for the pursuit of peace across contexts.
Liberal understandings of the foundations and possibilities for peace rely heav-
ily upon the notion of pre-constituted and discrete individuals who, in political
life, gain citizenship, rights and freedom in relation to the exercise of rule by the
state. The state, in turn, takes a similar form, as a separate and complete entity
modelled on the individual. Meanwhile, the individual and the state are co-
reliant in modern Western political life, joined by the understanding that both
are sovereign entities. These forms are imagined as the site and vehicle for pur-
suing freedom and peace, and for realizing the full potential of human beings
in political life23 . A command–obedience relationship is nonetheless central to
the relationship between the state and the individual, with the latter ultimately
subjected to sovereign state power.
Indigenous peoples tend to conceive of and structure political existence
rather differently. Individuality is important, but takes the form of valuing
personal autonomy rather than sovereign selfhood. Personal autonomy mani-
fests integrally with a philosophical commitment to relatedness, with the result
that the pursuit of autonomy does not set people against each other, a higher
power or the natural world.24 Rather, personal autonomy tends to be seen and
pursued as a social capacity, such that the personal is also the social.25 Indi-
viduals emerge through relatedness and give expression to their autonomy in
the process. Similarly, political life arises – and the distribution of power rela-
tions occurs – without the need for a hierarchical institution such as the state.26
Political community tends to emerge as a multi-vocal and collaborative extra-
individual effort, often through consensual and, at times, agonistic dialogues.27
Individual autonomy, in turn, puts a brake on the accretion of power, such that
authority is only vested in political representatives and centralized structures
in very contingent or tenuous ways, if at all.
A view of social and political life that sees the individual as an already-
social being has no need for a centrally organized state, just as a commitment
to personal autonomy and relatively limited hierarchy guards against such
a meta-entity. The interests of individuals are not pitched against those of
others, people are already in relationship with each other, and individuals
do not need representation (through electoral democracy, for instance) as
they either are already their own representatives or have very direct access to
political participation through kinship networks. Where liberal peace centres

reason and speech as key human faculties for the pursuit of peace, Indige-
nous people tend to mobilize a wider range of resources. Speech and reasoned
deliberation are certainly important, but emotion, embodied knowledge and
imagination are also to the fore, as people call upon extended networks of
relatedness both among and beyond the human to process difficulty and restore
balance.
The relatively non-hierarchical nature of Indigenous political life affords
advantages for extensive participation and deliberation, but coming to a
consensus or compromise in these circumstances can be tense, frustrating,
agonistic, hostile and time-consuming. There tends to be no expectation – in
classical (pre-colonial) terms – that the needs of engagement for the purposes
of coming to a decision or being ‘of one mind’ about an issue should be sub-
ject to a timetable, or to other expectations, such as those of powerful players.
While this relatively open approach may be favourably contrasted with main-
stream approaches to peacemaking, it would also be misleading to wholly see
Indigenous approaches to peace as offering a form of intrinsic freedom in con-
trast with other approaches, including the liberal peace. All forms of conflict
management and peace involve some form of governing and regulation, and
although autonomy is highly prized among Indigenous peoples, such that indi-
viduals chart their own path in the social order, there seems little doubt that
individuals are subject to social pressures and expectations as they recalibrate
and renegotiate their relationships in the pursuit of harmony and balance.
Nonetheless, it is possible to venture that Indigenous approaches to politi-
cal community and peace pre-date and prefigure some of the most obviously
desirable elements of the liberal peace while eschewing some of its less desir-
able characteristics. Individual autonomy and high levels of participation
and deliberation are valued, while centralized hierarchy and the demands of
a wealth-creation system based on profit and the rapid and unsustainable
exploitation of natural resources are avoided. In addition, within Indigenous
approaches to peace, people are never alone; they have a source of ontological
security as a birthright, as well as access to an extensive network of human
and non-human forces, both past and present, with which to relate in the
pursuit of peace.28 Finally, because political order is usually expected to spring
from place and people’s relatedness to place, there is no sense that one’s own
approach to peace can or should be exported or transplanted to other places
in the same way that the liberal peace is imagined to be transportable. There
may be a larger cosmic order that facilitates the coming together of different
peoples, but because the autonomy of peoples and places remains sacrosanct,
this order would need to be discovered by seeking out the resonance of multi-
ple places rather than being specified in a schema derived from a particular site
or place.
Recuperation, appropriation, assimilation
Damage resulting from colonization has compromised many Indigenous con-

flict management systems, but this does not mean that fuller expressions of
Indigenous approaches to peace cannot be recuperated. Indigenous peoples
are grappling with loss, tensions and dilemmas posed by colonization. In the
broadest terms, this means that many Indigenous approaches to peace are over-
laid with Western frameworks, and often need to find expression though and
in exchange with the theories, principles and processes of these frameworks.
Nevertheless, a palimpsest survives, and Indigenous peoples are reweaving and
reinvigorating their traditional processes in ways that are responsive to contem-
porary conflicts and situations. This is to say that although Indigenous peoples
may be entangled with the net of colonization, they are devising creative
strategies designed to recentre and restore agency to Indigenous peoples and
their peacemaking paradigms. The potential for the recuperation of Indigenous
approaches to peace is always present, in part because there are other-than-
human agents at work. The extended networks of relationships that include
the natural and spirit worlds provide access to knowledge held in the repertoire
of a people rather than archived in written form. Indigenous knowledge hold-
ers and elders describe the ways in which, for instance, sacred places, dreams,
visions, and spirit messengers assist in the recuperation of language, dance,
song, ritual and ceremonies central to Indigenous peacemaking ceremonies.
The effort to recuperate Indigenous peacemaking is not designed to return to
a pristine or untouched past. Although some Indigenous people may claim to
have a worldview untouched by colonization, most Indigenous peoples tend to
squarely face the impacts of colonization – including forced removals from land
and kin, discriminatory government policies and assimilationist education. As a
result, people grapple with ‘jagged worldviews’, as traditional philosophies have
been forcibly shaped to varying degrees by ongoing pressures of colonization.29
Recuperation, then, does not mean invention. It involves bringing out tradi-
tional philosophies in contemporary contexts through resistance to ongoing
colonialism.
The challenges of recuperating Indigenous peace within a colonial con-
text are compounded by a burgeoning conflict resolution movement which
has, until recently, granted limited recognition to Indigenous and other
approaches.30 Western conflict resolution has tended to oscillate between
disavowal and appropriation of Indigenous approaches and processes: the
Indigenous tends to be either ignored as irrelevant to conflict management
or consumed as inspiration for developing alternative approaches. In many
instances, Indigenous approaches to peace have been appropriated and cod-
ified by non-Indigenous peoples so that the processes no longer belong to
Indigenous peoples. Codification involves a rigidifying effect that compromises
the relational flux and responsiveness of embedded Indigenous process. As a

result, such processes are no longer able to effect peacemaking in Indigenous
terms, because the people, values, narratives and places that comprise integral
aspects of Indigenous peace are no longer present. Although the conflict reso-
lution field is beginning to recognize the importance of local and Indigenous
processes in more serious ways, Indigenous peacemaking is still often consid-
ered as a culturally exotic embellishment of Western approaches rather than
as a paradigm that might inform practices of peacemaking more broadly. One
significant effect of such exotic embellishment is the frequent failure to under-
stand or respect Indigenous people’s emphasis on relatedness, balance and a
living cosmos.
The colonial context also generates deep and serious challenges for Indige-
nous peoples and communities. Racism, discrimination and the overwhelming
presence of Western systems mean that Indigenous people must engage with
and, in many cases, operate through these systems in order to survive and
thrive in the wider world. But this leads to deeply sensitive and troubling ques-
tions about how doing so encourages or facilitates assimilation, and of how
much peacebuilding proceeds on Indigenous or Western terms. These matters
are often discussed within Indigenous communities rather than in wider aca-
demic debates, but Mohawk scholar and activist Taiaiake Alfred has strongly
and consistently challenged tribal leaders whom he views as having too read-
ily adopted and engaged with European political concepts and processes at the
expense of their Indigenous counterparts.31 He says, for example, that ‘ “Aborig-
inal rights” and “tribal sovereignty” are in fact benefits accrued by indigenous
peoples who have agreed to abandon autonomy to enter the state’s legal and
political framework.’32 In prospective terms, he argues that ‘[t]he challenge for
indigenous peoples in building appropriate post-colonial governing systems is
to disconnect the notion of sovereignty from its western, legal roots and to
transform it’.33 To recuperate and act in accordance with Indigenous values is
an ongoing challenge of the colonial context, and, indeed, this challenge itself
is partly definitive of Indigeneity.
As noted above, most Indigenous people do not subscribe to the idea of
Indigeneity as wholly pure or separate, and, in any case, this is not necessary,
because Indigenous concepts of relatedness and connectedness allow flexible
interlinking with introduced systems and processes. A number of Indigenous
peoples have integrated elements of Western conflict resolution into their
peacemaking processes, building on the Indigenous worldview in ways that
are responsive to contemporary conflicts. One example is the Metís prac-
tice of Wechewehtowin, or ‘partnershipping’ between Aboriginal and Western
concepts and values, which has facilitated the resolution of conflicts regard-
ing Indigenous land use in Canada.34 . In other instances, Indigenous peoples
have employed Western mechanisms to meet the needs of their communities
within a framework of Indigenous values, an effective strategy when domi-

nant Western worldviews mean that the wider society is blind to the value
and prospects of Indigenous peacemaking.35
Navigating the colonial context is rarely easy, and many Indigenous peoples
are currently debating the balance between working with dominant Western
systems and focusing upon more fully recuperating their own systems. While
the former often finds ready acceptance and resources in the colonial context,
the latter is a slow and difficult process, often requiring work across a number
of generations. Recuperation generates other challenges, too. For example, in
a contemporary context, it often involves sharing Indigenous knowledges and
processes beyond a local Indigenous community. This raises questions about
the appropriation and compromising of Indigenous peacemaking, a problem
with which Indigenous peoples are all too familiar following historical expe-
riences with anthropologists and other researchers taking and making use of
Indigenous knowledge without consent and beyond Indigenous contexts.
Nonetheless, it is also clear that contemporary Indigenous peacemaking does
not require the wholesale rejection of, or quarantining from, Western processes.
There is much scope for Indigenous and Western processes to work together
while maintaining Indigenous distinctiveness, including drawing on examples
from the early stages of colonization of newcomers adopting and engaging in
Indigenous conflict management and peacemaking processes. Before the sys-
tematic marginalization and disavowal of Indigenous peacemaking in colonial
processes, colonists often engaged in and made use of Indigenous processes
to navigate relationships on the frontier. These processes included Europeans
accepting and participating in Indigenous diplomacies.36 This history gives
hope for renewed engagement between Indigenous and Western approaches
to peace as Indigenous peoples increasingly recuperate Indigenous approaches
to peace. Moreover, there are concrete possibilities for taking this work further
in IR and conflict resolution practice. For example, sophisticated scholarship is
already afoot,37 and recent United Nations Guidance for Effective Mediation sug-
gests the value of drawing ‘on indigenous forms of conflict management and
dispute resolution’.38
Conclusion
Indigenous societies have been badly damaged by the European colonial

episode that saw them displaced by and caught up in the nation-building
political projects of colonizers, but Indigenous peoples have also retained their
approaches to peace in the face of the colonial onslaught, including disavowal
and appropriation of Indigenous peacemaking by mainstream conflict resolu-
tion. It seems that Indigenous peoples are playing a long game, with the recu-
peration of Indigenous approaches to peace gathering pace in recent decades
as part of a wider Indigenous renaissance. Indigenous peacemaking shares

some characteristics with the liberal peace, but pre-dates rather than derives
from Western liberalism and the contemporary systems of states. It also dif-
fers from the liberal peace in key ways. Most notably, Indigenous peacemaking
has a less individualistic, less anthropocentric, less formal and less hierarchi-
cal basis. It is based in philosophy that tends to be grounded in Place rather
than the Word or logos. One way to understand this philosophy and its differ-
ences from mainstream liberalism is to say that it brings out the importance
of relatedness and connections among human and other-than-human agents,
and strives for harmony and balance among these agents in a living cosmos.
To this extent, Indigenous peace challenges mainstream conflict resolution and
peace scholarship to expand its purview.
Much can be made of the differences of Indigenous approaches to peace, but
Indigenous peoples and colonizers have in most cases been bound together
through colonial experience in ways that suggest, beyond the undeniable
record of damage, violation, trauma and loss, possibilities for future mutual
recognition and respect – for balance, in Indigenous terms. Both historical
accounts and popular understandings of colonial encounters tend to make
rather too much of radical differences between Indigenous peoples and colo-
nizers. No doubt the differences are significant, but there are nonetheless also
accounts of mutual accommodation between different versions of law and pol-
itics, including Europeans recognizing and embracing Indigenous approaches
to conflict management on the colonial frontier.39 As Indigenous people build
upon and further recuperate Indigenous approaches to peace in the twenty-
first century, it will be necessary to navigate the risks of appropriation and
assimilation in political settings overwhelmingly dominated by liberalism. But
historical experience suggests that recognition of difference and accommoda-
tion are possible. To pursue this possibility in the present opens the possibility
of more expansive, relational, balanced and fluid approaches to peace.
Notes
1. J. Sissons, First Peoples: Indigenous Cultures and Their Futures (London: Reaktion Books,
2005), 9.
2. United Nations, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
A/61/L.67, 2007.
3. Sissons, First Peoples, 9.
4. S. Muecke, No Road (Bitumen All the Way) (South Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts
Centre Press, 1997), 70; H. Brody, The Other Side of Eden: Hunter-Gatherers, Farmers
and the Shaping of the World (London: Faber and Faber, 2001), 73.
5. G. Cajete. Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence (Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light
Publishers, 2000).
6. B. Latour, Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2004), 232.
7. L. LittleBear, ‘Introduction’, in Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence, ed.

G. Cajete (Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers, 2000), ix–xii.
8. R. Yazzie, ‘Navajo Peacemaking and Intercultural Dispute Resolution’, in Intercultural
Dispute Resolution in Aboriginal Contexts, eds C. Bell and D. Kahane (Vancouver, BC:
UBC Press, 2004), 107–115.
9. M. Garrett, Walking on the Wind (Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Co, 1998).
10. Yazzie, ‘Navajo Peacemaking and Intercultural Dispute Resolution’, 130.
11. M. Graham, M. Brigg and P. Walker, ‘Managing Conflict through Place and
Relatedness’, in Mediating across Difference: Indigenous, Oceanic and Asian Approaches
to Conflict Resolution, eds M. Brigg and R. Bleiker (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 2010), 73–99, 82.
12. Ibid.; P. Bluehouse and J. W. Zion, ‘Hozhooji Naat’aanii: The Navajo Justice and
Harmony Ceremony’, Mediation Quarterly 10, no. 4 (1993): 327–337.
13. M. Graham, ‘Some Thoughts about the Philosophical Underpinnings of Aboriginal
Worldviews’, Environment, Culture, Religion 3, no. 2 (1999): 105–118.
14. G. Cajete, Native Science, 95; Bluehouse and Zion, ‘Hozhooji Naat’aanii’.
15. G. Cajete, Native Science, 95.
16. K. Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996).
17. D. B. Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human: Life and Land in an Aboriginal Australian Culture
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
18. R. Ross, Returning to the Teachings: Exploring Aboriginal Justice (Toronto: Penguin
Books, 1996).
19. G. C. Wheeler, The Tribe, and Intertribal Relations in Australia (London:
J. MurrayJohnson Reprint, 1910); R. J. Numelin, The Beginnings of Diplomacy: A Socio-
logical Study of Intertribal and International Relations (London: Oxford University Press,
1950); J. M. Beier, International Relations in Uncommon Places: Indigeneity, Cosmol-
ogy, and the Limits Of International Theory (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005);
J. M. Beier, ed., Indigenous Diplomacies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
20. N. C. Crawford, ‘A Security Regime among Democracies: Cooperation among
Iroquois Nations’, International Organization 48, no. 3 (1994): 345–385.
21. J. Marshall Beier, International Relations in Uncommon Places: Indigeneity, Cosmology,
and the Limits of International Theory (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 2.
22. Karena Shaw, ‘Indigeneity and the International’, Millennium: Journal of International
Studies 31, no. 1 (2002): 55–81, 80.
23. J. Bartelson, The Critique of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
24. F. R. Myers and L. Brenneis, ‘Introduction: Language and Politics in the Pacific’,
in Dangerous Words: Language and Politics in the Pacific, eds L. Brenneis and F. R.
Myers (New York, London: New York University Press, 1984), 1–29; F. R. Myers,
Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self: Sentiment, Place, and Politics among Western Desert Abo-
rigines (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 267–265; Rose, Dingo Makes
Us Human, 171–217.
25. J. Overing, ‘In Praise of the Everyday: Trust and the Art of Social Living in an
Amazonian Community’, Ethnos 68, no. 3 (2003): 293–316, 305–306.
26. P. Clastres, Society against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology (New York: Zone
Books, 2007).
27. L. A. Graham, ‘Public Sphere in Amazonia? The Depersonalized Collaborative Con-
struction of Discourse in Xavante’, American Ethnologist 20, no. 4 (1993): 717–741.
28. Graham et al., ‘Managing Conflict through Place and Relatedness’, 81–82.
29. LittleBear, ‘Introduction’.
30. K. Avruch, ‘Introduction: Culture and Conflict Resolution’, in Conflict Resolution:

Cross-Cultural Perspectives, eds K. Avruch, P. W. Black and J. A. Scimecca (Westport:
Greenwood Publishing Group, 1992), 1–17; K. Avruch, Culture and Conflict Resolu-
tion (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1998); T. Väyrynen,
Culture and International Conflict Resolution (Manchester and New York: Manchester
University Press, 2001); M. Brigg, The New Politics of Conflict Resolution: Responding
to Difference (Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); M. Brigg, ‘Culture:
Challenges and Possibilities’, in Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding: Critical Devel-
opments and Approaches, ed. O. Richmond (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 329–346.
31. T. Alfred, Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom (Toronto: Broadview
Press, 2005); T. Alfred and J. Corntassel, ‘Being Indigenous: Resurgences against Con-
temporary Colonialism’, Government and Opposition 40, no. 4 (2005): 597–614; T.
Alfred, Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto (Don Mills, ON: Oxford
32. T. Alfred, ‘From Sovereignty to Freedom: Towards an Indigenous Political Discourse’,
Indigenous Affairs 3 (2001): 22–34, 26.
33. Ibid., 28.
34. E. Ghostkeeper, ‘Weche Teachings: Aboriginal Wisdom and Dispute Resolution’,
in Intercultural Dispute Resolution in Aboriginal Contexts, eds C. Bell and D. Kahane
(Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2004), 10, 161–175.
35. R. M. Goldberg, ‘How Our Worldviews Shape Our Practice’, Conflict Resolution
Quarterly 26, no. 4 (2009): 405–431.
36. R. A. Williams, ‘Linking Arms Together: Multicultural Constitutionalism in a North
American Indigenous Vision of Law and Peace’, California Law Review 82, no. 4
(1994): 981–1049; T. J. Shannon, Iroquois Diplomacy on the Early American Frontier
(London: Penguin Books, 2008); G. Schaaf, Wampum Belts and Peace Trees (Golden,
CO: Fulcrum Publishers, 1990).
37. For example, see J. Marshall Beier, ed., Indigenous Diplomacies (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009).
38. United Nations, United Nations Guidance for Effective Mediation (United Nations,
Mediation Support Unit, 2012), 12.
39. Williams, ‘Linking Arms Together’, 987.
20
Critical Security Studies and
Alternative Dialogues for Peace:
Reconstructing ‘Language Barriers’ and
‘Talking Points’
Faye Donnelly
Introduction
On paper, it is easy to assume that critical peace studies1 and critical secu-
rity studies share the same lexicon. Evidently, each discipline adopts various
modes of immanent critique to expose and alleviate insecurities in different
environments. They are equally similar insofar as their core concepts, peace
and security, are easily recognizable and commonly deployed within academic
and everyday grammars. Added to all of the above, these two words can be, and
often are, used interchangeably. These interweavings are particularly visible in
the United Nations’ thematic heading2 and the professed mission statements
of its institutional arms.
Despite these parallels, critical peace studies and critical security studies do
not always speak the same language. Instead, they divide along a plethora of
epistemological, methodological, ontological and pedagogical lines. This is not
to suggest that these disciplines only speak past each other, but it is to acknowl-
edge that each contains internal fractures. Hence, rather than commenting on
where peace should be properly situated within different critical security camps,
this chapter highlights what are termed here as ‘language barriers’ and ‘talking
points’ between critical peace studies and critical security studies.
Taking this approach is beneficial for several reasons. First, it contributes to
the core objective of this book: to generate greater levels of interdisciplinary
debate and collaborations. Second, setting out to build bridges between critical
peace studies and critical security studies offers a counterweight to the reified
straw man tendencies circulating in current debates. While the terminology of
language barriers can easily be read as the continuation of ‘polemical recrimina-
tions’,3 in this chapter it is explicitly deployed to reflect on how disagreements
can be overcome. As Barry Buzan previously noted,
272
Faye Donnelly 273
up to a point, opposition between basic concepts is fruitful. Each serves to

stimulate the other by providing a contrast, and criticism creates incen-
tives to sharpen and deepen thinking. Beyond that point, however, this
process declines into diminishing, and eventually negative, returns. Opposi-
tion becomes institutionalised and politicised, and creative thinking is either
overridden by the rituals of intellectual entrenchment, or stifled by the lack
of creative room within the tight contradictory confines.4
Paying heed to Buzan’s remarks, this chapter does not conceptualize ‘language
barriers’ and ‘talking points’ as exclusive categories but as dialectical modes of
dialogue. For, as we shall see, talking points can often create language barri-
ers, and vice versa. Yet, paradoxically, the very medium that has been used to
create and institutionalize language barriers between critical peace studies and
critical security studies also provides the tools with which to break them down.
Indeed, talking through their biggest disagreements could generate ‘thinking
space’5 and ways to listen to ‘voices previously unheard’.6 Although this is a
challenging position to return to, it is suggested here that it could instigate
alternative dialogues about peace and security.
The remainder of this chapter proceeds in four stages. The opening section
briefly examines the concept of peace from a critical security studies perspec-
tive by framing it as an essentially contested concept (ECC).7 Within critical
security studies, this idea is already widely employed.8 Interestingly, very few,
if any, explicit attempts have been made to coin peace as an ECC, despite volu-
minous literatures agreeing that this concept has many conflicting meanings.9
The next section outlines three ‘language barriers’ between critical peace studies
and critical security studies, which are labelled as (1) academic ‘others’ and the
storylines of research; (2) speech acts and securitization; and (3) subaltern and
forgotten speakers. Building on these foci, the third section raises three poten-
tial ‘talking points’, namely (1) the everyday and the local; (2) desecuritization
and human security; and (3) ‘the unknown’. Again, the goal behind these talk-
ing points is to begin conversations rather than produce any finite agreement.
The chapter concludes by reflecting on how critical security studies can help to
reframe how we think and talk about peace, security and world politics.10
Framing peace as an ECC: A critical security perspective
Today scholars from Aberystwyth to Copenhagen, to Paris11 and beyond

have gathered under the umbrella of critical security studies.12 Indeed, it is
hard to envision a level of analysis or referent object that remains impervi-
ous to this metanarrative. The exponential growth of critical security studies
complicates attempts to pinpoint a singular organizing principle. Nor is it advis-
able, given the heavy emphasis that this heterogeneous vein of scholarship
places on studying how security is socially constructed, reconstructed and

deconstructed.
Although scholars working under the aegis of critical security studies adopt
vast arrays of theoretical standpoints and research agendas, they are connected
by two interlinked themes. First, it is undoubtedly the case that critical security
scholars, in all their forms and permutations, argue that the meaning of security
cannot be scientifically hypothesized, measured, tested or verified. Conversely,
they argue that security is an ECC, on the understanding that ‘the nature of
security defies pursuit of an agreed definition’.13 As reflected in this statement,
critical security scholars also contend that no single model or typology of secu-
rity exists. Thus, instead of drawing disciplining boundaries, they argue that
‘security is unbound’.14 Apart from decrying ‘traditional’15 dogmas, these schol-
ars also set out to create a reflexive field. For many, this second theme has meant
shifting away from merely ‘explaining’ why security is constructed in different
ways in different contexts to ‘understanding’16 how such actions become pos-
sible.17 A crucial dimension behind this shift is to promote modes of analysis
that can account for unintended consequences and transformative processes.
Such aspirations are interlaced with critical security studies endeavours to per-
manently unsettle the status quo and thus foreground the contested nature of
security.
For the purposes of this chapter, it is pertinent to conceptualize peace as an
ECC for several reasons. First, it allows us to ask how peace becomes possi-
ble. Moreover, it ensures that when we ask this question, we can gain multiple
answers to it rather than just one. For, if viewed as an ECC, peace will con-
tinue to have multiple meanings and purposes depending on how it is used in
theory and in practice. Another added value of conceptualizing peace through
the lens of an ECC is that it alters ‘who is telling the story and how the story
is told’.18 Since everything is open to perpetual contestation, it holds that key
interlocutors can be challenged, replaced and transformed. Lastly, drawing on
the concept of an ECC allows us to gain glimpses into how language barriers
and talking points between the two disciplines have been socially constructed
and pathways through which they might be overcome. It is to these issues that
we now turn.
Language barriers
Academic ‘others’ and the storylines of research

Identifying language barriers and academic ‘others’ in international relations
and/or between critical peace studies and critical security studies is not diffi-
cult.19 The remarkable ease with which such points of encounter are taken for
granted is evident in the axiomatic ways that scholars employ them, either to
speak to each other or about their subject matters.20 Anyone paying attention
will be aware that this chapter is guilty of reproducing a pejorative ‘other’ by
Faye Donnelly 275
introducing critical security studies vis-à-vis ‘traditional’ ones. While the latter
label is frequently invoked to delineate how we ought to study security, it is
also problematic. First, this encompassing term lumps vastly different theories
and theorists together into a singularity. In the process, ‘traditional’ approaches
are readily dismissed and easily replaced by two ‘childhood diseases’.21 The
first is
that of always reinventing the wheel, and the other, concomitant with the
first, is that of not reading what other people have written, either in the
name of (sometimes proud) insularity, or else because one does not even sus-
pect that what they might have written might constitute any contribution
to the field.22
Tough competition for limited funding in limited research bodies and the unre-
lenting pressure for academics to publish in high-impact peer-reviewed journals
aggravate rather than alleviate these symptoms.
Two clarifications are necessary here. The argument being made is emphat-
ically not that ‘traditional’ approaches to security studies are perfect. Sugges-
tions of this kind are dubious for any theory or analytical framework. Nor is
it being suggested that critical security studies have not improved our debates.
They have. What remains irrespective of these clarifications is that the uncriti-
cal use of ‘traditional’ and ‘critical’ frames has encouraged the closure of several
lines of intra- and interdisciplinary dialogues between critical peace studies and
critical security studies.23 A more honest, if arguably more sceptical, reflection
here is that peace is currently being written out of critical security studies.24
Trawling through various textbooks and edited volumes produced in the lat-
ter field exemplifies the fact that scant attention is being devoted to peace.25
Equally troubling is the lack of questioning over whether such portrayals and
omissions constitute ‘cracked-glass lenses’.26 All in all, these trends are allowing
careful contextualization to be lost.
Let us take a prominent example, the Copenhagen School. Although this
group of scholars are best known as the pioneers of critical security and
securitization studies, they started out as part of the Copenhagen Peace and
Research Institute (COPRI), founded in 1985.27 Today, these roots of origin are
not hidden in the storylines of critical peace and critical security research.28
Nonetheless, they are routinely glossed over as backdrops to show the emer-
gence and evolution of each respective field. On the surface, this pattern does
not appear to be problematic. Starting with the early work of COPRI, however,
paints a much clearer picture of the interdependent, albeit contested, interfaces
between peace and security. As we shall see in a moment, these initial exposi-
tions can be viewed as part and parcel of how critical peace studies and critical
security scholars have become framed as academic ‘others’. Yet, digging deeper
into the storylines of research COPRI instigated serves to simultaneously expose
how fraught with contradictions and complications these ‘others’ are. Irrespec-
tive of which narration is privileged as critical peace studies and critical studies
continue to proliferate, it is always worth remembering that peace and security
overlap and interact in multifarious, rather than purely antagonistic, ways.
Speech acts and securitization

While the nexus between (de)securitization and peace has recently been hinted
at,29 the two fields exist almost entirely in isolation from each other. A major
language barrier here is that critical peace studies and critical security studies are
uttering and studying different speech acts. Following the Copenhagen School,
the primary research focus is to explore how agents are speaking security to
identify and construct existential threats that legitimate the use of extraordi-
nary measures.30 In tandem, explorations into who is speaking peace become
somewhat secondary, at least from this perspective. Evidently, within the con-
tours of the Copenhagen School’s framework, the concept ‘peaceization’ sounds
ridiculous. If we accept that language is how we make our world,31 then this
term could potentially enter into the vocabulary of critical peace and/or critical
security studies. For now, it remains meaningless.
The absence of peace as a core speech act in securitization studies can
be traced back to storylines of research. In fact, many have accused the
Copenhagen School of severing important ties between peace, security and
war.32 Without taking sides, two cautionary remarks will suffice. First, putting
all of the blame on the Copenhagen School’s shoulders undermines the exten-
sive battlegrounds that were already well underway before securitization arrived
in the scene.33 Second, the implicit suggestion that the Copenhagen School is
engaging in a monologue, within critical security studies or outside, is mis-
placed. If the tables are turned, for example, it is quickly obvious that critical
peace studies are not speaking security or ‘peaceization’ either.
On closer inspection, it also transpires that speech acts, language games and
discourse analysis are frequently absent from the theoretical and methodolog-
ical toolkits that critical peace scholars adopt to examine peacebuilding and
peacekeeping operations. An easy rebuttal that critics could make here is that
these gaps stem from an aversion within critical peace studies to how language
is conceptualized within securitization and critical security studies. Indeed,
many scholars investigating the relationship between peace and discourse have
indicated that their favoured entry points are post-structural and deconstruc-
tive, on the grounds that the latter ‘problematise even the critical version of
peace’.34 Yet, this line of counter-argument does not fully explain the persis-
tence of schisms between critical peace studies and critical security studies.
Conversely, orientations within critical peace studies towards deconstruction
and/or the problematization of the Copenhagen School’s speech act approach35
appear to encourage rather than negate the configuration of interdisciplinary
collaborations. From this perspective, the existing language barriers appear
Faye Donnelly 277
more rather than less puzzling. On this point, each discipline would per-
haps benefit from (re)turning to Jennifer Milliken’s observation that ‘discourse
theorising crosses over and mixes divisions between poststructuralists, post-
modernists and some feminists and social constructivists. Whatever divergent
claims are otherwise made by these groups of scholars, they share certain
theoretical commitments about how discourses work.’36
Subaltern and forgotten speakers

Our final language barrier originates from decisions over who should be
included in conversations about peace and security. Despite their best efforts,
even the most critical strands of peace and security studies have been con-
demned as Western-centric projects at best and colonial projects at worst.37
While such critiques are somewhat disingenuous in view of earnest attempts
being made to rupture hegemonic hierarchies of power and the structures of
violence that underpin them, they are not totally unfounded. Regrettably, some
speakers still hold a more privileged position to speak than others. Correspond-
ingly, some discourses, such as peace and security, can have more legitimacy
when spoken.
There is nothing new in suggesting that there are ‘dark sides’38 to our dia-
logues, or that they silence other peoples.39 Similar views have been expressed
and developed by feminist40 and post-colonial scholars,41 who, in different
ways, reveal that constructing peace and security does not arise automatically
from allowing agents to speak. This is just step one. For, if our dominant dis-
courses remain unchanged, such speech acts will simply efface the agency of
marginalized groups and ensure that they continue to be misrepresented in
how our stories are told. However, studies involving subaltern and forgotten
speakers have also indicated that these agents can be empowered if and when
they are allowed to speak and be heard in their own voices. Achieving this sec-
ond step is extremely difficult, but not impossible. Much will depend on how
we attempt to cultivate real opportunities for subaltern and forgotten speakers
to be incorporated as equal interlocutors and listeners in our dialogues. As a
minimum, copious amounts of contestation should be expected. However, it is
worth remembering that the emergence of argumentation and opposing view-
points does not foreclose or deter progressive discussions.42 Conversely, moves
in these directions could ‘open up hitherto closed off connections, and enable
the construction and circulation of new ways of knowing and doing politics’.43
These possibilities are important to consider and are at the crux of the three
‘talking points’ outlined next.
Talking points
While the previous section examined three language barriers between critical
peace studies and critical security studies, this section brings their points of
intersection much more fully into view by outlining three interdisciplinary

talking points below.
The ‘everyday’ and the ‘local’

A glaring talking point that exists between critical peace studies and critical
security studies is how to speak about, and in, ‘local’ and ‘everyday’ settings.44
Without a doubt, burgeoning literatures emerging in both disciplines to study
these alternative sites of peace and security should be applauded. Yet, arguably,
there still is room for further discussions. Perhaps the biggest oversight con-
tained in these dialogues is that ‘local’ and ‘everyday’ voices are still missing
from key conversations about what peace and security mean and do. Syria
looms as a poignant example of ordinary people not getting to speak or be
heard in their own voices.
Another potential lacuna in the theorization of the ‘everyday’ and the ‘local’
in contemporary peace studies and critical security studies is the uncritical use
of these terminologies in their storylines of research. Critiques of the liberal
peace are quick to tell us that for peace to become possible, we must dero-
manticize the local framings found in dominant agendas of peacebuilding, and
replace them with the ‘infrapolitics of peacebuilding’.45 In parallel, we are told
that for security to become possible, everyday places and peoples cannot be
neglected. Both lines of arguments are correct. However, their shared predica-
ment is that ‘local’ and ‘everyday’ environments are frequently the source of,
rather than a solution to, conflict and insecurity. Clearly, ‘all sorts of every-
day social situations and cultural phenomena’ can be seen as ‘a potential
threat to security’.46 The ‘local turn’ in peace studies is grappling with simi-
lar dilemmas, since history has repeatedly shown that ‘locals’ frequently seek
to spoil rather than create peace.47 Scrutinizing how the ‘local’ and ‘everyday’
are being constituted, and by whom, thus appears to warrant further deliber-
ations. Those interested in the ‘everyday’ and ‘ordinary’ dimensions of peace
and security might also wish to reflect on where and how these boundaries are
being drawn.
Desecuritization and human security

The concepts of desecuritization and human security could also cultivate inter-
disciplinary collaborations between critical peace studies and critical security
studies. At a minimum, foregrounding these themes would showcase the mul-
tiplicity of referent objects and agendas that they have in common. In reality,
peace is habitually interwoven into desecuritizing move(s). Going further, it is
possible to argue that peace is a ‘facilitating condition’48 for desecuritization
to occur, insofar as successfully desecuritizing an issue typically relies on some
kind of peace being established or restored, especially in democratic settings.49
Faye Donnelly 279
Alternatively, (de)securitization seems well placed to provide critical peace stud-

ies with better understandings of how various agents justify various modes of
action in conflict and post-conflict settings.50 Acknowledging rather than deny-
ing these overlaps would resurrect what Buzan termed ‘fruitful’ rather than
‘stifled’ terrains for future interdisciplinary research.51
On a broader scale, there are also reasons to suggest that improved dia-
logues between critical peace studies and critical security studies on the topic of
desecuritization could spill over into more holistic lines of inquiry to explore
human security constellations. Indeed, it is quite easy to identify legions of new
connections and understandings that could arise from these kinds of interdis-
ciplinary debates. Casting even a cursory eye over notions of human rights,
health, development, medicalization, economics, food and humanitarian relief,
among infinite others, testifies in very simple terms that pluralistic issues and
agendas exist to draw in interconnected ideas across the two disciplines. A com-
mon starting point is how to initiate reflexive debates ‘without locking in a
particular definition of human security’.52
‘The unknown’
A final talking point that peace and critical security studies could undertake
together is the ‘unknown’. This topic has gained increased currency following
the terrorist attacks against the US on 11 September 2001 and the subse-
quent ‘Global War on Terror’.53 Granted that the latter events are extremely
timely, a much broader array of anxieties, risks and uncertainties have sur-
faced to stretch the scope of interdisciplinary discussions. For starters, the
pendulums of peace and security are increasingly swinging towards priva-
tization.54 As these trends unfold, it is less and less clear which rules and
norms apply in these environments. Appraising these dynamics, moreover,
one quickly discovers that there is little information or agreement about
where accountability, responsibility and power reside within privatized zones
of peace and security. All in all, such anomalies call for further investiga-
tion and debate. Taking stock of the boundless nature and reach of ‘the
unknown’ also seems to be a sensible joint enterprise for critical peace and
critical security scholars to pursue, given that we are potentially facing infinite
threats, ranging from international state-sponsored terrorism to ‘little security
nothings’.55
On a final note, it is also worth suggesting that theorizing the ‘unknown’
could foster an underexplored remedy to the two childhood diseases mentioned
earlier. For, ultimately, it provides a gentle reminder that everyone has some-
thing to learn. If it is taken seriously, this very basic realization might inspire
and provoke critical peace studies and critical security studies to look beyond
their current dialogues and imaginaries. At the time of writing, whether or not
this can or will happen remains unknown.
Conclusion
The tentative reflections set out in this chapter have provided an

unconventional critical security approach to studying peace. What is distinctive
is the omission of any attempt to provide an answer for how peace becomes
possible. Conversely, drawing on the concept of an ECC, the layers of
contestation constituted in and by this complex term and process have been
foregrounded. Taking these considerations on board, this chapter argued for
the creation of ‘fruitful’ rather than ‘stifled’ dialogues of peace and security.
By now, it should be clear that scholars in both disciplines stand to incur sig-
nificant losses if the language barriers outlined remain in place. First, critical
peace studies and critical security studies will remain as two opposing academic
‘others’ rather than two interrelated storylines of research. Consequently, both
approaches will continue to share much in common but continue to speak past
each other. Likewise, the marginalization of subaltern and forgotten speakers
will continue, at best, or become increasingly entrenched, at worst. This chapter
is not naïve about the obstacles involved in overcoming the existing language
barriers between critical peace studies and critical security studies. At best, the
suggested talking points raised here give both disciplines an opportunity to
create different dialogues, should they wish to do so. Surely the prospects of
constructing better stories about peace, security and world politics are worth
discussing.
Notes
1. Clearly, there are multiple ways to theorize peace studies. However, within the remit
of this chapter, this term is used to denote the peace studies conceptualized in this
book.
2. Available at http://www.un.org/en/peace/, accessed 24 March 2014.
3. K. Krause and M. C. Williams, ‘Preface: Toward Critical Securities’, in Critical Secu-
rity Studies: Concepts and Cases, eds K. Krause and M. C. Williams (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1997), vii–xxiii.
4. B. Buzan, ‘Peace, Power, and Security: Contending Concepts in the Study of
International Relations’, Journal of Peace Research 21, no. 2 (1984): 109–125.
5. For further discussion, see J. George, ‘International Relations and the Search for
Thinking Space: Another View of the Third Debate’, International Studies Quarterly
33 (1989): 269–279; J. George and D. Campbell, ‘Patterns of Dissent and the Celebra-
tion of Difference: Critical Social Theory and International Relations’, International
Studies Quarterly 34, no. 3 (1990): 269–293; P. T. Jackson, ‘Constructing Thinking
Space: Alexander Wendt and the Virtues of Engagement’, Cooperation and Conflict 36,
no. 1 (2001): 109–120; P. T. Jackson, The Conduct of International Relations: Philosophy
of Science and Its Implications for the Study of World Politics (London and New York:
Routledge, 2011).
6. George ‘International Relations and the Search for Thinking Space’, 269.
7. W. B. Gallie, ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56
(1955–1956): 167–198.
Faye Donnelly 281
8. Among others, see B. Buzan, People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Secu-
rity Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, 2nd ed. (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991);
W. E. Connolly, The Terms of Political Discourse (Oxford: Robertson, 1983); S. Dalby,
‘Contesting an Essential Concept: Reading the Dilemmas of Contemporary Security
Discourse’, in Critical Security Studies, eds Keith Krause and Michael Williams (Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1997), 3–32; K. Fierke, Critical Approaches to
International Security (Cambridge: Polity, 2007).
9. On the idea of peace as an ECC, see S. Guzzini and D. Jung, ‘Copenhagen Peace
Research’, in Contemporary Security Analysis and Copenhagen Peace Research, eds
S. Guzzini and D. Jung (London: Routledge, 2004); R. Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace:
The Rejuvenation of Stalled Peace Processes and Peace Accords (Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2006); O. P. Richmond, ‘A Post-Liberal Peace: Eirenism and the Everyday’,
The Review of International Studies 35, no. 3 (2009): 557–580.
10. See H. Patomäki, ‘How to Tell Better Stories about World Politics’, European Journal of
11. O. Wæver used this phrasing in his 2004 paper ‘Aberystwyth, Paris, Copenhagen:
New “Schools” in Security Theory and Their Origins between Core and Periphery’,
paper presented at 45th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association,
Montreal, Canada, 17–20 March. Also see the C.A.S.E Collective, ‘Critical Approaches
to Security in Europe: A Networked Manifesto’, Security Dialogue 37, no. 4 (2006):
443–487; C. Peoples and N. Vaughan Williams, Critical Security Studies: An Introduction
(London and New York: Routledge, 2010).
12. For extensive overviews of the evolving fields of critical security studies, see
C. Aradau, J. Huysmans, A. Neal and N. Voelkner, Critical Security Methods: New
Frameworks for Analysis (New International Relations) (London: Routledge, 2014); B.
Buzan and L. Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies (Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2009); Peoples and Vaughan Williams, Critical Security Studies; K. Fierke,
Critical Approaches to International Security (Cambridge: Polity, 2007); Krause and
Williams, Critical Security Studies; M. Salter and C. E. Mutlu, Research Methods in
Critical Security Studies: An Introduction (London and New York: Routledge, 2013).
13. Buzan, ‘People, States and Fear’, p. 16.
14. J. Huysmans, Security Unbound: Enacting Democratic Limits (London and New York:
Routledge, 2014).
15. The term ‘traditional’ is typically used in critical security studies to denote real-
ist, rationalist and positivist theories and their focus on militaristic, statist and
structurally determined actions.
16. On the distinction between explanation and understanding, see M. Hollis and
S. Smith, ‘Beware of Gurus: Structure and Action in International Relations’, Review
of International Studies 17, no. 4 (1991): 393–410; Explaining and Understanding Inter-
national Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990); ‘Two Stories about Structure and
Agency’, Review of International Studies 20, no. 3 (1994): 241–251.
17. For further discussion of the importance of ‘how possible questions’, see R. Doty, ‘For-
eign Policy as a Social Construction’, International Studies Quarterly 37, no. 3 (1993):
297–320; M. McDonald and M. Merefield, ‘How Was Howard’s War Possible? Win-
ning the War of Position over Iraq’, Australian Journal of International Affairs 64, no. 2
(2010): 186–204.
18. R. Kapur, ‘Human Rights in the 21st Century: Take a Walk on the Dark Side’, Sydney
Law Review 28 (2006): 685.
19. See K. M. Fierke, ‘Breaking the Silence: Language and Method in International
Relations’, in Language, Agency and Politics in a Constructed World, ed. F. Debrix
(Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe, 2003); K. M. Fierke and M. Nicholson, ‘Divided
by a Common Language: Formal and Constructivist Approaches to Games’, Global
Society 15, no. 1 (2001): 7–25; J. A. Tickner, ‘You Just Don’t Understand: Troubled
Engagements between Feminists and IR Theorists’, International Studies Quarterly 41,
no. 4 (1997): 611–632; L. Hansen ‘From Camps to Conversations in Critical Studies’,
International Studies Review 10, no.3 (2008): 652–654.
20. Notable deviations to this trend are ‘realist constructivist’ and ‘constructivist realist’
approaches. See J. S. Barkin, ‘Realist Constructivism’, International Studies Review 5,
no. 3 (2003): 325–342; P. T. Jackson and D. H. Nexon, ‘Constructivist Realism or
Realist-Constructivism?’ International Studies Review 6, no. 2 (2004): 337–341.
21. A. Lefevere, ‘Discourses on Translation: Recent, Less Recent and to Come’, Target 5,
no. 2 (1993): 299–241.
22. Ibid., 299–230.
23. The term ‘gate-keeping’ is also relevant here. See G. Sanghera and S. Thapar-Bjorkert,
‘Methodological Dilemmas: Gatekeepers and Positionality in Bradford’, Ethnic and
Racial Studies 31, no. 3 (2008): 543–562.
24. For further discussion on the power of writing histories and security, see D. Campbell,
Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1998); R. L. Doty, Imperial Encounters: The Politics of
Representation in North-South Relations (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1996).
25. Two exceptions to this trend are Buzan and Hansen, The Evolution of International
Security Studies and the C.A.S.E Collective, ‘Critical Approaches to Security in Europe’.
26. K. Booth, ‘The Human Faces of Terror: Reflections in a Cracked Looking Glass’,
Critical Studies on Terrorism 1, no. 1 (2008): 65–79.
27. For further discussions, see Guzzini and Jung, ‘Copenhagen Peace Research’.
28. See T. Balzacq and S. Guzzini, ‘Introduction: What kind of theory – if any – is
securitization?’, International Relations 29, no.1 (2015): 97–102.
29. For some connection points, see C. Burger and T. Villumsen, ‘Beyond the Gap: Rel-
evance, Fields of Practice and the Securitizing Consequences of (Democratic Peace)
Research’, Journal of International Relations and Development 10, no. 4 (2007): 417–448;
J. Hayes, ‘Identity and Securitisation in the Democratic Peace: The United States
and the Divergence of Responses to India and Iran’s Nuclear Programmes’, Inter-
national Studies Quarterly 53, no. 4 (2009): 977–999; N. Tschirgi, ‘Securitisation and
Peace Building’, in Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding, ed. R. Mac Ginty (London:
Routledge, 2013), 197–210.
30. For a full description of this framework, see B. Buzan, O. Wæver and J. deWilde,
Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
31. See N. G. Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International
Relations (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989).
32. For this critique, see T. Barkawi, ‘From War to Security: Security Studies, the Wider
Agenda and the Fate of the Study of War’, Millennium: Journal of International Stud-
ies 39, no. 3 (2011): 701–716; O. N. Knudsen, ‘Post-Copenhagen Security Studies:
Desecuritising Securitisation’, Security Dialogue 32, no. 3 (2001): 355–368. For rejoin-
ders, see C. Aradau, ‘Security, War, Violence – The Politics of Critique: A Reply
to Barkawi’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 41, no. 1 (2012): 112–123;
B. Buzan and O. Wæver, ‘Slippery? Contradictory? Sociologically Untenable? The
Copenhagen School Replies’, Review of International Studies 23, no. 2 (1997): 241–250.
33. See O. Wæver, ‘Peace and Security: Two Evolving Concepts and Their Chang-
ing Relationship’, in Globalization and Environmental Challenges: Reconceptualizing
Faye Donnelly 283
Security in the 21st Century, eds Hans Günter Brauch, Úrsula Oswald Spring, Czeslaw
Mesjasz, John Grin, Pal Dunay, Navnita Chadha Behera, Béchir Chourou, Patricia
Kameri-Mbote and P. H. Liotta, Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental
Security and Peace, Vol. 3 (Berlin, Heidelberg and New York: Springer-Verlag, 2008).
34. O. P. Richmond, Peace in International Relations (London and New York: Routledge,
2008), 133. Also see V. Jabri, War and the Transformation of Global Politics (London:
Palgrave, 2007).
35. It is not possible to outline all of the critiques levelled against the Copenhagen
School. For an excellent overview of the so-called second-generation debates, see
T. Balzacq, ed., Securitisation Theory: How Security Problems Emerge and Dissolve
(London: Routledge, 2011); on the differences between the Copenhagen School and
the Welsh School, see R. Floyd, ‘Towards a Consequentialist Evaluation of Security:
Bringing Together the Copenhagen and Welsh Schools of Security Studies’, Review of
International Studies 33, no. 2 (2007): 327–350.
36. J. Milliken, ‘The Study of Discourse in International Relations: A Critique of Research
and Methods’, European Journal of International Relations 5, no. 2 (1999): 225–254.
37. Among others, see T. Barkawi and M. Laffey, ‘The Post-Colonial Moment in Secu-
rity Studies’, Review of International Studies 32, no. 2 (2006): 329–352; P. Biligin, ‘The
“Western-Centrism” of Security Studies: “Blind Spot” or Constitutive Practice?’ Secu-
rity Dialogue 41, no. 6 (2010): 615–622; ‘Thinking Past Western IR?’ Third World
Quarterly 29, no. 1 (2008): 5–23; D. Chandler, Empire in Denial: The Politics of State
Building (London: Pluto Press, 2006); V. Jabri, ‘Peacebuilding, the Local and the
International: A Colonial or Post-Colonial Rationality?’ Peacebuilding 1, no. 1 (2013):
3–16.
38. Kapur, Human Rights in the 21st Century, 665–687.
39. Silencing is a very complex topic that cannot be fully addressed here. For an excel-
lent overview, see G. K. Bhambra and R. Shilliam, Silencing Human Rights: Critical
Engagements with a Contested Project (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); L.
Hansen, ‘The Little Mermaid’s Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in
the Copenhagen School’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29, no. 2 (2000):
285–306.
40. See, among others, Tickner, ‘You Just Don’t Understand’, 611–632; C. Enloe, ‘ “Gen-
der” Is Not Enough: The Need for Feminist Consciousness’, International Affairs
80, no. 1 (2004): 95–97; Nimo’s War, Emma’s War: Making Feminist Sense of the
Iraq War (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2010);
D. Pankhurst, Gendered Peace: Women’s Struggles for Post-War Justice and Reconcil-
iation (New York, London: Routledge, 2008); C. Cockburn, ‘Gender Relations as
Causal in Militarization and War’, International Feminist Journal of Politics 12, no. 2
(2010): 139–157; M. Zalewski, ‘Do We Understand Each Other Yet? Troubling Fem-
inist Encounters with(in) International Relations’, The British Journal of Politics &
41. G. C. Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture,
C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 271–313.
42. On this point, see N. Crawford, Argument and Change in World Politics: Ethics, Decoloni-
sation and Humanitarian Intervention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
43. R. K. Ashley and R. B. J. Walker, ‘Introduction: Speaking the Language of Exile: Dis-
sent Thought in International Studies’, International Studies Quarterly 34, no. 3 (1990):
259–268.
44. For conceptions of the ‘local’ in peace studies, see O. P. Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace
(London and New York: Routledge, 2012); R. Mac Ginty, ‘Indigenous Peace-Making
versus the Liberal Peace’, Cooperation and Conflict 43, no. 2 (2008): 139–163. For an
overview of ‘everyday’ security, see J. Huysmans, ‘What’s in an Act? On Security
Speech Acts and Little Security Nothings’, Security Dialogue 42, no. 4–5 (2011):
371–383; X. Guillaume, ‘Resistance and the International: The Challenge of the
Everyday’, International Political Sociology 5, no. 4 (2011): 459–462; X. Guillaume and
O. Kessler, ‘Everyday Practices of International Relations: People in Organisations’,
Journal of International Relations and Development, 15, no. 1 (2012): 110–120.
45. O. P. Richmond, ‘De-Romanticising the Local, De-Mystifying the International:
Hybridity in Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands’, The Pacific Review 24, no. 1
(2011): 115–136.
46. V. Bajc, ‘Introduction: Security Meta-Framing: A Cultural Logic of an Ordering Prac-
tice’, in Security and Everyday Life, V. Bajc and W. de Lint (New York and Oxon:
Routledge, 2011), 1.
47. See E. Newman and O. P. Richmond, Challenges to Peace Building: Managing Spoilers
during Conflict Resolution (New York: United Nations University Press, 2006).
48. According to the Copenhagen School, facilitating conditions are ‘the conditions
under which the speech act works, in contrast to cases in which the act misfires
or is abused’. See Buzan, Wæver and deWilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis,
32.
49. On this point, it should be noted that many scholars have problematized the reliance
on democratic and Western settings when it comes to the study of (de)securitization.
See C. Wilkinson, ‘The Copenhagen School on Tour in Kyrgyzstan: Is Securitization
Theory Useable outside Europe?’ Security Dialogue 38, no. 1 (2007): 5–25; A. Collins,
‘Securitization, Frankenstein’s Monster and Malaysian Education’, The Pacific Review
18, no. 4 (2005): 567–588.
50. E. M. Cousens, ‘Introduction’, in Peacebuilding as Politics: Cultivating Peace in Fragile
Societies, E. M. Cousens and C. Kamur with K. Wermester (Boulder & London: Lynne
Rienner, 2011).
51. Buzan, ‘Peace, Power and Security’, 109–125.
52. R. Christie, ‘Critical Voices and Human Security: To Endure, To Engage or To Cri-
tique’, Security Dialogue 41, no. 2 (2010): 171. For an overview of the promises and
limitations of human security, see R. Paris, ‘Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot
Air?’ International Security 26, no. 2 (2001): 87–102.
53. See L. Amoore and M. de Goede, Risk and the War on Terror (London: Routledge,
2008); C. Aradau and R. Van Munster, Politics of Catastrophe: Genealogies of the
Unknown (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2011).
54. See A. Leander, ‘The Power to Construct International Security: On the Significance
of Private Military Companies’, Millennium Journal of International Studies 33, no. 3
(2005): 803–826; P. W. Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military
Industry (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 2003).
55. Huysmans, What’s in an Act? 371–383.
Part II
Regional Perspectives
21
South Africa’s Incomplete Peace
Andries Odendaal
Introduction
A groundswell of protest by poor, marginalized communities has been building

up over the past ten years in South Africa, arguably making the country the
protest capital of the world. It is casting a shadow over South Africa’s widely
lauded achievements in the 1990s in bringing peace to one of the twentieth
century’s most intractable conflicts. The phenomenon is complex and diverse,
portraying the combined impact of international, national and local factors
and of economic policy, elite behaviour and psychosocial dynamics.
This chapter provides a discussion of the community protests, with some
conclusions regarding their implications for our understanding of post-
agreement peacebuilding.
A rebellion of the poor?
Statistics regarding the rate of occurrence of community protests are contested.1

Some analysts claimed, based on statistics provided by the South African police,
that between April 2012 and March 2013 as many as 1,882 public gather-
ings turned violent, resulting in 3,680 arrests. This meant that five violent
community protests took place per day.2 By violence is meant the intention
to harm or acts of harm to person or property necessitating police inter-
vention. Alexander,3 whose Social Change Research Unit at the University
of Johannesburg has been monitoring this phenomenon since 2004, is more
guarded regarding the accuracy of these statistics. Yet, with certainty about
more than a thousand unrest incidents per annum for the years 2009–12, and
given the scale and intensity of these protests, he concluded that the term
‘rebellion of the poor’ was appropriate. Though Duncan4 has warned against
reading a ‘pre-revolutionary environment’ into the protests, it is clearly a social
and political phenomenon that poses a challenge to government and, more
287
288 Part II: Regional Perspectives
seriously, the constitutional order. Thirty protestors have been killed in police
action in the period 2004–135 ; in January 2014 alone, according to media
reports, eight were killed.
The size of the protests varies. Figures are hard to come by, but the Social
Change Research Unit reported that in cases where estimates were available
(21 per cent of their database), 49.5 per cent of protests were supported by
between 100 and 499 people, 19.5 per cent between 500 and 999, 23.4 per cent
between 1,000 and 4,999, and 6.5 per cent over 5,000.6 The dominant profile
of participants was of youth, some still at school, and unemployed inhabitants
of informal settlements. The latter are temporary shacks erected in areas with
little or no infrastructure.
These events are widely referred to in the press as ‘service delivery protests’
because the main demands of protestors are for improved municipal services,
housing, electricity, water, safety and jobs. The main narrative, therefore, is one
of dissatisfaction with government and, more specifically, local government
for its failure to satisfy the basic needs of a sizeable section of society – the
poor. Often this inability of local government is linked to perceptions of the
corruption, nepotism and negligence of local councillors.7
Relative deprivation
South Africa is haunted by the unholy trinity of poverty, joblessness and

inequality. The statistics8 speak for themselves: the broad unemployment rate
in 2013 was 36 per cent, and if those who have given up looking for work
are excluded, the rate narrows down to 24.7 per cent. Fifteen million people
live below the breadline of $2 per day (the estimated total population in 2013
was almost 53 million9 ). Seventy-one per cent of the unemployed are 15–34
years of age, and 51 per cent of the labour force do not have school leav-
ing qualifications. The Gini coefficient, which measures inequality, was 0.63 in
2009, slightly down from 0.67 in 2006. In other words, not only is the poverty
widespread, but South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world.
It is not all bad news, though. Between 2001 and 2010, a total of 4.6 million
people have been lifted out of poverty, constituting a decrease in the numbers
of the poor from 52 to 31 per cent.10 Substantial progress has been made in
improving access to housing, water and electricity to black communities since
1994. The government, furthermore, is providing social grants to more than
16 million people, thereby preventing utter destitution. The positive develop-
ments, however, are not (yet) sufficient to counter the dire impact of the unholy
trinity.
The community protests take place against this background. The role of
inequality is pivotal. The poor rebel because of their comparative disadvantage,
because of the scale of inequality. The theory of relative deprivation is therefore
Andries Odendaal 289
applicable, and government has relied on it to downplay the service delivery

protests.11 President Zuma stated in a speech to parliament in February 2014:
‘When 95% of households have access to water, the 5% who still need to be
provided for, feel they cannot wait a moment longer. Success is also the breed-
ing ground of rising expectations.’12 Allan and Heese13 have concluded that the
municipal wards where protests have occurred were, indeed, areas of consider-
able poverty and unemployment, but that they were relatively better off than
the poorest municipalities in rural areas and better than the national average.
However, they were visibly poorer than neighbouring wards. Their deprivation
was, therefore, relative to what neighbouring wards experienced. The inhabi-
tants of informal settlements, furthermore, were often relatively new arrivals
from those very poor rural areas. Their migration to the more prosperous urban
areas, where the protests predominantly occurred, was precisely in pursuit of
the better conditions available in those cities. It was, therefore, a rather potent
mix of unfulfilled expectations and the relative comparison not with what
was left behind, but what was available next door, that created the explosive
frustration.
The theory of relative deprivation offers no political comfort, in spite of Pres-
ident Zuma’s use of it, and does not safeguard the stability of the political
system. In fact, relative deprivation is a strong driver of conflict behaviour.14
Alexander’s comment is appropriate: ‘The importance of comparative poverty
is that it is rooted in inequality and a sense of injustice.’15
The key question, for our purposes, is the meaning of the ‘rebellion of the
poor’ for the state of South Africa’s post-agreement peace.
Representation
The assumption of liberal democracy is that societies will deal with clashes of
interests through elections and the role of statutory institutions. At the local
(municipal) level in South Africa, such democracy is in trouble. It does not
mean that democracy as an aspiration is dead – on the contrary. In contrast to
situations elsewhere where institutions of liberal democracy, such as elections,
have been imposed by the international community on societies in conflict,16
South Africa’s struggle for liberation was a struggle for full participation in a
democratic state. The vote, in particular, was (and is) a powerful symbol of
liberation. Paradoxically, though, the vote is not really seen or used as an arbiter
in conflicts of interests or as a mechanism to hold government to account.
Public protesting fulfils this latter role.
This paradox manifests specifically in the resilience of the legitimacy of the
ANC (African National Congress) as ruling party in spite of its local representa-
tives being the targets of community anger. In a study published in 2007, a year
after local government elections, Booysen17 described how the protests arose in
the context of ‘absentee representation’ – local government councillors who

abandoned their communities after election through non-attention and, at
times, by physically moving to the former white, middle-class suburban areas.
With the local councillors not making contact or listening to the grievances of
communities, it became necessary to grab their attention in more forceful man-
ners. In the five localities Booysen studied, where violent protests had occurred
in the previous two years, observers expected that the ANC would lose votes
because of the demonstrated discontent. However, the ANC actually increased
its electoral support. Disillusionment with the attitude of councillors had not
been transferred to the ruling party. In a follow-up study in 2013,18 she reached
the same conclusion. The ANC retained strong loyalty because of its status as
the dominant liberation movement. Protest was an effective manner to get
its attention, but not as a sign of rejection. In the words of one of Booysen’s
respondents, ‘cause chaos and get representation’.19 In this way, citizens could
remain loyal to the ANC. Because protesting is assumed to work, it precluded
the need to vote for an opposition party.
The electoral system, furthermore, contributes to the paradox regarding rep-
resentation. The proportional representation (PR) model has important benefits
for a diverse and polarized society because of its ability to promote inclusivity.
However, the party list variation of the PR model as applied in South Africa
effectively strengthens the central control of party leadership at the cost of
effective local representation. Representatives for both national parliament and
provincial legislatures are solely elected through party lists. Consequently, the
elected officials at national and provincial levels do not represent any par-
ticular constituency; hence, their loyalty is to their party rather than to any
constituents. Not surprisingly, MPs and members of provincial legislatures had
been largely absent from the scenes of community protest. For municipal elec-
tions, a double ballot is used, one vote for a political party of choice and
the other for a constituency candidate. Even the candidates for constituen-
cies, however, are screened and approved by the party, at times in defiance
of community disapproval.20
Councillors thus elected soon find themselves at the centre of battles for con-
trol of resources.21 These conflicts, given the overall context of poverty, are
desperate and tense. The battle lines that develop are multiple: between fac-
tions within the ruling party battling for prime positions; and between those
within the overlapping state and party structures, on the one hand, and, on the
other hand, those who represent or control marginalized communities or spe-
cific interest groups.22 In addition to the struggle over resources, conflicts are
about rank, status and power – the deeply contested process of new elite for-
mation.23 The councillors wield the power of access to development resources,
including state-provided housing, jobs and tenders for development projects.
Those outside the system wield the power of mass mobilization.24 The situation
results in accusations, rightly or wrongly, that councillors are nepotistic and

corrupt, resulting in ‘local despotisms’.25 On the other hand, again rightly or
wrongly, protest leaders are accused of the opportunistic exploitation of protest
opportunities for personal gain.26
Therefore, the electoral system produces a weak link between local commu-
nities and their official representatives, but in addition, the current party and
state structures lack the capacity to manage intense conflicts of interests, partly
because their representatives are compromised parties to the conflict. No statu-
tory body seems capable of stepping in as a credible mediator or arbitrator.
The legal instruments for facilitating interaction and communication between
local councillors and the community are ward committees. These platforms are
clearly not utilized sufficiently or are failing.27
A rising trend
Few dispute the accuracy of Booysen’s description of the paradoxical pull of

the ANC’s legitimacy as government and its failure to satisfy all community
needs. The question, however, is how the paradox will play out. The trend
is clearly towards more frequent and violent protests.28 In Booysen’s second
study in 2013, discordant voices were louder than in the first study in 2007.
Some respondents in the 2013 study saw the current leadership class as the
new ‘haves’ of the post-apartheid era. The absence of political leaders from
the communities they supposedly represented exacerbated the belief that they
cared more for themselves than for the people. ‘This is the new inequality that
is killing our democracy’,29 a respondent stated. The new ‘haves’ were those
who were politically connected, because they got jobs. The unconnected stayed
jobless.
The yearly ‘Reconciliation Barometer’ of the Institute for Justice and Rec-
onciliation, a national survey to test attitudes towards reconciliation, reported
in 201330 that confidence in governance institutions and political parties has
dropped on all fronts since 2006. Local government recorded a disturbing
48.6 per cent approval rate.
In addition, violent protests take place only after protracted attempts to
engage the government, thereby demonstrating a build-up of frustration over
time.31 The academic Raymond Suttner, who was a leading ANC activist and
spent 11 years in prison and house arrest, recently wrote:
One of the most significant features (of the community protests) is the dele-
gitimisation of the ANC-led government and the ANC itself. Along with
delegitimisation there is a crisis of governance, in that protests against failure
to deliver, patronage and corruption are reaching crisis levels. Government
does not appear to have an answer.32
Since 2011, community organizations representing specific interest groups have

become more durable and effective.33 The metaphor of the benevolent parent-
government that, at times, has to be prompted into action by the crying
and wailing of its children, while still valid, seems to be losing its persuasive
power.34 Recent national and provincial elections (in May 2014) confirmed this
trend.
In addition, the dissatisfaction was not solely with the ANC. In the Western
Cape, the only province where the ANC is not in power, protests occur as in
the rest of the country. In this context, though, there is no paradox in the rela-
tionship between protestors and the reigning Democratic Alliance. Opposition
is direct and blunt. It is possibly the best indication of the direction that the
protests will take if left unattended, namely towards unambiguous and stark
opposition to government and, perhaps, the democratic system.
Is neoliberalism to blame?
A number of analysts have placed the blame for the increasing alienation of the
poor on the neoliberal policies of the post-apartheid government.35 When the
new ANC government took control of the economy in 1994 it was faced with
two realities: first, that the economy was in a dire situation; second, that the
international context was dominated by a now overly confident neoliberal eco-
nomic doctrine following the collapse of the Soviet Union. As a consequence,
the new government adopted an economic policy, called the Growth, Employ-
ment and Redistribution programme (GEAR), which complied with the new
economic orthodoxy. This decision, Habib suggested,24 was made with little
choice in the matter because of pressure by international governments and
investors. The result was that the economy did reasonably well, but at the price
of insufficient attention to the issue of inequality. The trade-off for not engag-
ing in a radical restructuring of the economy was a policy of black economic
empowerment. It meant distributing shares of big companies for almost free
to a handful of ANC-picked persons, enabling the quick formation of a rich
black elite.
What an appropriate economic policy should look like is, of course, a com-
plex and highly contested matter. From a peacebuilding perspective, though,
three comments are relevant. The first is that the new constitution ratified in
1996 entrenched the peacebuilding objective of socio-economic justice.36 The
Constitution of South Africa of 1996 had, in fact, been labelled ‘a distinctly
post-liberal document’37 because of the manner in which it enshrined not only
individual human rights, but socio-economic rights. It placed an obligation on
the state to ensure, as far as is reasonable and within its available resources,
their fulfilment. Regardless, therefore, of the economic policy adopted by a
specific administration, it must have as a main objective the safeguarding of
socio-economic justice for the poor. It is an obligation that goes to the heart of
transforming South Africa’s core conflict.
Second, the capacity to create gross inequality is a feature of the neoliberal
system worldwide. It is deeply ironic that a neoliberalist policy was adopted at a
time when the country had, as a matter of urgent necessity, to recover from the
inequality caused by centuries of colonialist exploitation and racial exclusion.
Third, it is significant that the major complaints raised by protestors had to
do with both material deprivation and procedural unfairness. It was not only
the absence of sufficient housing, for example, that created anger, but the sense
that the allocation of available housing took place in a corrupt or nepotistic
manner.38 It was not only the absence of clean running water that ignited
protest, but the negligent manner in which local government responded to
complaints.39 The issue of relevant economic policy cannot be divorced from
the quality of governance. In fact, it was the delivery of services that topped the
table of grievances.40 Blaming economic policy is not a sufficient explanation.41
What is noteworthy is how the interaction of specific policies and weak gov-
ernance produced the conditions for sustained protest at the local level. The
constitution recognizes three independent (that is, non-hierarchical) spheres of
government at national, provincial and local levels. The 282 new municipalities
that have been established integrated former white and black neighbourhoods,
and with this their vastly different infrastructural standards and development
needs. In terms of the new governance structure, local government would be
the real development agency of government. But they were also expected to
be financially viable – an expectation that led municipalities to prioritize cost
recovery over the provision of services.42 In a context of very poor cost recovery
(a leftover from the years of payment boycotts during apartheid), municipalities
were left cash-strapped and unable to fulfil their developmental task.
Furthermore, the public service experiences unacceptable levels of corrup-
tion. The effective privatization of services resulted in severe competition for
government tenders that facilitated nepotism and corruption at a grand scale.
Add to this the impact of affirmative action and cadre deployment. Affirmative
action refers to the widely accepted need to address the structural inequality
of the past, in particular the unequal representation of black people at man-
agerial level. Cadre deployment refers to ANC policy to deploy its own cadres
in strategic positions within the state at various levels – formally to ensure
accurate policy implementation, but practically functioning as an ill-disguised
patronage system. Effectively, cadre deployment trumped the delivery of effi-
cient services to the people. The two objectives of affirmative action and service
delivery are not mutually exclusive, but the role of cadre deployment and,
lately, factional struggles within the ANC have led to the excessive prioriti-
zation of appointing the ‘right’ people in managerial positions. The cadres in
many cases lacked the appropriate knowledge or skills to perform their tasks.
The auditor-general, for example, reported in 2013 that a mere 14 per cent of
municipalities submitted financial statements with no material misstatement.
The biggest concerns, he stated, were the management of vacancies and acting
positions, the competency of key personnel, and the management of perfor-
mance.43 This situation contributed in no small measure to the rebellion of
the poor.
The quest for dignity and inclusion
From a conflict resolution perspective, it is important to understand what forces

are driving conflict behaviour. The Basic Human Needs theory44 has drawn
attention to the important role of frustrated basic human needs in deep-rooted
conflict. Psychosocial needs such as those for freedom, security, dignity, inclu-
sion and justice are highly resilient to suppression. If not met, they create the
frustration that drives conflict behaviour.
The South African conflict was at its core a struggle for inclusion and dig-
nity. The Union of South Africa was established in 1910 on the ruins of the
dominant African kingdoms and the two Boer republics. The 1910 constitution
that was negotiated between the two British colonies, the Cape and Natal, and
the defeated Boer republics, and ratified by the British parliament, excluded the
indigenous population from citizenship. South Africa was to be a white-ruled
country. The ANC was established in 1912 in direct opposition to this exclu-
sion. The ANC made it clear, then and subsequently, that they had no interest
in the restoration of the defeated African kingdoms. They wanted full inclusion
in the new modern, democratic and unitary state.
The quest for inclusion and dignity was therefore at the heart of the liberation
struggle. Exclusion in South Africa’s history was not only a matter of political
or economic interests; it was informed and characterized by white superiority
and contempt for African cultures and peoples. Exclusion was a humiliation as
much as it was an injustice.
Today, those living on the margins of the new South Africa continue to expe-
rience exclusion and humiliation on a daily basis due to their relative poverty.
Their vote has not brought them inclusion and dignity. They are consequently
back on the streets in protest.
Is the democratic order at risk?
Alexander has concluded that the protests reflected disappointment with the
fruits of democracy.45 His colleague Trevor Ngwane46 expressed it thus: ‘peo-
ple . . . are feeling that maybe their vote – the formal democracy – is not
delivering . . . in terms of improving their lives’. The poor are consequently
attempting to exert political influence through the development of a collective,
community voice that is different from formal politics. Thipanyane47 came to

the same conclusion: ‘Poverty threatens South Africa’s constitutional order.’
The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) report48
concluded that the legitimacy of the state, which was so fundamentally under-
mined in the struggle against apartheid, may not have fully stabilized in the
constitutional democratic post-apartheid order.
Has democracy failed? This is clearly not correct as a general statement, but
for a significant part of the population – the poor – the allure of democracy is
fading. The vote, in spite of its mythical meaning, has not changed their lives in
any meaningful way. In their response they are reaching back to the language
and methods of the 1980s.49 A comparison of the current spate of commu-
nity protests with the local protests of the 1980s, which effectively disabled
apartheid government structures in black townships, is instructive. In 1983, the
United Democratic Front (UDF) was established and became one of the most
effective anti-apartheid forces operating inside the country. The UDF, however,
was not a top-down organization; it was formed as a coordinating body for
already existing local community structures. The groundswell of protest that
preceded the formation of the UDF and its aftermath was primarily driven by
these community initiatives. At the national level, the UDF provided coordina-
tion and a national voice to the movement, but it was never able to direct or
control the wave of community action. It was, in fact, not uncommon for local
organizations to have had absolutely no contact with regional or national UDF
leaders.50 The ownership of this protest movement was local, driven by anger at
local conditions, and led through initiatives by local leaders, often quite young.
In the 1980s, there was, however, a clear, well-defined enemy in the form
of the apartheid government and its local representatives; in 2014, the enemy
image is blurred and confused. In the 1980s, the UDF provided national coor-
dination and leadership, whereas no similar structure is currently in place.
The methods of struggle in 2014, however, are the same as in the 1980s, as
are the revolutionary vocabulary and calls to sacrifice.51 The destruction of a
clinic, library or community hall, for example, has been explained as an act of
self-sacrifice similar to the anti-apartheid struggle.52
It is perhaps too soon to arrive at definitive conclusions regarding the impact
that community protests will have on South Africa’s political landscape, but
only those with no memory of recent history would underestimate the potency
of local agency.
Conclusion
In a context of poverty, unemployment and – crucially – high inequality, local

government in particular and government in general are failing to meet the
rising expectations and manage the comparative disadvantage of the bottom
40 per cent (approximately) of the population. This failure is due to a combi-

nation of international pressure, national policy decisions and local dynamics.
Community protests have become an increasingly popular way to attract gov-
ernment attention and express growing discontent. The increasingly violent
nature of the protests, the frequency of their occurrence and growing signs of
a deeper disillusionment not only with government, but with democracy as
such, imply that peace in South Africa cannot be taken for granted anymore.
An outright revolution is not on the cards, as the ruling party and the demo-
cratic constitution enjoy strong majority support. But a debilitating, low-level
conflict exists and is set to increase in size and impact.
This conflict, significantly, exists in spite of the fact that the new democratic
order at the time of its inception enjoyed high levels of legitimacy and owner-
ship – the widely acknowledged preconditions for successful peacebuilding.53
In spite of the fact that the peacebuilding objective to address structural
inequality was entrenched in the constitution, the poor are in rebellion because
of inappropriate policy choices and weak municipal governance. It is at the
local level that peacebuilding is failing. The weakness in legitimate repre-
sentation and effective conflict management mechanisms is an important
contributing factor to the discontent. This situation provides yet further confir-
mation that the mere existence of a democratic superstructure is not a sufficient
guarantee of peacebuilding success.54 The task of post-agreement peacebuilding
is inherently political – a task of leadership and governance; and in this respect,
South Africa is not performing at its best.
The struggle for dignity and inclusion, therefore, continues.
Notes
1. Jane Duncan, ‘The Politics of Counting Protests’, Mail & Guardian, 22 April
2014, http://mg.co.za/article/2014-04-16-the-politics-of-counting-protests, accessed
22 April 2014.
2. Lizette Lancaster and Mpho Mtshali, ‘Getting to the Bottom of What Really Drives
Public Violence in South Africa’, ISS Today, 7 February 2014, http://www.issafrica.
org/iss-today/, accessed 3 March 2014; Frans Cronjé, ‘Die vlamme van protes’, Die
Burger, 31 January 2014.
3. Peter Alexander, ‘Rebellion of the Poor: South Africa’s Service Delivery Protests –
A Preliminary Analysis’, Review of African Political Economy 123 (2010): 25–40; Peter
Alexander and Peter Pfaffe, ‘Social Relationships to the Means and Ends of Protest
in South Africa’s Ongoing Rebellion of the Poor: The Balfour Insurrections’, Social
Movement Studies (2013), doi: 10.1080/14742837.2013.820904, accessed 18 March
2014.
4. Duncan, ‘The Politics of Counting Protests’.
5. Peter Alexander et al., ‘Community Protests 2004–2013: Some Research Find-
ings’, Media Briefing, 12 February 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
XqwBSNBMPCU, accessed 18 March 2014.
6. Ibid.
7. Luke Sinwell et al., Service Delivery Protests. Findings from Quick Response Research on
Four ‘Hot-Spots’ – Piet Retief, Balfour, Thokoza, Diepsloot (Johannesburg: Centre for
Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg, 2009); Karl von Holdt et al., The
Smoke That Calls. Insurgent Citizenship, Collective Violence and the Struggle for a Place
in the New South Africa (Johannesburg: The Centre for the Study of Violence and
Reconciliation, 2011).
8. Colin Coleman, Two Decades of Freedom. What South Africa Is Doing with It, and What
Now Needs To Be Done (Johannesburg: Goldman Sachs, 2013).
9. Statistics South Africa, ‘Mid-Year Population Estimates 2013’, http://beta2.statssa.
gov.za/publications, accessed 19 March 2014.
10. Coleman, Two Decades of Freedom.
11. Jeremy Cronin, ‘The Real, Complex Reasons behind Protests’, IOL News, 26 February
2014, http://www.iol.co.za/news, accessed 20 March 2014.
12. Jacob Zuma, ‘State of the Nation Address’, 13 February 2014, http://www.
thepresidency.gov.za, accessed 22 March.
13. Kevin Allan and Karen Heese, ‘Understanding Why Service Delivery Protests Take
Place and Who Is to Blame’, Municipal IQ, http://municipaliq.co.za/publications/
articles/sunday_indep.pdf, accessed 20 March 2014.
14. Ted Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970).
15. Alexander, ‘Rebellion of the Poor’, 32.
16. Timothy Sisk, ‘Elections in Fragile States: Between Voice and Violence’ (paper pre-
sented at the International Studies Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA,
March 2008).
17. Susan Booysen, ‘With the Ballot and the Brick. The Politics of Attaining Service
Delivery’, Progress in Development Studies 7 (2007): 21–32.
18. Susan Booysen, Twenty Years of South African Democracy. Citizen Views of Human Rights,
Governance and the Political System (Johannesburg: Freedom House, 2014).
19. Ibid., 3.
20. Duncan, ‘The Politics of Counting Protests’.
21. Anton Harber, Diepsloot (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2011).
22. Duncan, ‘The Politics of Counting Protests’; Von Holdt et al., The Smoke That Calls;
Harber, Diepsloot.
23. Von Holdt et al., The Smoke That Calls.
24. Harber, Diepsloot; Carol Paton, ‘Service Delivery Protests: Why Now?’ Business Day
Live, 17 February 2014, http://www.bdlive.co.za/national, accessed 23 March 2014.
25. Richard Pithouse, ‘Rethinking Public Participation from Below’, Critical Dialogue –
Public Participation in Review, 2 (2006): 24–30.
26. Harber, Diepsloot; Paton, ‘Why Now?’
27. Harber, Diepsloot; Duncan, ‘The Politics of Counting Protests’.
28. Alexander et al., ‘Community Protests 2004–2013’.
29. Booysen, Twenty Years of South African Democracy, 2.
30. Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, ‘Confronting Exclusion. Time for Radical
Reconciliation’, SA Reconciliation Barometer Survey: 2013 Report (Cape Town: IJR,
2013).
31. Alexander and Pfaffe, ‘Social Relationships to the Means and Ends of Protest’.
32. Raymond Suttner, ‘Loss of Trust and Legitimacy Lead to Ungovernability’,
Daily Maverick, 12 February 2014, http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-02-
12-analysis-loss-of-trust-and-legitimacy-lead-to-ungovernability/, accessed 22 March
2014.
33. Pithouse, ‘Rethinking Public Participation’; Andisiwe Makinana, ‘The Poo Stops Here,
Says Gwede’, Mail & Guardian, 6 December 2013, http://mg.co.za, accessed 24 April.
34. Prince Mashele and Mzukisi Qobo, The Fall of the ANC. What Next? (Johannesburg:
Picador, 2014).
35. Alexander, ‘Rebellion of the Poor’; Adam Habib, South Africa’s Suspended Revo-
lution. Hopes and Prospects (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2013); Sampie
Terreblanche, Verdeelde land. Hoe die oorgang Suid-Afrika faal (Cape Town: Tafelberg,
2014).
36. Laurie Nathan, ‘Mind the Gap! The Constitution as a Blueprint for Security’, in Falls
the Shadow. Between the Promise and the Reality of the South African Constitution, eds
Kristina Bentley et al. (Cape Town: UCT Press, 2013), 1–13.
37. Karl Klare, ‘Legal Culture and Transformative Constitutionalism’, South African
Journal on Human Rights 14 (1998): 146–188.
38. Duncan, ‘The Politics of Counting Protests’; Sinwell et al., Service Delivery Protests;
Von Holdt et al., The Smoke That Calls.
39. Davis Lekgowa, ‘Dying for Water in Brits: Protestors’ Blood Flows Again’,
Daily Maverick, 15 January 2014, http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-
01-14-dying-for-water-in-brits-protestors-blood-flows-again/#.Vi3RJyu1dgk, accessed
24 April 2014.
40. Alexander et al., ‘Community Protests 2004–2013’.
41. Tseliso Thipanyane, ‘ “You Can’t Eat the Constitution”: Is Democracy for the Poor?’
in Falls the Shadow, eds Bentley et al., 14–33.
42. Habib, South Africa’s Suspended Revolution, 63–70.
43. Terrence Nombembe, ‘Consolidated General Report on the Audit Outcomes of Local
Government 2011–2012’ (Pretoria: Government Printing Works, 2013).
44. John Burton, ‘Conflict Resolution as a Political System’, Center for Conflict Anal-
ysis and Resolution, George Mason University, 1988. See also Hugh Miall, ‘Con-
flict Transformation: A Multi-Dimensional Task’, in Berghof Handbook for Conflict
Transformation, eds Alex Austin et al. (Berlin: Berghof Research Centre, 2004), 68–89.
45. Alexander, ‘Rebellion of the Poor’.
46. Trevor Ngwane (interview by Fazila Farouk), ‘ “Protest Nation” – What’s Driving
the Demonstrations on the Streets of South Africa?’ The South African Civil Society
Information Service, 27 February 2013, http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/1930, accessed
23 March 2014.
47. Thipanyane, ‘You Can’t Eat the Constitution’, 26.
48. Von Holdt et al., The Smoke That Calls.
49. Ibid.
50. Mark Swilling, ‘The United Democratic Front and Township Revolt: South Africa’
(paper presented at the Wits History Workshop, Johannesburg, 9 February 1987).
51. Von Hold et al., The Smoke That Calls.
52. Sinwell et al., Service Delivery Protests.
53. World Bank, ‘Conflict, Security, and Development’, in World Development Report 2011
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2011); Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development, Supporting Statebuilding in Situations of Conflict and Fragility: Policy
Guidelines (Paris: OECD, 2011).
54. Oliver Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace (London: Routledge, 2011).
22
Peace in West Africa
Patrick Tom
Introduction
The end of the Cold War witnessed many states in Africa experiencing military
coups, attempted coups, civil strife and violent internal conflicts posing new
challenges to the continent, with West Africa being among the most affected
sub-regions. West Africa has proved to be one of the poorest and most unstable
sub-regions in the world,1 and a major site and arena of some of the most
brutal conflicts in the contemporary world. The instability and insecurity in the
region have been attributed to challenges of poverty, human rights abuses, poor
governance, political exclusion, endemic economic and political corruption,
and weak statehood.
Brutal conflicts in the 1990s in two West African states, Liberia and Sierra
Leone, saw the sub-region facing new security challenges that required a sub-
regional response. In the absence of international interest in the interstate
conflicts in West Africa and the rest of the African continent in the imme-
diate aftermath of the Cold War, the Economic Community of West Africa
(ECOWAS) had no option but to intervene. ECOWAS has played a lead role
in peacekeeping, peace enforcement and mediation in addressing conflicts
in the sub-region. Its sole purpose, when it was established, was to promote
sub-regional economic integration and cooperation. Indeed, the sub-regional
organization’s involvement in the sub-region’s peace and security agenda was
by default.
As this chapter will show, despite ECOWAS playing an influential role
in peacekeeping, peace enforcement and mediation, and establishing rela-
tive peace in Liberia and Sierra Leone, as well as developing impressive
peacebuilding documents, it has failed to play a decisive role in post-conflict
peacebuilding in the sub-region. Many of the post-conflict peacebuilding ini-
tiatives in several of its member states have been driven by external actors.
In the context of an increase in violent internal conflicts in the post-Cold War
299
era in West Africa, and the need to promote lasting peace in the sub-region’s
post-conflict situations, a wide range of international actors have been involved
with post-conflict peacebuilding efforts in the sub-region. Such international
actors include the EU; the United Nations (UN) and its agencies, including the
UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Office for the High Commis-
sioner for Human Rights (OHCHR); international financial institutions such
as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF); key Western
states such as the UK and the US; international bilateral aid agencies such
as the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the US Agency
for International Development (USAID) and the German Agency for Interna-
tional Cooperation (GIZ); and international non-governmental organizations
(INGOs) such as International Alert and Care International. Such interna-
tional actors have been willing and able to go into post-conflict societies,
contributing human and material resources that support peacebuilding and
statebuilding operations that support democratization, economic liberalization,
and the building of liberal state institutions considered vital for creating effec-
tive and stable states. This peacebuilding approach has been described as liberal
peacebuilding, and it is believed that promoting it can create conditions for a
liberal peace in a post-conflict situation.2
This chapter will first discuss some of the causes of conflicts in West Africa,
placing emphasis on the internal dynamics,3 and then discuss ECOWAS’s role
in post-conflict peacebuilding in West Africa. Using Sierra Leone as a reference
case study and drawing on empirical evidence, this chapter will also discuss the
interactions between international and grassroots peacebuilding agendas in the
country and the nature of the peace that is produced.
With regard to terminology, I use a broader definition of peacebuilding,
which does not limit it to activities aimed at preventing a return to con-
flict, but also includes social justice, welfare provision, reconciliation, equity
and humanistic agendas for peace rather than institutional and state-centric
agendas for peace, that is, efforts aimed at achieving positive peace.4
Conflicts in West Africa
There has been considerable scholarly debate over and analysis of conflicts
in West Africa. The analyses have provided different insights into the causes
of conflicts in the sub-region as well as suggested solutions to this challenge.
Kaplan in his controversial article, ‘The Coming Anarchy’, begins by describ-
ing what he saw in West Africa – disintegrating political and social conditions,
including increasing lawlessness, rampant crime, impoverished masses, the
increasing erosion of state capacity and spreading diseases in countries includ-
ing Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire.5 For him, the Sierra Leonean
civil war was a good example of a war arising from rising tribalism and societal
Patrick Tom 301
breakdown resulting from environmental collapse and population pressure. He

saw the brutality that characterized the civil war as a reversion to barbarism.
But, as Richards has argued, ‘Although the local history of resource acquisition
is relevant to understanding the war there is no run-away environmental cri-
sis in Sierra Leone.’6 Moreover, as he also contends, ‘Whereas it is true that
the war in Sierra Leone is a terror war, and involves horrifying acts of brutality
against defenceless civilians, this sad fact cannot in any way be taken to prove a
reversion to some kind of essential African savagery.’7 Despite the brutal meth-
ods used, the war had its own logic, whose origins, Jackson has noted, may be
traced to the everyday life that preceded it.8
Another explanation for conflicts in West African countries like Liberia,
Nigeria’s Niger Delta and Sierra Leone draws on a greed or grievance model
of analysing and understanding conflict.9 Greed, opportunities and criminal
intent, rather than grievances, are used to explain these conflicts. It has been
argued that the primary motive for rebellion of warlords such as Charles
Taylor (Liberia) and Foday Sankor (Sierra Leone) was to obtain valuable pri-
mary commodities such as diamonds, timber, gold and rubber, and had
nothing to do with political or ancient ethnic hatreds. For instance, while
Ohaegbulam acknowledges that the Liberian civil war was deeply embed-
ded in the history of the country, he argues that greed for control of
the natural resources and state motivated it.10 Similarly, the Sierra Leonean
scholar Abdullah cites the then chief prosecutor of the Special Court for
Sierra Leone (hereafter, Special Court), David Crane, claiming that the cause
of the Sierra Leonean conflict was to control diamonds.11 However, while
Abdullah has rejected the explanation that greed was the primary motive
for rebellion in Sierra Leone, his ‘lumpen youth culture’12 argument points
to criminal intent as a motive for marginalized youth to rebel against the
system.
Such analyses have informed post-conflict intervention policy remedies that
have tended to be out of touch with local realities, and tend to prioritize inter-
national agendas for peacebuilding (including the use of criminal courts) over
local agendas for peace that emphasize traditional approaches to conflict trans-
formation that are grounded in the locals’ culture. For instance, while the
Special Court labelled Samuel Hinga Norman a war criminal because he had
organized civil defence forces against the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
rebels, who also committed atrocities, locals who experienced the atrocities
committed by the RUF during the civil war, and the failure of their state to
protect them from the RUF, viewed him as a local hero.13 Even the Sierra Leone
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which did not receive much inter-
national support compared with the Special Court, did not resonate with the
local population. It was viewed by the locals with suspicion, and it also failed
to reach those on the margins of the state, as it was limited to district centres.
As such, these approaches have not been effective, since peace in Sierra Leone
has remained fragile.
It is crucial to point out that it is not simple to classify contemporary conflicts
in West Africa, since conflicts in a number of West African countries includ-
ing the Mano River states – Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – are complex,
multi-dimensional and interrelated, with no single cause. It is thus, difficult
to adequately cover all their dynamics in this section. The majority of highly
violent conflicts in West Africa in the past two decades have involved armed
non-state actors challenging the authority of the state with varying inten-
sity, duration, magnitude, cost and dimensions. While few of these have been
large-scale conflicts that resulted in the central state being incapacitated, such
as conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and Côte d’Ivoire, a large
number of them have been low-intensity conflicts in which the central state
has remained intact. Examples include conflicts in Nigeria (the Niger Delta
and the north-eastern part of the country), Ghana (the north), Senegal (the
Casamance conflict in the south), Niger (Tuareg), Mali (Tuareg) and Mauritania
(Islamic terrorist groups). A number of coups d’état have also been experi-
enced in West Africa in the past two decades, including Guinea-Bissau, Mali,
Benin, Mauritania, Niger and, more recently (October 2014), military takeover
in Burkina Faso following mass protests against President Blaise Compaoré’s
attempt to change the country’s constitution to extend his rule.14 The uprising
forced him to resign and flee the country in response to military takeover.
A consensus exists among analysts of conflicts and crises in West Africa that
they emerge ‘from, and have a structural, policy related, or behavioural charac-
ter’.15 Unlike in Europe, where nation-states were a result of local social forces,
the modern nation-state in West Africa (as in other parts of Africa that expe-
rienced colonial rule) emerged from colonial oppression, and as such, lacked
internal legitimacy. In the post-colonial period, the state in West Africa con-
tinues to have no legitimacy among most of the populace, with ‘no organic
link with the populations who, decades after political independence, continue
to view it as an alien, awkward institution from which they should not expect
anything, and in which they have no stakes’.16 Since the decolonization pro-
cess was fast, African leaders failed to pay proper attention to the feasibility of
the units being constructed.17 As such, they could not build effective states –
which could live up to the expectations of the populace – within the inherited
frontiers. And with ordinary people resisting the state, state elites centralized
power and authority. As Akude contends, contrary to the greed thesis, the main
challenge in West Africa is ‘the personalisation of state power and personal
appropriation of state funds’, which have the effect of diverting attention from
issues such as development, poverty and economic growth, and with emphasis
being placed on politics and the economic gains of power.18 The personalization
of government meant, for example, that employment and education became
Patrick Tom 303
dependent on loyalty rather than performance. It is generally agreed that states

should create political institutions that serve the needs and interests of the citi-
zens. However, state elites sought to promote their personal interests and those
of their own ethnic groups, leading to predatory states which could not provide
public goods to citizens. This generated grievances and support for those who
sought to engage in armed struggle or violence in order to gain state power. The
new African elites’ failure to establish indigenous ideas of statehood worsened
the internal contradictions of most African states, and this, to some extent,
contributed to the socio-political challenges that led to the civil wars in West
African states, including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and Côte d’Ivoire,
as well as the low-intensity conflicts that are taking place in several parts of
West Africa.
Despite the spread of the ‘third wave’ of democratization to West Africa (and
the rest of Africa) after 1989 – what others have referred to as Africa’s ‘second
independence’ – which saw the sub-region undertaking political reforms that
enabled competitive elections and multi-party political systems, there were no
significant changes, as the leaders learned how to subvert and control the elec-
toral processes. As such, these changes could not stop states from violating the
precepts of democratic governance, and the practice of bad governance was
the order of the day as power was used to repress, exclude and deprive some
citizens of their rights, creating conditions for violent conflict in countries
such as Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea-Bissau.19 This also applies to Sierra
Leone and Liberia, which experienced the first deadly conflicts in West Africa
in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. In Liberia, Charles Taylor and
his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) invaded the country from Côte
d’Ivoire (and also with the support of Burkina Faso) with the aim of remov-
ing the government of President Samuel Doe from power. Taylor accused Doe
of tribalism, corruption, fraud and the use of brutality against opposition par-
ties. Similarly, the Sierra Leonean war has been largely attributed to ‘failures
in governance and government institutions’ producing a culture of resistance
among the youth.20 This saw a large number of young people experiencing eco-
nomic marginalization, and social and political exclusion, forcing them to join
the RUF.21
ECOWAS and post-conflict peacebuilding in West Africa
For more than two decades, ECOWAS has played a lead role in the management
and resolution of conflicts in the sub-region. It has proved to be very strong on
peacekeeping, peace enforcement and mediation. Violent conflicts and crises
which it has played an important role in addressing include conflicts in Liberia,
Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and Côte d’Ivoire, and recent political crises in
Niger, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Mali. However, in regard to post-conflict
peacebuilding, it has not played a lead role. Yet, it is crucial for the sub-regional
organization to undertake a key role, not just in peacekeeping and mediation,
but also in activities that can help prevent a relapse into conflict and create the
conditions for peaceful resolution of conflict. As Olonisakin states, ‘the extent
of [ECOWAS’s] involvement in overall peacebuilding in the region, at least
until recently, has been comparably weak and less systematic’.22 ECOWAS faces
several challenges, including a limited financial capacity to engage in major
post-conflict initiatives in war-torn societies in the sub-region;23 a lack of tech-
nical capacity to support institutional and socio-economic infrastructure in a
sustained way; and a failure to take advantage of its strengths, crucial for shap-
ing the international peacebuilding agenda in West Africa.24 Olonisakin points
out that ECOWAS’s strengths include a strong background knowledge of the
sub-region, many member states’ profound commitment to regional integra-
tion and security, ‘a sound normative framework that can provide the basis for
systematic peacebuilding in the region’, and its commitment to relationship
building, which is absent in international peacebuilding.25
Moreover, ECOWAS has developed impressive peacebuilding policy docu-
ments, but has failed to adequately transform them into practice in post-
conflict situations in West Africa. Although its normative framework combines
elements of the liberal peace and ‘indigenous’ ones (for instance, the Coun-
cil of Elders), it tends to place a heavy emphasis on elements of the liberal
peace such as good governance, security sector reform, democracy, the pri-
vate sector, accountability and transparency. This could be due, in part, to
the fact that ECOWAS has ensured that its instruments on peace and security
are consistent with international (UN) and regional (African Union) norma-
tive instruments, since in a number of mechanisms and protocols it makes
reference to the international and continental instruments. For instance, the
1999 ECOWAS Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Manage-
ment, Resolution, Peacekeeping, and Security (hereafter, the Mechanism) advocates
good governance, sustainable development and the rule of law in promoting
peace and conflict prevention. Drawing on the charters of the UN and the
Organization of African Unity (OAU), the UN Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, article 2 of the
document states that member states reaffirmed their commitment to several
fundamental principles.26 Among them are: (1) ‘economic and social devel-
opment and the security of peoples and States are inextricably linked’; (2)
‘promotion and consolidation of a democratic government as well as demo-
cratic institutions in each Member State’; and (3) ‘protection of fundamental
human rights and freedoms and the rules of international humanitarian laws’.27
Similarly, another ECOWAS document, Protocol A/SPI/12/01 on Democ-
racy and Good Governance, which supplements the Mechanism, signed in
December 2001, places emphasis on democracy, good governance, political
decentralization, justice, rule of law, free and fair elections, a secular and
Patrick Tom 305
neutral state, transparency, anti-corruption and women’s rights. It attempts

to address the root causes of conflict, such as corruption and unfair distri-
bution of resources. Moreover, the protocol urges member states to create
independent state institutions for promoting and protecting human rights.28
Furthermore, the ECOWAS Vision 2020 strategy advocates the promotion of
good governance through various efforts, including enforcing laws that pro-
hibit human trafficking, supporting civic education, promoting human rights,
developing an ‘aggressive anti-corruption stance’, establishing codes of conduct
for public officials throughout the sub-region, and pushing for transparency
and accountability in the use of public resources.29 It also encourages private
sector participation. The 2008 ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF) is
intended as
A comprehensive operational conflict prevention and peace-building strat-

egy that enables the ECOWAS system and Member States to draw upon
human and financial resources at the regional (including civil society and
the private sector) and international levels in their efforts to creatively
transform conflict.30
The ECPF consists of 14 components, several of which support the idea of

building a liberal peace in the sub-region. The components are: early warning,
preventive diplomacy; democracy and political governance; human rights and
the rule of law; media; natural resource governance; cross-border initiatives;
security governance; practical disarmament; women, peace and security; youth
empowerment; ECOWAS standby force; humanitarian assistance; and peace
education. The framework also encourages collaboration between ECOWAS and
civil society in conflict prevention and peacebuilding.
According to Olonisakin, while the sub-regional organization has not been
directly responsible for post-conflict peacebuilding operations in West Africa, it
has promoted peacebuilding efforts in regional and certain national contexts.31
For example, it has engaged in systematic collaboration with civil society as well
as cooperating with bilateral and other partners in efforts aimed at addressing
sub-regional security challenges.32 This reflects ECOWAS’s shift from an entirely
top-down approach to an approach that integrates bottom-up and top-down
approaches.
In addition to the adoption of the above liberal peace-oriented principles, it
is vital to note that ECOWAS has established organs such as the Council of the
Wise (previously called the Council of Elders), who can play a crucial role in
relationship peacebuilding. The Council of the Wise consists of ‘eminent [but
neutral] persons from various segments of society, including women, political,
traditional and religious leaders’ who play the role of conciliators, mediators
and facilitators.33 Its mandate is basically that of preventive diplomacy. This
organ draws on African traditional peacemaking and makes use of the elder
tradition – a vital cultural resource and value worth tapping into to help the
elders succeed in their roles as mediators, facilitators and conciliators.34
However, it is crucial to point out that peacebuilding initiatives in post-
conflict Western African states, including Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte
d’Ivoire, have largely been driven by external actors who have drawn on
the liberal peace paradigm. External actors have largely employed top-down
approaches to peace- and statebuilding, generating various responses from local
actors. Drawing on empirical evidence from Sierra Leone, the section below
will focus on the interaction between international and grassroots agendas for
peacebuilding.
International and grassroots peacebuilding agendas in Sierra

Leone
Since the end of the civil war in Sierra Leone in 2002, more than a decade ago,
significant international efforts and resources have been applied to state- and
peacebuilding initiatives covering the areas of disarmament, demobilization
and reintegration of former combatants, governance, democracy, rule of law,
justice and security sector reform, market-based economic reform, civil society,
building strong and effective state institutions, development and humanitarian
assistance. In the economic realm, the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLLP)-led
government adopted neoliberal policies designed within the framework of the
liberal peace assumed to be crucial for Sierra Leone’s recovery.35 Donors have
largely dictated how this should be done.36 Yet, Sierra Leoneans who had shown
acceptance and understanding of the issues that led to the war, and had ‘a
strong desire to take ownership of recovery by learning the lessons of the past’,
have played a minimal role in the process.37 The key goals for international
peacebuilding have been to prevent the resumption of the conflict and to estab-
lish a certain kind of a political order – a liberal democratic order – thought to
be essential for creating conditions for durable and sustainable peace.
As the Sierra Leone’s TRC pointed out in its report, in the post-conflict period,
the people of Sierra Leone yearn for a principled system of governance.

They want a system that upholds the rule of law over the rule of strong
patrons and protects the people from the abuse of rulers through a system
of checks and balances. They wish to see horizontal and vertical account-
ability through the effective operation of such institutions as the judiciary,
the auditor general’s office, the electoral commission, the media and civil
society.38
From this, it appears that Sierra Leoneans prefer a liberal polity – a state that
is both weak and strong, that upholds the rule of law and that is insulated
Patrick Tom 307
from elite capture, a vibrant civil society, media and state institutions that can
hold the government to account, and so on. Does this, then, mean that Sierra
Leoneans are liberals, advocating a liberal peace? If that is the case, then Sierra
Leonean peace is, after all, a liberal one. It is difficult to conclude that Sierra
Leoneans advocate a liberal form of peace based on the TRC report, given that,
for instance, despite the role of the chieftaincy system (an illiberal institution)
in the civil war and the reintroduction of district councils, recent research has
shown that the general feeling among Sierra Leoneans is that it is an important
and legitimate local government institution which should play a crucial role in
the country’s future.39 Furthermore, research has also shown that groups based
on affective ties, such as secret societies, continue to be highly regarded in rural
Sierra Leone and are regarded as legitimate forms of local governance which
can, for instance, play a crucial role in promoting participatory development
and local peacebuilding agendas.40
The civil war in Sierra Leone was largely fought in the villages among
neighbours and relatives who shared everyday life, culture, customs and needs.
The conflict negatively affected the various webs of social relations that existed
in these rural communities. At the end of the civil war, Sierra Leone not only
faced challenges of reconstructing the devastated state and its institutions, but
also communities that needed to restore the relations and social harmony
essential for building peace at community and inter-community levels. Yet,
international peacebuilding agendas in the chiefdoms prioritized issues such
as human rights, gender equality, accountability, democracy, rule of law and
governance, among other elements of the liberal peace. Moreover, the popu-
lace appears not to understand what a liberal peace is, as it is a non-indigenous
social construct, and rural communities’ conceptualization of peace is different
from that of the ‘internationals’.41 For instance, peace is understood as ‘heart
controlled’ or ‘cool heart’ as opposed to ‘hot heart’ (‘inner tension/chaos’) as
well as unity, stability, love, happiness, absence of conflict, freedom and happi-
ness.42 As such, communities understand peace in non-liberal ways, ‘more on
the self and its relationship to its own self as well as others’,43 and have used
established traditional mechanisms to solve social and political problems. Yet,
initially, a number of local professionalized non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) that have supported the international peacebuilding agenda priori-
tized the liberal peace agenda, portraying local traditions and customs in a
negative way.44 This was met with resistance in the villages, resulting in such
NGOs renegotiating the liberal peacebuilding agenda, combining elements of
international peacebuilding and indigenous approaches to peacebuilding.
I will now turn to the case of a local NGO, Community Action for
Psychosocial Services (CAPS), which offers psychosocial services to victims of
war, rape and domestic violence through utilization of modern/Western and
traditional mental health practices. In its work, CAPS also sensitizes people on
human rights as a means to deal with issues such as domestic violence, and
facilitates cleansing ceremonies in villages in order to end civil war-related ten-
sions among community members. For instance, it has engaged in psychosocial
peacebuilding in Sengema village in Kailahun district. In this village, serious
local tensions had remained in the post-war period.45
In 2010, more than eight years after the official end of Sierra Leone’s civil war
and the introduction of the liberal peace project in the country, villagers from
Sengema invited CAPS to facilitate a cleansing ceremony in the village in order
to end civil war-related tensions among community members. The locals linked
the tensions with the intra-village conflict that erupted during the war, which
saw atrocities and violations of social norms being committed in the village,
including the shedding of blood, incest, mass graves and ‘violating the bush’,
for example, by having sex in the bush.46 This localized sub-war that developed
in Sengema village was due to the fact that its inhabitants had joined rival mili-
tia groups, particularly the Kamajor warriors47 and the RUF. Since the village
was not close to the highway, villagers felt safe and decided not to flee their
village during the war. However, it became a battleground between Kamajor
warriors and RUF rebels who were inhabitants of Sengema village. Local ten-
sions continued in the post-war period, and warring parties would fight against
each other, even over minor issues.
When, in 2010, a group of young men from the village approached CAPS
for support, the organization visited the village and engaged in a community
dialogue in order to identify the root causes of the tensions. Villagers identified
the civil war and its consequences as the main causes of tensions within the vil-
lage. In addition, villagers attributed their problems, including poor harvests,
to angry ancestors. Ancestors are believed to act as guarantors and the basis
of peace and security. It is crucial to note that the relationship of ancestors to
the living is often described as ambivalent, ‘both punitive and benevolent and
sometimes even capricious’.48 In general, in order for ancestors to guarantee
individual and social peace as well as security, the living ought to maintain
harmonious relationships with fellow members of the community, ensuring
that they do everything possible to address threats or breaches for the pur-
pose of maintaining such relationships. Moreover, it is vital for community
members to respect social norms and values. Failure to do so is believed to
attract punishment from ancestors. Peace in this case is conceived as a gift from
ancestors.
Villagers in Sengema noted a causal link between social enmity and mis-
fortune. They believed that ancestors were punishing them for the various
violations that happened during the war, hence the poor harvests and vio-
lence in the village. As such, for the villagers, the solution lay in conducting
a cleansing ceremony and reconnecting with the ancestors – the custodians of
peace and security. Doing so would mean replacing social enmity with social
harmony.
Patrick Tom 309
Various stakeholders attended the cleansing ceremony that CAPS facilitated,

including the paramount chief, section chiefs, NGO workers and women. The
cleansing ceremony included perpetrators being asked to publicly confess their
wrongdoings, showing remorse and seeking forgiveness from their victims,
appeasing ancestors and offering libation. For such communities, forgiveness
is prioritized, since it is essential for building peace and the restoration of
harmonious relationships.
Three months later, CAPS visited the village to assess the situation and found
out that tensions had ceased. Moreover, the villagers had established a ‘peace
hut’ where they would meet to discuss issues affecting them and their commu-
nity as well as settling disputes instead of resorting to violence. The villagers
used customary institutions and ways of dealing with conflicts, which allowed
them to enter into a social contract among themselves as well as with their
ancestors for the purpose of establishing and maintaining harmonious rela-
tions, enabling them to retain agency, autonomy and ownership. It is crucial
to note that peace for such a community is not just a moral value, but also a
spiritual one, and is perceived in relation to both social and spiritual harmony.
And, given that CAPS had gained some form of legitimacy in the village, it also
managed to promote the liberal peace agenda of human rights there. Since it is
also promoting the international human rights agenda in the communities, it
will continue to receive support from international donors.
Conclusion
This chapter has noted that while ECOWAS has played a lead role in
peacekeeping, mediation and peace enforcement in West Africa, its role in post-
conflict peacebuilding has been minimal. As such, post-conflict peacebuilding
activities in the sub-region have largely been driven by external actors, who
have pursued a liberal peace agenda. Using Sierra Leone as a reference case
study, the chapter has shown that at the grassroots level, NGOs have adopted
peacebuilding approaches that combine elements of the liberal peace and ‘local’
peacebuilding agendas. This is resulting in hybrid approaches to peace which
are more acceptable to the ‘local’.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and
suggestions.
Notes
1. Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid, eds, West Africa’s Security Challenges: Building
Peace in a Troubled Region (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004).
2. For a comprehensive discussion of the liberal peace, see Oliver P. Richmond, The
Transformation of Peace (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Roland Paris, At War’s
End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
3. For a detailed discussion of internal and external dynamics of conflicts in West Africa,
see Issaka K. Souaré, Civil Wars and Coups d’État in West Africa (Lanham: University
Press of America, 2006); John Emeka Akude, Governance and Crisis of the State in Africa:
The Context and Dynamics of the Conflicts in West Africa (London: Adonis & Abbey
Publishers Ltd, 2009).
4. Patrick Tom, The Liberal Peace and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in Africa (PhD diss.,
University of St Andrews, 2011).
5. Robert D. Kaplan, ‘The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation,
Tribalism, and Disease are Rapidly Destroying the Social Fabric of Our Planet’,
The Atlantic Monthly, February 1994, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/
1994/02/the-coming-anarchy/304670/, accessed 20 November 2014.
6. Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest: War Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone
(London: Heinemann, 1996), xvi.
7. Ibid.
8. Michael Jackson, In Sierra Leone (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 155.
9. Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler (2004), ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’, Oxford
Economic Papers 56, no. 4 (2004): 563–595.
10. Festus Ugboaja Ohaegbulam, U.S. Policy in Postcolonial Africa: Four Case Studies
in Conflict Resolution (New York: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers,
2004), 33.
11. Ibrahim Abdullah, ‘Africans Do Not Live by Bread Alone: Against Greed, Not
Grievance’, no publication date, http://crasc-dz.org/IMG/ARB%20Pdf/Africans%20
Do%20Not%20Live%20by%20Bread%20Alone....pdf, accessed 22 November 2014.
12. An anti-social culture of gamblers, petty thieves and drug addicts. For a compre-
hensive discussion of his lumpen youth thesis, see Ibrahim Abdullah, ‘Bush Path
to Destruction: The Origin and Character of the Revolutionary United Front/Sierra
Leone’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 36, no. 2 (1998): 203–235.
13. This is drawn from my fieldwork in southern Sierra Leone in 2010.
14. President Compaoré ruled Burkina Faso for 27 years.
15. Boubacar N’Diaye, ‘Conflicts and Crises in West Africa: Internal and International
Dimensions’, in ECOWAS and the Dynamics of Conflict and Peace-Building, ed. Thomas
Jaye, Dauda Garuba and Stella Amadi (Dakar, CODESRIA, 2011), 27–44, 31.
16. Ibid.
17. Jeffrey Herbest, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control
18. Akude, Governance and Crisis of the State in Africa, 195.
19. N’Diaye, ‘Conflicts and Crises in West Africa’.
20. TRC, Witness to Truth: Report of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
volume 3A (Accra: Graphic Packaging Limited, 2004), 39.
21. See, for example, Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest; Krijn Peters, War and the Crisis
of Youth in Sierra Leone (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
22. Funmi Olonisakin, ‘ECOWAS: From Economic Integration to Peace-Building’, in
ECOWAS and the Dynamics of Conflict and Peace-Building, eds Thomas Jaye, Dauda
Garuba and Stella Amadi (Dakar, CODESRIA, 2011), 11–26, 11.
23. Twelve of the 48 countries on the 2014 UN list of the least developed countries in
the world are West African states.
Patrick Tom 311
24. Olonisakin, ‘ECOWAS’, 22.

25. Ibid.
26. ECOWAS, Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management,
Resolution, Peacekeeping, and Security (December 1999).
27. Ibid.
28. ECOWAS, Protocol A/SPI/12/01 on Democracy and Good Governance (December 2001).
29. ECOWAS, ECOWAS Vision 2020: Towards a Democratic and Prosperous Community
(Abuja: ECOWAS Commission, 2011), 10.
30. ECOWAS, ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework (January 2008), para. 7a.
31. Olonisakin, ‘ECOWAS’.
32. Ibid.
33. ECOWAS, Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, art. 20.
34. Ali A. Mazrui, ‘Towards Containing Conflict in Africa: Methods, Mechanisms and
Values’, East African Journal of Peace and Human Rights 2, no. 1 (1995): 81–90.
35. The current All People’s Congress-led government, which came into power in 2007,
has continued to support neoliberal policies in the country.
36. See, for example, Christine P. Cubitt, Local and Global Dynamics of Peacebuilding: Post-
Conflict Reconstruction in Sierra Leone (London: Routledge, 2012).
37. Ibid.
38. TRC, Witness to Truth, 39.
39. Richard Fanthorpe, ‘On the Limits of Liberal Peace: Chiefs and Democratic Decentral-
ization in Post-War Sierra Leone’, African Affairs 105, no. 418 (2005): 27–49; Edward
Swayer, ‘Remove or Reform? A Case for (Restructuring) Chiefdom Governance in
Post-Conflict Sierra Leone’, African Affairs 107, no. 428 (2008): 387–403.
40. Cubitt, Local and Global Dynamics of Peacebuilding; Lavali Andrew, ‘The Reliable
Route to Poverty Reduction in Sierra Leone: NGOs or Secret Societies’, Concord Times
[Freetown], 31 October 2005.
41. Patrick Tom, ‘In Search for Emancipatory Hybridity: The Case of Sierra Leone’,
Peacebuilding 1, no. 2 (2013): 239–255.
42. Community Leaders Workshop, Kailahun district centre, 11–12 November 2010.
43. Tom, ‘In search for Emancipatory Hybridity’, 251.
44. Personal interview, anonymous NGO worker, November 2010.
45. Personal interview, CAPS counsellor, November 2010.
46. Personal interview, CAPS counsellor, 12 November 2010.
47. A militia force from the southern and eastern parts of Sierra Leone that was rooted in
Mende cultural practices. It emerged in the mid-1990s to protect communities from
RUF and government soldiers’ attacks.
48. Igor Kopytoff, ‘Ancestors as Elders in Africa’, Journal of the African Institute 41, no. 2
(1971): 129–142, 129.
23
The Great Lakes Region of Africa:
Local Perspectives on Liberal
Peacebuilding from the Democratic
Republic of Congo
Josaphat Musamba Bussy and Carol Jean Gallo
Introduction
For decades, the countries of the Great Lakes region of Africa have struggled
to work through a complex set of dynamics that fuel insecurity and inequal-
ity. Politically, the ‘Great Lakes’ usually refers to the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda, even though, geographically,
it applies to Kenya and Tanzania as well. These are countries with variegated
histories, colonial experiences, cultures, languages, and contemporary politics.
Even within the bounds of the artificial states imposed, altered, redesigned
and reimposed by colonial powers, political alliances and trade networks that
pre-date European arrival continue to evolve. This means that within current
national borders, there is a diverse array of political thought and linguistic
variance that feeds into how identity is constructed and how peacebuilding
is perceived.
In this chapter we argue that in eastern Congo, peacebuilding efforts of the
UN and World Bank have been implemented in a primarily top-down fashion,
despite discourse on the importance of ‘local ownership’.1 This is in large part
because of the assumption that the lack of a strong liberal state is the primary
reason why conflict persists in DRC.2 This assumption, in turn, emanates from
a historical epistemology in which the West’s particular development is uni-
versally relevant.3 The ontogenesis of these assumptions lies in the dominant
view of international relations since the Enlightenment, the foundation of the
Westphalian state system, and the evolution of the liberal peace paradigm that
followed.4
Liberal peace theory can be defined as ‘the promotion of democracy, market-
based economic reforms and a range of other institutions associated with
“modern” states as a driving force for building “peace” ’.5 Governance from a
centralized authority in the capital city, to manage these economic policies and
democratic institutions and implement the ‘rule of law’, is a major objective of
312
Josaphat Musamba Bussy and Carol Jean Gallo 313
most liberal peacebuilders.6 Liberal peacebuilding measures are, furthermore,

meant to contribute to a post-conflict environment amenable to ‘development’,
which has a value-laden history of its own that is deeply intertwined with that
of liberalism.7
We focus on the eastern provinces of the DRC that continue to be affected
by violent conflict, because they represent the political and geographic centre
of conflict in the Great Lakes region. Local conflicts in the Kivus and Ituri often
link up with conflicts in Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, influencing and being
influenced by them. While it is important to resist the temptation to general-
ize or extrapolate from one place to another, much can be learned from a case
study. Rather than seeing the example of eastern Congo as being necessarily
qualitatively applicable to other regions, a contrast between the perspectives of
foreign peacebuilders and eastern Congolese peacebuilders can stimulate think-
ing about how other populations in the region, and, indeed, in other parts
of the world, conceive of peacebuilding: what kinds of questions do foreign
peacebuilders need to ask themselves in order to better understand, and be
more relevant in, a given local context? How might these questions help them
think outside their own box or web of meaning? The eastern provinces of North
Kivu and South Kivu and the district of Ituri are also home to tremendous lin-
guistic and ethno-political diversity. Despite this, there is striking consensus on
a number of issues.
This chapter draws on literature on the DRC that offers critical assessments
of liberal peacebuilding in the country, as well as qualitative interviews con-
ducted by both authors in eastern Congo.8 In the following pages, we will
give a brief review of how some Congolese peacebuilders and academics view
peacebuilding. There are some areas of convergence with liberal peacebuilding
priorities; but even when this is the case, for example in their agreement
that the government must be responsible for certain functions, Congolese
peacebuilding actors generally assert that the issue is only one among many.
Population-based surveys suggest that several of these sentiments are shared
by Congolese people in general. The assumptions of liberal peacebuilders have
thus shaped their actions and attitudes, and led to a top-down approach to
peacebuilding in the DRC.
Lack of a liberal state as cause of conflict
One major assumption of foreign liberal peacebuilders in Congo is that the

primary cause of conflict and its continuation is the lack of a strong, liberal,
Weberian state; and to ‘assist failed states in acquiring these liberal functions
is therefore considered the solution to the “problem” ’.9 Many Congolese in
conflict-affected areas agree that the state should accept and carry out respon-
sibilities to protect the civilian population and end violence, even if they do
not trust agents of the state or state security forces as they currently exist,10 and
even if the state in Congo has been predatory and untrusted11 since its creation
by King Leopold II of Belgium as his personal property.12
In a survey conducted by Vinck and Pham in the eastern provinces of North
and South Kivu and the district of Ituri, when asked ‘who needed to take action
to achieve peace’, responses focused on three actors: ‘the government (73%),
the community itself (30%), and God (35%). Respondents clearly identify peace
as resting in the government’s hands and actions’. They see security as both a
priority in their lives and a key role of the government.13 This represents, at
least in principle, a large area of convergence between liberal peacebuilders and
Congolese actors.
A professor in Uvira said that in his opinion, part of the problem is that
international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) actually complicate the
matter:
Every year in the national budget, there is a line for education. But NGOs
do the bulk of this work, so the government just eats that part of the bud-
get. This is the situation for many different sectors. So we need to close the
NGOs, so the government can take hold of its responsibility. For example,
[an American NGO] does a lot of work to help Congolese people, paid for
by US taxes. So the taxes that Congolese pay to the government, where do
they go? Then, there’s international politics. China, Europe, the US, they all
want to impose their way and get a piece of Congo, and this is destabilizing.
Each actor has money and politicians behind it, and it results in external
manipulation for their interests.14
There is something to be said for the fact that foreign actors have an interest
in circumventing rather than reinforcing the capacity of the state in recipient
countries. During the Mozambican civil war, for example, the government was
managing the distribution of food relief and its effect on the market sector.
But in 1983 the US tried to force the government to accept CARE, an American
NGO, as part of the aid package.15 The government held its ground and insisted
it maintain its aid distribution capacity, and CARE came in only to provide
assistance.
The USAID director at the time said:
It has never been the USA’s political and aid-related intention to go in

and strengthen Mozambican public administration by helping to estab-
lish a national organisation to counteract emergencies. Quite the opposite;
the faster such an attempt is eroded, the easier it will be for private inter-
ests and non-governmental organisations to assume responsibility for the
distribution of emergency aid and to reach targeted groups.16
This highlights a major obstacle in terms of statebuilding, when the interests

of powerful states and even some international NGOs themselves may have
economic or political interests to the contrary.17
At the same time, Congolese perspectives on conflict causes and solutions are
more varied than just the absence of an effective state. Hellmüller found in her
study of Ituri that unlike international actors, ‘who saw peace in the reconstruc-
tion of the state, the local population considered the promotion of peaceful
cohabitation with neighbours and the resolution of land conflicts as the main
components of peace’.18 This is corroborated by statistical evidence presented
in Vinck and Pham, and by a qualitative study of conflicts in Fizi and Uvira
in the province of South Kivu, conducted by three Congolese NGOs. In the
latter, conflict causes were similarly found to be related to land tenure, tran-
shumance, illegal taxation by armed groups, local political struggles, political
manipulation of identity and incitement of fear.19
Jean-Louis Nzweve, a researcher at the Catholic University of Graben at
Butembo in North Kivu, explained the problem as linked to identity politics, in
this way:
It’s not just in Congo, but all around the world – with globalization, peo-
ple are afraid of losing their local identities and want to protect themselves.
In the daily life in Congo, there’s no problem of cohabitation at the low level
of the community; and there is a process for integrating outsiders. But iden-
tity becomes a problem when political actors use this identity for electoral
aims; for political mobilization. Then it becomes dangerous. You can use any
identity for this – like ‘we are the proletariat’ against the upper classes. It’s
not a new problem.20
In terms of dialogue, the Congolese NGO Action pour le Développement et la

Paix Endogènes (ADEPAE) was founded in 1997 to help communities peacefully
transform the conflicts taking place between them. Based on their post-war
experiences encouraging communities to engage in dialogue, ADEPAE’s found-
ing theory was that if people are able to meet and discuss conflicts, they will
see that they can come to agreements without resorting to violence. Part of the
problem, according to this theory, is that communities in conflict are largely
isolated from each other and only interact in potentially explosive scenar-
ios. Therefore, if a permanent platform can be equipped to facilitate regular
interaction and dialogue between community representatives, not only will
transformation of such conflicts be possible, but trust may also be built.21
In South Kivu, ADEPAE and two other Congolese NGOs, Réseau d’Innovation
Organisationelle (RIO) and Arche d’Alliance, helped to establish four such plat-
forms in recent years. The Cadres de Concertation Inter-communautaire (CCIs)
provide a space for community leaders to report issues and resolve problems
before they escalate into violence, or deteriorate into further violence. These
platforms were established in the years following an Inter-Community Dia-
logue in 2010, organized by ADEPAE, RIO and Arche d’Alliance with support
from the Life & Peace Institute.22 Members of the Uvira CCI, interviewed in
July 2013, unanimously felt that the platform, despite the logistical and polit-
ical challenges of mediation, has helped community leaders ameliorate and
prevent violence.
One Uvira CCI member noted that when the CCI intervenes, ‘tensions
lessen’. Furthermore, many CCI members are experienced community leaders
with a long history of ‘getting communities to come together . . . They under-
stand the conflicts, and their origins and contexts, in depth.’23 The CCIs work
with Congolese NGOs, foreign NGOs and UN agencies, and the Congolese
army, police and government authorities. When asked why the CCIs had suc-
ceeded in conflict transformation and prevention where they had, answers
usually hinged on the CCIs’ focus on dialogue and ability to bring conflicting
communities together.
The structure of the CCI in Uvira builds on previously existing conflict trans-
formation structures of Congolese origin in South Kivu.24 This demonstrates
how important dialogue is for conflict transformation and prevention in the
context of South Kivu:
Communities used to live together fine. When there was conflict, people got
together under the institution of the Lubunga . . . People would get together
to talk the problems through and come to a consensus on how to move
forward. So we knew we could do this kind of work. We believed that when
[conflicting communities] get together, in the same place, they’ll be able to
come to an agreement.25
A staff member of a Congolese NGO based in Uvira explained these structures

in this way:
The arbre à palabre was an institution where, if there was a conflict, peo-
ple went to the elders, who called everyone together to meet at the tree of
dialogue. They [the conflicting parties] would get advice about the troubles
between them. It’s an institution of African origin. The paillote de paix is a
project of an NGO on the Ruzizi Plain. It’s a room where everyone sits in
a circle, and there is food and drink. And if there are guests, or strangers,
they sleep there. It’s a place to talk about peace, and this institution draws
on older traditions [such as the Lubunga] of doing this same thing.26
Similarly, Congolese journalist Ernest Gwadede says that peace should be

thought of as not just the absence of ‘flying bullets’ but also the absence of
‘discord among communities and among families’.27 This calls to mind the
concept of positive peace put forward by Galtung, in which both direct and
structural violence are eliminated.28 In such a conception of peace, legitimate
state-centred monopolies on power, democratic elections and institutions, and
consociationalism29 are not enough to claim that peace has been achieved; a
much more multi-pronged approach for promoting harmony and cooperation
is needed.
Vinck and Pham’s study revealed ‘Peace was most frequently cited by respon-
dents as the absence of violence (49%), living together, united (46%), being
free (41%), and having no more fear (35%).’30 Peacebuilding is thus some-
times also conceived of in terms of peace of mind and alleviation of fear.
A study of former Ugandan and Congolese child soldiers, for example, found
a direct correlation between levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
and feelings of violence or revenge. However, it found no direct correla-
tion between exposure to violence and PTSD severity, as this was very much
dependent on the individuals’ personalities and temperaments.31 This indi-
cates the strong link between experienced trauma and motivation to perpetuate
violence.
In DRC, few have access to services or educational opportunities that may
help people overcome trauma or recognize it for what it is in a meaningful
way.32 As one Congolese peace activist put it, fear ‘destroys their heads’ and
causes them to react irrationally, sometimes violently, perpetrating a ‘vicious
circle’. Yet, she said, even when needs such as psychological treatment are rec-
ognized by liberal peacebuilders, resources are rarely allocated for this type of
‘peacebuilding’, especially for male adult ex-combatants.33 She explained that
in Congo, there are very few ‘specialists or expertise in terms of psychological
help . . . It’s even the same for children. They get food and some material assis-
tance, but they don’t get their heads fixed.’34 Even where such assistance does
exist, it is not likely to be informed by local knowledge on how to deal with
trauma.35
From a Congolese perspective, a stabilization strategy must work on multiple
levels and in a coordinated, multi-dimensional fashion, in order to create a
climate of trust and reconciliation and a return to an environment in which
people can get on with their daily lives. Indeed, Vinck and Pham found in their
survey that
Respondents provided a large variety of responses when asked what needed

to be done to achieve a lasting peace. The most frequent responses included
having a dialogue between ethnic groups (31%), defeating armed groups
(26%), establishing the truth about the conflict (17%), arresting those
responsible for the violence (16%), providing jobs and reviving the economy
(16%), and having a dialogue with armed groups (15%). The wide range of
responses likely reflects the fact that no single approach can achieve peace,
but rather that a mix of approaches is needed.36
Western exceptionalism
Liberal peacebuilding actors assume not only that a strong liberal state is
required to contain conflict, but that a state is still ‘weak’ or ‘failed’ unless it
possesses certain features. This emanates from the history of the consolidation
of the state in Europe,37 as well as normative assumptions about the role of the
state and international relations in European history.38 This means that inter-
national liberal peacebuilding actors have certain preconceived notions39 about
what a ‘failed’ state is, and what the criteria are for a ‘successful’ state. These
ontological categories,40 however, complicate liberal peacebuilders’ efforts to
help countries suffering from conflict and trying to recover:
Although I recognize that the international community has a moral respon-

sibility to help its poorer members, [the terms ‘failed’ or ‘collapsed’ state]
partly stem from the mistaken belief that all states, regardless of time and
geographical region, are expected to exhibit similar characteristics.41
It is no coincidence that the ideal of a responsible, liberal, Westphalian state not

only emerged in Europe, but also came to be seen by European states as the only
viable option in terms of ‘correct’ or ‘successful’ social-political organization.
‘Development’ towards such a state is, furthermore, seen as a singular, univer-
sal and ‘natural’ progression.42 Since this normative construct of the state has
been achieved by the West, and liberal Western states are the power behind lib-
eral peacebuilding, they become the pinnacle of this evolution. Therefore, they
see themselves as uniquely qualified to teach other countries not only how to
achieve their own socio-political structures and values, but also to understand
that these structures and values are the ‘right’ or inevitable path. This assump-
tion is not ahistorical; it has been produced and reproduced by power through
many of the same discourses and philosophies that informed modernization
theory and colonialism.43
Congolese intellectuals are not ignorant of this genealogy of knowledge, to
borrow a concept from Foucault. Professor Muchukiwa of the Higher Institute
of Rural Development argues, for example, that peacebuilding efforts in Congo
have come in three varieties: an indigenous ‘traditional’ approach; the ‘pacifi-
cation’ approach of colonialism; and the liberal peacebuilding introduced by
the UN, its agencies, and international organizations.44 Contemporary liberal
peacebuilding theories may not be identical to the liberalism of the civilizing
missions of colonial powers, but they are direct descendants of it.45
This means that even attempts to support ‘local’ peacebuilding organizations

are coloured by assumptions about who has valuable knowledge and expertise.
Local organizations face enormous pressure to live up to the standards and
ideals of their partner organizations and, ultimately, international donors.46
Muchukiwa refers to ‘local brokers of the model of [the liberal] peace’, by
which he means Congolese organizations working in conflict transformation
or conflict resolution who are responsible for carrying out Western models of
peacebuilding. From his point of view, these organizations are part of the pro-
posed models of international NGOs, which are, for the most part, beholden
to their donors and not necessarily interested in local patterns of conflict
transformation and peacebuilding.
For Muchukiwa, this suggests that methods of peacebuilding in Congo
are essentially inventions of foreign interveners that have been adopted by
local associations. In order to transform conflicts, Congolese NGOs take a
‘local’ approach to peacebuilding, but are constrained because they must sub-
scribe to the themes, models and purposes of their international partners.
Because of this dynamic – among other things, such as local actors’ level
of a certain kind of education or language abilities – international partners
that try to ‘go local’ often inadvertently exacerbate the problems that this
is supposed to remedy.47 Thus, foreign peacebuilders are also constrained,
in that they can only collaborate with local organizations that have certain
characteristics.48
As Branch has shown in the case of post-conflict justice in Uganda, attempts
by international partners to support ‘indigenous’ mechanisms may be instru-
mentalized by local actors and interveners’ own preconceived notions of
what ‘indigeneity’ means and what ‘tradition’ looks like in ‘Africa’.49 Simi-
larly, in Ituri, Hellmüller found that rather than international peacebuilding
programmes adapting themselves to local contexts and needs, it was local orga-
nizations that were adjusting their own approaches to more closely resemble
those models favoured by foreign organizations.50 International peacebuilders
then intervene at the local level to ‘build capacity’ of Congolese organizations,
in such a way that presumes that there is no capacity there to begin with. Young
Western interns and volunteers enter unfamiliar contexts and spaces to instruct
older and more experienced Congolese community leaders in how to build
peace.51
Hellmüller also found that liberal peacebuilding actors see themselves as pos-
sessing unique, transferrable and essential thematic knowledge. While local
actors may have important contextual information, they are seen to lack
‘capacity’ and ‘expertise’; they are not seen as equal partners. This is ‘highly
significant as it not only gives the international actors authority, but it also
contributes to justifying their presence in a conflict context’.52
This perspective is supported by qualitative data from South Kivu. For exam-
ple, while he agreed that support from international actors is, at least in theory,
beneficial, one Congolese peacebuilder said that he thinks:
It’s possible to do reconciliation locally, but if you come with a totally new
project it will be useless work that will maybe even make things worse. This
is a big problem, not consulting the people [who live in the places where
projects are implemented] . . . You need to respect their ideas. Everyone that
comes to Congo to do this peacebuilding work is a stranger, and they’re
famous for eating money . . . A programme that’s really going to bring peace
and justice, it has to be homegrown. Right now there are just too many
outsiders bringing only their own ideas.53
Kabamba also asserts that UN, INGO and diplomatic actors ‘imagine themselves
as purveyors of those necessary goods of modernity’, and think of themselves
as ‘capable of moving across social spaces without being subject – in any sense –
to those same social spaces’. They become, then, the unwitting implementing
agents of a ‘new or incipient kind of global governmentality’, in which Congo
and Congolese ‘are purely objects – and never properly historical subjects’. This
discourse constructs Congo and Congolese in a particular way, and while its
content is political, international actors operate based on the assumption that
their interventions are technical, apolitical,54 or even morally imperative.55
Conclusion
Peacebuilding by international actors in the region, particularly in terms of

institutions like the United Nations, has thus been primarily a ‘top-down’
project.56 Congolese community organizations and NGOs agree that conflicts
need to be resolved and transformed, especially when they run the risk of
turning violent, and that the government has an important role to play. How-
ever, these associations are often simply charged with the implementation of
models of peacebuilding proposed by their financing partners, so that these
international backers may achieve the completion of their own projects. In this
way, attempts to make peacebuilding ‘locally owned’ are stymied by powerful
foreign organizations’ obligations to achieve their own operational goals.57
There is little reason to doubt that peacebuilding actors from abroad will
continue to engage in interventions in DRC, whether or not one sees this
as beneficial or harmful. However, the outcomes of these interventions will
vary depending on the extent to which they are able to balance a top-down
approach with a more grassroots-based one. The literature on Congo and field
research show that liberal interventions have much to gain from listening to
Congolese peacebuilding actors; recognizing the complementary capacities and
expertise that exist outside their own realms of knowledge; acknowledging the
dynamics of conflicts taking place in highly localized spaces; and considering
the ways in which their own strategies, priorities and operational goals can be
made more locally relevant.58
When liberal peacebuilders refer to the predatory, weak or failed Congolese
state, their intent is to refer to contemporary state structures. However, as the
novelist and prominent Nigerian thinker Chimamanda Adichie put it, ‘Start the
story with the failure of the African state, and not with the colonial creation of
the African state, and you have an entirely different story.’59 The ‘failed’ state in
Congo is not a reflection of Congolese ‘underdevelopment’; it is ‘what remains
of the colonial state in Africa’.60 This is good news, because it means that experi-
enced and motivated Congolese actors will be able to rebuild their own country.
In the Vinck and Pham survey of the Kivus and Ituri, ‘A majority of respon-
dents (92%) believe peace can be achieved in eastern DRC, and that all of the
ethnic groups can live together peacefully (79%)’.61 So there are many reasons
to be optimistic about the future of Congo, and first and foremost among them
is the drive and optimism of Congolese people themselves.
Notes
1. See Sarah B. K. Von Billerbeck, ‘Whose Peace? Local Ownership and UN
Peacebuilding’ (DPhil diss., Oxford University, 2012).
2. Sara Hellmüller, ‘The Power of Perceptions: Localizing International Peacebuilding
Approaches’, International Peacekeeping 20, no. 2 (2013): 219–232.
3. See Frederick Cooper and Randall Packard, eds., International Development and the
Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics of Knowledge (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1997); Alexander Laban Hinton, ‘The Dark Side of Modernity’,
in Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide, ed. Alexander Laban Hinton
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Thomas R. Shannon, An Introduction
to the World-System Perspective (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996).
4. See John M. Hobson, The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western Interna-
tional Theory, 1760–2010 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Oliver
P. Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace (New York: Routledge, 2011); Meera Sabaratnam,
‘Avatars of Eurocentrism in the Critique of the Liberal Peace’, Security Dialogue 44
(2013): 259–278.
5. Edward Newman, Roland Paris and Oliver P. Richmond, New Perspectives on Lib-
eral Peace-Building (New York: United Nations University Press, 2009), 3. Quoted in
Hellmüller, ‘The Power of Perceptions’, 221.
6. See, for example, the United States Institute of Peace and United States Army
Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, Guiding Principles for Stabilization
and Reconstruction (Washington, DC: USIP, 2009). For a critique of the promulgation
of ‘governance states’ by the World Bank, see Graham Harrison, The World Bank and
Africa: The Construction of Governance States (New York: Routledge, 2004). For a his-
tory of state centralization in Europe, see James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain
Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1999).
7. See Cooper and Packard, eds., International Development and the Social Sciences.
8. For her dissertation research, Gallo undertook participant-observation through an
internship with the Life & Peace Institute in Bukavu. She also conducted 74 qualita-
tive interviews, 60 of which were with Congolese peacebuilding actors, government
agencies, or academics (the rest with expatriates in bilateral partners and multilateral
institutions) between January and December 2013. She would like to thank her co-
author for the time and effort he put into helping her arrange and conduct many
of these interviews. For this chapter, Musamba drew on his own research at the
Centre of Research and Strategic Studies in Africa (CRESA) in Bukavu, and email
exchanges and qualitative interviews with prominent regional intellectuals (Gallo,
Kayira, Mashanda and Vanholder, 2013).
9. Hellmüller, ‘The Power of Perceptions’, 221. See also Séverine Autesserre, ‘Danger-
ous Tales: Dominant Narratives on the Congo and Their Unintended Consequences’,
African Affairs 00, no. 00 (2012): 1–21, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2UvDYLaoo
3iYjI3N2MxOGMtNDlkYS00YWFkLTg2NzgtYzhmMGVhM2EyNmMz/view; doi:10.
1093/afraf/adr080.
10. Autesserre, ‘Dangerous Tales’, 20. This is also corroborated by Gallo’s dissertation
research.
11. Hellmüller, ‘The Power of Perceptions’, 224.
12. See Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in
Colonial Africa (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
13. The mixed-methods study conducted in 2013 included a survey of 5,166 ran-
domly selected adults. Patrick Vinck and Phuong Pham, Searching for Lasting Peace:
Population-Based Survey on Perceptions and Attitudes about Peace, Security and Jus-
tice in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (Cambridge: Harvard Humanitarian
Initiative, 2014), 23, 26.
14. Interview #58, grassroots peacebuilding actor and professor in Uvira. Gallo disserta-
tion research. Interview conducted by Gallo in Bukavu, December 2013.
15. Sam Barnes, Humanitarian Aid Coordination during War and Peace in Mozambique:
1985–1995, Studies on Emergencies and Disaster Relief No. 7 (Uppsala: Nordiska
Afrikainstitutet, 1998), 9.
16. Quoted in Ibid., 9.
17. See also Hellmüller, ‘The Power of Perceptions’.
18. Ibid., 222–223.
19. ADEPAE, Arche d’Alliance and RIO in partnership with the Life & Peace Institute,
Au-delà des ‘Groupes Armés’: Conflits Locaux et Connexions Sous-Regionales, L’exemple de
Fizi et Uvira (Kalmar: Lenanders Grafiska, 2011).
20. Gallo dissertation research. Interview conducted by Gallo in Bukavu, October 2013.
21. This approach builds on John Paul Lederach’s theory of conflict transformation.
Carol Jean Gallo, Tharcisse Kayira, Murhega Mashanda and Pieter Vanholder,
‘Participatory Action Research in the Democratic Republic of Congo: The Case of
Fizi-Uvira’, unpublished internal assessment, The Life & Peace Institute, 2013. Pub.
TBD.
22. See the conflict analysis produced as part of this participatory action research pro-
cess, ADEPAE et al., Au-delà des ‘Groupes Armés’; Gallo et al., ‘Participatory Action
Research’, for a narrative of how the Inter-Community Dialogue was negotiated and
brought about.
23. Interview #9, Uvira CCI member. Gallo dissertation research. Interview conducted
by Gallo in Uvira, July 2013.
24. Gallo et al., ‘Participatory Action Research in the Democratic Republic of Congo’.
25. Interview #8, Uvira CCI member and government official. Gallo dissertation
research. Interview conducted by Gallo in Uvira, July 2013.
26. Interview #10, staff member of Congolese NGO. Gallo dissertation research. Inter-
view conducted by Gallo in Uvira, July 2013.
27. Interview conducted by Musamba with Ernest Muhero Gwadede of Radio Maendeleo
in Bukavu, March 2014.
no. 3 (1969): 167–191.
29. See Arend Lijphart, ‘Consociational Democracy’, World Politics 21, no. 2 (1969):
207–225.
30. Vinck and Pham, Searching for Lasting Peace, 23.
31. Christophe Pierre Bayer, Fionna Klasen and Hubertus Adam, ‘Association of Trauma
and PTSD Symptoms with Openness to Reconciliation and Feelings of Revenge
among Former Ugandan and Congolese Child Soldiers’, Journal of the American
Medical Association 298, no. 5 (2007): 555–559.
32. The University of Kisangani has a renowned Faculty of Psychology and Educational
Science, but few experts graduate from this programme.
33. Interview #18, Congolese staff member of international peacebuilding NGO.
Gallo dissertation research. Interview conducted by Gallo in Bukavu, November
2013.
34. Interview #18, Congolese staff member of international peacebuilding NGO.
35. See Vanessa Pupavac, ‘Therapeutic Governance: Psycho-Social Intervention and
Trauma Risk Management’, Disasters 25, no. 4 (2002): 358–372; Judith K. Bass, Paul
A. Bolton and Laura K. Murray, ‘Do Not Forget Culture When Studying Mental
Health’, The Lancet 370 (2007): 918–919; Katherine Rehberg, ‘Revisiting Thera-
peutic Governance: The Politics of Mental Health and Psychosocial Programmes
in Humanitarian Settings’, Oxford University Refugee Studies Centre, Work-
ing Paper Series No. 98, March 2014, http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/files/publications/
working-paper-series/wp98-revisiting-therapeutic-governance-2014.pdf, accessed 29
November 2014.
37. See Scott, Seeing Like a State.
38. See Hobson, The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics.
39. See discussions on ‘common sense’ in Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge: Further Essays
in Interpretive Anthropology (New York: Fontana Press, 1983) and the essays in Cooper
and Packard, International Development and the Social Sciences.
40. For an exploration of this phenomenon in many guises, see Susanne Hoeber
Rudolph, ‘The Imperialism of Categories: Situating Knowledge in a Globalizing
World’, Perspectives on Politics 3, no. 1 (2005): 5–14.
41. Samuel M. Makinda, ‘Disarmament and Reintegration of Combatants’, in From Civil
Strife to Civil Society: Civil and Military Responsibilities in Disrupted States, eds William
Maley, Charles Sampford and Ramesh Thakur (New York: United Nations University
Press, 2003), 310.
42. Hobson, The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics, 6; Shannon, An Introduction to
The World-System Perspective, 3–5.
43. See Cooper and Packard, International Development and the Social Sciences; Carol Jean
Gallo, ‘Researching Genocide in Africa: Establishing Ethnological and Historical Con-
text’, in New Directions in Genocide Research, ed. Adam Jones (New York: Routledge,
2011), 232.
44. Interview with Professor Bosco Muchukiwa, Higher Institute of Rural Development
and the Evangelical University of Africa, conducted by Musamba in Bukavu, March
2014.
45. See Patience Kabamba, ‘The Real Problems of the Congo: From Africanist
Perspectives to African Prospectives’, reply to Autesserre, ‘Dangerous Tales’,
22 March 2012, http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/02/09/afraf.
adr080.abstract/reply#afrafj_el_80, accessed 4 April 2014.
46. See Cedric de Coning, ‘The Coherence Dilemma in Peacebuilding and Post-Conflict
Reconstruction Systems’, African Journal on Conflict Resolution 8, no. 3 (2008): 85–110.
47. Jason Miklian, Kristoffer Lidén and Åshild Kolås, ‘The Perils of “Going Local”: Liberal
Peace-Building Agendas in Nepal’, Conflict, Security & Development 11, no. 3 (2011):
285–308.
48. Ibid.
49. See Adam Branch, Displacing Human Rights: War and Intervention in Northern Uganda
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
50. Sara Hellmüller, “International and Local Actors in Peacebuilding: Why Don’t They
Cooperate?” Working Paper, Swisspeace, April 2014.
51. Ibid., 17.
52. Ibid., 15–17.
53. Interview #59, two Congolese staff members of an international peacebuilding NGO.
Gallo dissertation research. Interview conducted by Gallo in Bukavu, December
2013.
54. James Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘Development’, Depoliticization, and Bureau-
cratic Power in Lesotho (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); Harrison,
The World Bank and Africa; Kabamba, ‘The Real Problems of the Congo’.
55. Branch, Displacing Human Rights.
56. For a detailed analysis of this, see Séverine Autesserre, The Trouble with the Congo:
Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding (Cambridge: Cambridge
57. Von Billerbeck, ‘Whose Peace?’
58. Autesserre, The Trouble with the Congo; Hellmüller, ‘International and Local Actors’;
Von Billerbeck, ‘Whose Peace?’
59. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘The Danger of a Single Story’, TED Talks,
July 2009, http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_
story?language= en, accessed 10 November 2014.
60. Kabamba, ‘The Real Problems of the Congo’. See also Mahmoud Mamdani, Citi-
zen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1996); Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans.
Richard Philcox (New York: Grove Press, 2004).
24
Peace in the Horn of Africa
Christopher Clapham
Introduction
To write about dimensions of peace in the Horn of Africa may well look like
a step too far. This part of north-east Africa – comprising the current states of
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia (with Somaliland), and with important
links to Sudan, South Sudan and Kenya – has consistently figured among the
most conflict-prone regions of the world, and despite some relative improve-
ment in the first dozen years of the twenty-first century, its problems are very
far indeed from being resolved. The resurgence of major conflicts, either within
any of its constituent states or between them, is no means impossible, and such
mechanisms as have been deployed to mitigate the worst effects of the fissures
between its states, regimes and peoples are fragile and poorly institutionalized.
It follows that we must at least start from the minimal conception of peace,
or ‘negative peace’, as meaning the absence of overt violence, indicated in par-
ticular by conflict-related deaths. Such violence, inevitably, reflects deep-seated
sources of human suffering, and derives in particular from historically high lev-
els of oppression and exploitation, the removal of which is clearly central to
any long-term peace agenda. Given the intractable nature not just of specific
conflicts but of the cultural and environmental divisions explored below, this is
a difficult and perhaps impossible task. Immediate peace processes, while taking
account of the underlying issues, must necessarily concentrate on preventing
major conflicts, and hope that periods of stability will make it possible to incul-
cate habits of non-violence, and gradually set about softening and mediating
more basic problems.
This is, too, a region in which structural violence extends to the miserable
circumstances under which most of its inhabitants seek to survive. Not for
nothing is it known to much of the outside world principally for its famines.
The semi-desert peripheries of the central Ethiopian massif, extending in an
arc from Sudan along the Red Sea coast and through Djibouti and Somalia
325
to northern Kenya, comprise areas in which the struggle for human life is
inevitably hard, and nomadic pastoralism has proved over a very long period
to be the only practicable way of sustaining their sparse populations. In the
much more densely populated highlands, the ever-present danger of drought
threatens the lives of millions of people, while political instability and the
straightforward pressure of increasing populations on very fragile environ-
ments add massively to the level of risk, and provide ready sources of political
grievance. Global climate change threatens to add to these problems. Famine is
not only a cause of conflict, and a result of conflict, but sucks resources into the
region which – while intended to mitigate its effects, and indeed saving many
lives – are also readily appropriated by local actors in ways that may subvert
donor intentions.
Given the theme running through this volume, of the tension between
Western conceptions of peace and the ways in which it may be achieved, and
potentially very different ideas and mechanisms in other parts of the world,
it is also worth noting that conflict and violence in the Horn are essentially
home-grown. The outside world has inevitably had a major impact on regional
conflict, exacerbated, on the one hand, by the global strategic sensitivity of a
region that borders the Middle East and critical trade routes, and on the other,
by the readiness of indigenous combatants to look for external support. Out-
siders have also been constantly engaged in the search for peace (or at least
minimal stability), with highly variable results. Regional conflict, however, is
not essentially the result of external destabilization. The major sources of con-
flict lie, rather, in the ecologies, social structures and value systems of different
peoples within the Horn, and the ways, therefore, in which these conceive
of peace and seek to attain it. These conceptions of peace differ from those
that characterize the liberal institutionalist approaches currently prevalent in
Western states and global institutions.
At the core of the region’s conflicts lies the contrast, already noted, between
its mountainous core, comprising what are now the highland zones of Ethiopia
and Eritrea, and its peripheral areas, many of which were suited only to
pastoralism. The highlands supported a relatively dense population, in the only
part of sub-Saharan Africa to sustain plough agriculture, which, in turn, gave
rise to hierarchical structures of governance maintained by control over land
and the people who worked it. Reaching its apex in the Ethiopian Empire,
and drawing its religious expression from Orthodox Christianity, this structure
had the power, the ideology and, increasingly, the economic need to extend
its control over surrounding peoples in both the southern highlands and
the pastoralist periphery.1 For many centuries before the advent of European
colonialism, it formed a recognizable state, powerful enough to become the sole
indigenous political unit in pre-colonial Africa to defeat attempts at colonial
conquest and retain its independence through the colonial era. In the process,
Christopher Clapham 327
it also annexed substantial areas and populations, especially to the south and
west of the original core, greatly extending its territory and population, and
creating an empire marked by structural inequalities between its original and
conquered peoples. This dynamic provides the most basic source of conflict, not
only in Ethiopia but also (albeit in a rather different form) in Eritrea, and, given
the hegemonic position of Ethiopia at the centre of the region, in the Horn as
a whole. Some account must therefore be given of how different regimes have
sought to manage it. If we are to look at the region, however, not simply with
reference to its all-too-frequent conflicts, but, rather, with reference to potential
dimensions of peace – something which, understandably enough, has seldom
been attempted – we must look beyond these immediate imbalances to much
broader ideas of how legitimate political order is conceived within the disparate
societies of the Horn, and to how, if at all, these can be reconciled both with
one another, and with ideas of political order emanating from (and at times,
indeed, imposed by) the dominant states and institutions of the modern global
system. Schematically, this task is most conveniently attempted by contrasting
the very different idea of peace emanating from the arable highland core, on
the one hand, and its pastoralist peripheries, on the other, before integrating
them into potential drivers of peace within the region and beyond.
The highland core: Peace as stable hierarchy
As already noted, the Amhara and Tigrayan peoples of the northern Ethiopian
highlands, sometimes referred to generically as ‘Abyssinian’, have traditions
of governance going back a very long way (indeed, over two millennia), to
which structures of social hierarchy have historically been central. Donald
Levine noted in his seminal study Wax & Gold that ‘The Amhara political sys-
tem was based on an interlocking hierarchy of patron-client relationships’,2
stretching from the emperor at its apex through provincial lords and balabat
(‘one who has a father’) to the lowliest chika shum (‘mud chief’). Social order
depended on a visible hierarchy of rule, in which unlimited deference was paid
to those above one, and any criticism of one’s leaders (unless veiled in the
most respectful forms) was equated with defiance of their authority. In such a
system, the greatest threat to peace lay in anarchy, and the moments of great-
est danger arose when the top leadership was challenged or removed, and a
period of uncertainty ensued until a new leader was able to reassert control and
the hierarchy could be restored. The most traumatic such episode in modern
Ethiopian history was between February 1974, when the protests against the
Haile Selassie regime that were to culminate in the revolution later that year
first reached an unmanageable level, and February 1977, when the new strong-
man Mengistu Haile-Maryam emerged at the top of the hierarchy established
by the revolution, having murdered all of his potential rivals along the way. The
intervening period included the ‘red terror’, when rival revolutionary factions
fought a vicious battle for supremacy, leaving the bodies of their dead oppo-
nents strewn in the streets of Addis Ababa and other major towns.3 The impact
of this experience on the survivors was such that, as the guerrilla movement
that was to overthrow the Mengistu regime in May 1991, the Tigray People’s
Liberation Front (TPLF), approached Addis Ababa, support for the government
simply melted away, and the insurgents took over the city and the country as a
whole with minimal further bloodshed. The state bureaucracy and even some
ministers transferred their allegiance to the new rulers, with barely a hiatus in
the maintenance of political order.
Capable as this system has been of maintaining some form of state, over an
exceptionally long period and demanding terrain, and under primitive technol-
ogy, its ability to deliver ‘peace’ has been subject to obvious limitations. One
of these is its vulnerability to problems of political succession, which has fre-
quently been marked by violence. Within the last two centuries, it is possible
to identify only three, very partial, examples of the peaceful transfer of power
from one leader to the next, and then only as the result of the death or mental
incapacity of the outgoing leader.4 Implicit in this is the inability of the system
to cope with any open challenge to its authority, of the kind represented by
liberal democracy, which is culturally indistinguishable from treason. The most
recent example of this kind was the Ethiopian election of 2005, the only one in
the country’s history to be contested on a reasonably equal basis between the
ruling party and two principal opposition movements, when the results were
reversed and the consequent demonstrations were forcibly suppressed as soon
as it became evident that one of the opposition parties was winning it. The
only plausible reason for allowing the election to be held in the first place was
that the incumbent leader had misjudged his own invincibility. This, in turn,
makes it extremely difficult to introduce innovations, except insofar as these
are permitted, and for the most part promoted, by the incumbent leadership.
But the greatest danger of all presented by central statehood was that it
enabled the conquest of neighbouring peoples who lacked the cultural predis-
positions that softened the impact of autocracy within the highland core, and
who were able to gain access to central government power only through a very
partial and limited process of assimilation. Any empire is inherently unequal,
and hence fosters intense underlying sources of conflict, and this was as true
of the Ethiopian state created by its late-nineteenth-century territorial expan-
sion as of any of its European colonial equivalents. As with other empires, this
involved the imposition of rule on culturally very different peoples, in which
the dominant actor necessarily possessed the organizational structures and ide-
ologies necessary to impose its rule in the first place, and readily assumed
that the cultures of the conquered could be suppressed, and would eventu-
ally give way to those of their conquerors. The imperial state in power from
1941 through to its overthrow in 1974 appeared to assume that these problems
could be overcome through a process of very gradual incorporation into cen-
tral patronage networks – an assumption inevitably nullified by the emergence
of ethnic identities among the disadvantaged peoples of the periphery. The
revolutionary government after 1974 recognized the problem, in a way that
its predecessor had not done, but sought to resolve it by promoting a Jacobin
sense of national identity that had too little to offer, and came at too high a
price (notably repression, military conscription and economic exploitation) to
achieve success.
The most imaginative attempt to devise a political structure to overcome the
problems of ethnic division and inherent inequality was introduced by the
TPLF-dominated government of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Demo-
cratic Front (EPRDF) that came to power in May 1991. Under the guidance of
its leader Meles Zenawi, this government recognized that the attempt to impose
national unity by force had been tested to destruction, and instead introduced
a system of ethnic federalism, under which each of Ethiopia’s ‘nations, nation-
alities and peoples’ was guaranteed both autonomy in the management of its
own affairs and a right to self-determination, ‘up to and including secession’.
This has resulted in the division of Ethiopia into regions defined by ethnicity
(principally language), each governed by indigenes of that region, and in prin-
ciple permitting the resolution of conflicts within regions according to norms
acceptable to their inhabitants. In practice, it need hardly be said that it has not
worked out that way. Although the new system has recognized the ethnic and
cultural diversity of Ethiopia as never before, the requirement of subordination
to the central power remains unaltered (no region has been governed by a party
opposed to the EPRDF), and as time goes by, the lineaments of Ethiopia’s his-
toric system of autocratic central rule have become increasingly evident, not
least in the form of centralized development policies in keeping with its goal of
becoming a ‘democratic developmental state’.
A perverse variant of Ethiopian centralism is found in Eritrea, a former Italian
colony encompassing the northern tip of the ‘historic’ Ethiopian or Abyssinian
highlands and a surrounding arc of largely lowland, Muslim and pastoralist
peoples, which thus replicates within itself the key divisions of the Horn. Fol-
lowing a 30-year war for independence against Ethiopia, into which Eritrea
had been incorporated after the Second World War, it became independent in
1991 under the rule of the victorious Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF).
Hailed at independence as a state whose unity had been forged in the heat
of battle, it might have been expected to develop into an integrated nation
guided by a common identity, with the organizational capacity created and
legitimized by the liberation struggle. Whether or not this was ever a plau-
sible outcome, its achievement was pre-empted by the inability of the EPLF,
and notably its leader Isayas Afewerki, to extend its vision beyond the very
limited parameters imposed by the independence war. Eritrea has remained an

intensely militarized state, its chances of development negated by a border war
against Ethiopia in 1998–2000,5 with much of its population conscripted into
open-ended ‘national service’ in the military, resulting, in turn, in its becom-
ing one of the leading generators of refugees in the world. Militarization has
also created intense social problems, with a particularly damaging impact on
women.6 Tragically, there are as yet no ‘dimensions of peace’ in Eritrea, and
whether it will be possible to create them from the wreckage left by the eventual
displacement of its post-‘liberation’ government remains to be seen.
The pastoral periphery: Peace as negotiation
No more striking contrast could be imagined to the hierarchical assumptions

of centralized highland rule than the social structures and values prevailing
in the pastoral peripheries of the Horn, most sharply expressed by the most
numerous and widely spread of the pastoralist peoples, the Somali, who extend
into every country of the region except Eritrea. It should be emphasized from
the start that ‘peace’ is a concept barely known to pastoralists, whose lives are
passed in unremitting struggle against an intensely hostile environment, and
in consequence also against one another. Pastoralism does not generate the
surpluses required for state formation, or the attitudes of deference engendered
by long-established governance. It is every man for himself, and solidarities are
defined by immediate ethnic affiliations, into clans, sub-clans, sub-sub-clans
and family units, which themselves are liable to coalesce or split apart according
to the exigencies of the moment.
But, though Somalis (taken here as emblematic of pastoralists in the Horn,
though other groups differ) may have little idea of peace, they do have a highly
developed set of mechanisms for averting the most damaging effects of conflict.
These essentially consist in processes of negotiation between representatives of
competing collectivities, designed to hammer out some settlement that meets
at least the minimum demands of each. Such representatives, often known as
‘elders’, have no formal status, but emerge consensually from the group as
need arises. Nor do they have the ‘authority’ to impose on their constituen-
cies any settlement that these are not prepared to accept. They are far removed
from the kind of hierarchy characteristically seen as central to peacemaking in
more structured communities, and the negotiations in which they engage are
correspondingly lengthy, provisional, and liable to be reversed or disowned.
They do, however, place very heavy pressure on individuals to conform to the
expectations of their own immediate collectivities, whose support is central
to their own survival. In the case of normal sources of conflict, standardized
forms of resolution come to be codified into what may be regarded as a kind
of customary law, and it says much for the unpeaceful nature of Somali society
that these include homicide, which is conventionally settled by the payment

of compensation (traditionally in the form of camels) from the diya or blood
compensation group of the murderer to that of the victim.7 For broader and
more ‘political’ disputes, the processes of conflict management may stretch out
almost indefinitely, to the frustration of external observers and mediators used
to negotiations between or within states.
In a system of this kind, the presence of the state – seen as central to conflict
management in settled societies such as those of highland Ethiopia, or equally
in modern global fora – may be not merely irrelevant but intensely damaging.
When Somalia became independent from Italian and British rule in 1960, it
adopted a political system that was chaotic to the point of anarchy, with polit-
ical parties that effectively served as the mouthpieces of clans and sub-clans,
and which constantly coalesced with or split from one another as clan politics
dictated. Within a few years, and following the murder of the national pres-
ident, this was overthrown in a military coup led by the army commander,
Siyad Barre, who attempted to impose a ‘proper’ state with the support of the
Soviet Union. Initially apparently quite successful, and benefiting from a com-
mon Somali animosity against the Ethiopians, this foundered later, leading to a
catastrophic war against Ethiopia in 1977–78.8 Over the following 12 years, the
army splintered into clan militias led by individuals who came to be known as
‘warlords’, culminating in 1991 not only in Siyad Barre’s overthrow, but in the
destruction of any form of organization describable as a state. At its most basic,
state collapse in Somalia resulted from the attempt to force a society unsuited
to statist forms of rule into the straitjacket created by the modern sovereign
state. While some form of settled governance is needed, to meet the demands
not only of the global system but of an increasingly urbanized Somali society,
reconciling this with the deeply fissiparous character of Somali culture remains
extremely problematic.
A different and generally more successful course of action was followed in the
former British Somaliland, which has now maintained an independent exis-
tence for more than two decades, despite the lack of formal recognition by
any other state. The declaration of independence was accompanied by a series
of lengthy conferences with clan representatives, known as guurti, which both
assured widespread support for secession from Somalia and hammered out the
basic structures of the new political order. While taking the form of a multi-
party democracy, with a directly elected president and bicameral legislature,
this actually mirrors the clan structure of domestic society, including notably
the upper chamber of parliament, the House of Elders, which has a specific
peacemaking role in helping to resolve domestic conflicts. No Somali society
is ever without such conflicts, and Somaliland has problems especially with its
eastern zone, which, while falling into its territory as part of the former British
colony, is much more closely associated in clan terms with the neighbouring
part of former Italian Somalia, which exercises a quasi-independent jurisdic-

tion known as Puntland. As a means of reconciling the demands of peace,
governance and Somali cultural values, the Somaliland experiment has proved
much more effective than attempts to rebuild the state in former Italian
Somalia, which remain mired between domestic clan politics, external inter-
vention and the Islamist movement al-Shabaab. Indeed, the very low level of
external engagement in Somaliland, prompted in part by its international non-
recognition, has encouraged the pursuit of internal and indigenous forms of
conflict management.
A brief survey of this kind cannot do justice to the range of indigenous soci-
eties in the Horn, each with its own specific culture and forms of internal
governance. Southern and western Ethiopia, in particular, includes numerous
peoples which come rather closer than either Somalis or Abyssinian high-
landers to the conventional African stereotype of consensual and communal
management. It does, however, highlight a number of points of more general
relevance. First, it emphasizes that there is no single road to peace, but that
different societies may both conceptualize peace, and look to pursue it, in very
different ways. Second, it challenges the tendency to see ‘top-down’ approaches
to peace in terms of the imposition of an external global order, as contrasted
with ‘bottom-up’ approaches, which are viewed as possessing a legitimacy and
effectiveness denied to the ‘top-down’ ones. This may work well enough when
applied to some societies in the region, but certainly not to all. Third, it helps
to signal some of the difficulties facing external actors seeking to build peace in
the region, especially when these enter it with their own ready-made assump-
tions as to how this task can best be achieved. The final section of this chapter,
therefore, looks at the troubled experience of external peacebuilding.
External engagement: Peacebuilding or peace destroying?
This region of Africa has impinged on the consciousness of the outside world
in conflicting ways, which have driven and also obstructed any external role
in managing its numerous and essentially internal conflicts. During the Cold
War, given its strategic location adjacent to the Middle East and to the world’s
major shipping lanes, especially for oil, it figured far more prominently than
anywhere else in sub-Saharan Africa as a site for superpower competition. The
US, first in the field, promoted Ethiopian hegemony as a source of regional
‘stability’, leading to reactions from rival regional actors that drove newly inde-
pendent Somalia to seek countervailing support from the Soviet Union, and
helped prompt nationalist opposition to the US-supported union of Eritrea with
Ethiopia. The 1974 Ethiopian revolution installed a Marxist regime in Addis
Ababa and resulted in a switch of alliance to the USSR, and a massive Soviet
armaments programme that led still more catastrophically to a very high level
of militarization, and eventually to Eritrean independence and Somali state

collapse. This experience helped to reinforce an intense suspicion of external
motivations, already well-established from the colonial era, that could only
undermine subsequent efforts at peacemaking.
In the mid-1980s, famine created a new role, especially for Ethiopia, as
a source of global, and especially Western, humanitarian concern, though –
coming as it did at a time when wars were raging throughout the region –
famine relief also fed into conflict. In a Cold War context, Western provision
of food contrasted with Soviet supply of weapons as forms of influence, while
the Ethiopian regime used food supplies as a means of control over contested
areas, and the opposition movements likewise sought their own independent
sources of supply. With the end of the Cold War, the overthrow in 1991 of
the dictatorships in both Ethiopia and Somalia and the consequent indepen-
dence of Eritrea opened a new chapter in which the region could apparently
benefit from a ‘peace dividend’, in keeping with Western ideals of promoting
liberal democracy. These hopes were, however, short-lived, as both state col-
lapse in Somalia and the 1998–2000 war between Eritrea and Ethiopia plunged
the Horn back into turmoil. After 9/11, the growth of an Islamist movement
in Somalia, profiting from the chaos created by state collapse, aroused concern
especially from the US, while piracy in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean
likewise furthered the securitization of external interests in the region.
It would be difficult to argue, at least in the post-Cold War era, that extra-
regional powers have actively promoted war, in contrast to states within the
region itself, which have readily promoted conflict within their neighbours’
territories. The continued conflicts in the Horn serve the interests of no major
global actor, and the most explicit external military intervention in the region,
the US’ ‘Operation Restore Hope’ in Somalia from 1992, can only plausibly
be seen as a sincere attempt to secure the supply of food to starving Somalis.
At the same time, external attempts to incorporate the region into the lib-
eral institutionalist conception of a just and peaceful global order have almost
entirely failed to get to grips with the very different conceptions of order in
the region itself. Most basically, an institutionalist approach presupposes the
existence, or requires the creation, of institutions capable of achieving peace,
an agenda that rests essentially on the division of the world into states, which,
in turn, can both foster peace within their own jurisdictions and engage with
other states in collaborative conflict management. The absence in Somalia over
more than two decades of any such state constitutes a standing affront to lib-
eral peacebuilding, which global actors have struggled to rectify. The first such
attempt, through Operation Restore Hope, rested on the naïve assumption that
once a visible framework of order was assured by the US military, the other ele-
ments would slot into place. Insofar as there was any political agenda behind
the intervention, this was that the humanitarian dividend provided by the
distribution of famine relief would create a constituency for peaceful gover-

nance – an assumption that proved tragically misguided.9 Subsequent and more
explicit attempts to create a Somali state have likewise taken as their starting
point the external imposition of order, whether provided under the auspices
of the United Nations, the regional hegemon Ethiopia or the African Union,
accompanied by the provision of aid that could be used to construct a coalition
of indigenous actors, who were presented as constituting the desired political
order, but who could more accurately be regarded as rent seekers whose domes-
tic credibility was undermined by their external dependence. Those who were
excluded from these benefits then provided a ready constituency for opposition
movements, which in recent times have called on Islam as a unifying ideology,
and thus exacerbated the problem from the viewpoint of Western powers, and
especially the US.10
In Ethiopia, and still more Eritrea, the international community faced pre-
cisely the opposite dilemma: the institutions required to impose order were
in place, and the problem lay in attuning these to the liberal requirements of
democratic choice and accountability. This goal directly confronted not only
the hierarchical structure of the highland societies that lay at the heart of gover-
nance in both countries, but the origins of the regime in each case in extremely
effective guerrilla insurgencies, which had come to power following bitter strug-
gles against the previous Ethiopian government, in a way that entrenched their
conception of their own legitimacy.11 The Eritrean regime was openly contemp-
tuous of any attempt to make it conform to global norms, and rapidly cut
itself off from external engagement. Its Ethiopian equivalent played a much
more sophisticated game, readily adopting those aspects of the global agenda
that were compatible with its own goals, and becoming a major recipient of
international development aid, while firmly rejecting those that threatened it.
At a regional level, the Ethiopian government’s success in maintaining at
least the basic elements of domestic political order through its programme of
ethnic federalism, while pursuing a very active policy of state-directed eco-
nomic development, has enabled it to establish itself as the unchallenged
hegemon, giving it further leverage against attempts to force it into compli-
ance with unwelcome external demands. An instance of this was its ability to
defy the (deeply flawed) adjudication of the boundary between Ethiopia and
Eritrea after the 1998–2000 war, which both countries and major global actors
had committed themselves in advance to respect, and which the commission
established for the purpose had sought to impose with minimal concern for the
situation on the ground.12
In conclusion, though the Horn of Africa provides a particularly (though by
no means uniquely) unconducive environment for global peacebuilding agen-
das as these have developed in the early years of the twenty-first century, it also
offers a useful perspective on how a model of peace conceived in universalistic
terms has failed to adapt to the complex and varied world to which it has had
to be applied.
Notes
1. This dynamic is superbly assessed, with particular reference to the pastoralists, in
John Markakis, Ethiopia: The Last Two Frontiers (Woodbridge: James Currey, 2011).
2. See Donald N. Levine, Wax & Gold: Tradition and Innovation in Ethiopian Culture
(Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1965), 262.
3. See Andargachew Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Revolution 1974–1987: A Transformation from
an Aristocratic to a Totalitarian Autocracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1993).
4. These are from Menilek to Iyasu in 1908–13, reversed by the overthrow of Iyasu
in 1916; from Zawditu to Haile-Selassie in 1930, when the successor was already
in effective control over the government; and from Meles Zenawi to Hailemariam
Desalegn in 2012, the permanence of which is still uncertain.
5. See Tekeste Negash and Kjetil Tronvoll, Brothers at War: Making Sense of the Eritrean–
Ethiopian War (Oxford: James Currey, 2000); Domonique Jacquin-Berdal and Martin
Plaut, eds, Unfinished Business: Ethiopia and Eritrea at War (Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press,
2004).
6. See Gaim Kibreab, ‘Forced Labour in Eritrea’, The Journal of Modern African Studies, 47,
no. 1 (2009): 41–72.
7. Such mechanisms may apply to conflict resolution within the Somali diaspora.
An anthropologist colleague reports receiving a telephone call from the homicide
police in the state of Minnesota, seeking advice on how to handle a murder within
the large Somali community in Minneapolis, following which representatives of both
the murderer’s and the victim’s clans had together gone to police headquarters, ask-
ing the police to keep out of the affair and leave its settlement to them. My friend,
who did not know the eventual outcome, recommended that they follow this advice,
despite its sharp divergence from judicial mechanisms in countries like the US.
8. See Gebru Tareke, The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2009), chapter 6.
9. See Walter S. Clarke and Jeffrey Herbst, Learning from Somalia: The Lessons of Armed
Humanitarian Intervention (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997).
10. See Christopher Clapham, ‘Peacebuilding without a State: The Somali Experience’, in
Peacebuilding, Power, and Politics in Africa, eds Devon Curtis and Gwinyayi A. Dzinesa
(Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012), 295–309.
11. For a survey of the peculiar legacies of liberation war, see Christopher Clapham,
‘From Liberation Movement to Government: Past Legacies and the Challenge of
Transition in Africa’, Johannesburg: Brenthurst Foundation Discussion Paper 8/2012.
12. See Christopher Clapham, ‘Indigenous Statehood and International Law in Ethiopia
and Eritrea’, in The 1998–2000 War between Eritrea and Ethiopia: An International Legal
Perspective, eds A. de Guttry, H. G. Post and G. Venturini (The Hague: T.M.C. Asser
Press, 2009), 159–170.
25
Peace through Retribution or
Reconciliation? Some Insights and
Evidence from South-East Asia
Sorpong Peou
Introduction
Over the last two decades or so, liberal proponents of retributive justice (defined
loosely as a form of judicial punishment through formal trials) in the West have
been on the march under the globalist banner declaring a brave battle on behalf
of those victimized by armed conflict and atrocity crime.1 Only retribution, not
reconciliation through compromise and mercy, helps end war and builds peace
in post-conflict societies. But if peacebuilding has its limits,2 we may need to
ask why. I made a case against the principle of legal retribution in states where
former mortal enemies are trapped in the insecurity dilemma.3 In recent years,
South-East Asian leaders have also learned that retribution does not help end
armed conflict or deter atrocity crime. Because of space constraints, this chapter
relies on two country case studies – Cambodia and Timor-Leste – to help shed
some light on this proposition. Some scholars provide critical perspectives on
these cases, questioning whether the liberal peace is transferrable.4 This chapter
contends that liberal peacebuilding has the potential to be more successful if
the path of political reconciliation is taken more seriously.
Peace through retribution, and a critique
Peace is usually understood as the end of war (known as negative peace), but
the concept has also been expanded to mean the absence of structural or
indirect violence (positive peace). This broad concept of peace is similar to
the newer concept of human security. The United Nations Development Pro-
gramme (UNDP)5 published a report that defines human security as ‘freedom
from fear’ and ‘freedom from want’. Individuals are secure when they enjoy
peace and are free not only from armed conflict or physical violence but also
from want or indirect/structural violence. The international community has
the responsibility to protect those who are left unprotected when facing direct
physical violence or the most serious crimes.6
336
Sorpong Peou 337
Peacebuilding and the responsibility to protect

Liberal globalists regard armed conflict as a principal source of human insecu-
rity, and advocate peacebuilding. In 2001, the International Commission on
Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), sponsored and hosted by Canada,
published The Responsibility to Protect. One major contribution the ICISS made
was to move away from general notions of humanitarian crises to armed con-
flicts, especially intrastate ones, and to establish thresholds for responsibility
to protect (R2P) implementation. As the ICISS7 puts it, ‘The most marked secu-
rity phenomenon since the end of the Cold War has been the proliferation
of armed conflict within states.’ But armed conflict is not the only source of
threat to human security. Mass atrocity crime is another. The ICISS, however,
focuses on
large-scale loss of life, actual or apprehended, with genocidal intent or not,

which is the product either of deliberate state action, or state neglect or
inability to act, or a failed state situation; or large-scale ‘ethnic cleansing’,
actual or apprehended, whether carried out by killing, forced expulsion, acts
of terror or rape.8
Security exists when armed conflict and direct physical violence end or when
peace – both negative and positive – prevails. The 2005 World Summit Out-
come Document, however, highlights the four most serious crimes as a threat
to people: war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.
But how people are secured and peace is obtained depends on the effective-
ness of policy instruments. Proponents of R2P support armed intervention,
economic sanctions, retributive justice and democracy promotion, valuing
them as effective peacebuilding tools. Peacebuilding is a dual process aimed
at preventing armed conflict from recurring and promoting peace and security
through justice, namely, working towards eliminating structural violence. Lib-
eral international lawyers strongly believe that retributive justice, carried out
by the international criminal courts and other international tribunals, is more
effective and more cost-effective than other instruments.9
The globalist logics of peace through retribution

Liberal globalists are legalistic in their normative commitment to peacebuilding
through retributive justice. Their proposition rests on a number of logics, such
as those of emotions, appropriateness, other-help through collective action,
and consequences. The logic of emotions rests on their moral conviction,
driven by the shared feeling that we belong to the human race and must be out-
raged by human suffering. The logic of other-help (as opposed to mutual help or
self-help) implies the idea of ‘saving strangers’. Regarding the logic of appropri-
ateness, they advocate the idea that stopping atrocity crime is the ‘right thing’
to do. Members of the global community (states, non-state actors and interna-
tional organizations) should thus take collective action to prosecute those who
commit atrocity crime. The globalists thus reject the idea of amnesty for crimi-
nals or reconciliation, viewing these approaches as perpetuating the culture of
impunity and violence.
The globalist logic of consequences is based on the assumption that
retributive justice works, because potential human rights violators are rational
actors.10 Proponents argue that the pursuit of retributive justice in post-conflict
societies has positive effects when assessed in terms of its ability to terminate
and de-escalate armed conflict, end mass atrocity crime, and deter such vio-
lence. Institutionally, retributive justice helps build and strengthen democracy,
the rule of law and human rights. I discuss this literature elsewhere.11
A critique of liberal globalist logics

This critique is not concerned with new regimes’ criminal prosecutions of
former regime officials.12 The principal aim here is to assess the role of inter-
national criminal courts/tribunals and their effectiveness in countries long
afflicted by war and repressive violence.
Political realists and critical scholars alike have warned against the globalist
temptation to apply the liberal logics in the context of a war- or conflict-
prone society. Critical scholars argue that transitional justice processes and
mechanisms, including trials, are problematic or inappropriate. In conflict-
prone societies, legal systems may not exist because of violent destruction or
atrocities. The formal justice sector may not be part of their legal traditions,
which may emphasize group or community identity or take other forms, such
as reparations, exhumation, proper burial of victims, and rehabilitation or
reintegration of perpetrators instead of individual accountability. As a result,
such societies tend to favour traditional forms of justice. ‘In such instances’,
as Chandra Sriram13 puts it, ‘Western-style trials may not fit the political
culture well.’
More importantly, this chapter questions the globalist logic of consequences
by making the case that retributive justice, unless carefully pursued, may pro-
duce negative or detrimental effects on conflict-prone societies. Among the
negative consequences of judicial intervention are included further chaos and
even more atrocities, instead of more peace. Jack Goldsmith and Stephen
Krasner,14 for instance, argue that criminal or retributive justice ‘can pro-
long . . . conflict, resulting in more deaths, destruction, and human suffering’
and point out that ‘a universal jurisdiction may cause more harm than the
original crime it purports to address’. Also, according to Jack Snyder and Leslie
Vinjamuri,15 prosecuting perpetrators of atrocities based on universal standards
‘risks causing more atrocities than it would prevent, because it pays insufficient
attention to political realities’. In their view, ‘When a country’s political insti-
tutions are weak, when forces of reform there have not won a decisive victory,
Sorpong Peou 339
and when political spoilers are strong, attempts to put perpetrators of atrocities
on trial are likely to increase the risk of violent conflict and further abuses.’16
The global pursuit of retribution in institutionally fragile states or Hobbesian
contexts may be ineffective because any threat of judicial punishment is likely
to be hollow.
The hypothesis advanced here rests on this assumption: seeking to punish
the ‘bad guys’ in certain extreme politico-security and institutional conditions
would be, at best, ineffective and, at worst, counterproductive or even danger-
ous. Liberal globalists’ rationalist assumptions tend to ignore a complex set of
variables (such as institutional fragilities, power relations, poor socio-economic
conditions, extreme insecurity and capacity to commit violence), all of which
question the merits of retribution.
Methodologically, it is difficult to prove whether retributive justice works to
advance peace in conflict-prone societies, because the above set of variables
is not easily subject to empirical validation, especially when prosecution is
not the only independent variable. Proponents of retributive justice run the
risk of establishing a spurious relationship between prosecution and peace,
especially when relying on a large number of cases and using quantitative
methods. In-depth case studies may be more fruitful. South-East Asia provides
such a case study: state leaders in this region seem to have learned that peace
means the absence of armed conflict and violence, but they also tend to regard
retributive justice as not the best policy instrument for conflict termination
and peacebuilding. To illustrate this point, this chapter relies on Cambodia and
Timor-Leste. They are not perfectly identical cases, but are comparable in some
key aspects: they are former European colonies, previously torn by armed con-
flict and atrocity crime, and are still prone to violence. Retributive justice has
also been pursued in these countries, whose leaders have resisted the politics of
retribution and pursued reconciliation.
Peace in Cambodia: Not through retributive justice
The global pursuit of retributive justice in Cambodia arose out of the concern
about the culture of impunity deeply rooted in repressive violence, committed
especially under the Khmer Rouge regime. This case shows that the politics of
retribution is problematic.
Armed conflict and violence

The Khmer Rouge reign of terror marks one of the most ruthless periods in
human history, and was definitely a serious threat to regional peace. The ‘killing
fields’ (following the Khmer Rouge’s military victory in 1975 and lasting until
the end of 1978) is a case of mass atrocity. For all scholars, the Khmer Rouge
regime led by Prime Minister Pol Pot committed murder against civilian pop-
ulations. For some scholars, however, especially those in the West, the mass
atrocities committed under the Pol Pot regime were associated with its racialist
ideology and its lust for power.17 Whether the killing fields represent a case of
genocide remains debatable, but the regime undoubtedly committed heinous
war crimes and crimes against humanity. The murderous regime also engaged
in a border war against Vietnam and caused the latter to invade Cambodia late
in 1978. The Vietnamese invasion ended the Khmer Rouge reign of terror but
the war continued after Vietnam withdrew its troops in 1989 and did not end
until 1998, but the Khmer Rouge movement disintegrated.18
Efforts to establish an international criminal tribunal formally began in June
1997, when the Cambodian government requested the United Nations (UN) to
proceed in a joint effort to hold Khmer Rouge leaders accountable for their past
crimes and to bring them to justice. It was not until 2003 that both sides finally
agreed on the need to establish the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of
Cambodia (ECCC), a hybrid judicial body made up of Cambodian and interna-
tional judges and prosecutors. Only Khmer Rouge leaders ‘most responsible’ for
the crimes committed from 1975 to the end of 1978, however, would be subject
to justice. The ECCC was inaugurated in July 2006.
Some progress has since been made. In June 2007, the Court began its formal
proceedings. Kaing Guek Eav (better known as Duch), the chief executioner
at the infamous Toul Sleng extermination centre, was the first to face justice:
charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and premeditated
murder, he was put on trial and accepted his personal responsibility for the
torture and death of approximately 15,000 people. He was sentenced to life
imprisonment. In December 2009, the ECCC issued for the first time additional
genocide charges against Khieu Samphan (the Khmer Rouge’s former head of
state), Nuon Chea (78 years old, known as Brother Number Two, second only
to Pol Pot) and Ieng Sary (former Khmer Rouge minister of foreign affairs).
By August 2014, after eight years and at a cost of more than $200 million, three
Khmer Rouge leaders had been sentenced to life imprisonment (Kaing Guek Eav
for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions
of 1940; Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea for their crimes against humanity).
The punishment definitely more than fitted the most serious crimes the regime
under their leadership committed, but it is unclear whether the trials have
helped to end the armed conflict and build peace.
Peace through retributive justice?

On the surface, the pursuit of retributive justice looks as though it helped to end
the war. In June 1997, the two co-prime ministers had submitted a joint request
to the UN for assistance (in their effort to bring Khmer Rouge leaders to justice).
But their joint effort did not result in peace either. In July 1997, Hun Sen staged
a violent coup that led to the overthrow of Prince Ranariddh, and an armed
conflict between the two parties broke out. Although the warring parties agreed
Sorpong Peou 341
to participate in a parliamentary election in 1998, the new peace process did

not result from any pursuit of retributive justice. Moreover, peace resulted from
the disintegration of the Khmer Rouge’s armed rebellion, especially after Pol
Pot’s death in April 1998. One reason for these positive developments was that
the government used an effective strategy to divide the Khmer Rouge leadership
by granting an amnesty to Ieng Sary. The Khmer Rouge leadership’s infighting
then intensified and led to the arrest of Pol Pot by his ‘defence minister’ Ta Mok
(who then put him on show ‘trial’) and his death.
Another problem with global legalism lies in the questionable assumption
that the Khmer Rouge trials are likely to have specific and general deterrent
effects on armed conflict and repressive violence. The Khmer Rouge leaders
were unlikely to commit any of the crimes they committed from 1975 to
1978. Their armed movement had disintegrated, and they were too weak to
fight their way back to power and commit more crimes. They were advanced
in age and enjoyed no external support. The atrocities they committed from
1975 to 1978 also resulted from multiple factors that no longer exist, includ-
ing their radical ideology (based on a Maoism that glorifies violence), severe
institutional breakdowns and the policy of self-isolation that allowed the
regime to commit atrocities at will.19 The regime in Phnom Penh is unlikely
to commit mass atrocities either, for various reasons. Hun Sen is not an
ideologue or a radical leader. Cambodia has, since the early 1990s, been a
member of international organizations and has maintained generally positive
relations with its neighbours. The international community has been support-
ive of the Cambodian regime. Between 1998 and 2013, the total amount of
international aid Cambodia received amounted to more than US$10 billion.
Most importantly, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has become far more
institutionalized than any other party.
The argument that retributive justice has made Cambodia more democratic
and respectful of human rights also receives little empirical support. The work
of the ECCC has not met the high expectations of its advocates. The country
has now become more authoritarian. Soon after the government had requested
the UN for advice on how to pursue legal action against Khmer Rouge leaders,
Hun Sen not only staged a coup against his co-premier but also consolidated
power at the expense of democracy. Cambodia has since drifted towards a
hegemonic-party system. The parliamentary election results between 1998 and
2008 allowed the CPP to win more and more seats in the National Assem-
bly. The CPP lost a lot of seats in the 2013 parliamentary election, but then
stepped up its efforts to maintain power. Violence was used to crack down on
the opposition. Members of the CPP, especially powerful allies of Hun Sen, have
controlled the Senate. The CPP has maintained a monopoly of power over the
communes across the country, and has also dominated the armed forces and
the court system. Under the perceived threat of retribution, the CPP leadership
is unlikely to give up power for democracy. Meanwhile, the government has

sought to close the UN Human Rights Office in Cambodia and has made it dif-
ficult for human rights workers to do their work. The human rights situation
has not really improved, as was evident after the 2013 elections. If the human
rights situation has not returned to where it used to be, it is far from clear
that the ECCC per se is what has deterred further violence. Other independent
or interdependent variables such as political stability, economic growth, inter-
national support for democratic institution building and regional engagement
(instead of radicalism and national isolation or autarky) have mitigated security
politics in Cambodia.
Resistance to retributive justice

Cambodian leaders have viewed international intervention in a positive light,
but they have also resisted the idea of retributive justice. Hun Sen repeatedly
rejected any idea of bringing more Khmer Rouge officials (in addition to the
few already in custody) to justice, seeing this move as having the potential to
give rise to civil war.20 In October 2010, he also told the UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon that he would not allow the ECCC to try other former Khmer
Rouge officials not in custody, reiterating his concern that such an effort would
plunge the country back into civil war.21
Hun Sen’s position may have been self-serving (since he is a former Khmer
Rouge commander), but it is reasonable to conclude that he understood the
security dynamics of Cambodian politics better than those who would not
have to bear the direct consequences of retributive politics. There is also no
reason to believe that Hun Sen did not want to see all of his former enemies
punished (although in the early 1980s, his regime tried Khmer Rouge leaders
in absentia; in 1997, his government requested the UN to help bring them to
justice), but he subsequently became a ‘pragmatist realist’ who understood the
limits of retribution in a country prone to violent conflict. And he was not the
only one who resisted retribution. Early in November 2010, for instance, For-
eign Minister Hor Namhong told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (during
her first visit to Cambodia) that an aggressive move to bring more Khmer Rouge
members to justice would jeopardize peace and stability.22 If more legal action is
taken to get the International Criminal Court to prosecute Hun Sen,23 resistance
to retributive justice is thus likely to become stronger. The concerns expressed
by Cambodian leaders were not new, however. As an academic, I critiqued the
politics of retribution in institutionally weak states, particularly Cambodia.24
The degree to which Cambodia’s judicial and legal system has been strength-
ened as the result of this judicial intervention remains to be seen, but there is
no strong evidence suggesting that the country’s judicial and legal institutions
have become less politicized, or that the Hun Sen regime has become more
reluctant to crack down on challenges to its power.
Sorpong Peou 343
Peace in Timor-Leste: Not through retributive justice either
Timor-Leste (formerly East Timor) has become more peaceful in recent years,
but this positive development cannot be explained in terms of liberal globalist
logistic alone. Nor can post-independence violent conflict be explained by lack
of retributive justice.
Armed conflict, violence and formal justice

The Portuguese colonized East Timor in the nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
turies, and the territory did not gain independence until Portugal abandoned
its colonial rule early in 1975. The Indonesian military invaded the territory
later that year, annexed it and committed atrocities. Armed conflict and crime
against East Timorese did not end when Indonesian President B. J. Habibie
reversed the hardline policy of his predecessor, President Suharto, announcing
in January 1999 that his government would let the East Timorese determine
their political future in a referendum. During the summer of 1999, Indonesian
soldiers and militias drove between 400,000 and 600,000 villagers out of their
homes. Threats to the security of Timorese people did not end after 98.5 per
cent of those who cast their votes on 30 August 1999 favoured independence.
Early in the following month, Indonesian forces and pro-Indonesia militia
fighters waged a violent campaign, killing more than 1,000 civilians, driving
more than 250,000 others into Indonesia’s West Timor, and destroying up to
70 per cent of buildings and roads in East Timor.
International efforts were then made to bring justice to the people of East
Timor. In 2000, a new set of justice mechanisms – comprising the Special
Panels for Serious Crimes (SPSC) within the District Court of Dili and in the
Court of Appeal, the Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) and the Defense Lawyer Unit –
was established by the United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor
(UNTAET). The purpose of the Serious Crimes Process was to investigate and
prosecute those who had committed crimes between 1 January and 25 October
1999. UNTAET was entrusted by the UN Security Council with the authority ‘to
exercise all legislative and executive authority, including the administration of
justice’. In 2001, UNTAET also created a Commission for Reception, Truth, and
Reconciliation (CAVR), whose task was to investigate human rights violations
committed between April 1974 and 25 October 1999. The Commission worked
to facilitate reconciliation with justice involving those who had committed
less serious offences, but it was not able to grant any amnesty. Its final report
provides evidence of systematic human rights violations under Indonesian
rule, which contributed to the deaths of between 100,000 and 180,000 East
Timorese. Another ad hoc court, the Human Rights Court on East Timor, was
also created in 2000 by the Indonesian government to ensure that military and
civilian leaders would be held accountable for human rights violations.
The limits and dangers of retribution

The hybrid tribunal accomplished little and made no significant impact on
peace in Timor-Leste. Justice has been denied (Human Rights Watch, 2002).25
The SPSC functioned poorly. According to Sergey Vasiliev,26 ‘the SPSC was at
all times an “orphan” in the family of international criminal courts’. By the
time the Serious Crimes process ended in May 2005, the SCU had indicted
392 individuals in 95 indictments. Among the indictees were General Wiranto,
Indonesia’s former minister of defence and commander of the armed forces.
According to Elizabeth Stanley,27 however, only crimes that occurred in 1999
were targeted, and most of those who were convicted were small fish Timorese
rather than high-ranking members of the Indonesian military.
Legal globalists could argue that the lack of justice contributed to armed
clashes and other forms of violence after independence. Armed attacks by pro-
Indonesia militia broke out again in 2003, when half a dozen small groups of
men from West Timor with extensive military training attempted to infiltrate
East Timor, where they also killed villagers. In 2006, Timor-Leste fell back into
violence, when riots and armed clashes in Dili threatening civil war erupted in
April and May. A series of violent episodes left ten unarmed police officers and
25 people dead, and displaced 150,000 residents in Dili.
While it sounds persuasive on the surface, the liberal argument has difficulty
establishing a positive relationship between retributive justice and peace from
2007 to 2014, when the security situation improved amidst political rivalry:
there have been no reports on serious violent incidents (similar to those in
2003, 2004 and 2006).
Evidence shows that the violence from 2003 to 2006 had little to do with
the lack of retributive justice, and this form of justice may even have yielded
negative results. The 2006 rioting and armed clashes resulted from the firing of
600 Timor-Leste Defence Force (F-FDTL) troops, frustration over rampant cor-
ruption and high levels of unemployment, not from the actions of those who
had committed crimes up until the end of 1999. Socio-economic conditions
remained poor, and the international community as well as the government
of Timor-Leste failed to meet the welfare requirements of the East Timorese
(Richmond and Franks, 2008, pp. 196–197).28 In 2002, between 85 and 90 per
cent of urban adults were unemployed. In the late 2000s, the unemployment
rate remained around 50 per cent. In 2006, about 40 per cent of the population
lived under the poverty line.29
A more rigorous pursuit of retribution would have exacerbated tensions. Just
months after the 2005 CAVR report was released, for instance, the country slid
back into anarchy, driven by a series of incidents that led to widespread rioting
and armed clashes in 2006. Tension resumed in October 2006, when the UN
published the report of its Special Commission of Inquiry for East Timor, which
blamed Prime Minister Alkatiri for the violent uprising and for his government’s
Sorpong Peou 345
failure to prevent the transfer of weapons to civilians, implicated the former

interior and defence ministers, and called for prosecution of those responsible
for activities leading to the 2006 uprising.
Today, there are still thousands of Timorese refugees living in the Indonesian
province of West Timor, where they fled from the 1999 violence. They did not
return to East Timor for various security concerns, including the status of for-
mer militia members who did not want to face justice.30 According to Freedom
House,31 ‘The status and reintegration of the thousands of Timorese refugees
living in the Indonesian province of West Timor . . . remained unresolved in
2013.’
Explaining peace after 2006

If it does not explain the violent incidents of 2003, 2004 and 2006, the lack of
retributive justice also cannot explain why there has been no such violence
since then. Timorese leaders believe that relative peace through democracy
building results from reconciliation. Their wisdom in resisting retributive jus-
tice can be partly found in the enduring influence of customary belief systems
and dispute resolution practices within their society.32
The two best-known political leaders in the country – Jose Ramos Horta and
Xanana Gusmão – have been in line with the political approach to the rule
of law. After 2006, they put most emphasis on reconciliation rather than jus-
tice and accountability. They regarded reconciliation as yielding more positive
results than punitive justice, and did not see reconciliation as antithetical to
the notion of political democracy.33
This does not suggest that Timorese leaders disliked retribution, but that they
(like Hun Sen) were also pragmatists who understood the limits of retribution.
In March 2005, the leaders of Timor-Leste and Indonesia took their cue from
Jose Ramos Horta by creating the Commission of Truth and Friendship, whose
aim was only to investigate past crimes – not to prosecute the perpetrators –
and to recommend amnesties for perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against
humanity. According to Megan Hirst, there was ‘too much friendship, too little
truth’, as the Timorese leadership ‘prioritized good relations with its neighbor
Indonesia over the pursuit of justice’.34 When Amnesty International called on
the UN Security Council in August 2009 to establish an independent criminal
tribunal, Timor-Leste and Indonesia rejected the idea. However, the two states
are at peace with each other, and they have even become more democratic than
Cambodia, where top Khmer Rouge leaders have been tried and punished.35
Conclusion
Liberal globalists make a case for retributive justice, and some go so far as to
demonize alternative methods of peacebuilding, thus leaving no room for any
doubt about the effectiveness of their legalistic approach. This chapter, how-
ever, shows that South-East Asians in general, and politicians in Cambodia
and Timor-Leste in particular, faced the same liberal temptation when seek-
ing to build peace: they tended to see retributive justice as one of the most
potent panaceas for war and violence. But, once in leadership positions, they
have ended up resisting this liberal strategy for peacebuilding. They have
learned from experience that the road to peace rests on the wisdom of political
reconciliation through compromise and the liberal idea of democracy.
Although it is difficult to prove that democracy through reconciliation yields
better results than retributive justice, enough evidence suggests that retribution
proves to be an ineffectual or even a dangerous tool when executed in conflict-
prone societies where formal institutions are extremely weak, and former foes
distrust each other and have the ability to inflict harm on each other. Cambodia
and Timor-Leste clearly show that democracy through elite reconciliation and
compromise appears to have positive effects: the trials of Khmer Rouge lead-
ers have not made Cambodia more democratic, whereas the absence of such
high-level trials has not prevented Timor-Leste and Indonesia from being more
democratic than Cambodia. This does not mean that retributive justice should
be abandoned, or that formal justice institutions should not be built. The point
is that retribution is possible, and may have a positive impact on the state
and society when perpetrators are first defeated and disarmed. Still, retributive
justice should be pursued judiciously, especially when the threat of judicial
punishment from toothless international organizations not only lacks credibil-
ity but also reinforces perpetrators’ desire to hold on to power at all costs and
puts peace in jeopardy.
The pursuit of retribution before institutionalization36 may also prevent the
latter from advancing, especially when perpetrators can still do much to thwart
institution building. If pursued simultaneously, retribution and reconciliation
may even produce undesirable outcomes, largely because neither victims nor
perpetrators are likely to get what they want. When faced with the prospect
of judicial punishment, perpetrators are likely to show no remorse, and are
unlikely to admit guilt or give up power voluntarily, or may be unwilling to
pay their victims any compensation. As a result, the victims are unlikely to
reduce their retributive appetites, but are forced to live with their painful past.
In the case of the Czech Republic,37 perpetrators were the target of justice, but
they showed no remorse and held on to higher socio-economic positions.
Thus, liberal peacebuilding in conflict-prone states or societies is a process
with great potential, but surrounded by danger. When it becomes the only lens
through which we see the world and the only way we seek solutions for prob-
lems, the appetite for justice through retribution often leads insecure people –
including ourselves – to do foolish things. What the US has done in Afghanistan
and Iraq after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 helps illustrate the point.38 There
Sorpong Peou 347
is no future for our world without compromise, forgiveness39 and effective

institution-building efforts, which also depend on prosperity and sustainable
socio-economic development.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my sincere thanks for the critical comments anony-
mously provided. They helped me make my arguments clearer and stronger.
Notes
1. Sorpong Peou, ‘Mass Atrocities under the Khmer Rouge Reign of Terror’, in State Vio-
lence in Asia, eds N. Ganesan and Sung Chull Kim (Lexington, KY: University Press of
Kentucky, 2013); Sorpong Peou, ‘The Limits and Potential of Liberal Peacebuilding’,
Asian Journal of Peacebuilding 2, no. 1 (2014): 37–60.
2. Roland Paris, At War’s End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004); Barnett et al., ‘Peacebuilding: What Is in a Name?’ Global
Governance 13, no. 1 (2007): 35–58.
3. Sorpong Peou, Neutralization in the Cambodia War: From Battlefield to Ballot-Box (Kuala
Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1997).
4. Oliver Richmond and Jason Franks, ‘Liberal Hubris? Virtual Peace in Cambodia’, Secu-
rity Dialogue 38, no. 1 (2007): 27–48; Oliver Richmond and Jason Franks, ‘Liberal
Peacebuilding in Timor-Leste: The Emperor’s New Clothes’, International Peacekeeping
15, no. 2 (2008): 185–200.
5. UNDP, Timor-Leste Human Development Report 2006: The Path out of Poverty (Dili:
January 2006).
6. Sorpong Peou, Human Security Studies: Theories, Methods and Themes (Singapore and
Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific, 2014).
7. ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention
and State Sovereignty (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001), 4.
8. ICISS, ‘The Responsibility to Protect’, xii.
9. Peou, Human Security Studies.
10. Hun Joon Kim and Kathryn Sikkink, ‘How Do Human Rights Prosecutions Improve
Human Rights after Transition?’ Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Rights Law 7, no. 1
(2012–2013): 69–90.
11. Peou, Human Security Studies.
12. Hun J. Kim, ‘Structural Determinants of Human Rights Prosecutions after Democratic
Transition’, Journal of Peace Research 49, no. 2 (2012): 305–320.
13. Chandra Lekha Sriram, ‘Transitional Justice and the Liberal Peace’, in New Perspectives
on Liberal Peacebuilding, eds Edward Newman, Roland Paris and Oliver Richmond
(Tokyo and Paris: United Nations University Press, 2009), 122.
14. Jack Goldsmith and Stephen D. Krasner, ‘The Limits of Idealism’, Daedalus 132,
no. 47 (2003): 51.
15. Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri, ‘Trials and Errors: Principle and Pragmatism in
Strategies of International Justice’, International Security 28, no. 3 (2003/04): 5.
16. Ibid., 15.
17. Peou, ‘Mass Atrocities under the Khmer Rouge Reign of Terror’.
18. Sorpong Peou, International Democracy Assistance for Peacebuilding: Cambodia and
beyond (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
19. Peou, ‘Mass Atrocities under the Khmer Rouge Reign of Terror’.
20. Vannarin Neou and Douglas J. Gillison, ‘Hun Sen again Warns ECCC of Civil War’,
Cambodia Daily (8 September 2009).
21. Sokha Cheang and James O’Toole, ‘Hun Sen to Ban Ki-moon: Case 002 Last Trial
at ECCC’, Phnom Penh Post, 27 October 2010, http://www.phnompenhpost.com/
national/hun-sen-ban-ki-moon-case-002-last-trial-eccc, accessed 25 June 2014.
22. Ibid.
23. Radio Free Asia, ‘Cambodian PM Hun Sen Faces ICC Complaints for Human
Rights Abuses’, 20 March 2014, http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/icc-
03202014213755.html, accessed 25 June 2014.
24. Peou, Neutralization in the Cambodia War.
25. Human Rights Watch, ‘Justice Denied for East Timor’, 20 December 2002, http:
//www.hrw.org/reports/2002/12/20/justice-denied-east-timor, accessed 20 March
2013.
26. Sergey Vasiliev, ‘Cure Worse than Disease? Comments on Four Final Decisions of the
Court of Appeal East Timor Concerning Serious Crimes’, 2008, 54, http://papers.ssrn.
com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id= 1718572, accessed 23 March 2013.
27. Elizabeth Stanley, Torture, Truth and Justice: The Case of Timor-Leste (London:
Routledge, 2009).
28. Richmond and Franks, ‘Liberal Peacebuilding in Timor-Leste: The Emperor’s New
Clothes’.
29. UNDP, Timor-Leste Human Development Report 2006.
30. Catherine Jenkins, ‘A Truth Commission for East Timor: Lessons from South Africa?’
Journal of Conflict and Security Law 7, no. 2 (2002): 249.
31. Freedom House (2014) ‘Freedom in the World 2014: East Timor’, https://
freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2014/east-timor-0#.VF5TK_nF8fY, accessed
5 November 2014.
32. Eva Ottendorfer, ‘Contesting International Norms of Transitional Justice: The Case
of Timor-Leste’, International Journal of Conflict and Violence 7, no. 1 (2013): 23–35;
Deborah Cummins and Michael Leach, ‘Democracy Old and New: The Interaction
of Modern and Traditional Authority in East Timorese Local Government’, Asian Pol-
itics and Policy 4, no. 1 (2102): 89–104; Lia Kent, ‘Integrating the “Gap” between Law
and Justice: East Timor’s Serious Crimes Process’, Human Rights Quarterly 34, no. 4
(2012): 1021–1044; Andrew Marriot, ‘Legal Professionals in Development: Timor-
Leste’s Legislative Experiment: Analysis’, Conflict, Security & Development 9, no. 2
(2009): 239–263; Padraig McAuliffe, ‘East Timor’s Community Reconciliation Process
as a Model for Legal Pluralism in Criminal Justice’, The Electronic Law Journals Project
12, no. 2 (2008): 1–22; Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Indigenous Peace-Making versus the Lib-
eral Peace’, Cooperation and Conflict 43, no. 2 (2008): 139–163; Dionisio Babo-Soares,
‘Nahe Biti: The Philosophy and Process of Grassroots Reconciliation (and Justice) in
East Timor’, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 5, no. 1 (2004): 15–33.
33. Laura Grenfell, ‘Promoting the Rule of Law in Timor-Leste’, in Security, Development
and Nation-Building in Timor-Leste, eds Vandra Harris and Andrew Goldsmith (London
& New York: Routledge, 2011), 132.
34. Megan Hirst, Too Much Friendship, Too Little Truth: Monitoring Report on the Commis-
sion of Truth and Friendship in Indonesia and Timor-Leste (New York, NY: International
Centre for Transitional Justice, January 2008), 1.
Sorpong Peou 349
35. Sorpong Peou, ‘Democratization and Human Rights in Southeast Asia’, in The
Routledge Handbook of Southeast Asian Democratization, ed. William Case (UK:
Routledge, 2014).
36. Roland Paris, At War’s End.
37. Roman David and Susanne Y. P. Choi, ‘Getting Even or Getting Equal? Retributive
Desires and Transitional Justice’, Political Psychology 30, no. 2 (2009): 161–192.
38. David Rothkopf, National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear (New York:
Public Affairs, 2014).
39. John D. Inazu, ‘No Future without (Personal) Forgiveness: Reexamining the Role of
Forgiveness in Transitional Justice’, Human Rights Review 10, no. 3 (2009): 309–326.
26
East Asia: Understanding the Broken
Harmony in Confucian Asia
Ching-Chang Chen
Introduction
East Asia is often seen as a region where international relations is still char-
acterized by severe security competition. The sovereignty dispute over the
Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, administrated by Japan but also claimed by China, has
been one of the regional flashpoints involving competition for fishery resources
and potential oil reserves. In September 2010, a Chinese trawler collided with a
Japan Coast Guard patrol boat in waters near the contested islands, and Beijing
allegedly delayed the export of rare earth metals to Japan. Tensions continued
to build up, especially after the Japanese government bought the Senkakus from
their private landlord in September 2012. This move triggered a series of large-
scale anti-Japanese demonstrations in major Chinese cities, a slump in Japanese
exports to China and in Chinese tourists to Japan, and frequent appearance of
Chinese patrol vessels and aircraft in the surrounding waters and airspace.
Against the background of this ongoing dispute between the world’s second
and third largest national economies, which has immense ramifications for
peace and prosperity within East Asia and beyond, it is all the more important
to ask how the notion of peace has been conceived in East Asian societies and
the ways used to obtain it. Here, the pursuit of harmony offers us a helpful start-
ing point to engage with this question. In the East Asian context, it is widely
known that the Japanese tend to avoid confrontational issues and behaviour
that may offend their counterparts. The Chinese likewise emphasize that har-
mony is the most precious (he wei qui). The inclination to promote harmony
cannot be fully understood without looking at a unique Confucian cosmology,
Surnames precede given names for all East Asian individuals in the main text.
350
Ching-Chang Chen 351
which assumes a non-dualistic, holistic cosmos in which heaven (tian), earth

(di) and human (ren) together constitute a continuous and integrated whole.1
The unity of the heaven and human (tianren he yi) represents an important ideal
of such a cosmology, and it helps to explain why Confucianism accords onto-
logical significance to relations. Rather than holding that pre-existing things are
connected through various relations, this perspective views relations as some-
thing not exogenous to being but intrinsic to it. Relations, then, are not just
about some mechanical, observable processes connecting causes and effects.
Relations are also intersubjective connections in which things are believed to
be mutually responsive, and together they form an all-encompassing tianxia
(literally, all under heaven) or world order.
This kind of intersubjective reciprocity is not limited to the relationship
between humans and the natural world, but is also applicable to relations
among humans as well as their societies. In five foundational relationships
(ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger brother,
and friend and friend), Confucius stressed the importance of positive mutual
responsiveness: good government and social harmony are achieved ‘when the
prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the
son is son’.2 Indeed, an original meaning of the Chinese character he (harmony)
refers to ‘responding to one another’,3 and that same character constitutes
the word ‘peace’ in both Chinese (heping) and Japanese (heiwa). As such, this
Confucian conception of peace holds that harmony is inherently immanent
and can be brought about by human agency. In search for harmony and a way
out of conflict, individuals and groups should look no further than themselves
by exercising their faculties to empathize with the other (shu). Shu is therefore
inseparable from self-reflection. As Mencius put it, ‘if others do not respond to
your love with love, look into your own benevolence; if others fail to respond
to your attempts to govern them with order, look into your own wisdom; if
others do not return your courtesy, look into your own respect’.4 Putting one-
self in the other’s place is so crucial that another disciple of Confucius, Tseng
Tzu, considered it, together with zhong (doing one’s utmost), as the way of his
Master.5 As far as mediation and conflict resolution are concerned, the method
of shu presupposes that one possesses the potential to understand the thinking,
feeling and desire of others, which helps to establish an intersubjective and
reciprocal relationship of mutual understanding and mutual trust that paves
the way to a harmonious world.
This chapter examines the roots of the Sino-Japanese territorial conflict by
looking at how a largely harmonious relationship between them began to
collapse over the fate of the Ryukyu Kingdom during the 1870s. It does so
from the perspective of the aforementioned cosmology sustained by sophis-
ticated institutions underpinning pre-modern East Asian international soci-
ety. Unlike the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) assertive behaviour over
the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands today, the Qing dynasty did not resort to any
military force (or threaten to do so) against Japan’s incremental incorpora-
tion of Ryukyu, which was eventually turned into Okinawa Prefecture in
1879. How can we make sense of China’s response, then, especially the
absence of compellence in Chinese strategic behaviour?6 One might argue that
compellence was simply not a credible policy for the declining Qing to adopt
in its dealings with a modernizing Japan. The mainstream scholarly works on
Chinese strategic culture similarly maintain that the pacifist rhetoric and the
principle of minimal use of force were no more than a temporary measure
to compensate for China’s material inferiority.7 Furthermore, in contemporary
Chinese nationalist discourse, the ‘failure to act’ is attributable to the corrup-
tion and incompetence of late Qing leaders, who were unable to comprehend
the perils China was facing in the age of imperialism.8 While China’s lack of
hard power at that time did limit the Qing court’s ability to effectively respond
to the fait accompli in Okinawa, as will be shown later, material constraints
(military capabilities) or strategic ignorance (having no knowledge of ‘realism’)
alone are not strong explanations, and together do not make China’s restraints
more intelligible to us.
Careful inquiry into Sino-Japanese diplomatic history suggests that Qing
officials such as Li Hongzhang were not unaware of the consequences of
their approach to the dispute, which includes not exploiting Japan’s weak-
ness during the Satsuma Rebellion (1877) and not acquiring the southern parts
of Okinawa, as offered by Japanese negotiators following the US mediation
(1879–80). Rather than following the logic of consequences, which considers
action in terms of the anticipated costs and benefits, opponents of the par-
tition of Ryukyu (hence ‘losing’ it to Japan altogether) were mostly informed
by a logic of appropriateness, concerning whether their actions were considered
legitimate (that is, compatible with shu) in the tribute system. As a foundational
institution of East Asian international society, the tribute system emphasized a
formal hierarchy among its members. Within this hierarchical order, China usu-
ally sat highest, and subordinate states were ranked by their proficiency with
Confucian norms, values and practices, not by their relative power (including
territorial possessions). But the emphasis on li shang wanglai (propriety values
reciprocity) also means that the legitimacy of this hierarchy entailed a credi-
ble commitment on the part of the dominant state to cherish, not to exploit,
the secondary states.9 Employing compellence against Japan over Ryukyu or
dividing up the islands with Japan, however, would have disrupted the existing
hierarchical yet harmonious order and called into question China’s leadership
position as the imagined centre of the tianxia and its assumed moral superiority.
Seen in this light, the Qing dynasty’s ‘loss’ of Ryukyu was not so much a ‘failure
to act’ as its misplaced expectation that the Meiji government would eventually
return to the way of shu and reciprocate its benevolence. Unfortunately, by the
early 1880s, positive mutual responsiveness was nowhere to be found between

Japan and China. Nor was harmony in East Asia.
The remainder of this chapter is divided into three sections. The first section
sketches out the constitutional structures and institutions of East Asian inter-
national society before the arrival of the Western powers, examining how they
worked to preserve regional peace. Using primary Chinese sources, the second
section retraces how Qing officials had debated various options and how Li’s
appeal to shu that China’s reaction should not ‘start with a just cause but end
up with satisfying self-interest’ (yishi lizhong) prevailed. The concluding section
discusses the implications of this analysis for understanding the current Sino-
Japanese territorial conflict as well as the limits and potential of the Confucian
approach to addressing such a conflict.
Harmony and East Asian international society
The term ‘East Asian international society’ is consciously employed through-

out this chapter to avoid the implication that only Europeans were capable of
addressing the anarchy problem, while East Asians were not. Considering that
there were only two major wars in this region, from the founding of the Ming
dynasty (1368) to the Opium War (1839–42), indeed, it is unconvincing that
East Asian polities managed to maintain their ‘long peace’ without resorting
to any sophisticated institutions but chance, or that the impressive stability
simply reflected the power asymmetry between China and its neighbours.10
As Suzuki Shogo has indicated, the constitutional structures of East Asian
international society involve three normative dimensions: the ‘moral purpose
of the state’ (the reasons for establishing a political entity to serve the common
good), the ‘organising principle of sovereignty’ (which legitimizes the entity’s
possession of sovereignty), and the ‘norm of procedural justice’ (the implemen-
tation of the above principles must also follow certain procedures).11 In the case
of European international society, a legitimate state was expected to enable
its citizens to pursue their individual happiness and achieve their potential.
As a result, the state’s internal affairs were to be free from foreign intervention
so long as it commanded popular support. The principle of sovereign equal-
ity, in turn, was safeguarded through legislation (that is, legislative justice)
and embodied in institutions such as positive international law and diplo-
macy. By contrast, the ‘moral purpose of the state’ in East Asian international
society was to promote social and cosmic harmony. Such harmony was main-
tained when member states could conform to their ‘rightful’ positions within
this hierarchical society. The principle of sovereign hierarchy meant that states
(both suzerains and vassals) had to perform appropriate Confucian rituals to
acknowledge their relative positions (that is, ritual justice) if their legitimacy
was to be respected, which led to the creation of the tribute system as the
fundamental institution. Paying tribute to the suzerain, then, was more than a
bribe to ‘buy’ security; the participating states’ identities (and hence their inter-
ests) were inevitably shaped by their entering into tributary relations.12 Three
interrelated points follow the above discussion. First, in principle, it was possi-
ble for a foreign people (yi or ‘barbarians’) to become a member of East Asian
international society or even part of the ‘middle kingdom’ or virtuous state
(hwa), provided that they participated in the totality of Confucian civilization –
food, dress, language, rituals and so on – beyond their symbolic participation in
tributary protocol. Second, while member states competed for the highest pos-
sible positions in the society, a state would run the risk of being ‘downgraded’
or even losing its membership should it fail to perform the necessary rituals
pertinent to its place in the hierarchical order. Third, although China normally
took on the role of the ‘middle kingdom’ at the apex of that order, it was also
possible for other states to assert their ‘superior’ moral status and demonstrate
their ability to promote social harmony by constructing their own alternative,
non-Sinocentric tribute system.13
What was the underlying logic that informed the functioning of East Asian
international society? ‘Civilization’ seems to be a useful keyword here. Accord-
ing to D. R. Howland, Chinese conceptions of civilization consisted of three
elements.14 First, wenming literally meant a desired state of human society made
luminous (ming) through writing or ‘patterning’ (wen); when all was in har-
mony in the world, there was no need to resort to military subjugation (wugong)
and the world was wenming. This ideal stage was possible because of the high-
est virtue exhibited by the emperor (‘Son of Heaven’, who was supposed to
have direct access to the will of the heavenly bodies) following the examples
provided by history and the classics. Second, to the extent that a man could pat-
tern his behaviour in accordance with the expectations of the Confucian texts,
submitting to his rightful lord (jun) in particular (for example, ruler–servant,
father–son and so on), he too was wenming or ‘civilizing’. Civilization, then,
ultimately signified a ‘spatially expansive and ideologically infinite’ process of
Chinese imperial lordship.15 Third, based on the idea of proximity (jin) that
connects space to morality, humankind would approximate moral behaviour
in proportion to their proximity to the emperor, whose benevolent rule could
bring the people close and cherish them. Accordingly, a concentric and hierar-
chical world order emerged with the emperor at the centre. Tributary relations
thus represented an act of reciprocity through which outsiders accepted the
nominal lordship of the Son of Heaven and his calendar; on the other hand,
the foreign lord received Chinese investiture as legitimate ruler of his domain.
China’s response to Japan’s incorporation of Ryukyu during the 1870s cannot
be adequately analysed without understanding the aforementioned norms and
institutions. As Hamashita Takeshi has noted, it would be remiss if one were to
assume too readily that East Asian international society collapsed completely
soon after the intrusion of the Western powers. Rather, ‘it is conceivably more
acceptable to view it as a demise that was caused by internal change within
the tribute system itself’.16 From this perspective, the extinguishment of the
Ryukyu Kingdom can be seen as a first step of such internal change embodied
in the breakdown of intersubjective reciprocity among the members. The next
section will illustrate this change, which led to rising Sino-Japanese rivalry in
the following decades.
How harmony was broken
With the arrival of the Western powers and Japan’s decision to be recognized as
a member of European international society for the sake of its survival, the exis-
tence of tributary states in East Asia following ritualistic, hierarchical Confucian
norms also became increasingly hard to tolerate in the eyes of the Meiji leaders
and intellectuals alike. Now, ritualistic procedural norms of the East were to be
replaced by legal procedural norms of the West. As a result, tributary states had
to either turn themselves into sovereign independent states or be absorbed by
such sovereign entities. In 1872, the Ryukyu King Sho Tai received investiture
as ‘lord of the Ryukyu fief’, and the kingdom’s treaty and diplomatic matters
were henceforth taken over by Japan’s foreign ministry. This was followed by
Japan’s success in getting China to admit that the former’s 1874 expedition to
punish ‘Taiwanese savages’ was a ‘just act’ to redress the murdering of Japanese
citizens.17 Then, in 1875, the kingdom was prohibited from sending tributary
envoys to, and receiving investiture from, China, its trading mission in Fuzhou
was abolished, and the islands came under the administration of Japan’s home
ministry.
The crisis escalated into a Sino-Japanese diplomatic dispute after Chinese
officials received petitions from Ryukyuan secret envoys in 1877. Seen from
their memorials to the court, it is clear that these officials were not ignorant of
the geostrategic implications of the demise of this tributary state or incapable
of formulating ‘realist’ policy options. Viceroy of Fujian-Zhejiang and Fuzhou
general, He Jing, for instance, did not consider Ryukyu in itself crucial to the
defence of China’s periphery, but he was aware of the consequences of fail-
ing to protect the islands from foreign intrusions. He thus suggested that the
Qing court should take advantage of the Satsuma Rebellion and apply diplo-
matic pressure on the Meiji government to deal with the dispute in accord with
international law.18 Diplomat Huang Zunxian likewise warned that tolerating
Japan at that time amounted to ‘feeding a tiger which China can no longer rein
in’: ‘given Liuqiu’s proximity to Taiwan, it would not be possible to maintain
even one peaceful night in Taiwan and Penghu should Japan establish exclusive
control over Liuqiu, turn it into a prefecture, train its soldiers and arm them to
harass China’s periphery’.19
The Chinese minister to Japan, He Ruzhang, predicted that the Japanese

would not only prevent Ryukyu from sending tribute but also seek to elimi-
nate the kingdom, and after that they would turn to Korea. To pre-empt Japan’s
expansion, He presented three options to the court. His first and best solution
was to despatch warships to demand Ryukyu’s resumption of tribute missions
while negotiating with Japan. The second was that, when persuasion failed,
China could support Ryukyu’s armed resistance with auxiliary troops should
Japan use force against the Ryukyuans. The third resorted to international
law, inviting Western diplomats to condemn the Japanese government.20 He
Ruzhang admitted that China was not in good shape to use force, but he still
recommended the first two options, as ‘Japan’s recent situation [the Satsuma
Rebellion] was even worse than ours’.21 Although the Zongliyamen’s (Interna-
tional Office’s) subsequent decision not to engage in coercive diplomacy against
Japan could not be separated from China’s concurrent dispute with Russia in
Xinjiang, concerns over the north-western border were not the only reason for
the Qing’s foregoing of this rare ‘window of opportunity’; indeed, they might
not even have been the strongest one. Viceroy of Zhili and minister of Beiyang,
Li Hongzhang, one of the most influential officials in charge of Qing diplo-
macy, would not have felt the need to offer the embattled Meiji government
100,000 rifle bullets made by the Tianjin Arsenal had his purpose been simply
to appease Tokyo or to prevent Japan from leaning towards Russia. Despite Qing
officials’ increasing realization that Meiji leaders would only yield to interna-
tional law or superior military might, Li apparently believed in the primacy of
shu, insisting that the offer was what ‘ought to be done’ for China’s harmonious
intercourse with Japan (jiaojizhong yinyozhiyi).22
That Chinese leaders started using the language of Western international law
yet continued to embrace the Confucian social norms cannot be overlooked in
a letter of understanding to Shishido Tamaki, then Japanese minister to China,
by Prince Gong (who headed the Zongliyamen) in 1879, which emphasized
the significance of Sino-Ryukyuan tributary relations while acknowledging the
Ryukyu Kingdom’s status as a ‘double tributary state’.23 The letter repeatedly
stressed that Ryukyu was a part of China and recognized as an independent state
by all countries; the abolishment of the kingdom might thus have breached
article 1 of the Sino-Japanese friendship treaty (which stipulated that their
respective territories should be ‘treated with propriety’) and international law.24
Moreover, as a ‘weak and small’ tributary state, Prince Gong lamented, the
Ryukyu Kingdom should have been protected rather than swallowed up by
Japan (which went against the ‘moral purpose of the state’, that is, promot-
ing cosmic harmony, in East Asian international society). Shishido countered
that it was not possible for the islanders to be subjects of Japan and China at
the same time. Furthermore, the islands could only be an independent state or
part of such a state; the two possibilities were mutually exclusive. By rebuffing
the relevance of Chinese investiture and declaring the abolition of the ‘fief’ as
a domestic issue based on Japan’s effective control over the islands, Shishido
thus rejected ritual justice as the ‘systemic norm of procedural justice’ in favour
of legislative justice grounded in positive international law.
The turning point for this dialogue of the deaf came when former US presi-
dent Ulysses Simpson Grant was visiting China and Japan in mid-1879. Grant
agreed to mediate the dispute at the request of Li Hongzhang and Prince Gong,
and offered a proposal with American diplomats in Japan as a basis for nego-
tiation. The proposal suggested dividing the Ryukyu Islands into three parts:25
the central part would belong to the residual Ryukyu Kingdom protected by
Chinese and Japanese consuls, the southern part would belong to China, being
close to Taiwan, and the northern part would belong to Japan, being close to
Satsuma (Kagoshima). The Japanese government agreed to come to the negoti-
ating table, but demanded that China recognize that the Okinawa main island
and the northern part of Ryukyu belonged to Japan (Miyako and Yaeyama
islands would belong to China, as proposed by Grant) and that the 1871
treaty of trade and friendship be revised (allowing Japan to enjoy the privileges
granted to the Western powers, especially inland trade). Considering that this
compromise could help preserve the kingdom and avoid causing Japan to side
with Russia (with which Beijing was also trying to conclude a border dispute in
Xinjiang), the Zongliyamen signed an agreement with Shishido in October 1880.
However, due to Li’s objection at the last minute, the agreement was never rat-
ified, and it was forfeited in January 1881. Whether the legal status of Ryukyu
was settled or not remains a contentious issue between China and Japan today,
but one thing is certain: the ongoing dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands
that has plagued Sino-Japanese relations for decades would not have become
an issue as it is now had the 1880 agreement been ratified.
Why did Li oppose (and block) the deal? Contemporary Chinese historians
have indicated that the progress in the concurrent negotiation with Russia led
him to conclude that China should not make such a big concession to Japan
over the Ryukyu question.26 Some suspect that ‘inter-agency rivalry’ had also
played a part, for Li was in charge of the signing of the 1871 treaty but was not
involved in the Zongliyamen’s negotiation with the Japanese delegation over
revision of the treaty.27 This personal issue aside, Li still needed to make his
case compelling enough for the Qing court. In his memorial to the emperor, Li
made two main points to support his claim that the conclusion of the Ryukyu
question should be ‘postponed’.28 First, the Ryukyuan elite would not be will-
ing to re-establish the kingdom in Miyako and Yaeyama, which were relatively
impoverished (and historically peripheral). If so, it would be too expensive for
China to administer and station troops on these remote islands. In addition to
this demerit, he argued, granting Japan rights to inland trade would not be in
China’s interest.
On the surface, Li appeared to base his case on the costs and benefits of
not ratifying the agreement. Under scrutiny, however, his calculation was not
driven by pure material interests. In fact, the article that gave Japan preferen-
tial treatment was not the same as that which had allowed China’s unequal
treaties with the Western powers in the nineteenth century; it required Japan
to give China equivalent treatment as well.29 Like He Jing and Huang Zunxian,
Li was also keenly aware that abandoning those ‘impoverished’ islands to the
Japanese or Westerners would lead to them controlling China’s ‘Pacific choke
points’. The consequences of doing nothing clearly outweighed the costs of
administering the islands. Furthermore, Li must have recognized that time was
running out for China, as the Japanese fait accompli had continued to take root
in Okinawa ever since He Ruzhang’s call for coercive diplomacy. A wise states-
man would have reaped what was left on the negotiating table. To make sense
of Li’s puzzling (in)action, one must understand that his Confucian inclina-
tion against yishi lizhong (that is, China’s response to Japan’s incorporation
of Ryukyu should not ‘start with a just cause but end up with satisfying self-
interest’) was more a result of China’s century-old socialization into East Asian
international society than a mere pretence. Likewise, his reluctance to allow
Japan to enjoy the same benefits granted to the Western powers was not so
much that he was worried about Japanese economic penetration into China’s
inland (it would have been hard, in 1880, to foresee Japan’s rise) but, rather,
that treating Japan like a Western country would disrupt the harmonious order
of East Asian international society. Indeed, as Howland has noted, the treaty
of trade and friendship itself revealed the ambivalent position in which Japan
was placed in the eyes of Chinese leaders during the 1870s, which was ‘neither
as distant and different as the Westerners, nor as close and commensurate as
China’s dependencies’.30
Imagine China assuming the role of father in the East Asian family. Ryukyu,
like Korea, was highly regarded within the family for his filial behaviour and
resemblance to the father. Under the surface, Ryukyu had been forced by Japan,
an ‘outlier’ of the family who had not come back to see China for a long time,
to pay a ‘protection fee’. With his newly developed muscles trained in Europe,
one day Japan broke into Ryukyu’s house and threatened to take Ryukyu’s prop-
erty and life. Astonished, China tried to stop Japan, but found that there was
little he could do, not necessarily because he was not able to fight Japan but
more because the use of force would expose his failure to keep the family in
harmony. China had almost agreed with his American neighbour’s suggestion
to divide Ryukyu’s property with Japan in order to keep Ryukyu alive; in the
end, China chose to accept Ryukyu’s death, for the proposed solution would
have inevitably undermined his moral authority as the father at home.
Qing officials learned from the Ryukyu fiasco that the normative restraints
that had sustained the order of East Asian international society for centuries
should no longer be applied to ‘treacherous’ Japan, now an outsider. This

was evident in diplomat Yao Wendong’s assignment to compile a geography
of Japan upon the arrival of the second Chinese minister to Japan in 1882.
Despite his popularity among the major poetry societies in Tokyo and his
ability to communicate with his hosts outside of ‘brushtalking’ (writing clas-
sical Chinese or Kanbun, which was understandable to the educated Japanese),
Yao never referred to Japan as a country sharing a common civilization, and
completed The Military Essentials of Japanese Geography (Riben dili bingyao) with
the express purpose of enabling China’s military preparations ‘in case of some
unexpected emergency’.31 In this sense, the path leading to the Sino-Japanese
War (1894–95) over Korea had already been paved at the time when both China
and Japan stopped practising shu towards each other.
Conclusion
This chapter has illustrated how Confucian countries used to maintain their
largely peaceful interactions, and how the Sino-Japanese conflict arose in the
late nineteenth century following the breakdown of a cosmic order that pro-
moted social harmony through intersubjective reciprocity. Seeing itself as the
paternal figure of a hierarchic East Asian ‘family’ that was supposed to cher-
ish those in the lower ranks and lead them by example, China’s response to
Japan’s incorporation of Ryukyu, as this analysis has demonstrated, was not
simply determined by power and interests; rather, China was constrained as
much by its limited military capabilities as by its normative self-expectation
shaped by the Confucian way of shu. This does not imply that East Asian inter-
national society was ‘better’ than the European one; as has been seen earlier,
unequal power relations also existed between China and its neighbours (albeit
not necessarily in the form of physical coercion). The case of Confucian Asia,
however, reaffirms that the liberal peace is not the only source of ideas, norms
and institutions for maintaining a harmonious world order.
To the extent that the arrival of the Western powers added the Westphalian
state system onto the tribute system but did not replace the latter altogether,32
contemporary East Asian states’ behaviour could be understood in a new
light. For example, the conclusion of a free trade agreement (FTA)-like eco-
nomic agreement between the PRC and Taiwan in 2010 is indicative of the
island’s increasing incorporation into the residual tribute system, wherein
hierarchical relations were affirmed when Taiwan (‘vassal state’) submitted
to the PRC (‘suzerain’) by upholding the so-called ‘1992 consensus’ (pre-
senting ‘tribute’);33 in return, the Taiwanese were granted generous trade
privileges as gifts from Beijing (‘son-of-heaven’). Since secondary political enti-
ties historically enjoyed immense latitude within the tributary order regarding
their economic, cultural and even military affairs, this perspective helps to
understand why Chinese leaders formulated the ‘one country, two systems’
proposal in dealing with Taiwan in the way they did (which precludes Beijing
from exerting direct control over the island), and why they have been will-
ing to entertain issues pertaining to Taiwan’s ‘international space’ as long as
Taipei adheres to the ‘1992 consensus’. It is no coincidence that the Chinese
government puts forward policies that attempt to construct a ‘harmonious
society’ at home and a ‘harmonious world’ abroad in the early twenty-first
century.
But it is also clear that the old East Asian international society can no longer
be resurrected in a region populated by nationalistic sovereign states; moreover,
another ‘1992 consensus’ may be neither feasible nor desirable for China and
Japan to conduct their intercourse in general, or to solve the Diaoyu/Senkaku
islands dispute in particular. The emphasis on relations and the pursuit of a
hierarchical cosmic order reveals another limit in the Confucian approach to
harmony. Recall the previous section’s analogy between family affairs and East
Asian international relations. Family is treated as the foundation of state and
tianxia because (ideally) it is the smallest social unit whose members show
mutual benevolence towards each other. Within a family, the adults take care
of those under age; in return, the latter respect the former and follow them.
A political corollary is that the ruler (the adult) is in a position to govern the
ruled (the under-aged) by virtue of his assumed maturity and experience; the
idea of individuality is missing in this paternalistic (and patriarchal) scheme.34
Perhaps the most pertinent aspect of the Confucian approach lies in the poten-
tial of shu in conflict resolution. To practise shu, one first needs to learn how
to ‘move from others to self in order to clarify self’ before putting oneself in
the other’s place,35 which is a painstaking exercise involving self-examination
(xingshen) and self-cultivation (xiushen). In other words, the subjectivity of
others is seen as a mirror against which the self can be critically examined.
Shu requires one to look at oneself, not others, in the event of conflicts and
acknowledge one’s responsibility for discord, which, in turn, prepares the
ground for forgiveness and reconciliation. To rebuild harmony, it is impera-
tive for both China and Japan to learn to empathize with each other’s threat
perceptions and understand the role that their own rhetoric and behaviour over
the islands dispute may play into those perceptions.36 Confucius already made
this point crystal clear with his archery analogy: ‘When the archer misses the
centre of the target, he turns round and seeks for the cause of his failure in
himself’.37
Acknowledgement
The author thanks the Center for Strategic Research, Turkish Ministry of For-
eign Affairs, for permission to reprint portions of this chapter that appeared in
Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs 19, no. 1 (2014): 87–105. He gratefully

acknowledges financial support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science, Grant-in-Aid Scientific Research (A) (15H01855).
Notes
1. Discussions in this and the following paragraphs are developed from Chengxin Pan,
‘Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony: A Confucian Approach to Mediating across
Difference’, in Mediating across Difference: Oceanic and Asian Approaches to Conflict
Resolution, eds Morgan Brigg and Roland Bleiker (Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press,
2011), 221–247.
2. James Legge, trans., Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the
Mean (New York: Dover Publications, 1971), 256.
3. Pan, ‘Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony’, 224.
4. D. C. Lau, trans., Mencius, book 4, part A: 4 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970),
119.
5. Pan, ‘Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony’, 225.
6. Compellence refers to a specific type of coercion that threatens to use force to make
another actor do (or undo) some action. See Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).
7. See, for example, Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand
Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); and Yuan-
kang Wang, Harmony and War: Confucian Culture and Chinese Power Politics (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2011), 186–188.
8. Qifu Guo, ed. Wuwang guochi: zaichuang huihaung [Never Forget National Humiliation:
Recreating the Glory] (Wuhan: Wuhan University Press, 1996), 126.
9. David C. Kang, East Asia before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2010).
10. Barry Buzan and Richard Little, International Systems in World History: Remaking the
Study of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 234.
11. Shogo Suzuki, Civilization and Empire: China and Japan’s Encounter with European
International Society (London: Routledge, 2009), 34–35.
12. Contra Buzan and Little, International Systems in World History, 234.
13. Takeshi Hamashita, Choko sisutemu to kindai Ajia [The Tribute System and Modern Asia]
(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1997); Suzuki, Civilization and Empire, 43–49.
14. D. R. Howland, Borders of Chinese Civilization: Geography and History at Empire’s End
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), 13–15.
15. Ibid., 14.
16. Hamashita, Choko sisutemu to kindai Ajia, 8–9.
17. In 1871, a native tribe in southern Taiwan murdered 54 Ryukyuans following their
shipwreck there. The survivors were rescued by local Chinese officials and escorted
to the Ryukyuan trading mission in Fuzhou in 1872. From the perspective of inter-
national law, it was a misstep indeed for China to admit that the Ryukyuans were
Japanese citizens; nevertheless, admitting Japan’s effective governance over Ryukyu
did not necessarily imply that China henceforth had lost Ryukyu as a vassal as far as
their tributary relations were concerned. Suzuki, Civilization and Empire, 158–159.
18. Qing Grand Council (Junjichu), ed. Qing guangxuchao zhongri jiaoshe shiliao [Sino-
Japanese Diplomatic History during Emperor Quangxu’s Reign], vol. 1 (Taipei: Wenhai,
1963), 21.
19. Ru-lun Wu, ed. Li Wenzhong gong (Hongzhang) quan ji, yishu hangao [Li Hongzhang
Collection, Letters with Translation Bureau], vol. 8 (Taipei: Wenhai, 1980), 3–4.
20. Chia-bin Liang, ‘Liuqiu wangguo zhongri zhengchi kaoshi [An Inquiry of the Sino-Japanese
Dispute over the Extinguishment of the Ryukyu Kingdom]’, in Zhongguo jindai xiandai
shilunji [Essays on Modern China], vol. 15, ed. Executive Committee for the Promo-
tion of Chinese Culture Renaissance (Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1986),
115–117.
21. Ibid.
22. Li Wenzhong gong (Hongzhang) quanji, yishuhangao, vol. 7, 3–4.
23. Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ed. Nippon gaiko bunsho [Documents on Japanese
Foreign Policy], vol. 12 (Tokyo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1949), 178–179. Ryukyu
had been under the strict control of the Satsuma clan since 1609, but it maintained
an ambiguous status as a ‘double tributary state’ to both Japan and China.
24. Ibid.
25. Yen-wei Wang, Qingji waijiao shiliao [Diplomatic History of the Qing Dynasty], vol. 16
(Taipei: Wenhai, 1963), 21.
26. Yuanhua Shi, ed., Jindai Zhongguo zhoubian waijiao shilun [Modern China and Its
Neighbours: A Diplomatic History] (Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu Chubanshe, 2006), 272.
27. Liang, ‘Liuqiu wangguo zhongri zhengchi kaoshi’, 143, 145–146.
28. Qing guangxuchao zhongri jiaoshe shiliao, vol. 2, 15–17.
29. Ibid., 9–10.
30. Howland, Borders of Chinese Civilization, 35.
31. Ibid., 233.
32. See note 16.
33. The ‘1992 consensus’ refers to a modus operandi under which Taipei neither openly
challenges Beijing’s ‘One China Principle’ (there is only one China and Taiwan is a
part of it) nor accepts the latter’s definition of China (PRC).
34. Chisheng Chang, ‘Tianxia System on a Snail’s Horns’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 12,
no. 1 (2011): 38.
35. David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Thinking through Confucius (New York: State
University of New York Press, 1987), 288–289.
36. This resembles the concept of the ‘Security Dilemma Sensibility’, in Ken Booth and
Nicholas J. Wheeler, The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation, and Trust in World Politics
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
37. Doctrine of the Mean, chapter 14:5, in Legge, Confucius, 396.
27
Human Development and Minority
Empowerment: Exploring Regional
Perspectives on Peace in South Asia
Florian Krampe and Ashok Swain
Introduction
South Asia is the sub-Himalayan southern region of the Asian continent, com-
prising eight countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal,
India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. South Asia has a population of about 1.6 billion,
which is characterized by significant cultural divergences between and within
the states. An estimated 2,000 ethnic groups, at least six ethnic-linguistic fam-
ilies and several major faiths make South Asia one of the most diverse regions
on earth. The states and societies in this vast region face challenges on several
fronts. The major challenge is to achieve the social and political stability that
is needed to enable their progress towards increased human development. Sev-
eral factors, however, make the prospects of progress daunting. The rise in the
region’s population is a key challenge. A large part of the population in South
Asia lives in abject poverty.
Despite rapid economic growth during the 1990s, the region has among the
lowest per capita incomes in the world. And the rush to achieve growth imposes
higher demands on critical natural resource bases. In order to provide security
to the population, the South Asian states follow an approach that is rooted in
their purported aim of constituting modern nation-states. In this approach, the
state remains the prime mover in delivering services and adjudicating disputes.
The approach builds on the model developed during the colonial administra-
tion, which nurtured centralization and ‘bureaucratic authoritarianism’. Under
the colonial structure, the British constructed a unitary state and centralized
political unity based on the notion of a singular and indivisible sovereignty
through its practice of bureaucratic centralization. Though the colonial state
was primarily guided by the objectives of rent extraction, the approach finds
salience in the post-colonial period as well.
South Asia today is one of the most conflict-ridden and violence-prone
regions of the world. Over 30 years of wars in Afghanistan, South Asia’s western
363
frontier, leave the country with the lowest human development of the entire
Asian continent.1 Moreover, its internal conflicts have spilled over to its eastern
neighbour Pakistan. Pakistan itself continues to be challenged internally on
multiple fronts, as well as struggling geostrategically over 60 years of frozen
conflict with India over the Kashmir.2 Nepal and Sri Lanka were only recently
able to end decade-long civil wars. India, despite being the economically most
powerful country as well as a functioning democracy, is facing several violent
internal conflicts. It is true that India has also been able to bring an end to
several of these uprisings. Still, at present it has among the highest numbers of
active violent internal conflicts in the world.
Trying to establish a coherent picture of how peace is understood and prac-
tised in such a socially, politically and culturally diverse and contested region
seems a daunting task. There are possibly as many ideas of what peace is in
South Asia as there are people. Nevertheless, in this chapter we will make an
attempt to unravel some critical variations in the understanding of peace and its
building blocks in the region. It is essentially the issues of human development
and minority empowerment and how they are understood in the context of
South Asia that differentiates the region from today’s global liberal governance.
Peace and development
Broadly speaking, the understanding of peace in the South Asian context

reflects traditional peace studies approaches and the ideal of positive peace,
that is, a concept that emphasizes the connection of peace and human devel-
opment. Thus, it is not surprising that peace researchers like Johan Galtung
and John Paul Lederach have received such prominence and influence in South
Asia’s academic discourse. Galtung and Lederach place emphasis on the society
and bottom-up or communitarian approaches to achieve and maintain peace.3
But why are peace and development so closely interdependent in South
Asia? A first indication for answering this question is unmistakably visible
when one looks at the human development index (HDI) of these countries.
South Asia is the poorest region of Asia, and one of the poorest regions
globally besides sub-Saharan Africa. The United Nations Development Pro-
gramme (UNDP) lists Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan in the
category of low human development, whereas Bhutan and India are considered
medium-HDI countries. Only Sri Lanka has a high HDI.4
Despite rapid economic growth, particularly in India during recent years, the
region has among the lowest per capita incomes in the world. Although the
region has made some recent progress, human development indices such as
life expectancy, children’s education and adult literacy of most of the countries
in the region are still quite low. The faster population growth rates in poor
economies add to increasing insecurity in the region.
Florian Krampe and Ashok Swain 365
The low human development in South Asia explains the variation between
South Asian understandings of peace and of the West. In South Asia, the focus
is primarily on development. In the case of India, social mobilization is an
expressive, highly visible part of a public discourse that regards social and eco-
nomic development issues as significant.5 The prominence of this discourse
places more importance on local-level planning and participation, and ques-
tions the state’s development policies. Especially, the local understanding of
peace is different. In Nepal, people interpret peace in a very local way: being
able to ensure goods and services for themselves and the local community.6
These crucial variations in the understanding of peace explain why the con-
ceptualization of human development and the establishment of the Human
Development Report were significantly influenced by the thinking and work of
two South Asian intellectuals, Amartya Sen and Mahbub ul-Haq.
Even though human development has become a significant element of the
Western liberal peace agenda, the South Asian understanding of peace as devel-
opment is different from the Western liberal peace discourse. The Indian case in
particular shows how the collective memory of the successful bottom-up resis-
tance against the British Raj continues to influence local attitudes. This memory
among local actors is strong indication of critical agency and power with those
local actors, rather than with the central government.
The liberation of India from colonial rule in 1947 remains one of the
most significant collective memories for Indian rural populations today. Under
Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership, the Indian Congress Party waged a long but pre-
dominantly peaceful freedom struggle against British colonial rule. The char-
acter of the freedom struggle, which was symbolic, non-violent and inclusive,
still has an influence on much ongoing social mobilization in India.
In post-colonial India, peace contestation emerged when the state prioritized
nationalization and nation building. Human development had a significant
influence on radical social mobilization, with the uprising of the Maoist
movement in many under-developed parts of the country. Peace as develop-
ment resonates strongly with the South Asian populace because the issues of
human development and emancipation are of significant importance to peo-
ple’s day-to-day survival. The path of development and the importance of
social movements in India reflects this, and shows how various local and out-
side actors have a significant impact on mobilizing local populations to strive
towards development.
Until now, many South Asian states, particularly India, have been experienc-
ing an increased mobilization of various groups, questioning the effectiveness
of the state as the agent of development. Increasing popular protest in the
region manifests the desire of the common people to participate in formulating
and implementing development policies. The growing popular mobilization
is part of the democratic baggage that India has been carrying for more
than six decades. Indian people have learned to assert their rights and are
working towards protecting their interests, which have brought together the
under-privileged sections of the country and given them a new spirit of
participation.7
India’s economic growth in the last two decades has had many winners, but
also plenty of losers. The Indian middle class is expanding, and a significant
proportion of the population has been able to take advantage of the new eco-
nomic liberalization policies. However, a large section of the Indian population
are left behind in taking advantage of the macroeconomic growth of the coun-
try. Among the prominent losers in India’s economic growth are its indigenous
population, the adivasis. This 85 million-strong indigenous group is primar-
ily landless and illiterate, and they have been subjected to hopelessness and
despair while the state withdrew itself from microeconomic development to
focus on macroeconomic growth.8 The situation has become more problematic,
as the country’s rapid economic growth has recently hit a bad patch.
In some cases, the socio-economic situation has deteriorated even further
among the marginalized groups. However, most of the losers in this race have
decided to stay and shout within the system, and thanks to the presence of a
democratic set-up, they have been able to raise their voices and, in some cases,
have been successful in making the state agree to meet their demands.
Some of the marginalized have, however, taken up arms. The Maoist com-
munist movement in India is commonly referred to as the Naxalite movement.
The movement traces its roots to 1967, when a radical communist group in
the neighbouring state of West Bengal led a violent uprising. After the gov-
ernment crushed the movement during the 1970s, it fragmented into various
factions. With the economic liberalization in the 1990s and the gradual with-
drawal of the state from its commitment to welfare policies, the support for
these radical groups has increased in recent years. In 2004, the Naxalite move-
ment reappeared as a strong group when the splinter groups merged to form
a new entity. The Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) reaffirmed
its commitment to the classical Maoist strategy of ‘protracted armed strug-
gle’, which defines its objectives in terms of the seizure not of lands, crops or
other immediate goals, but of state authority. Within this perspective, partici-
pation in elections and engagement with the prevailing ‘bourgeois democracy’
are rejected, and all effort and attention are firmly focused on ‘revolutionary
activities’ to undermine the state and seize power.9
The upsurge of Maoists in a large part of India is due primarily to a contin-
ued process of under-development. The number of those who are left behind is
growing in India’s state elite-led pursuit of economic growth following a liberal
economic agenda. The gains in economic growth are taking a very long time to
filter down to the poorest and most deprived sections of the country’s popula-
tion. The majority of them do not reject economic reform, but they have started
protesting violently because they have not benefited from these reforms. Tak-
ing advantage of the persistence of acute poverty, growing inequality, rampant
corruption and regional disparity in recent years, the Maoists have shown the
tribal population and other economically and socially suppressed segments of
the population in the region the dream of a revolution. This armed rebellion
has been instrumental in increasing self-confidence among the tribal popula-
tion and has organized them into a single group. As a consequence, the violent
opposition is no longer localized, but has posed a serious security challenge to
the Indian state.10
The radical left movement in India has posed a serious challenge to India’s
democratic system itself. It is important and urgent that the Indian democracy
should bring these anti-system advocates back within the system. To do this,
the Indian state has to maintain a judicious balance between economic growth
and supporting the creation of a fair and just society. For peace and stability,
the Indian state needs to go back to promoting development for all, not only
for a powerful minority.
But it is not only the Indian state that has experienced violent uprisings that
were largely intensified by the political failure to provide equitable develop-
ment. Nepal’s civil war between 1996 and 2006 saw a Maoist uprising at the
time of early democratization that was not only, but to a large extent, caused
by ‘the widespread poverty that continued to afflict Nepal’.11
The examples from South Asia in which poverty has fuelled revolutions sup-
port the argument that human development is a crucial indicator to understand
peace in the region. This argument is, of course, also part of the liberal peace
discourse and of the international aid regime. Yet, today’s South Asian context
is far from the typical paternalistic, trusteeship idea of a global civil society and
solidarity. There is a significant amount of local agency in South Asia; on the
one hand, this enables bottom-up revolutions, but on the other hand, it is crit-
ical for transitions towards a positive peace, that is, an emancipatory society, as
it challenges the role and ideas of the state and foreign actors.12
Peace and empowerment
Deriving from the history of conflicts and uprisings in South Asia, the major
challenge for peace, besides human development, is, consequently, how minor-
ity populations can be part of the statebuilding project while guaranteeing
respect for their group rights as well as individual rights. International actors
and institutions have undertaken steps to facilitate these processes through
both new minority rights standards and monitoring and assistance institu-
tions. However, in most cases, the South Asian local institutions and actors
have played the paramount role in providing a system whereby the govern-
ment is in power with the consent of the people. In fact, the policies followed
by several states, which consistently took recourse to the argument that democ-
racy meant majority rule in refusing to listen to minority grievances, put the
minority in a position closely comparable to the subjects of arbitrary power,
leading them to join violent struggles.
For instance, the survival of India as a state and a democracy has been due to
the nature of the Indian state in the post-independence period, with its willing-
ness to bargain and accommodate varying group interests. This has been seen
as key in maintaining the democratic system despite the deep societal divisions
in society. In the most radical of these approaches, Lijphart argues that the fed-
eral arrangements in which states and linguistic boundaries largely coincide,
the rights of religious and linguistic minorities to have autonomous schools
are protected, and the existence of separate ‘personal laws’ for the minori-
ties, make India a good case of the consociational (power-sharing) system.13
Though Lijphart’s argument has been criticized,14 the important characteristic
of the Indian system has been the willingness to compromise. Bargaining is
crucial to this process. Kanti Bajpai, for example, argues that the Indian pack-
age for dealing with ethnic relations has consisted of three main elements:
(a) a political order marked by liberal constitutionalism, state-backed secular
nationalism, and state-led social modernization and economic development,
(b) power-sharing in terms of group rights and the devolution of authority to
ethnic-based lower levels of government, and, finally, (3) coercion and force if
the first two failed.15
India has been successful in keeping the country united, and has also been
able, to some extent, to maintain general peace and harmony between different
religious and ethnic groups. This does not mean that ethnic violence did not
occur in India during this time. The assassination of Indira Gandhi led to the
anti-Sikh riots in 1984, and in 2002, Hindus killed a large number of Muslims in
Gujarat. However, India’s consociational strategy has been rather successful in
including minorities in mainstream politics, unlike its neighbours Pakistan and
Sri Lanka, whose failure to accommodate ethnic demands led to major armed
conflicts.
With the secession from Pakistan, the East Pakistan province became the
independent state of Bangladesh after a violent freedom struggle in 1971.
East and West Pakistan were religiously homogeneous. Yet, strong linguistic
differences, as well as economic and political marginalization, increased the
desire among the Bengali people for secession from the main Pakistani terri-
tory. The nine-month-long war led to a victory of the Bangladesh nationalists
(who received support from India) over the Pakistani army in December 1971.16
Similarly, in Sri Lanka, the majoritarian Sinhalese policies have led to a long-
running civil war against the minority Tamils.17 In spite of a military victory by
the government in 2009, ethnic division and tension are still a major threat to
the country’s unity.
The violent results of mismanaged minority issues among India’s neighbours

pose the question: what is the reason behind India’s relative success in this
regard?
While there is reference to the successful running of Indian democracy and
managing and maintaining peace among various religious and ethnic groups
for more than six decades in a hostile environment, there is a serious lack
of sincere effort to analyse the reasons behind it. Why has India been differ-
ent from her sisters in South Asia, and her cousins in Asia, Africa and Latin
America? Here, the contribution of the Congress Party in India merits serious
attention. Ramachandra Guha notes that, especially before independence, the
Indian National Congress was not fully successful in ‘building bridges between
linguistic communities, religious groupings, and castes’, as ‘low castes and espe-
cially Muslims were never completely convinced of the Congress’s claims to
being a truly national party. Thus when independence from colonial rule finally
came in 1947, it came to not one nation, but two – India and Pakistan.’18
And even for the post-independence period, praise for the contribution of the
Congress Party is the shortest and surest way to intellectual suicide. Gandhi is
forgotten history; Nehru and his policies have been thoroughly rejected; Indira
Gandhi is associated with the Emergency period; Rajeev Gandhi is haunted
by ‘Bofors’; Narasimha Rao is painted as the epitome of corruption; and Man
Mohan Singh is a man of indecision. Here, there is no attempt to whitewash
the Congress Party of its historical failures or even to dispute the proponents of
this ‘Great Betrayal’ theory. However, there is a need to acknowledge the con-
tribution of the Congress Party in bringing about and consolidating democracy
in a developing and segmented society like India for almost 70 years. In com-
parison, Pakistan had its first democratic transition from one government to
another only in 2013.
It has been providential for India to be governed by a mass-based polit-
ical organization such as the Congress Party in the aftermath of partition.
Mahatma Gandhi deserves the credit for providing the Congress Party with
a support base all across the country. This widespread, mass-supported organi-
zation not only drove out the British colonial rulers peacefully, but also took
consociational control of the country.19 This provided the possibility for vari-
ous religious and caste groups to share the power. Transcending region, religion
and caste, the Congress Party was relatively successful in uniting the coun-
try and providing a platform of power-sharing by empowering minorities and
including minority issues in national politics. As such, consociationalism is
widely considered the cornerstone of success of any democracy in a segmented
society.
Minorities and Dalits were the main supporters of the Congress Party from
the very beginning. Mahatma Gandhi’s inclusive policy and Nehru’s secular
credentials had attracted this support for the party. Indira Gandhi nurtured
them with absolute vigour. However, problems started a few months after her
assassination. The policy incongruity over the Shaha Bano case and the mis-
management of the highly sensitive Babri Mosque issue in the early years of
Rajeev rule alienated the Muslim community from the Congress Party. Dalits
were next to follow. Due to the loss of its two major support bases – Dalits
and Muslims – the Congress Party has lost its traditional grip over the politics
of the country. The mistakes of the Congress leadership from the mid-1980s
have, of course, hurt the party, but, without doubt, they have also hurt the
country.
The biggest challenge for India’s consociationalist policies towards its minori-
ties is likely to arise from the historic loss of Congress in the 2014 National
Election and the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Hindu chauvinist
party. From nowhere in the mid-1980s, BJP became a major force in Indian
politics with the 1989 elections. Its spectacular ascendance to power under its
charismatic, but controversial, leader Narendra Modi in 2014 poses a serious
challenge to the concept of power-sharing in India’s democracy.
The rise of BJP is a serious threat not only to India’s consociationalism, but
to the peace and stability of the country as such. India is currently facing
several violent separatist conflicts from its various minority groups. However,
by using a judicious mixture of force and accommodation, Indian democ-
racy has been able to bring an end to several minority challenges: Sikhs in
Punjab, Tamils in Tamil Nadu and Gorkhas in West Bengal, to name a few.
Besides numerous secessionist movements, India also regularly experiences reli-
gious tensions and riots, particularly between the Hindu majority and the
Muslim minority. The Indian experience suggests that Hindu–Muslim tensions
become problematic, and potentially explosive, when a particular religious
community is perceived to receive favourable treatment or when another com-
munity persistently remains at the socio-economic and political margins of
society. These tensions are further aggravated when religious identities are
manipulated by political elites. Muslims make up nearly 13 per cent of India’s
total population, and their numbers are more than the total population of
Pakistan.
The large Muslim minority in India challenges BJP’s narratives of social
cohesion and homogeneity. Complicating the situation further, the majority
of the Muslim population in India are poor and less educated. Many have
fallen behind and were unable to take advantage of India’s economic growth.
This growing inequality between the Hindu majority and the Muslim minor-
ity aggravates and politicizes the issue, and poses serious challenges to the
Indian state itself. If Indian politics does not soon return to its accommodative
and inclusive politics, there is a serious danger of India moving into a violent
majority–minority group conflict. This would endanger peace and stability not
only in the country, but also in the South Asian region.
The role of outside actors
As the discussion on development and empowerment has shown, South Asia’s

local actors and institutions have been the prime force in maintaining, but also
damaging, peace. With regard to peacebuilding efforts in most of South Asia’s
states, international and grassroots strategies for peace interact, but mostly
at the level of civil society and social mobilization. As such, these interna-
tional civil society groups are typically the bottom-up force in the liberal peace
paradigm. However, both civil society and state actors have been shown to be
top-down influencers of peace processes by imposing external agendas on local
communities.20
This is clearest in South Asia in the case of Afghanistan. The Bonn Agree-
ment emphasized human rights, reconciliation and transitional justice, but
this liberal peace agenda did not resolve ‘the problem of top-down imposition
and regulation’.21 This is because the international civil society community as
well as international state actors ‘restrict the Afghan people from becoming the
owner of their autonomous liberal rights’ by denying local ownership.22
While Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 is certainly a special case, in other
South Asian peace processes the role of the international community has been
different. For instance, in the case of Nepal, after peace negotiations between
the government under G. P. Koirala (Nepali Congress (NC)) and the Unified
Communist Party of Nepal–Maoist (UCPN-M), a comprehensive peace agree-
ment was signed in November 2006, ending the ten-year civil war in Nepal,
with the former rebels becoming part of parliament.23 On 23 January 2007,
the United Nations political mission in Nepal (UNMIN) was authorized by
the United Nations Security Council on request of the Nepali government to
monitor the peace process.24 However, this mission had only a very limited
mandate. The regional powers, China and India, successfully prevented even a
peacekeeping force.25
Analysts judge that the peacebuilding process in Nepal suffers, like many oth-
ers, due to lack of accountability of those in power. The link of ‘society to the
public sphere for articulation of public action’ is widely missing.26 Interestingly,
in the case of Nepal, the gap between local communities and central authorities
does not result from a typical hybrid peace as the result of international involve-
ment, but, significantly, part of the national government’s failure to provide
development and bridge the internal centre–periphery divide.27 This becomes
even clearer when one considers that the constituent assembly of 2008 had not
managed to produce a new constitution by the end of its term in 2013. Nepal
confirms once more that ‘peacebuilding can generate stability on the surface,
but at the same time fail to achieve its ultimate goal, even under favourable
conditions: to contribute to long-term, sustainable development and broad
“poverty reduction” in the post-conflict environment’.28
The inherent problem is, of course, that human development, especially

poverty reduction, matters for the people in Nepal. In the absence of a function-
ing state system that elevates people from poverty, people are determined to
achieve development, with the government or without it. The Western and lib-
eral peace perspective suggests that NGOs and foreign aid could bridge this gap
and provide support for the people. And, indeed, NGOs do matter for Nepal.
In 2010, there were around 56,000 officially registered NGOs in the country.29
Rightly, foreign NGOs are seen as a consequence of the government’s failure
to fulfil the demands of the community. People in rural Nepal are aware of
potentially normative agendas brought by external NGOs. But, interestingly,
they simply disregard them as long as they do not interfere with the commu-
nity’s interest. In fact, whoever serves the community’s interest and needs is
accepted – government, NGOs or international aid agencies. This means that,
in the absence of the government and elected representatives, a new form of
legitimate informal authority has emerged at the local level in Nepal.30 The
inherent human development focus of these new structures makes them poten-
tially part of a post-liberal peace, considering its strong critical local agency and
emancipatory elements.31
As we have argued, peace in South Asia is to be understood in terms of
human development and empowerment of disadvantaged groups. Interna-
tional actors and agencies promote these emancipatory approaches to peace
to a large degree. But the example of Nepal shows that from a Western,
liberal peacebuilding perspective, the role of NGOs might be overrated and
local agency underestimated – especially in South Asia. However, it must be
emphasized that the local agency in South Asia is not inherently peaceful. The
historical examples of the Maoist movements in Nepal and India clearly show
that the absence of equitable development can also be utilized for violence.
Conclusion
In South Asia, particularly in India, the rush towards achieving faster economic
growth has posed many challenges to peace in the region. The growth for-
mula of an open market and foreign investment comes at the cost of inclusive
growth, and has accelerated the divide between rich and poor, privileged and
marginalized. The very long time it takes for the gains to filter down increases
the vulnerability of the poorest and most deprived segments of society, and,
further, builds a breeding ground for the mobilization and manipulation of
social, cultural and religious groupings for forceful and violent protests. In the
post-colonial period, hostilities against minorities in South Asian states have
played a major role in many of the region’s interstate wars, which resulted in
millions of refugees and civilian deaths. The case of the South Asian region illus-
trates clearly that states cannot, in the long term, suppress minority sentiments,
and that oppression breeds violence. Sustained democratic rule is only possible
in a multi-cultural country when it promotes interethnic accommodation and
recognizes the rights of minority culture and tradition.
In recent times there has been a greater demand for ‘group rights’ and, as
such, the responsibility of the state to offer special treatment and protection for
minorities, as opposed to blanket individual rights for all citizens of the state.
Yet the intriguing question is how a balance can be achieved between protect-
ing the notion of the individual and the sovereign state, while not neglecting
a minority that most often has valid claims to special recognition. Equality
before the law does not necessarily equate to equality for all people. Granting
greater group rights to minorities, or simply adhering to the procedures and
legislation that already exist, can be enough to prevent ethnic violence from
breaking out in a society. The lack of a voice and representation is perhaps the
greatest grievance of minorities.
New democracies are the most vulnerable to minority ethnic violence. These
systems allow minorities to gather and plan insurrection, but do not have
strong institutions that can grant concessions and cope with dissent. However,
established democracies, if they lack a flexible approach to addressing minority
issues, may also face violent opposition from minority communities. The con-
flict in Sri Lanka is a good example of this. In the case of India, the democratic
institutions have helped in the past to bring peaceful solutions to several vio-
lent minority movements by accommodating various demands. The country
is now facing a serious challenge to continuing its accommodative policy in a
changing political landscape.
Besides equitable and sustainable development, the major ingredient for
bringing, building and maintaining peace in South Asia is the empowerment
of minority groups as legitimate stakeholders in the statebuilding processes.
As President Woodrow Wilson envisaged in 1920, ‘Nothing . . . is more likely to
disturb the peace of the world than the treatment which might . . . be meted out
to minorities.’32
Notes
1. UNDP, Human Development Report 2013: The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a
Diverse World. New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2013, http://hdr.
undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/14/hdr2013_en_complete.pdf, accessed 21 June
2014.
2. T. V. Paul, The Warrior State: Pakistan in the Contemporary World.
no. 3 (1969): 167–191; John Paul Lederach, Building Peace – Sustainable Reconciliation
in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Research, 1997).
4. UNDP, Human Development Report 2013.
5. Patrick Heller, ‘Social Capital as a Product of Class Mobilization and State Inter-
vention: Industrial Workers in Kerala, India’, World Development 24, no. 6 (1996):
1055–1067; Ashok Swain, Struggle against the State (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.,
2013).
6. Interviews conducted in Nepal in September 2013 by Florian Krampe.
7. Ibid.
8. Ramachandra Guha, ‘Adivasis, Naxalites and Indian Democracy’, Economic and
Political Weekly no. 11 (2007): 3305–3312.
9. Swain, Struggle against the State.
10. India’s Naxalites: A spectre haunting India. (2006, August 12). India’s Naxalites:
A spectre haunting India, http://www.economist.com/node/7799247, accessed
19 June 2014.
11. John Whelpton, A History of Nepal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005),
202.
12. Richmond describes this as a post-liberal peace. Oliver Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace
(London and New York: Routledge, 2011).
13. Arend Lijphart, ‘The Puzzle of Indian Democracy: A Consociational Interpretation’,
The American Political Science Review 90, no. 2 (1 June 1996): 258–268.
14. For an explicit and complete rejection of the consociational theory with regard to
India, see Paul R. Brass, The Politics of India since Independence (Cambridge: Cambridge
15. Kanti Bajpai, ‘Diversity, Democracy and Devolution in India’, in Government Policies
and Ethnic Relations in Asia and the Pacific, eds Michael Edward Brown and Sumit
Ganguly (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1997), 33–83.
16. Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose, War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of
Bangladesh (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990).
17. Jonathan Spencer, Anthropology, Politics, and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2007).
18. Ramachandra Guha, India after Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy
(New York: Ecco, 2007), 4.
19. Swain, Struggle against the State; Guha, India after Gandhi: The History of the World’s
Largest Democracy.
20. David Chandler, International Statebuilding: The Rise of Post-Liberal Governance
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2010); Mark Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War:
Governing the World of Peoples (Cambridge: Polity, 2007); Florian Krampe, ‘The Liberal
Trap – Peacemaking and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan after 9/11’, in Mediation and
Liberal Peacebuilding. Peace from the Ashes of War? eds Mikael Eriksson and Roland
Kostić (London: Routledge, 2013), 57–75; Eriksson and Kostić, Mediation and Liberal
Peacebuilding.
21. Krampe, ‘The Liberal Trap – Peacemaking and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan after
9/11’, 72.
22. Ibid., 73.
23. Lok Raj Baral, Nepal – Nation-State in the Wilderness (New Delhi: Sage Publications
Pvt. Limited, 2012).
24. UN Security Council, Resolution 1740 (2007), 2007.
25. Tobias Denskus, ‘The Fragility of Peacebuilding in Nepal’, Peace Review 21, no. 1
(2009), 54.
26. Dev Raj Dahal and C. D. Bhatta, eds, Building Bridges of Peace in Nepal (Kathmandu:
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), 2010).
27. Florian Krampe, Empowering Peace: Service Provision and State legitimacy in
Peacebuilding in Nepal. Conflict, Security, and Development 16, no 1 (2016),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2016.1136138.
28. Denskus, ‘The Fragility of Peacebuilding in Nepal’, 54.

29. Baral, Nepal – Nation-State in the Wilderness, 70.
30. Krampe, ‘Empowering Peace: Service Provision and State legitimacy in Peacebuilding
in Nepal’.
31. See Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace.
32. James C. Hathaway, The Rights of Refugees under International Law (Cambridge:
28
Peace and the Emerging Countries:
India, Brazil, South Africa
Kai Michael Kenkel
Introduction
Over the course of the last decade, countries commonly designated as ‘emerging
powers’ have taken on an increasing role, not only in contributing materially
to international efforts at keeping, building and enforcing peace, but – more
primordially – in giving conceptual contours to what vision of peace underpins
these efforts. The IBSA countries – India, Brazil and South Africa – combine
political and material factors (such as democracy, participation in peace opera-
tions and an openly revisionist diplomatic agenda) to provide the most cogent
example of rising powers’ behaviour in this area. As each state is grounded in
its own national and regional traditions, the present analysis focuses on those
common factors in their approach to peace that derive from their condition
as emerging powers. When placed in this context, therefore, their interaction
with the concept of peace will here be primarily viewed through the lens of
their relative position in the international system.
The literature offering definitions of emerging/rising/new powers is exten-
sive and cannot be covered here in full detail, nevertheless three elements are
most relevant to the present analysis. The first concerns, as mentioned, the
systemic level of analysis: as Buzan and Wæver point out, though steeped in
regional context, the powers in question have emerged into a position where
they affect actors’ responses at the global level.1 Second, in explaining state con-
duct, the most promising focus is on the behavioural, rather than the material,
determinants of emerging (middle) power status.2 Consequently, these powers’
revisionist efforts naturally concentrate on the normative content of the exist-
ing order that has governed their ascension: they seek to construct, not merely
to accept, the foundations of a rule-based order.3
Diverging views of peace and how it might be achieved – including interven-
tion, development assistance and peacebuilding – are a crucial normative aspect
376
Kai Michael Kenkel 377
of the current contestation of the global order. Despite their commonalities as

actors on the systemic level, the IBSA countries – and, even more, the broader
categories of aspirants to greater global influence – are a heterogeneous group
with key motivations derived from other spheres of analysis. Solidarity among
them remains selective;4 yet, as participation in various approaches to provid-
ing peace remains a key avenue towards global influence, convergence is likely
to increase.
This dichotomy is reflected in the dissonance between the positions taken
by these states as a category at the international level – where they field a
strong discursive revisionist challenge to Western-dominated practices based
on the liberal peace – and pragmatic positions in the field, where primar-
ily material limits inhibit their ability to deviate from mainstream practices.
Emerging powers have, tellingly, operated both within and outside the liberal
peace paradigm.5 Despite these limits, there is much to be learned from the
security and development practice of large developing states.
In keeping with that fact, this analysis first looks at key indicators reflecting
the concepts of peace in place within IBSA countries, primarily Brazil. Since
exporting successful domestic policies at the international level is a key element
of emerging countries’ presence as global providers of peace, the chapter looks
briefly at the challenges limiting this transition. It then juxtaposes these states’
strong rhetorical critique of the normative content of Western dominance with
their practice in the field, which, despite certain important innovations, is still
closer to the liberal peace than is claimed in the discourse of emerging powers.
Emerging countries and defining peace: The

domestic/international divide
Given the difficulty of identifying consistencies at the concrete level in the for-
eign policy conduct of emerging countries, the most useful conclusions about
their modes of defining peace can be drawn at the level of the international
system. For many of these states, the development – albeit often only rhetori-
cal – of a putative alternative approach to peace and peacebuilding has become
a primary expression of the broader challenge to Western-dominated practices
in a liberal mould. Perceived differences from the ‘mainstream’ approach often
outweigh important empirical measures of the efficacy and scale of these states’
efforts in the field.
To fully capture how peace (and peacebuilding) is defined in emerging coun-
tries, and the implications of this definition, it is necessary to situate the defini-
tion at three distinct levels. First, how is peace defined at the domestic level in
Brazil, South Africa and India; that is to say, what type of peace is provided at
the domestic level in these states, and what threats do they face internally? Sec-
ond, how does this translate into foreign policy: what peacebuilding paradigm
are these states following in their participation in United Nations peace oper-
ations, interventions by regional organizations and, if applicable, unilateral
interventions? In addition, each of the three focus states is embedded within
regional security complexes and cultures that influence visions of peace and
peacebuilding (see the contributions in this volume by Krampe and Swain, Brett
and Florez, and Odendaal). Third, what role does the development of a specific
approach to peace and peacebuilding play in each country’s drive to challenge
the normative dominance of the liberal Western paradigm?
The IBSA countries face similar challenges to holistic notions of peace at the
domestic level, though there are also significant differences. It is of primary
importance to note that domestic notions of peace are more closely linked to
questions of development and inequality than to questions of hard-power secu-
rity. All three states face very high levels of economic inequality: indicatively,
in Brazil, municipal human development indices (HDI) range from 0.418 – on
par with Malawi, ranked 170th in the world – to 0.862 (Greece, ranked 29th).6
Within the city of Rio de Janeiro, HDI varies by neighbourhood from 0.970
(higher than any country measured by the United Nations Development Pro-
gramme (UNDP)) to 0.711 (Tonga, ranked 95th).7 All three states – albeit within
a democratic setting – face contexts of institutional fragility, corruption, lim-
ited state capacity for enforcement, and underfunded and understaffed public
services such as health and education.
Similarly to the ‘host’ polities of peacebuilding operations, the attendant
structural violence8 can reach epidemic proportions. In the Brazilian case,
the country has lost over 1.1 million victims to homicide between 1980 and
2010.9 According to the latest data from the Geneva Declaration, South Africa
and Brazil rank 8th and 18th, respectively, in violent deaths per capita.10
Underdevelopment in India is even more dire, though crime is less of a
problem. Instead, the country faces organized armed movements such as the
Naxalites and movements in Ladakh, Assam and Nagaland – as well as an
ongoing conflict in Jammu and Kashmir.
In each case, government policy initiatives have channelled the search for
societal peace through alleviating income equality, raising material living stan-
dards, and ameliorating the provision of basic services such as infrastructure,
health and education. Brazil’s current Workers’ Party (PT) government (2003–)
has had the most international media success, with programmes based on
transfer payments and other forms of direct welfare.11 While this points to
the realization that peace (in the form of reduced violence) can be attained
primarily through development and social justice programmes, law enforce-
ment in Brazil – as well as, to a lesser extent, South Africa – remains militarized
and based on violent repression, exclusion from full effective citizenship rights
and the marginalization of poverty.12 Initiatives such as the Police Pacification
Units (UPP) in Rio de Janeiro have failed to move beyond an initial phase of
occupation and repression into stages based on community policing, social

inclusion and the provision of public goods and services to the marginalized
poor. The justice systems in IBSA and many other emerging countries remain
overburdened and corrupt, unable to guarantee full justiciability and the rule
of law.
Importantly, this reality is little reflected in how these emerging powers
present themselves abroad; indeed, domestic experience in facing these chal-
lenges is often marketed as an asset. In the Brazilian case, there is a gaping
divide between domestic realities and the country’s foreign policy profile –
one indicative case in point is the country’s failure to deal with the influx of
migrants from Haiti that its presence within the UN mission has helped to cre-
ate. Despite the loss of over a million citizens to violence over three decades
and South America’s status as the global region with the highest homicide and
armed violence rates, Brazilian diplomats and analysts frequently refer to the
continent as a ‘zone of peace’, pointing to over a century and a half without
interstate conflict.13
This disconnect reflects a division between a domestic conception of peace,
based largely on progressive notions of human security and the link between
development and security, and a vision of the international system in which
the traditional Realist paradigm still reigns. Despite a strongly state-centric
vision based on a traditional interpretation of sovereignty,14 as noted, emerging
powers have sought to move the determinants of global influence away from
hard power and towards their own strengths.15 In particular, in the Brazilian
case, there is a strict aversion to the use of force in conflict resolution.16
Despite the difficulties presented by their increasing basis in Chapter VII of
the United Nations Charter and its robust provisions for the use of force, UN
peacebuilding operations play a key part in this process. Their linkage of devel-
opment and security allows policies designed to deal with domestic weaknesses
to be presented as strengths in assisting with the weaknesses of others.17
Importantly, peacebuilding fulfils this function in a way that opens a ‘back
door’ for states with limited hard-power capacity but domestic strengths in
developments and social justice, such as Brazil and South Africa, to be seen
as sharing responsibility in the security arena, in which major global decision-
making bodies are situated.18 The UN secretariat and agencies have declared
the full mobilization of emerging states’ expertise with a South–South frame-
work, especially in the civilian arena, to be a priority in future adaptations of
peacebuilding and development practice.19
The systemic level: Revisionist rhetoric in international fora
As a result, peacebuilding has become a key forum for emerging powers to chal-
lenge the normative content of global governance by established powers. One
particular point of contention is the notion of the ‘failed state’. As denizens of

the global South, emerging powers object to the normative judgement inher-
ent in establishing a Western-style state as the ideal-type, and point to the
nefarious effects of this subjacent assumption underpinning the liberal peace:20
‘[r]ejecting the discourse of “failed states”, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa) countries have objected to the “fragility” and “vulnerability”
assessment criteria’.21
Emerging powers similarly object to normative shifts that cast into question
the protections offered by traditional notions of sovereignty. With its focus
on issues of sovereignty, the use of force and hard power, and the relation-
ship between the putatively universal ‘global’ and the local, peacebuilding has
become a key locus of contestation of global rules. It appears, however, that
this contestation has to date remained at the rhetorical level; some analysts
have pointed to a gap between reality and self-perception.22 While emerging
powers have discursively constructed a peacebuilding counter-model originat-
ing in domestic lessons learned by the global South, in practice, this model
has amounted to de facto buy-in to the liberal peace, with a number of ‘tweaks’
based on models that have proven successful at home. In New York and Geneva,
emerging powers contest the normative content of peacebuilding practices that
are the result of decision making dominated by established powers. In Dili and
Port-au-Prince, they are implementing the liberal peace, with a ‘twist’ based on
Southern experience.
However, Thierry Tardy sees little distance between the aims emerging pow-
ers identify with peacebuilding operations and the liberal peace.23 This aligns
with what Andrew Hurrell has characterized in realist terms as emerging power
behaviour that oscillates between bandwagoning and, at most, soft balancing.24
In the most crucial aspects, the major emerging powers continue to act within
the dominant liberal paradigm rather than putting revisionist discourse into
practice. Oliver Richmond has attributed to some emerging actors a form of
‘critical agency’ seeking to elaborate novel forms of resistance to the prepon-
derance of the international.25 Indeed, while overall emerging powers’ actual
peace practice in the field can be seen as submissive to mainstream UN practice
rather than as a concerted challenge to its content, within the parameters of the
liberal peace they have clear preferences, such as the emphasis on horizontal
state sovereignty, resulting in, for example, a ‘light footprint’ approach rather
than dependence-generating alternatives.26
In addition, as with the disconnect between how peace is approached domes-
tically and internationally, emerging powers appear to draw a clear line between
more revisionist positions on paradigmatic questions of global order and prag-
matic stances on specific country cases.27 At the core of the systemic questions
lies emerging powers’ desire to move from being ‘rule-takers’ in the interna-
tional system to ‘rule-givers’.28 A strong adherence to multilateralism and a
rule-based international order are key tenets of emerging powers’ engagement

in the international system; Brazil, India and South Africa have placed strong
emphasis on actively participating in shaping those rules, rather than merely
receiving them from established powers.29 In this sense, active contestation of
the liberal peace is more likely to take place rhetorically in general fora than
through thoroughgoing differences of practice in the field.
Peace in practice: The liberal paradigm with a Southern twist
However, this is not to say that there are no significant differences in some
emerging powers’ approach to building peace, though, as noted, it may be dif-
ficult to determine whether these originate in the condition of these states as
emerging powers or in other specific national or idiosyncratic factors. There is
considerable continuity in emerging powers’ rejection of several fundamental
aspects of the liberal peace. In the case of Brazil, elements that set the country’s
approach apart from the liberal peace are:
• close contact with the local population

• easing of communication difficulties with local actors by cultural affinities
• the exportation of successful domestic socio-economic policies, such as
combating poverty, hunger and under-development
• the use of ‘soft power’
• a focus on development aspects of peacebuilding rather than security, using
a rhetoric of South–South cooperation and a diplomacy of solidarity30
Additionally, in the Brazilian view,
‘the main distinguishing characteristics of [its] South-South cooperation are

its horizontal nature, viewed as less paternalistic than previous patterns of
interaction; its demand-driven nature, allowing [the local population] to
determine the most pressing problems rather than have them externally
dictated; the fact that it is not conceived of as unidirectional but as an
exchange of expertise; further [that] it is viewed as not based on national
or commercial interests, does not impose conditionalities, and is based on
the identification of common interests.31
In the case of Guinea-Bissau, where the country is particularly active,
Brazil also calls attention to the need for structural and social development
activities that can help prevent the resurgence of violence. On the one
hand, the refusal to collapse the entire experience of Guinea-Bissau into the
problem of drug trafficking yields a more nuanced, organic perception of the

problems that beset Guinea-Bissau.32
Brazilian and other emerging power donors are quick to point out the qualita-
tive differences between South–South cooperation and traditional OECD Devel-
opment Assistance Committee (DAC) assistance. Nomenclature here reflects a
key distinction:
[technical cooperation agreements] are not a synonym for ‘development

assistance’ or ‘foreign aid’. They deal with the exchange of knowledge
and practices, not monetary transfers. They do not place conditional-
ities on the receiver. And they do not include financial aid (such as
grants and loans) . . . . Substantively Brazil’s ‘South-South’ technological
cooperation agreements revolve around transferring its knowledge gained
from ‘successful’ social and economic development experiences . . . able
to play a ‘key role in promoting capacity development in developing
countries’.33
South Africa’s presence as an agent for peace on the African continent has
been based on a vociferous rejection of certain normative tenets of the lib-
eral peace. Particularly under the Mbeki government, Pretoria’s concerns have
centred on the manipulation of the notion of human rights embedded in
Northern-dominated practice. During this era, the country’s foreign policy
came to be dominated by the ‘anti-imperialist’ stance that characterized the
African National Congress prior to majority rule, based on confronting a litany
of problems left by the Western legacy in Africa.34
Laurie Nathan has argued that resistance to Western dominance, as a prin-
ciple in its own right, has consistently trumped both the human rights and
democracy aspects of the South African foreign policy agenda, resulting in sup-
port for African regimes because of human rights pressures – a fundamental
revisionist challenge both to Western hegemony and to crucial aspects of the
liberal conceptions of peace that form its normative content.35
South Africa has taken a very active role, particularly in mediation efforts
in Africa, such as in Burundi, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe, as well as in interventions in Lesotho
and the African Union mission in Darfur (AMIS). To date, its involvement in
peacebuilding is squarely focused on achieving peace through development,
and in practice follows neither its rhetorically revisionist course nor the DAC
mainstream. This is largely due to resource constraints – a situation that looks
likely to improve with the recent creation of the South African Development
Partnership Agency (SADPA).36
And yet, South Africa has not distanced its practice from liberal precepts as
much as it has its discourse. It has championed the African Union’s cornerstone
policy for reconstruction on the African continent – the New Partnership for
Africa’s Development (NEPAD), which both faces the same types of material
constraints encountered by Brazilian policies and, similarly, has yet to move
firmly away – in concrete practice – from Western liberal practice.37 Though
Sean Burges has argued elsewhere that despite rhetorical differences, South–
South cooperation remains substantively akin to DAC aid,38 Brendan Vickers
has listed a number of innovative aspects, including, principally, its lack of
political conditionalities.39
India’s experience with participation in UN peacebuilding operations has
been significantly different in extent from those of Brazil and South Africa,
though in essence its motivations remain similar. India’s contributions to UN
peace operations have been far more extensive in quantity and in robustness of
mandate than either of the other two IBSA states. It has, however, not sought
to play a leading role in the normative debates surrounding post-conflict recon-
struction. Though it shares emerging powers’ concerns about sovereignty and
the use of force, as well as a desire not to be a mere normative follower, India
ultimately has more hard power than its IBSA counterparts, and less qualms
about using it within what is ultimately a liberal peace framework. Despite this,
Richard Gowan and Sushant Singh have noted the country’s struggle to craft
policy today that lives up to its legacy of non-aligned leadership, resulting in a
mix of pragmatism and principle.40
From these brief examples of IBSA states’ involvement in various aspects of
maintaining and building peace, both domestically and at the global level, sev-
eral trends become clear. First, there remains a significant gap between the
strong discursive challenge from emerging powers in international fora and
their practice in the field, which remains embedded essentially within the lib-
eral peace paradigm. This is due largely to material constraints and factors such
as bureaucratic inefficiency, as there are a number of key lessons to be drawn
from their domestic experiences that could contribute to alleviating the gravest
deficiencies associated with mainstream peacebuilding practice.
These include an emphasis on local ownership, a lack of conditionality, the
bidirectional flow of information and expertise, and clear focus on develop-
ment rather than security aspects – in keeping with where these states’ domestic
experiences are centred. Conversely, emerging states clearly exhibit less concern
with human rights and democracy promotion in their approaches to peace,
tending instead to focus on diminishing inequality and the attendant potential
for structural violence. Convergence between these states beyond the discur-
sive level remains case-by-case, but these increasingly important contributors
to peace operations and development assistance continue rapidly to gather
international experience and influence. Though they are ultimately more likely
to innovate from within the liberal peace than to develop a cogent proposal
to replace it, there is a growing role for these powers in bringing greater
sophistication, efficacy and legitimacy to international peace efforts.
Notes
1. Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 31ff.
2. Kai M. Kenkel, ‘Out of South America to the Globe: Brazil’s Growing Stake in Peace
Operations’, in South America and Peace Operations: Coming of Age, ed. Kai M. Kenkel
(London: Routledge, 2013), 85–110.
3. Pu Xiaoyu, “Socialisation as a Two-way Process: Emerging Powers and the Dif-
fusion of International Norms,” Chinese Journal of International Politics 5 (2012):
341–367; Brian L. Job and Anastasia Shesterinina, “China as a Global Norm-Shaper:
Institutionalization and Implementation of the Responsibility to Protect,” in Imple-
mentation & World Politics: How International Norms Change Practice, eds Alexander
Betts and Phil Orchard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 144–159.
4. Rohan Mukherjee and David M. Malone, ‘From High Ground to High Table: The
Evolution of Indian Multilateralism’, Global Governance 17 (2011): 325.
5. Oliver P. Richmond and Ioannis Tellidis, ‘The BRICS and International Peacebuilding
and Statebuilding’, NOREF Report (Oslo: Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre),
http://mercury.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/160996/ipublicationdocument_single
document/a0627b19-f79d-493b-b0b0-7a1d885773c1/en/5f8c6a3d43ec8fff5692d7b5
96af2491.pdf, accessed 21 June 2014.
6. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2013 The
Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World (New York: United Nations
Development Programme, 2013), http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/14/
hdr2013_en_complete.pdf, accessed 21 June 2014; United Nations Development Pro-
gramme Brazil (2013) ‘Ranking IDHM Municípios 2010’, http://www.pnud.org.br/
atlas/ranking/Ranking-IDHM-Municipios-2010.aspx, accessed 21 June 2014.
7. Instituto Pereira Passos and Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, ‘Tabela
1172 – Índice de Desenvolvimento Humano Municipal (IDH), porordem de IDH,
segundoosbairrosougrupo de bairros’, 2010, http://www.armazemdedados.rio.rj.gov.
br/arquivos/1172_%C3%ADndice%20de%20desenvolvimento%20humano%20mun
icipal%20(idh).xls, accessed 21 June 2014.
8. Johan Galtung, ‘Violence, Peace, and Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research 6
(1969): 167–191.
9. Jacopo J. Waiselfisz, Mapa da Violência 2012: Os Novos Padrões da Violência Homicida
no Brasil (São Paulo: Instituto Sangari, 2012), 18.
10. Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, ‘Figure 2.3: Countries
ranked by violent death rate per 100,000 population, 2004–09’, 2011, http://www.
genevadeclaration.org/fileadmin/docs/GBAV2/GBAV2011-Fig-2.3-complete.pdf,
accessed 21 June 2014.
11. See, for example, Leonardo M. Alles, A Política Externa do Governo Lula: da NãoInter-
venção à NãoIndiferença (Curitiba: Appris, 2012).
12. See Barbara Bravo and Paula Drumond, ‘Challenging Modernities in Rio de Janeiro:
A Critical Analysis of the “Pacification” Project’, in Controlling Small Arms: Con-
solidation, Innovation and Relevance in Small Arms Research, eds Peter Batchelor
and Kai M. Kenkel (London: Routledge, 2013), 218–235; Ignácio Cano, ‘Public
Security Policies in Brazil: Attempts to Modernize and Democratize versus the
War on Crime’, Sur – International Journal on Human Rights 3 (2006): 133–149;
M. D. Freire, ‘Paradigmas de segurança no Brasil: da ditadura aos nossos dias’,
Aurora 5 (2009): 49–58, http://www.marilia.unesp.br/Home/RevistasEletronicas/
Aurora/FREIRE.pdf, accessed 21 June 2014.
13. Arie M. Kacowicz, Zones of Peace in the Third World: South America and West
Africa in Comparative Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1998); G1 (globo.com), ‘Lula defende consolidação da América do Sulcomozona
de paz’, http://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2010/07/lula-defende-consolidacao-da-
america-do-sul-como-zona-de-paz.html, accessed 21 June 2014.
14. Kai M. Kenkel, ‘South America’s Emerging Power: Brazil as Peacekeeper’, International
Peacekeeping 17 (2010): 650–652.
15. Leslie E. Armijo, ‘The BRICS Countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as an
Analytical Category: Mirage or Insight?’ Asian Perspective 31 (2007): 15–21.
16. Kai M. Kenkel, ‘Brazil and R2P: Does Taking Responsibility Mean Using Force?’ Global
Responsibility to Protect 4 (2012): 3–29.
17. See Peter Dauvergne and Deborah B. L. Farias, ‘The Rise of Brazil as a Global
Development Power’, Third World Quarterly 33 (2012): 908.
18. See Kenkel, ‘Responsibility’ and ‘Brazil as Peacekeeper’.
19. Anita Mathur, ‘Role of South–South Cooperation and Emerging Powers in
Peacemaking and Peacebuilding’, NUPI Report No. 4 (Oslo: Norwegian Institute of
International Affairs, 2014), 34–38, http://www.nupi.no/content/download/495278/
1647431/version/15/file/NUPI-Report-4-14-Mathur.pdf, accessed 21 June 2014.
20. Volker Boege, Anne Brown, Kevin Clements and Anna Nolan, On Hybrid Political
Orders and Emerging States: State Formation in the Context of ‘Fragility’ (Berlin: Berghof
Foundation, 2008), 6, http://www.berghof-handbook.net/documents/publications/
boege_etal_handbook.pdf, accessed 21 June 2014.
21. Jeremy Allouche and Jeremy Lind, ‘Beyond the New Deal: Global Collaboration
and Peacebuilding with BRICS Countries’, IDS Policy Briefing 64 (Brighton: Institute
of Development Studies, 2014), 1–2, http://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/
123456789/3817/1/AD_ID176_PB#59_BeyondNewDeal_2.1.pdf, date accessed 21 June
2014.
22. Susanne Gratius, ‘Brazil in the Americas: A Regional Peace Broker?’ Working Paper
(Madrid: Fundaciónparalas Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior, 2007), 9,
http://www.fride.org/download/WP35_BraAmer_ENG_abr07.pdf, accessed 21 June
2014.
23. Thierry Tardy, ‘Emerging Powers and Peacekeeping: An Unlikely Normative
Clash’, Policy Paper 2012/3 (Geneva: Geneva Centre for Security Policy, 2012),
3, 4, http://mercury.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/141118/ipublicationdocument_
singledocument/8bfa32fb-ce50-493d-ae8d-bf980e886d3f/en/Emerging+Powers+and
+Peacekeeping.pdf, accessed 26 October 2015.
24. Andrew Hurrell, ‘Hegemony, Liberalism and Global Order: What Space for Would-Be
Great Powers?’ International Affairs 82 (2006): 1–19; see also Daniel Flemes, ‘O Brasil
na iniciativa BRIC: soft balancing numa ordem global em mudança?’ Revista Brasileira
de Política Internacional 53 (2010): 141–156.
25. Chris Alden and Marco Antonio Vieira, ‘The New Diplomacy of the South: South
Africa, Brazil, India and Trilateralism’, Third World Quarterly 26 (2005): 1079;
Oliver P. Richmond, ‘Critical Agency, Resistance and a Post-Colonial Civil Society’,
Cooperation and Conflict 46 (2011): 430.
26. Tardy, ‘Emerging Powers and Peacekeeping’, 2.
27. Ibid., 4.
28. Mukherjee and Malone, ‘From High Ground to High Table’, 325.
29. Benjamin de Carvalho and Cedric de Coning, ‘Rising Powers and the Future of
Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding’, NOREF Report November 2013 (Oslo: Norwegian
Peacebuilding Research Centre), 4, http://www.peacebuilding.no/var/ezflow_site/

storage/original/application/f194e6326ee12f80c3705117b151ef78.pdf, accessed 21
June 2014.
30. Kai M. Kenkel, ‘Brazil’s Peacebuilding in Africa and Haiti’, Journal of International
Peacekeeping 17 (2013): 285.
31. Kenkel, ‘Brazil’s Peacebuilding in Africa and Haiti’, 288–289; see also Robert Muggah
and Ilona Szábo de Carvalho, ‘O Efeito Sul: reflexões críticas sobre o engaja-
mento do Brasil com Estadosfrágeis’, RevistaBrasileira de SegurançaPública 5 (2011):
166–176, http://revista.forumseguranca.org.br/index.php/rbsp/article/viewFile/104/
101, accessed 21 June 2014.
32. Adriana E. Abdenur and Danilo Marcondes de Souza Neto, ‘South-South Cooperation
and Democracy in Africa: Brazil’s Role in Guinea-Bissau’, Africa Review 5 (2013): 115.
33. Dauvergne and Farias, ‘The Rise of Brazil as a Global Development Power’, 909.
34. See Laurie Nathan, ‘Interests, Ideas and Ideology: South Africa’s Policy on Darfur’,
African Affairs 110/438 (2010): 63.
35. Ibid., 64–65.
36. N. Grobbelaar and Y. Chen with H. Corbett, ‘Understanding South Africa’s
Role in Achieving Regional and Global Development Progress’, IDS Policy Brief-
ing 64 (Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2014), http://www.ids.ac.uk/
publication/understanding-south-africa-s-role-in-achieving-regional-and-global-
development-progress, accessed 26 October 2015.
37. Alden and Vieira, ‘The New Diplomacy of the South’, 1083.
38. Sean Burges, ‘Brazil’s International Development Co-operation: Old and New Moti-
vations’, Development Policy Review 32 (2014): 360.
39. Brendan Vickers, ‘Towards a New Aid Paradigm: South Africa as African Development
Partner’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 25 (2012): 552–553.
40. R. Gowan and S. K. Singh (2013) ‘India and UN Peacekeeping: The Weight of History
and Lack of Strategy’, in Shaping the Emerging World Order: India and Multilateralism,
eds B. Jones, P. B. Mehta and W. P. S. Sidhu (Washington: Brookings Institution),
178–179.
29
Central Asia: Contested Peace
David Lewis
Introduction
The meaning of peace in post-Soviet Central Asia is highly contested. At the

everyday level of the popular and the social, understandings of peace diverge
among different social and ethnic groups. At a national level, public discourses
of peace that prioritize notions such as stability and authority are contested by
individuals and communities pursuing justice or defending human rights. At an
international level, multi-lateral organizations promote liberal understandings
of peace and peacebuilding, but these ideas are challenged by authoritarian
conceptualizations of peace and stability promoted both by governing elites
and by regional hegemons such as Russia and China.
This contestation at each level is sometimes framed as a struggle between the
discourses and practices of liberal peace and an alternative model that promotes
more hierarchical, top-down notions of order and stability, sometimes termed
‘illiberal peace’.1 Such a framing provides important insights, but in reality pat-
terns of contestation are complex and are not easily represented by a simplistic
mapping of local/international onto illiberal/liberal. Constructions of peace
promoted by regional and national elites are characterized by more than simply
a rejection of liberal norms. Instead, they produce a particular model of author-
itarian conflict management and a conservative ideology that resonates both
horizontally – across boundaries among regional states and political elites –
and vertically, connecting authoritarian state elites with hierarchical structures
in society.
Central Asia
The five states of Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – have all pursued diverse post-Soviet trajecto-
ries and had very different experiences of conflict and peace. In the aftermath
387
of the Soviet collapse, Tajikistan descended into a civil war between rival
regional factions and ideological opponents that claimed more than 50,000
lives in 1992–97. Uzbekistan faced attacks by an Islamist guerrilla movement,
the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which continues to operate in
Afghanistan and Pakistan. Kyrgyzstan has twice – in 1990 and 2010 – expe-
rienced outbreaks of serious interethnic violence between ethnic Kyrgyz and
Uzbeks in the south of the country, each time resulting in hundreds of deaths.
In cases of ‘one-sided’ violence, Uzbek troops killed hundreds of protestors in
Andijan in May 2005; more than 80 people died during an anti-government
uprising in Kyrgyzstan in April 2010; and Kazakh police shot dead at least 15
people during a protest and riot in Zhanaozen in December 2011.
These conflicts in the region prompted a succession of international pro-
grammes, which aimed to prevent and resolve conflicts. Conflict resolution
projects were particularly common in the Fergana Valley region, which was
viewed both locally and internationally as vulnerable to serious conflict due
to socio-economic problems and disputed borders.2 These international ini-
tiatives promoted liberal understandings of peace and peacebuilding, linking
peace explicitly to achieving democratic governance, economic reform, the rule
of law and respect for human rights. Analysis of the causes of conflict empha-
sized the significance of socio-economic grievances, such as access to land or
water, or political grievances, including state repression and social exclusion.
Within the framework of liberal peace, the predominantly authoritarian nature
of regimes in the region was seen as a serious impediment to any sustainable
peace.
For many regional elites, on the other hand, conflict was not the result of
unmet popular grievances, but stemmed from the manipulation of state weak-
ness by radicals, criminals or political opponents for their own ideological or
financial gain.3 Most political leaders in Central Asia viewed authoritarian rule
as an effective mode of governance to prevent conflict and to promote peace
and stability. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan became among the world’s most
closed and repressive states, the targets of regular international criticisms of
their extensive abuses of human rights. Kazakhstan followed a more liberal
path in social and economic terms, but in politics it reproduced the authori-
tarian structures of its southern neighbours. In Tajikistan, the UN promoted a
pluralistic peace process in the 1990s, in line with ideas of liberal peacebuilding,
but President Emomali Rahmon subsequently relied on authoritarian political
methods to achieve a more stable, centralized state.
Only Kyrgyzstan has conducted competitive elections in the region’s recent
history, but its more pluralistic system has been plagued by instability and
violence, thereby confirming the views of some regional elites that democra-
tization and peace are incompatible. Authoritarian leaders resisted arguments
that political and economic liberalization would serve as a means to prevent
David Lewis 389
conflict. Instead, they developed their own understandings of peace with an

emphasis on political stability and social order. The following discussion pro-
vides a preliminary outline of some key themes in the debate, explored through
a multi-level analysis of discourses about peace, from the everyday through to
the national and international.
Everyday meanings of peace
Popular conceptualizations of peace are not static sets of ideas, waiting to

be ‘discovered’ by anthropologists, but constantly shifting notions of how
to achieve peaceful lives in difficult political, economic and social situations.
The ideas vary significantly across the Central Asian region, between differ-
ent countries, ethnic and social groups, and generations. Despite this diversity
of opinion, it is useful to outline common themes that cross boundaries and
inform understandings of peace that differ in important ways from liberal
conceptualizations. Three broad themes are discussed here: peace as social
unity; peace as the product of hierarchical authority; and peace as economic
well-being.
A first theme is the definition of peace as a condition of ‘unity’ and ‘har-
mony’. This is often expressed through what has been termed a ‘harmony
ideology’,4 evident in a refusal to admit to internal contradictions within com-
munities, at least in public discourse. In a typical case, participants in focus
groups in Tajikistan were reluctant to admit to serious problems in their vil-
lage, although it was identified by development agencies as suffering from
conflict.5 This ‘harmony ideology’ is not only a defence mechanism against
external interference, but also constitutes a positive idea of peace as unity
that is frequently referenced in everyday discourse. In one study, the Kyrgyz
notions of yntymak (harmony) and birimdik (unity) were highlighted by vil-
lage elders as central to peace as they planned activities to overcome political
conflict.6 Megoran also identifies these two notions as important for Kyrgyz
attempts to define a post-conflict peace in violence-affected Osh.7 Among
Kyrgyz-speakers in eastern Tajikistan, Mostowlansky also suggests that the idea
of peace (tyntchtyk in Kyrgyz) is intimately related to ideas of yntymak.8
Such understandings of peace are often misunderstood in conflict preven-
tion and resolution projects supported by external agencies, yet they can be
very successful in overcoming conflict and promoting peaceful resolution of
disputes through internal discussions, inter-communal negotiations and com-
promise. In some cases, however, ideas such as yntymak allow the unity of one
ethnic group to be constructed in opposition to ethnic minorities or some other
social ‘Other’ or marginalized group. Yntymak is also used to refer to a system
of mutual financial obligations and support among relatives that can produce
solidarity but can also be oppressive for poorer members of society.9 Certainly,
yntymak as understood by village elders in a Kyrgyz village involved a regime

of social control that favoured the elders’ conservative understandings of order
and peace.10 ‘Harmony ideologies’ tend to see difference as a threat to peace
and a potential cause of conflict, and may seek to suppress agonistic forms of
politics. One interviewee in Heathershaw’s work notes approvingly that ‘there
are no tensions, no kind of political parties’ in his village.11
A second theme in everyday discussions of peace in the region is the notion
of authority. In this conceptualization, peace is produced and maintained, not
by rules and norms agreed through democratic processes and enforced through
legal mechanisms, but through a hegemonic order promoted and maintained
by an authoritative leader. Liu argues that the notion of authority is central
to the construction of peaceful order among Uzbeks in Osh, where a ‘good
authority figure’ would be a ‘strong and ruthless but benevolent and wise
paternal figure whose influence would hold sway over neighbourhood, city,
and state’.12 Authority takes on spatial characteristics in the traditional Uzbek
neighbourhood, the mahalla, a space that also promotes communal unity and is
seen by many Uzbeks as a means to achieve ‘a self-regulating peace’.13 In eastern
Tajikistan, local sources claimed that ‘peace and harmony was dependent on
the existence of good (male) leaders, be they husbands, fathers, elders, reli-
gious specialists, or even political figures’.14 Such authority figures are viewed as
producers of order and guarantors of peace. They often intervene to resolve con-
flicts and disputes, not as neutral, disinterested facilitators of negotiation, as in
liberal theories, but as hierarchical mediators with both interests and power.15
These two ideas of unity and authority come together in the frequent refer-
encing of the family in everyday discourses of peace, both as an analogy that
illustrates the desired nature of wider peace, and as a necessary social struc-
ture to achieve that peace. Anthropological work suggests that the concepts
of tynchtyk (‘peace’ in Kyrgyz) and tinji (‘peace’ in Tajik) in eastern Tajikistan
are closely bound up with a particular construction of ideal family life, dom-
inated by a patriarchal notion of authority.16 These analogies with the family
inevitably produce a highly gendered idea of peace, in which women’s voices
are often ignored or belittled.17 Women often play important roles in public
and professional life in all these states, but in many parts of the region women
suffer significant domestic violence and social and political exclusion.18 The
role of masculine authority in constructing peace inevitably contributes to the
silence around gender-based violence in discourses of peace and security in the
region.
A third theme in everyday discourses of peace is that economic well-being is
essential for peace. In a focus group in Tajikistan, unemployment and labour
migration were seen as posing the most serious threats to peace.19 This expands
the idea of a political economy of peace beyond the focus of liberal frameworks
on poverty reduction through development assistance. The notion of peace as
David Lewis 391
harmony and unity implies an element of paternalistic care in economic policy,

including the economic well-being of the poor and the elderly.20 Yet the idea of
peace as economic well-being also contains potential contradictions. Paternalis-
tic assistance provided by informal authority figures is often welcomed by local
people, but these practices rely on a political economy of inequality, patronage
and clientelism that arguably undermines the economic prosperity of society
overall. Labour migration offers relatively well-paid employment, but it is often
viewed as a threat to peace, since it undermines the ‘unity’ of the community
and may be seen to weaken legitimate authority. In this sense, it is not only
overall economic prosperity that is seen as having an impact on peace, but
particular modes of employment, shifting patterns of wealth distribution and
trends in labour migration.
National/official discourses of peace
Political elites derive their public discourse of peace from society-wide social
and historical experiences and ideas, but they also instrumentally prioritize
particular frameworks that suit a particular political order. These selected ideas
of peace are partly promulgated through a hegemonic discourse, promoted
through state-controlled media and facilitated by the repression of political
and social dissent. But such ideas are also transmitted in more complex ways,
through the ‘recontextualization’ of public discourses, in which official ideas
are transferred to private and semi-private discourse by authoritative social
actors.21 When successful, this recasting of official discourses into semi-private
spheres produces a circulating discourse about peace that achieves resonance in
society, while also serving the political goals of elites.
Official constructions by authoritarian governments of the meaning of peace
have relied heavily on the tropes of ‘unity’ and ‘authority’ that are central to
everyday discourses of peace. Turkmenistan celebrates the Day of Revival and
Unity annually. Tajikistan enjoys the Day of National Unity on 27 June, while
Kazakhstan marks a Day of Unity of the People on 1 May. In a Unity Day speech,
President Nursultan Nazaerbaev of Kazakhstan claimed: ‘If a family is united,
it will be strong . . . . And if a country is not united, it will just crumble . . . the
unity of us all is the foundation of peace in our country.’22 Thus, ideas of unity,
authority and family come together in these official discourses, in which peace
and stability are contrasted with the division and conflict perceived to be the
result of political mobilization against the regime.
These ideas of unity often provide legitimization for authoritarian modes of
governance by delegitimizing ‘divisive’ political opposition. In 2005 President
Akaev of Kyrgyzstan attempted to justify a clampdown on political opposi-
tion by referring to ideas of unity and harmony in his public speeches.23
In such contexts, such discourses inevitably provoke cynicism among part
of the population, and are seldom sufficient to overcome genuine grievances

among ethnic minorities and political opponents. Even where the ideas them-
selves are widely accepted in society as an important component of peace, their
promotion by the state may still produce opposition. One ethnographic study
found that interviewees considered ‘public state rituals which were meant to
promote “unity” (vahdat) to be disingenuous and not really contributing to a
peaceful Tajikistan’.24
The idea of paternalistic authority as productive of peace does useful ideo-
logical work for elites in legitimizing the dominance of authoritarian political
leaders. In Tajikistan, the ideal of the unified family, presided over by a paternal-
istic leader, is extended into the political realm to legitimize the president in the
role of ‘father of the nation’.25 This paternalistic framing of authority is com-
mon throughout the Central Asian states: in Turkmenistan, former president
Saparmurad Niyazov was referred to as ‘Turkmenbashi’, head or father of the
Turkmen, while current Turkmen president Gurmanguly Berdymukhamedov
calls himself ‘Arkadag’ (Protector), and represents conflict as originating outside
the country, beyond the peaceful realm that is governance under his ‘pro-
tection’. Such framings of authoritative leadership are useful in legitimizing
oppressive non-liberal mechanisms of rule, since within this discourse, pater-
nalistic figures are permitted to impose short-term discipline for the greater
good of the family. For one Uzbek in Osh, such an ideal political leader ‘per-
sonified the state as a disciplining father who caused the short-term suffering
of their people for their long-term good’.26
The idea that peaceful order and legitimate authority are gendered is also
rearticulated at state level as an important element in a discourse of pater-
nalistic rule. Opponents of ousted Kyrgyz president, Askar Akaev, linked their
accusations of ineffectual leadership to his failure to conform to stereotypes
of an aggressive male leader. On the other hand, Osh Uzbeks viewed Uzbek
president Islam Karimov in a very different way, seeing him as ‘an ideal
agentive male’.27 Megoran argues that such a concept can also be seen in
Karimov’s response to the killings by state forces of protestors in Andijon, where
hegemonic notions of masculinity were used in the discursive legitimation of
the government response and the delegitimization of its opponents.28
The idea that peace is produced and maintained by a masculine authority
figure with social legitimacy (what Liu terms the ‘khan idiom’)29 has wide
resonance in many societies in the region. It also produces resistance, since
it relies on violence and coercion as important modes of governance. The
killing of hundreds of protestors – most of them unarmed – after an upris-
ing in Andijan in 2005 was portrayed by Karimov as a legitimate response
to armed criminals and religious extremists.30 However, for many Uzbeks, the
killings sharply undermined Karimov’s legitimacy and the political order he
represented: Karimov was no longer an authority figure who maintained peace,
David Lewis 393
but a source of violence and conflict. An Uzbek dissident writer, Yusuf Jumaev,
presented this paradox in a poem, banned in Uzbekistan, entitled ‘Blood in
Andijon’: ‘Great Islam Karimov is the shield of the people/For the people
he burns down Uzbekistan.’31 This conflict between discourses that legitimize
authoritarian systems as a source of stability and unity and the violence that
is an integral part of dictatorial rule is unresolved, and remains a fundamental
point of contention in discussions of peace in the region.
The ideal concept of economic prosperity contributing to social peace is also
little more than an aspiration in countries such as Uzbekistan or Tajikistan.
While authoritarian rulers project an image as paternalistic providers of eco-
nomic goods in ways that promote peace and stability, in reality these politico-
economic systems preside over high levels of poverty and inequality. The
‘Uzbek model of development’, promoting a paternalistic path of gradual eco-
nomic reform, was designed to preserve peace and social stability when other
post-Soviet states were undergoing traumatic neoliberal economic and social
reforms. In reality, however, it has resulted in widespread poverty, endemic
corruption and mass labour migration. Social and political protests in Central
Asia have frequently mobilized against high-level corruption, suggesting that
economic growth without social justice is seen by many Central Asians as not
conducive to political stability.
A final contested aspect of both everyday and official discourses of peace is
the role of religion. For many people in the region, religion – and Islam in
particular – is viewed as an important pillar of social peace.32 Ideas of peace
emphasizing unity and authority also appear to be highly compatible with
local understandings of Islam. Yet secular elites in the region have viewed an
increased interest in Islam in the region and the emergence of new sects and
schools of thought as a potential threat to peace; they argue that the only way
to achieve peace in a multi-confessional state is by maintaining a secular state.
However, many independent Islamic scholars and activists suggest that govern-
ments should embrace Islam in public life because of its potential to produce
social order and peace and stability.33 These disputes over the role of religion
in society have become a major source of political and security contestation in
the region.
International contestations of peace
At the international level, Central Asian societies have increasingly engaged

with international organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
promoting liberal conceptualizations of peace. For the most part, liberal under-
standings of peace have been actively resisted by political elites, who view them
as threatening their own political dominance. Liberal peacebuilding – partic-
ularly in forms promoted by external actors – has also found it difficult to
gain traction with a wider populace. Different understandings of the sources

of conflict and the nature of peace have frequently led to failed interna-
tional programmes and deep misunderstandings. As a result, ideas of liberal
peacebuilding promoted by international actors have often been characterized
as ‘virtual’, lacking impact on arenas of real political power.34
Nevertheless, regional ideas about peace and conflict form significant inter-
textual linkages with the discourse of the liberal peace, because Central Asian
governments engage with a wide range of international institutions operating
within such frameworks. As a result, neo-traditional constructions of peace as
a form of patriarchal unity are sometimes accompanied by rhetorical defer-
ence to global discourses of liberal peace, democracy and human rights, while
resisting any serious impact of liberal ideas of peace on government policy.
This referencing of a global discourse of liberal peace should not be confused
with the notion of a ‘hybrid peace’.35 Although there are elements of mutual
influence in these interactions, political elites have usually been able to con-
tain the practices of liberal peacebuilding outside the mechanisms of political
power, through which they continue to promote and implement conservative
and patriarchal forms of peace and stability. This ability to maintain authoritar-
ian responses to conflict, despite international involvement, is evident in two
conflicts in the region where there was significant international involvement:
the civil war in Tajikistan and the interethnic violence in Osh in 2010.
The resolution of the Tajik civil war in 1997 was accompanied by a series
of international initiatives, including UN and Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) missions, and a variety of programmes by inter-
national NGOs and development agencies. These international interventions
promoted dialogue, political and economic reform, and respect for human
rights, with the aim of overcoming and preventing conflict. However, the
government followed a statebuilding programme that opposed political liberal-
ization and undermined the pluralistic elements of the peace agreement, while
consolidating central control across the country by eliminating or co-opting
potential opponents.36 Rather than producing a hybrid form of peacebuilding,
the result was a policy of authoritarian conflict management that relied on
ideas of peace in which notions of ‘unity’ and ‘authority’ played a central role.
Such a policy was relatively successful at ending armed conflict and produc-
ing political stability in much of the country. International NGOs and agencies
continued to work in Tajikistan, but they had no impact on the central thrust of
government policy, which pursued a concept of peace defined and constructed
on its own terms.
A similar idea of peace based on authoritarian control was seen in south-
ern Kyrgyzstan, in the aftermath of the 2010 violence between Kyrgyz and
Uzbeks. An attempt by the OSCE to deploy a police mission to Osh was met by
protests organized by local Kyrgyz political leaders against what demonstrators
David Lewis 395
claimed would be ‘another Kosovo’. The OSCE was viewed by the protestors as
the operationalization of a particular liberal understanding of peace, including
an emphasis on the rights of ethnic minorities. While this idea was welcomed
by many ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan, who viewed external actors
as potential sources of both security and justice, such an intervention was
viewed by local Kyrgyz elites as highly destabilizing to their concept of post-
conflict peace. Rather than seeking to resolve the political grievances of ethnic
minorities or achieve justice for the victims of violence, the aim of local officials
was to develop sufficient political and economic control to prevent future con-
flict. As Ismailbekova notes, ‘The intention of the mayor [of Osh] was to build
peace by exercising total control over Uzbeks within their own communities’.37
This authoritarian mode of conflict management was achieved through both
formal and informal mechanisms, while the local authorities simultaneously
cooperated with a wide range of international actors engaged in post-conflict
reconstruction.
This set of shared discourses and practices that constitute authoritarian
approaches to conflict diverge markedly from internationally promoted ideas
of liberal peace. But they resonate strongly with the regional and global stances
promoted by the dominant Eurasian powers, Russia and China, and their mul-
tilateral organizations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).38 Russia and China have pro-
moted a view of peace achieved through hierarchical models of state control
and a willingness to use coercive mechanisms to achieve political and social
stabilization. Both governments view political liberalization as destabilizing
and conflict-producing, rather than being a central feature of a sustainable
peacebuilding process, and they downplay an emphasis on individual rights in
peace, instead prioritizing regime and state security. These discourses and prac-
tices from Beijing and Moscow offer considerable reinforcement for the policy
positions of elites in Central Asia, both domestically and in the international
arena.
Conclusion
Liberal ideas of peace have been institutionalized in multiple international

peacebuilding initiatives in Central Asia. Few of these have been successful in
producing stable and just governance or in resolving conflict. One reason has
been a failure to take into account popular and elite understandings of peace,
which have prioritized notions of unity and authority rather than democrati-
zation and liberal values. As a result, liberal peace initiatives have often been
side-lined by more authoritarian approaches to conflict management.
Nevertheless, these dominant statist and hierarchical conceptualizations
of peace are frequently challenged by local actors, who resist the internal
repression and state violence produced by authoritarian political systems. The

outcome is a complex and contested set of meanings of peace in the region that
continues to evolve in response to both domestic developments and shifts in
the international system. Divergent understandings of peace and conflict have
begun to overlap with patterns of geopolitical competition among major pow-
ers in the region. The contested meaning of peace in Central Asia reflects much
wider tensions in global politics.
Notes
1. See David Lewis, ‘The Failure of a Liberal Peace: Sri Lanka’s Counter-Insurgency
in Global Perspective’, Conflict, Security & Development 10, no. 5 (2010): 647–671;
Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, ‘Illiberal Peacebuilding in Angola’, The Journal of Modern
African Studies 49, no. 2 (2011): 287–314.
2. Nancy Lubin and Barnett Rubin, Calming the Ferghana Valley: Development and
Dialogue in the Heart of Central Asia (New York: Century Foundation Press, 1999).
3. In effect, they followed Collier’s argument that rebellion could be traced to opportu-
nity and feasibility, and not to underlying grievances. See Paul Collier, Anke Hoeffler
and Dominic Rohner, ‘Beyond Greed and Grievance: Feasibility and Civil War’,
Oxford Economic Papers 61/1 (2009), 1–27. On the ‘greed vs grievance’ debate in the
Central Asian context, see Christine Bichsel, Conflict Transformation in Central Asia:
Irrigation Disputes in the Ferghana Valley (London: Routledge, 2009), 34–35.
4. Laura Nader, Harmony Ideology: Justice and Control in a Zapotec Mountain Village
(Stanford University Press, 1991).
5. John Heathershaw, Post-Conflict Tajikistan: The Politics of Peacebuilding and the
Emergence of Legitimate Order (London: Routledge, 2009), 75–76.
6. Judith Beyer, ‘Ordering Ideals: Accomplishing Well-Being in a Kyrgyz Cooperative of
Elders’, Central Asian Survey 32, no. 4 (2013): 432–447.
7. Nick Megoran, Averting Violence in Kyrgyzstan: Understanding and Responding to
Nationalism (London: Chatham House, Russia and Eurasia Programme Paper,
2012).
8. Till Mostowlansky, ‘ “The State Starts from the Family”: Peace and Harmony in
Tajikistan’s Eastern Pamirs’, Central Asian Survey 32, no. 4 (2013): 462–474.
9. See Altyn Kapalova, ‘Financial and Material Support Obligations in Kyrgyz Family
Networks’, European Union Foreign Affairs Journal 2/3 (2011), http://www.libertas-
institut.com/de/EUFAJ/eufaj_2_3_2011.pdf, accessed 28 October 2015.
10. Beyer, ‘Ordering Ideals’, 442.
11. Heathershaw, Post-Conflict Tajikistan, 79.
12. Morgan Liu, Recognising the Khan: Authority, Space, and Political Imagination among
Uzbek Men in Post-Soviet Osh, Kyrgyzstan (PhD Dissertation, University of Michigan,
2002), 1, as cited in Heathershaw, Post-Conflict Tajikistan, 69.
13. Morgan Liu, Under Solomon’s Throne (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012), 117.
14. Mostowlansky, ‘The State Starts from the Family’, 372.
15. Similar modes of mediation have been identified in some other Asian cultures. See
Joel Lee and Teh Hwee Hwee, An Asian Perspective on Mediation (Academy Publishing,
2009).
16. Mostowlansky, ‘The State Starts from the Family’.
David Lewis 397
18. Robin N. Haarr, ‘Wife Abuse in Tajikistan’, Feminist Criminology 2, no. 3 (2007),
245–270; ‘Suicidality among Battered Women in Tajikistan’, Violence against Women,
16, no. 7 (2010), 764–788.
20. Beyer, ‘Ordering Ideals’.
21. Theo Van Leeuwen, Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis
(Oxford University Press, 2008).
22. Jan Furst, ‘Triple Celebrations Start the Month of May in Kazakhstan’, The Astana
Times, 12 May 2014, http://www.astanatimes.com/2014/05/triple-celebrations-start-
month-may-kazakhstan (accessed 28 October 2015).
23. Anara Karagulova and Nick Megoran, ‘Discourses of Danger and the “War on Ter-
ror”: Gothic Kyrgyzstan and the Collapse of the Akaev regime’, Review of International
Studies 37, no. 1 (2011): 17.
24. Mostowlansky, ‘The State Starts from the Family’, 472.
26. Liu, Under Solomon’s Throne, 162.
27. Liu, Under Solomon’s Throne, 170.
28. Nick Megoran, ‘Framing Andijon, Narrating the Nation: Islam Karimov’s Account of
the Events of 13 May 2005’, Central Asian Survey 27, no. 1: 15–31.
29. Liu, Under Solomon’s Throne, 148–184.
30. Megoran, ‘Framing Andijan, Narrating the Nation’.
31. Sarah Kendzior, ‘Poetry of Witness: Uzbek Identity and the Response to Andijon’,
Central Asian Survey 26, no. 3 (2007): 329.
32. Mostowlansky, ‘The State Starts from the Family’.
33. Tim Epkenhans, ‘Defining Normative Islam: Some Remarks on Contemporary
Islamic Thought in Tajikistan–Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda’s Sharia and Society’, Central
Asian Survey 30, no. 1 (2011): 91.
34. Heathershaw, Post-Conflict Tajikistan.
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
36. Jesse Driscoll, ‘Commitment Problems or Bidding Wars? Rebel Fragmentation as
Peace Building’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 56, no. 1: 118–149.
37. Aksana Ismailbekova, ‘Coping Strategies: Public Avoidance, Migration, and Marriage
in the Aftermath of the Osh Conflict, Fergana Valley’, Nationalities Papers 41, no. 1
(2013): 109–127.
38. David Lewis, ‘Who’s Socialising Whom? Regional Organisations and Contested
Norms in Central Asia’, Europe-Asia Studies 64, no. 7 (2012): 1219–1237.
30
Middle East and North Africa:
Hegemonic Modes of Pacification in
Crisis
Sandra Pogodda
Introduction
‘Nowhere’, Henry Kissinger observes, ‘is the challenge of international order

more complex – in terms of both organizing regional order and ensuring the
compatibility of that order with peace and stability in the rest of the world.’1
In the face of a devastating civil war in Syria, the seizure of significant parts
of the Mashriq by Daesh (the self-styled ‘Islamic State’), the collapse of state
authority in Libya and Israel’s frequent wars on Gaza, Kissinger’s statement
might sound like common sense. Its implicit bias towards external interven-
tion highlights one of the main issues undermining peace in the region,
though: the historical subjection of Arab countries to interventions motivated
by the geopolitical and strategic interests of external actors. Such interference
has created or intensified fault lines within the fabric of Arab societies, rup-
tured homegrown state-formation processes, shored up authoritarian rulers and
forged different types of resistance in the process. This chapter examines the
complex interplay of national policies, international interventions and local
agency in creating or mitigating challenges to peace in the Middle East and
North Africa. It explains conflict in the light of the region’s hegemonic modes
of pacification and their current crisis.
Given the range of different conflicts that have afflicted the region in the
recent past, this chapter cannot be comprehensive in its analysis. Even in a
short-term historical perspective – analysing only the twentieth and twenty-
first centuries – the Arab region has been beset by a large number of conflicts
with a variety of driving forces, dynamics and divergent lasting impacts: liber-
ation wars against imperial powers, different manifestations of the Arab–Israeli
conflict, interstate wars, invasions and military occupations, as well as civil
wars. This analysis will focus on two examples: sectarian conflicts, which cur-
rently appear to dominate the region’s woes, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
as an example of the failure of internationally led peace processes.
398
Sandra Pogodda 399
Over the course of the past century, peace in the Middle East and North
Africa has usually been achieved and maintained through repression, turning
peace into an oppressive experience for its subjects. While this might have
been true for certain periods of Ottoman rule as well, Arabs’ expectations of
a closer link between peace and emancipation were on the rise in the aftermath
of the First World War – and had been deliberately fanned by the British govern-
ment. Having been promised independence in return for their uprising against
the Ottoman Empire, those involved in the revolt of 1916–18 saw themselves
short-changed by the colonial powers in the interwar period.2 Sovereignty was
granted only in parts of the expected territory, while the mandate system
allowed the extension of colonial rule to Greater Syria (today’s Syria, Lebanon,
Jordan, Palestine and Israel). Since the division of Greater Syria and today’s Iraq
into state entities was based on colonial interests – rather than local needs, kin-
ship patterns and historical state-formation trajectories – the imposed new state
system suffered from an inbuilt lack of legitimacy. Setting the Middle East up
for internal turmoil and a series of wars, the colonial settlements of the period
between 1914 and 1922 have been described as ‘a peace to end all peace’.3
The interstate wars that followed led to fragile ceasefires and left the political
leaderships of the defeated parties vulnerable to military coups. Under these
conditions of societal fragmentation and political instability, national inde-
pendence empowered the militaries in the Middle East and North Africa more
than their populations.4 Oppressive state apparatuses were the result. Rather
than using independence as an opportunity to restructure governance around
local notions of political, social and moral order,5 colonial state bureaucracies
were taken over and often problematically inflated in the subsequent efforts
at nation building.6 Through a mixture of oppression, co-optation and strate-
gically limited liberalization, authoritarian regimes were able to hang on to
power until the Arab Uprisings of 2011 and beyond.7 Persistent authoritarian-
ism in the Middle East and North Africa was financially supported by Western
governments due to authoritarian rulers’ capacity to enforce political stability
and keep their economies on a neoliberal track.
This chapter argues that the conflation of access to the various control mech-
anisms of the modern state,8 international support through aid and links to
external actors has created various hegemonic modes of pacification. Their
strategies lie in the provision of political stability through the deployment of
large security apparatuses against internal and external enemies, while avoid-
ing engagement with the root causes of conflict. Governments across the region
have tried to anchor such pacification strategies in Realist or Gramscian varia-
tions of hegemony. Its Realist manifestations are based on political, economic
and military dominance shored up by external support, while its Gramscian
varieties encompass ruling elites’ efforts to dominate diverse societies through
the manipulation of people’s beliefs and perceptions. Indeed, hegemonic
anchoring may shift between these two variations, as the case study on sec-
tarian conflicts will show. This type of pacification generates at best a negative
peace, resulting in resistance and internal dissent.
The region’s peace agreements of the late twentieth century illustrate the
association of peace with domination, pacification and increasing societal divi-
sions. Throughout the decades of its formal existence, the Egyptian–Israeli
peace agreement of 1978 has failed to contribute to Arab–Israeli reconcilia-
tion. The main impact of the Camp David Accords has been a large-scale
influx of military aid to Egypt, creating a state within the state and bolster-
ing the military’s means of oppression. In Lebanon, the Ta’if peace accord has
stopped the civil war of the 1990s but reinforced sectarian identities.9 Attempts
to balance sectarian interests through Lebanon’s three-tier system have largely
paralysed Lebanese politics. Arguably, though, the greatest travesty of peace in
the region lies in the exploitative ‘peace process’ between Israel and Palestine.
Israel’s continuous annexation of Palestinian land and a brutal military occu-
pation has discredited the term ‘peace process’ among Palestinians as Orwellian
newspeak.10
The persistence of conflict in the region shows that the hegemonic modes of
pacification have been increasingly ineffective. Local notions of what peace
ought to be vary widely, but indicate that societal expectations exceed the
outcomes produced by pacification. Depending on location, socio-economic
situation, religious views and generation, local notions of peace range from
peace as stability achieved through force, to peace as realized in Islamic gover-
nance,11 to peace as socio-economic justice combined with civil and political
liberties. The Arab Uprisings suggested that public perceptions have shifted
towards the latter two notions. Commenced as secular rights-focused move-
ments to remove authoritarian rulers (and often later hijacked by Salafist
movements), the uprisings showed that masses of people had ‘passed suddenly
from a state of political passivity to . . . a revolution’ – hence, satisfying Gramsci’s
first condition for a crisis of hegemony.12 Moreover, the waning capacity of the
ruling elites to deliver the promised stability means that Gramsci’s second cri-
sis condition for hegemonies is also fulfilled. Across the region, the hegemonic
modes of pacification are now challenged by groups who demand liberties and
socio-economic justice instead of stability, and others who push for Islamic
governance.
The subsequent analysis aims to explain why the hegemonic modes of paci-
fication have hit crisis point with reference to two examples: the sectarian
conflicts in Syria and Iraq and the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. The chapter
illustrates how the prevalent modes of pacification have come about; why they
are currently hotly contested; and how international and grassroots efforts of
conflict resolution interact. The case studies demonstrate how the mechanisms
of pacification have turned against the paradigm of authoritarian stability.
Sandra Pogodda 401
Sectarian conflicts: State formation, manipulation or

essentialization?
Current political analysis tends to analyse conflicts in the Middle East along sec-
tarian lines, pitting Sunnis against Shi’a for control over governments, resources
and the regional balance of power. Prominent recent examples are Lebanon’s
civil war (1975–90), Iraq’s civil strife in the aftermath of the US-led invasion,
the present war in Syria and, most recently, the conflict in Yemen. A closer
investigation of the conflicts often reveals, though, that the combatants have
only tenuous sectarian affiliations (if any),13 that they do not pursue sec-
tarian objectives, or that sectarianism represents only one strand within the
wider conflict dynamics.14 Syria’s current war illustrates how problematic an
exclusive focus on sectarian fault lines can be. The conflict started off as
a secular uprising against a ruthless dictator, before it acquired a sectarian
dimension.15 Hence, overemphasis on sectarian tensions obscures the complex-
ity of the Syrian conflict. The rapid rise and extreme brutality of Daesh has
further obstructed analytical clarity, diverting the political discourse towards
anti-terrorism measures.
From a peace and conflict studies point of view, sectarianism constitutes two
challenges: its incompatibility with the liberal peace paradigm and its long-
term effect of political instability. The manipulation of latent sectarian tensions
can severely deepen fault lines in society and thus prolong or escalate conflicts,
while aggravating reconciliation. Transcending the complex interplay of fac-
tors which perpetuate, fuel or mitigate sectarian tensions is hence an important
task in the quest for peace – even if sectarianism constitutes only one dimen-
sion of the wider conflict dynamics. As Haddad points out, violence is neither
‘representative’ of sectarian relations, nor is it an ‘exception’.16 This section
aims to show that the present Sunni–Shi’a hostilities in the Arab region have
been forged through historical preconditions, state-formation dynamics and
the failure of Syria’s and Iraq’s modes of pacification.
From a historical point of view, it is unsurprising that the most severe
contemporary clashes between sub-state identities in the region are currently
occurring in Syria and Iraq. Both countries’ borders were drawn according to
colonial interests17 and merged uncomfortably coexisting communities with-
out shared statehood aspirations. This rendered both countries exposed to
internal and external contestation. Yet, state formation projects can succeed
under such conditions, if their national elites manage to integrate asabiyyah
(group solidarity based on kinship ties) into a wider nation-building project,
or if religion can be instrumentalized to create inter-community asabiyyah.18
Accordingly, the Baathist regimes in Syria and Iraq tried to neutralize divi-
sive identities by banning sectarian discourses and emphasizing an overarching
identity.19 These efforts have not only failed, however, but may, indeed, have
been counterproductive.20
The socio-economic and political discrimination experienced by Shi’a
communities across the region21 has undermined efforts to promote inter-
community asabiyyah. While marginalization in itself does not explain the
escalation of sectarian tensions, it reinforces sectarian identification and inter-
sectarian distrust. A century ago, the rural Shi’a communities in Iraq, Bahrain,
Lebanon and Syria were excluded not only from political power but also from
the benefits of the modern state. Yet, sectarian affiliations did not constitute
an important basis for political mobilization.22 Instead, forced urbanization
allowed Iraq’s and Syria’s Shi’a greater social mobility.23 Having gained access
to state institutions and services, these formerly marginalized populations
turned out to be better equipped than many other communities to climb the
social ladder.24 Long-standing discrimination had strengthened religious soli-
darity networks and led individuals to retreat into kinship relations, however.25
Resulting distrust towards other societal groups may escalate into sectarian
violence if the state becomes hijacked or replaced by sectarian interests.
The more it transpired that ruling elites were unable to achieve the popular
consent needed for a Gramscian hegemony, the more their modes of pacifi-
cation shifted towards oppression and deterrence. Hafez al-Assad’s massacre in
Hama (1982) and Saddam Hussein’s al-Anfal Campaign (1986–89) and his aerial
attacks on Halabja (1988) demonstrated how far some autocrats are prepared to
go to eliminate challenges to their rule.
Divisions in society further deepened as a result of overt sectarian biases
in the behaviour of state institutions. In the attempt to cement their grip
on power, ruling elites have institutionalized sectarianism in Syria and Iraq
through ethno-sectarian fear-mongering, biases in the recruitment for secu-
rity institutions, and the transformation of ministries into sectarian fiefdoms.26
As the comparison between authoritarian Syria and democratic post-2003 Iraq
shows, democratization may reinforce sectarian divisions just as much as
authoritarian rule. The Iraqi system of muhasasa (sectarian apportionment) and
Lebanon’s consociationalism, for instance, allowed sectarian actors to dissociate
the state from the public good.27 By putting sectarian entrepreneurs in charge
of distributing essential services, the sect appears as an alternative to the state
and emerges as its rival.
The more state institutions pursue particular interests rather than the pub-
lic good, the more excluded groups are prone to form counter-institutions or
to stand up against the state. In post-2003 Iraq, this contestation of the state
and its hegemonic mode of pacification occurred when the state institutions
were too weak to provide services equitably.28 Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria,
by contrast, stoked up sectarian tensions by strategically limiting distrusted
groups’ access to state institutions and state protection.29
Sandra Pogodda 403
As soon as their rule and modes of pacification were violently contested,

Iraq’s and Syria’s governments became more dependent on external support.
External sponsorship of different sectarian fighting forces degraded war-torn
Syria and Iraq from regional players to battlegrounds of Middle Eastern poli-
tics.30 Regional powers such as Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia may choose their
beneficiaries (armies or rebel militia) based primarily on geostrategic interests,
however, rather than because of a shared sectarian agenda.31 Hence, Sunni–
Shi’a conflicts are being instrumentalized in an underlying struggle for regional
dominance.
While national and regional actors have mainly fuelled sectarian conflict,
which actors are likely to promote reconciliation after sectarian strife, and
how? Given the devastating effect of its 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US has
been trying to promote reconciliation in the country. Its efforts in this regard
have, however, been counterproductive on occasions. Prior to withdrawing
from the country, the US administration designed an unsuitable transitional
justice process, which further undermined societal reconciliation.32 It shifted
transitional justice towards retribution and prosecution, rather than the more
locally accepted notion of justice as truth seeking and memorialization of
the past. Moreover, the US-designed de-Baathification process was regarded as
polarizing and was ultimately used to curb the rise of cross-sectarian forces
in the parliament.33 The Surge’s impact of stoking up three centrifugal forces
(sectarianism, tribalism and warlordism) ultimately doomed the US to leave
‘a country more divided than the one it invaded – thanks to a strategy that
has systematically nourished domestic rivalries in order to maintain an illusory
short-term stability’.34
Local initiatives are thus the last hope for inter-community reconciliation.
Grassroots mobilization across the sectarian divide, however, often finds itself
dragged into the very dynamics that it sets out to overcome. Mobilization of
the ‘Sons of Iraq’ may have pointed to the capacity of local communities to
join forces against illegitimate forms of rule. Yet, its sectarian bias undermined
its capacity to constitute a unifying grassroots movement,35 and facilitated its
political marginalization.36 Explicitly anti-sectarian protest movements as in
southern Iraq and around Baghdad’s Tahrir Square in 2011 have suffered from a
disconnect to formal politics, rendering them ineffective. By contrast, the cross-
community mobilization in Syria’s initial uprising became steeped in sectarian
symbolism and eventually caught up in segregating dynamics. If Haddad cor-
rectly assumes that the interpretation of recent history constantly recalibrates
inter-sectarian relations,37 the prospects for reconciliation might currently be
grim in Iraq and Syria. Indeed, the geographical separation of ethno-sectarian
groups during the current fighting suggests a potential Balkanization of both
conflicts, rather than lending hope for reconciliation.
The Israeli–Palestinian ‘peace process’ and the inadequacy of

diplomacy
By contrast, the hegemonic mode of pacification in the Israeli–Palestinian

conflict is of a different type. In the context of a military occupation and asym-
metric warfare between Israel’s high-tech army (the Israel Defense Forces, IDF)
and Palestinian resistance groups, Israel’s pacification strategy is based on a
Realist hegemony. It is anchored not in the consent of the pacified but in direct
and structural power over its subjects. It relies on the IDF’s regional military
superiority, foreign aid for its occupation, and the political support of the US.
The strategy pursued by Israel’s mode of pacification combines military dom-
ination and collective punishment of Palestinian communities.38 Especially
the latter aspect has turned the rationality of peace processes upside down.
Rather than seeking to mitigate conflict by alleviating the grievances of the
other conflict party, collective punishment aims to yoke a governmentality of
self-policing on the Palestinians. To this effect it inflicts increased suffering in
retaliation for resistance against the occupation. The widespread support for
resistance movements within Palestinian society demonstrates, however, that
this governmentality has failed to take root.
This mode of pacification survives under the umbrella of a failed peace pro-
cess. Accounts of American mediators tend to depict failed Israeli–Palestinian
negotiations as a series of missed opportunities and nearly achieved break-
throughs.39 A closer look at the distribution of power between the actors, their
bargaining positions and the outcomes of those negotiations across time, how-
ever, reveals that progress on resolving the conflict diplomatically has been
systematically blocked. Indeed, the key to understanding the intractability of
the conflict lies in the asymmetry of power between the conflict parties. Start-
ing in the 1920s with the resettlement of Jewish immigrants under the auspices
of the British Mandate, the Zionist movement managed to accumulate power
quickly by merging the capacity of architects and planners, secretly formed
combat forces, and modern farming techniques in the single-minded pursuit of
creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine.40 Crucial to achieving this goal was the
Zionist leadership’s ability to co-opt colonial power through familiar strategies
of statesmanship, and the promise of modernization.41 Being confronted with
this coherent political force highlighted the divisions among its Palestinian
counterparts.42 Moreover, providing a homeland for the stateless and perse-
cuted Jews of Europe connected the outdated model of British colonialism with
the zeitgeist of self-determination43 – paradoxically, at the expense of the local
populations’ right to self-determination.
After this initial phase of co-optation, Israel’s structural power grew through
repression without any mitigating intervention by external actors. The wars
of 1948 and 1967 led to large-scale displacement of Palestinian communities,
Sandra Pogodda 405
and eventually resulted in the occupation of all that was left of Palestine. UN
Security Council resolutions to counter Israeli violations of international law
only demonstrated the feebleness of the latter. Meanwhile, Israel’s military and
civilian occupations have expanded over almost five decades, to mutually rein-
force one another.44 Israel, moreover, gained economic control over Palestine
by establishing a neo-colonial framework, designating the West Bank and Gaza
Strip as cheap labour pools and dumping grounds for Israeli exports, while
undermining the Palestinian export industries through Israel’s control of all
Palestinian border crossings.45
With direct and structural power stacked against the Palestinians, achieving
a mutually acceptable outcome in peace negotiations would require either a
‘mutually hurting stalemate’46 or the mitigating influence of a mediator. Nei-
ther of these preconditions has been prevalent since the onset of the Oslo
negotiations. While acts of political violence in the heart of Israel have hurt the
country since the mid-1990s, its security establishment has largely managed
to decouple Israel’s security interests from the outcome of peace negotia-
tions. In response to suicide attacks, the IDF erected a separation wall and
further impeded Palestinians’ entry into Israel through its network of check-
points. Israel’s air defence system, the Iron Dome, offers effective protection
against rocket attacks from Gaza, as Israel’s latest war on the Gaza Strip has
shown. Obtaining security for its own constituencies through military tech-
nologies has lessened the pressure on Israeli policy makers to resolve the
conflict.
With the current diplomatic stalemate hurting the Palestinians dispropor-
tionately more than the Israelis, international mediation would need to balance
out the power asymmetry in order to prevent peace negotiations from turn-
ing into diktats. Norwegian and US mediators, however, have aggravated the
power imbalance by intervening mainly on Israel’s behalf. Analysis of the Oslo
Process has shown how mediators schemed to trick Palestinian president Yassir
Arafat into far-reaching concessions during the Oslo II negotiations,47 while
pre-emptively capitulating to perceived Israeli red lines and helping Israel to
detach talks about the conflict from its root causes.48 Equally, the EU has sys-
tematically refrained from using its political and economic leverages to push
Israel for concessions in the peace process.49
It should come as no surprise, then, that Israeli governments have barely
budged on the two most important conflict issues for the Palestinian side
(sovereignty and territorial integrity of a Palestinian state) since the Camp
David negotiations of 1978.50 In his rejection of Palestinian statehood, current
prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu drives the same hard line as Menachem
Begin in the 1970s.51 Even in the Oslo negotiations, Palestinian statehood was
never genuinely on the table.52 The form of Palestinian self-administration
that Israel has conceded constitutes barely more than a possibility of realizing
Palestinian ‘civil and religious rights’, as promised in the Balfour Declaration

of 1917. Benyamin Netanyahu’s victory in the 2015 elections, aided by his last-
minute campaign pledge to prevent Palestinian statehood, indicates that Israel’s
pacification strategy is widely accepted in Israeli society.
With regard to Palestine’s territorial integrity, the Israeli bargaining posi-
tion has, again, barely changed over time, violating international law as laid
down in UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Settlement expan-
sion in the West Bank has continued unabated under different governments.53
Using the ‘peace process’ as window-dressing for expansionary policies has
turned Palestine into an archipelago of villages and towns dotted around an
Israeli-controlled territory. Due to Israel’s unwillingness to compromise the
Oslo Process ended with various significant concessions on the part of the
Palestinians,54 and barely any on the Israeli side. Indeed, Israel’s biggest con-
cession never materialized:55 the withdrawal of the IDF from Areas B and C,
which Israel controls to this day.
The scale of international protests against Israel’s latest attack on Gaza, in
conjunction with the fact that 136 out of 193 nations have recognized Palestine
as a state, may suggest that external support for Israel’s mode of pacifica-
tion is waning. However, international condemnation has yet to translate into
effective pressure. Despite diplomatic controversies between the Israeli and
American governments, the US position on the conflict has remained unal-
tered, prioritizing Israel’s ‘security concerns’ over the most basic rights for the
Palestinians. This alliance continues to shield Israel from the possibility that
international law could be enforced in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. More-
over, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security, as the key elements of a
Palestinian understanding of peace,56 are poorly served by international recog-
nition alone. Diplomatic recognition does not grant Palestine borders, nor does
it put an end to the occupation of Palestine. Fatah’s diplomatic achievement
of joining the International Criminal Court may promote Palestinian security
and tilt the balance of power in Palestine’s favour in the long run. How-
ever, the court’s mandate is too limited to secure sovereignty and territorial
integrity.57
Here again, local agency may signal the layout of a locally legitimate type
of peace. Grassroots initiatives within Palestinian society have been work-
ing towards all three objectives (sovereignty, territorial integrity and security)
through ‘everyday state formation’ – asserting their capacity to delineate the
political space of an emerging state by pushing back the direct power and
governmentality of Israel’s military occupation.58 Examples of this everyday
state-formation agency can be found in initiatives mobilizing for national
unity; local agency to assume state functions; strengthening communities
as building blocks of the Palestinian nation; defending Palestinian historic
rights; and conducting public diplomacy. While being able to achieve small
Sandra Pogodda 407
victories against different forms of power, however, the effectiveness of local

agency remains limited as long as different sources of structural, direct and
governmental power are forming a hegemonic block against it.59
Conclusion
This chapter explains protracted conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa
by the limitations of the hegemonic modes of pacification applied in the Arab
region. It showed how colonialism enabled the rise of these models of con-
flict management by leaving behind the modern state as colonialism’s most
problematic legacy. The imposition of this non-indigenous form of political
control has obstructed the emergence of a political order that draws its legiti-
macy from the moral, institutional and metaphysical aspects of its underlying
social order.60 In Palestine, the British Mandate power facilitated the creation
of the state of Israel, which has thwarted Palestinian state formation ever since.
International mediation has failed to balance the asymmetry of power between
Israel and Palestine, dooming the peace process to fail. In the Mashriq and
Iraq, the modern state came with ahistorically drawn borders, which built
ethno-sectarian divisions into the fabric of the newly created countries. The
subsequent politicization of these societal fault lines enabled elites across the
region to present pacification as indispensable to stabilize the region. Access to
the modern state’s large arsenal of techniques to control society allowed author-
itarian rulers to enforce political stability through oppression, governmentality
and material co-optation.
Both hegemonic modes of pacification are facing contestation at present.
Starting off as a Gramscian hegemony, the governmentality of authoritarian
stability in Syria and Iraq faded with the institutionalization of sectarianism
in the modus operandi of the state. The Syrian and Iraqi governments’ cur-
rent attempts to transform their crumbling Gramscian into Realist hegemonies,
based on direct power and anchored in external support, look increasingly
desperate. This demonstrates the underlying dilemma of sectarianism: how
antithetical approaches to rule (authoritarian or democratic) and institutions
(weak or strong) can have equally harmful outcomes in terms of sectarian vio-
lence. Neither democratic statebuilding, as prescribed by the liberal peace, nor
the governmentality of authoritarian stability or ruthless oppression of dissent
has been able to establish peace after sectarian strife.
Israel’s mode of pacification was always based on a Realist hegemony, draw-
ing exclusively on direct and structural power. Yet, it remains stable despite
international condemnation and its failure to generate more than brutal forms
of pacification. Israel has managed to tie its mode of pacification into one of
the most persistent obstacles towards domestically legitimate notions of a lib-
eral peace: an international hierarchy of interests, anchored in the structural
power of the international political order. Grassroots forms of peace formation

and everyday state formation may delineate the layout of viable and locally
legitimate peace. However, in the stranglehold of direct and structural power,
local peace agency is constantly at risk of pegging itself to more forceful but
ultimately harmful strategies of resistance.
Notes
1. Henry Kissinger, World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of
History (New York: Penguin Press, 2014).
2. James Barr, A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle That Shaped the Middle
East (London: Simon & Schuster, 2013), 20–78.
3. David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation
of the Modern Middle East (New York: Owl Books, 1989).
4. Amos Perlmutter, ‘The Praetorian State and the Praetorian Army: Toward a Taxonomy
of Civil-Military Relations in Developing Polities’, Comparative Politics 1, no. 3 (1969):
382–404.
5. Wael B. Hallaq, The Impossible State: Islam, Politics and Modernity’s Moral Predicament
6. Nazih Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East (London:
I.B. Tauris, 2009), 289–328.
7. E.g. Eva Bellin, ‘The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East:
Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective’, Comparative Politics 36, no. 2 (2004):
139–157; Marsha Pripstein Posusney and Michele Penner Angrist, Authoritarianism in
the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005).
8. In addition to oppression through the security apparatus, these control mecha-
nisms included co-optation through job creation in the public service and the
governmentality of authoritarian stability, implanted through education and state-
controlled media.
9. Ussama Makdisi, ‘Reconstructing the Nation-State: The Modernity of Sectarianism in
Lebanon’, Middle East Report 2000 (June–September 1996): 23–26, 30.
10. Rashid Khalidi, Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2013), 120.
11. This notion refers back to early Islamic jurisprudence, which denominated the areas
in which governance is based on shari’a as the ‘abode of Islam’ (dar al-Islam) or the
‘abode of peace’ (dar as-salam) in contrast to the ‘abode of war’ (dar al-harb).
12. David Forgacs, The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916–1935 (London:
Lawrence and Wishart, 1988), 218.
13. Many Shi’a religious scholars reject the categorization of Alawites as a branch of
Shi’a Islam (Martin Kramer, ‘Syria’s Alawis and Shi’ism’, in Shi’ism, Resistance and
Revolution (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987), 237–254). On sectarianism in Yemen’s
current conflict, see Peter Salisbury, ‘Is Yemen Becoming the Next Syria?’ Foreign
Policy, 6 March 2015, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/06/is-yemen-becoming-the-
next-syria/, accessed 7 March 2015.
14. F. Gregory Gause III, ‘Beyond Sectarianism: The New Middle East Cold War’,
Brookings Doha Center Analysis Paper 11 (July 2014), http://www.brookings.edu/∼
/media/Research/Files/Papers/2014/07/22-beyond-sectarianism-cold-war-gause/
English-PDF.pdf?la=en, accessed 7 March 2015.
Sandra Pogodda 409
15. International Crisis Group, ‘Syria’s Mutating Conflict’, Middle East Report 128,
1 August 2012, http://www.crisisgroup.org/∼ /media/files/middle%20east%20north
%20africa/iraq%20syria%20lebanon/syria/128-syrias-mutating-conflict.pdf, accessed
7 March 2014.
16. Fanar Haddad, ‘Sectarian Relations in Arab Iraq: Contextualising the Civil War of
2006–2007’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 40, no. 2 (2013): 115–138.
17. Barr, Line in the Sand.
18. Syed Farid Alatas, ‘A Khaldunian Exemplar for a Historical Sociology for the South’,
Current Sociology 54, no. 3 (2006): 397–411 (401–402).
19. E.g. Haddad, ‘Sectarian Relations’; Mohammad Dibo, ‘Assad’s Secular Sectarianism’,
OpenDemocracy, 27 November 2014, https://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/
mohammad-dibo/assad’s-secular-sectarianism, accessed 15 January 2015.
20. Ibid.
21. For a comparative analysis, see Yitzhak Nakash, Reaching for Power: The Shi’a in the
Modern World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
22. Augustus Richard Norton, ‘The Shiite “Threat” Revisited’, Current History (December
2007): 434–439 (436).
23. Fouad Ajami, ‘Between Freedom and Sectarianism’, The New Republic, 25 October
2012, 39–44.
24. Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State, 108–117.
25. Stephan Rosiny, ‘Power-Sharing in Syria: Lessons from Lebanon’s Taif Experience’,
Middle East Policy 20, no. 3 (2013): 41–55 (44).
26. International Crisis Group, ‘Syria’s Phase of Radicalisation’, Middle East Briefing
33, 10 April 2012, 4, http://www.crisisgroup.org/∼ /media/Files/Middle%20East%20
North%20Africa/Iraq%20Syria%20Lebanon/Syria/b033-syrias-phase-of-radicalisation.
pdf, accessed 1 April 2014; Adeed Dawisha, Iraq: A Political History (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2009), 269; Emile Hokayem, Syria’s Uprising and the
Fracturing of the Levante (London: Routledge, 2013), 34–35.
27. Toby Dodge, Iraq: From War to a New Authoritarianism (London: International Insti-
tute for Strategic Studies, 2012), 152–174; Helen Macreath, ‘Lebanon: The Chang-
ing Role of Sectarianism’, OpenDemocracy, 25 June 2013, https://www.opendemo
cracy.net/helen-mackreath/lebanon-changing-role-of-sectarianism, accessed 15 April
2015.
28. Dawisha, Iraq, 265.
29. Jonathan Littell, ‘What Happened in Homs’, New York Review of Books, 18 March
2015, http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/mar/18/syrian-notebooks-what-
happened-in-homs/, accessed 19 March 2015.
30. Gause, ‘Beyond Sectarianism’.
31. Ibid., 5–7; Hokayem, Syria’s Uprising, 105–148; Dodge, Iraq, 186–194.
32. Jeremy Sarkin and Heather Sensibaugh, ‘How Historical Events and Relationships
Shape Current Attempts at Reconciliation in Iraq’, Wisconsin International Law Journal
26 (2008): 1033–1077 (1060–1067).
33. Dodge, Iraq, 152–157.
34. Steven Simon, ‘The Price of the Surge’, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2008.
35. Ibid.
36. Brian Katulis et al., ‘Iraq’s Political Transition after the Surge’, Center for American
Progress, September 2008, https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/
issues/2008/09/pdf/iraq_transition.pdf, accessed 15 March 2014.
37. Haddad, Sectarianism, 10–23.
38. Examples of collective punishment are the siege and frequent wars on Gaza, IDF
closures of neighbourhoods, mass arrests and house demolitions.
39. E.g. Martin Indyk, Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in
the Middle East (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009); Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace:
The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2005).
40. On the merging of the civilian and military occupations, see Rafi Segal and Eyal
Weizman, A Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli Architecture (London: Verso
Books, 2003).
41. See Fromkin, To End all Peace, 515–529; David Gilmour, ‘The Unregarded Prophet:
Lord Curzon and the Palestine Question’, Journal of Palestine Studies 25, no. 3 (1996):
60–68.
42. On the role of the Palestinian leadership in enabling the first Zionist settlements
(Fromkin, To End all Peace, 522–523).
43. Barr, Line in the Sand, 34–35.
44. Jeff Halper, ‘The 94 Percent Solution: A Matrix of Control’, MERIP 216 (2001); Eyal
Weizman, Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation (London: Verso, 2007); Neve
Gordon, Israel’s Occupation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009).
45. Derek Gregory, The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, 2004), 90.
46. Zartman defines a mutually hurting stalemate as a situation in which the status quo
or no negotiation inflicts (political, material or social) costs on all conflict parties
(William Zartman, ‘The Timing of Peace Initiatives: Hurting Stalemates and Ripe
Moments’, The Global Review of Ethnopolitics 1, no. 1 (September 2001): 8–18 (8–9)).
47. Connie Bruck, ‘The Wounds of Peace’, The New Yorker, 14 October 1996, 78–79.
48. Khalidi, Brokers of Deceit.
49. David Cronin, Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation (London: Penguin,
2010).
50. Khalidi, Brokers of Deceit, 105–107.
51. Previous Israeli Labour governments might have been more diplomatic but equally
denied Palestinian sovereignty (Edward Said, The End of the Peace Process (New York:
Vintage Books, 2000), 125–131).
52. Bruck, ‘Wounds of Peace’, 64–91.
53. Jodi Rudoren and Jeremy Ashkenas, ‘Netanyahu and the Settlements’, New York
Times, 12 March 2015.
54. Over the course of the negotiations, Arafat conceded the unequal sharing of
Hebron, subcontracted the Israeli occupation, granted Israel economic leverage over
Palestinian politics through the Paris Protocol and failed to insist on timelines for
and exact specifications of any promises made by Israel.
55. Bruck, ‘Wounds of Peace’.
56. Said, The End of the Peace Process, 126.
57. BBC News, ‘Will ICC Membership Help or Hinder the Palestinians’ Cause?’ 1 April
2015, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-30744701, accessed 1 April
2015.
58. Sandra Pogodda and Oliver Richmond, ‘Palestinian Unity and Everyday State Forma-
tion: Subaltern “Ungovernmentality” versus Elite Interests’, in Third World Quarterly,
36, no. 5 (2015): 890–907.
59. Ibid.
60. Hallaq, Impossible State.
31
Peace in Europe
Roberto Belloni
Introduction
On 12 October 2012, the Oslo-based Nobel Committee announced the award

of the annual Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union (EU) ‘for the advance-
ment of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe’,
according to the press release announcing the Committee’s choice. Four key
motivations lay behind the Committee’s decision. First, the EU has been iden-
tified as instrumental in ending the historical Franco-German hostility, making
war between these two states ‘unthinkable’ and showing how ‘through well-
aimed efforts and by building up confidence, historical enemies can become
close partners’. Second, the incorporation of southern democracies emerging
from dictatorship (Greece, Spain and Portugal) into EU institutions has con-
tributed to consolidating their democratic character. Third, the post-Cold War
extension of EU membership to several Central and Eastern European (CEE)
countries has opened a ‘new era in European history’, ending the historical
division between East and West and strengthening democracy. Fourth, mem-
bership prospects have been reinforcing the ‘process of reconciliation in the
Balkans’ and advancing ‘democracy and human rights’ in Turkey. In sum, the
Committee argued, ‘the EU has helped to transform most of Europe from a
continent of war to a continent of peace’.1
The 2012 Nobel Peace award represented both a recognition of achievement
and a gesture of encouragement in difficult times. Torn since 2008 by a dra-
matic economic, financial and political crisis, the EU has struggled to live up to
its own standards. Yet, despite the recent ongoing crisis, there is no doubt that
from a historical perspective, Europe’s transformation has been remarkable.
Having lived most of its history in a Hobbesian condition of bellum omnium
contra omnes, since the end of the Second World War Europe has progressed to
a state of Kantian peace and prosperity. This chapter begins with a review of
the key reasons underpinning this transformation, not all of which are due to
411
the contribution of European institutions. Second, it discusses how peace has

been contested from below by a variety of movements and organizations both
during and after the Cold War. Third, the chapter considers Europe’s contradic-
tory attempt to ‘civilize’ international relations by promoting its own successful
model on the global stage. As the controversy over the 2003 war in Iraq sug-
gests, however, Europe is better equipped to promote peace after war is over
than to address the threat of escalating violence.2
Europe’s path(s) to peace
The history of European integration and democratic consolidation has been

more complex and contradictory than the one suggested by the Nobel Com-
mittee. For example, the British, the Danish and the Irish joined European
institutions in the 1970s motivated more by economic self-interest than by
idealistic values grounded on the desire to consolidate peace in Europe. More-
over, integration and democratic consolidation may have advanced steadily on
the European continent, but a linear narrative of ‘pacification’ such as the one
suggested by the Nobel Committee risks obscuring drawbacks and failures, not
least Europe’s inability to deal with Yugoslavia in the 1990s and Iraq in 2003 –
as further explained below. Perhaps more importantly, the reasons explaining
the transformation from a war-torn continent to a peaceful, stable and pros-
perous region cannot be exclusively assigned to the EU. A non-exhaustive list
includes at least four competing explanations.
The first explanation relies on Kant’s argument that the internal structure
of states, and in particular their democratic (what Kant called ‘republican’)
configuration, is instrumental in developing peaceful relationships both within
and between states. European governments have been democratically elected in
competitive, free and fair elections. This process has contributed to the develop-
ment of common democratic features among EU members and has supported
the consolidation of a European identity as a community of democracies. Since
democratic states do not go to war with one another, as argued by Kant and
later democratic peace theorists, the democratic nature of European regimes is
said to account for the lack of war among them. In addition, the openness to
trade and commerce are often added to the presence of democratic political
systems in order to explain the development of peace.
Second, Europe’s peace may be explained by the configuration of interna-
tional forces during the Cold War. The threatening possibility that a third
World War could take place on European territory favoured cooperation among
former enemies, and between them and their North Atlantic partners. In partic-
ular, both the French and the Germans decided to move ahead with European
integration because of their relative weakness vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and
in order to insulate themselves against the threat of American withdrawal.3
Roberto Belloni 413
In other words, it was the bipolar structure of the Cold War, together with
its corollary of balance-of-power logic, mutual deterrence and sense of com-
mon interest and destiny, which allowed Europeans to overcome their historical
hostilities and develop peaceful, cooperative relations.
A third, alternative view focuses on the military role the US has been playing
since the end of the Second World War, rather than specifically on balance-
of-power arguments. From this perspective, America’s continuing military
commitment has acted as Europe’s main ‘pacifier’.4 American hegemony cre-
ated the indispensable political space for European states to concentrate on the
establishment and development of their unconventional regional institutions.
Through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the US provided
the military guarantee protecting Europeans both from each other and from
potential external threats.
Fourth, membership in international organizations such as the EU helped
states develop peaceful relationships on solid and lasting foundations. The
stability of the Cold War, together with the reassuring presence of American
military on European territory, may have given states the breathing space to
cultivate less conflictual relationships. However, it was participation in inter-
national organizations such as the EU that had a ‘desecuritizing’ (that is,
pacifying) effect on highly interdependent states, helping them to grow com-
mon interests in peace and, above all, to acquire a sense of belonging to
a ‘security community’ where mutual security concerns are marginalized in
favour of other issues such as the economy, the environment, migration and
so on.5
As these four competing explanations suggest, there is no agreement among
scholars on how exactly Europe was able to overcome the ghosts of its past and
achieve stability, prosperity and a peaceful order based on liberal principles.
Moreover, these explanations are not exhaustive, since they do not include
important elements rarely discussed in international relations literature such
as, for example, the importance of the welfare system in contributing to a habit
of peaceful resolution of conflicts. In presenting the peace award, the Nobel
Committee emphasized both the Kantian character of the EU (and its prede-
cessors) as a ‘league’ of democratic states and its contribution to developing a
‘security community’ among them. The structure of the international system
and, even more so, the American contribution to stability in Europe were, per-
haps understandably, not mentioned by the Nobel Committee – despite the
fact that, as further discussed below, they have been central concerns of those
popular movements contesting the meaning of peace throughout the Cold War
period and beyond.
While there exists disagreement on the relative importance of the different
elements that contributed to helping Europe leave a state of recurrent war, there
is little doubt that a historic change has occurred. Simmering national and
religious conflicts within the EU (in areas such as Cyprus, the Basque Coun-
tries and Northern Ireland) and in its immediate neighbourhood (such as the
Balkans, the Caucasus and, most recently, Ukraine) still exist, but these trouble
spots hardly compare with the wreckage of, say, the two World Wars. As argued
by Robert Kagan, among others, ‘Europeans have stepped out of the Hobbesian
world of anarchy into the Kantian world of perpetual peace.’6 Although this
extraordinary and celebrated achievement may be explained by several com-
peting accounts, it was ultimately the material devastation and psychological
trauma caused by the Second World War that set in motion a profound reaction
against violent, xenophobic and aggressive nationalism.
Germany was the European state that repudiated most radically both mil-
itarism and war, and revolutionized its political, cultural and institutional
structures. Hanns Maull has effectively described Germany’s post-war strate-
gic orientation as based on three main pillars: ‘never again’ (the rejection of
the Nazi period and of the use of force in international disputes), ‘never alone’
(the support of integration, multi-lateralism and democratization) and ‘politics
before force’ (the predilection for political solution).7 Other large states such as
the UK and France have also committed themselves to move beyond balance-
of-power approaches to peace in favour of common institutions. However, their
war experience against Nazism and their status as permanent members of the
UN Security Council convinced them of the need to preserve a significant
military force.
As a whole, in the post-Second World War period, European governments
have come to increasingly endorse a vision of peace privileging multi-lateralism
over unilateralism, human rights of all over the rule of the stronger, negotia-
tion and compromise over imposition, and cooperation and the development
of international law over the use of force. Needless to say, Europe’s behaviour
has been frequently inconsistent with this vision. For example, European inte-
gration has been accompanied by the ‘re-securitization’ of migration issues
and the creation of ‘Fortress Europe’ – the building of an architecture resis-
tant to the waves of people escaping from war and misery. Moreover, rather
than firmly adhering to the rejection of violence as a means to resolve interna-
tional disputes, European states have deployed military force by contributing
to and/or launching military operations in a number of circumstances, includ-
ing in Kosovo in 1999 and in Libya in 2011 – just to cite two high-profile
cases. Nonetheless, in principle, governments interpret war as a political fail-
ure whose avoidance requires political solutions. The process of building their
own peaceful order has demonstrated to European governments that the
most promising political answer to violence is a liberal peace grounded on
the construction of democratic states, the promotion of self-determination,
respect for human rights and the advancement of a neoliberal economic
system.
Roberto Belloni 415
Peace seen from below
The post-Second World War transformation has occurred in the tense context
marked by the development of the Cold War. A number of peace movements
have contested the prevailing conception of peace celebrating democracy
and human rights in Western Europe but accepting the structural constraints
imposed by Cold War politics. Such a contestation started in the 1950s in
a number of states in protest against nuclear atmospheric tests. Peace work
and advocacy were sometimes discredited by the spread of communist-front
‘peace’ organizations backed by the Soviet Union. The identification of peace
with communism also became entrenched in public opinion because of peace
groups’ refusal to call for nuclear disarmament by the Soviet Union. In the case
of the most important anti-nuclear organization, the Campaign for Nuclear Dis-
armament (CND), based in the UK, this type of accusation was misplaced. CND,
whose cruciform symbol has become the universal peace sign, called for unilat-
eral disarmament as a first step towards mutual disarmament, not as a strategy
to weaken the West vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Contrary to common (realist)
wisdom, the soundness of this strategy proved to be vindicated by the process
which led to the end of the Cold War, when Gorbachev’s unilateral decision to
stop underground nuclear testing eased political tensions and opened the way
for the end of the East–West conflict.8
While in the 1950s–1970s peace activism remained nationally focused, in
the 1980s a peace movement with strong cross-national links developed. The
US under the Reagan presidency elaborated a security doctrine which made
the spectre of a nuclear war on European territory seem possible. The deploy-
ment by the Soviet Union of new intermediate-range nuclear missiles in the
late 1970s was confronted with the prospect of deployment by the US of Cruise
and Pershing II missiles in NATO countries. This weapon build-up created a
general perception of a nuclear threat, motivated the (re-)emergence of anti-
nuclear mobilization and culminated in October 1983 with 3 million people all
over Europe taking to the streets and demanding an end to the arms race.9
Overall, while the Nobel Committee emphasized the EU’s contribution to
strengthening democracy and favouring peace and reconciliation, during the
Cold War, peace movements gave little or no attention to European institu-
tions. Rather, social movements understood peace as depending heavily on the
structure of the Cold War and its related dangerous balance of terror. Starting
from the 1980s, European movements have contested this kind of peace not
only by rejecting the nuclear arms race but also, for the first time, by direct-
ing their demands equally to Washington and Moscow.10 Mass demonstrations
challenged both the deployment of the nuclear weapons and the Cold War
system itself, based on fear of mutual annihilation. At the same time, peace
activists began to reach out to human rights activists living in communist
regimes, putting into motion a process appropriately described as ‘citizens’

détente’, or ‘détente from below’, which discredited the territorial logic of Cold
War politics, challenged the status quo on the continent, and promoted an
alternative understanding of peace based on dialogue, mutual understanding
and cooperation.11
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, peace activism attempted to address con-
structively the so-called ‘new wars’ of the 1990s, with particular reference to
the wars of secession in the former Yugoslavia. While peace activism during the
Cold War contested broad, rather abstract structural conditions, in the 1990s
peace became a very concrete, urgent, daily matter. Many Europeans experi-
enced conflict and the need to deal with it quite literally in their homes. The
presence of hundreds of thousands of refugees in need of assistance made a
commitment to peace a matter of finding shelter, food, medical care and so on.
At the same time, activists attempted to realize concrete peace actions directly
in the former Yugoslavia, helping victims regardless of their ethnic belonging,
and building contacts with people on all sides. Thus, to borrow a phrase from
the Italian writer Luca Rastello,12 this was a ‘home war’, since peace activists
frequently lived the war from within.
Although the wars in the former Yugoslavia represented the defining event
for peace activists in the post-Cold War period, other issues contributed to
delineating the meaning of peace.13 First, disarmament, a central concern
during the Cold War, has remained an important theme for European peace
activists. Second, the condemnation of violent and xenophobic nationalism
has continued in the form of support for integration of South-Eastern Europe
into the EU. Third, the call for the democratization of international institu-
tions, including both the UN and the EU, has become a central demand. Fourth,
the attempt to build concrete solidarity towards the most vulnerable, such as
immigrants and refugees, has acquired a renewed importance. Finally, North–
South issues, including humanitarian assistance and development policy, are
the areas where top-down, official and institutional versions of peace have
met bottom-up, grassroots understandings of the term. As the world’s largest
provider of official assistance, the EU has developed a keen interest in the pro-
motion of its own peaceful model abroad through a variety of civilian and
development tools, as further discussed below.
The EU as a peace promoter
The EU has committed itself to no less than the renovation of international rela-
tions along the lines of interstate relations established within its own borders.
The distinctive European approach to peace involves the attempt to export its
own successful model of making and deepening peace based on the post-Second
World War integration process. Accordingly, the EU has developed a preference
Roberto Belloni 417
for limiting as much as possible the use of force in favour of peacemaking,

statebuilding and reconstruction over the long term.14 From a doctrinal per-
spective, the 2003 European Security Strategy has identified as the Union’s
key objective the development of ‘well-functioning international institutions
and a rule-based international order’.15 More specifically, in its 2004 European
Neighbourhood Strategy Paper, the European Commission placed great empha-
sis on the EU’s contribution to the settlement of regional conflicts. The EU
has committed itself to address the entire conflict cycle, from prevention to
post-settlement peacebuilding, but with a particular emphasis on conflict pre-
vention. Above all, the EU aims to promote sustainable peace by addressing not
just the symptoms but also the root causes of war through a variety of means,
including official assistance, development aid and the economic integration of
marginalized areas of the world.
In practice, the EU’s peace efforts have not been unlike those undertaken by
the UN and other international donors with the goal of promoting the con-
struction of stable and resilient liberal states. At the same time, in contrast to
most other international actors, the EU’s emerging ‘peacebuilding framework’16
has supported more emancipatory versions of peace not exclusively centred on
the state, but focused on bottom-up projects aimed at promoting human secu-
rity and development through dialogue and cooperation. This approach, still at
an embryonic stage, has been termed ‘post-liberal’ in the sense that it endorses
democratic institutions and market economies, but views them as hybridizing
processes resulting from greater local empowerment. Although this approach in
some cases has achieved initial encouraging results,17 its continuing emphasis
on territorial security and sovereignty, the creation of a democratic sphere and
the use of conditionalities risks undermining the attainment of its own objec-
tives. As for the impact of the Neighbourhood Policy in particular, it has failed
to deliver especially in some of the states under strong Russian influence, such
as Georgia and Ukraine.
The EU’s attempt to move beyond top-down liberal intervention is inspired
by its own governance peculiarities. Europe’s internal democratic governance,
combined with its efforts to apply similar principles abroad, have led some
analysts to see in the Union a particular kind of power, often described as
either ‘civilian’18 because of its focus on the deployment of non-military means
in foreign policy, or ‘normative’19 because of its ability to redefine interna-
tional norms – what is considered to be ‘normal’ in international relations.
The distinction between ‘civilian’ and ‘normative’ power may be rather crude,
since normative powers frequently include a civilian dimension. Nonetheless,
whether in its civilian or normative characterization, or a combination of the
two, the EU is widely considered to be a new kind of power in the international
system – a novelty based on the Union’s emphasis on non-military instruments
in foreign policy and/or its attempt to spread norms and values.
Needless to say, the rhetoric on civilian/normative power does not rule

out the use of force against those states still living in a Hobbesian uni-
verse. The 2003 Security Strategy states that the EU should be ready to
apply ‘the full spectrum of instruments for crisis management and conflict
prevention . . . including political, diplomatic, military and civilian, trade and
development activities’ (emphasis added).20 For some, military means may be
necessary, as a last resort, to uphold civilian values. In a seminal book, Robert
Cooper, an EU official and aide to former British prime minister Tony Blair,
has divided the world into failed states, rogue states and postmodern states.
With its lack of internal borders, the pooled sovereignty of its member states,
and its preference for international regimes and collective action, Europe has
been decidedly postmodern. It is the task of postmodern states to civilize
international relations by turning failed and rogue states into political enti-
ties resembling their own democratic and peaceful polities, even, if necessary,
by force.21 While Cooper’s view is certainly not universally shared within the
EU, it nonetheless resonates with at least part of the European politico-military
establishment, as confirmed by the 2011 military operation in Libya. Through
either military or, more frequently, civilian means, the ultimate objective of the
EU’s efforts as a ‘civilizing’ force is to reproduce European values, norms and
practices beyond Europe. Truly civilized international relations guaranteeing
a Kantian-inspired peace would be based on collective security arrangements
constraining the use of force in settling conflict, on international regimes and
organizations, on the rule of law, on democratic participation, and on social
equity and sustainable development.
The EU’s civilizing goal may be noble, but it is also paradoxical and perhaps
even inconsistent. To begin with, the EU’s civilizing mission risks obscuring
the continent’s own struggles, including those led by women, ‘indignados’,
workers, students and so on. For example, on 13 November 2012, just one
month after the announcement of the Nobel Peace award to the EU, millions
faced policemen in riot gear in almost every major European city in order to
protest against austerity measures promoted and supported, among others, by
European institutions. In addition, by setting Europe’s norms and institutions
as the ideal standard, the civilizing project implicitly describes non-Western
countries as a threat to the European way of life, and reproduces a dichotomy
of self and other whereby the ‘self’ is represented by an idealized postmod-
ern state while the ‘other’ is the uncivilized rest. Thus, rather than developing
international relations on new foundations, the civilizing rhetoric contributes
to ‘securitization’, that is, the view of economically marginal states as a threat
to Europe.22 Perhaps unsurprisingly, rather than considering the EU as a new
type of global actor, states across the globe, and in particular from the so-called
‘Global South’, believe that the EU, not unlike other great powers, ultimately
promotes its own political and economic self-interest.23
Roberto Belloni 419
Some of these contradictions were dramatically displayed, as never before

or since, in the brief but intense period preceding the 2003 American-led war
in Iraq. The prospect of war contributed to highlighting Europe’s uncertainties
in confronting its own past, that is, the Hobbesian world of deceit, violence
and warfare still affecting much of international relations outside of Europe’s
borders. The pre-war escalation triggered an immediate re-nationalization of
foreign policy and underscored the EU’s inability to transform its celebrated
civilian/normative power into a strategy shared by all of its member states.
In the context of heated transatlantic and intra-European debates about
the proper course of action in Iraq, neo-conservative analyst Robert Kagan
advanced one of the most popular, and controversial, discussions about the
European attitude towards peace and war issues. Kagan argued that Europeans
and Americans live in different worlds: while ‘Europe is entering a post-
historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Immanuel
Kant’s “perpetual peace” . . . the United States remains mired into history, exer-
cising power in an anarchic Hobbesian world.’ In the sound-bite that made his
work known outside the small community of strategic experts, ‘Americans are
from Mars and Europeans are from Venus.’24 Needless to say, as Kagan read-
ily admitted, this dichotomy was based on a simplification containing the
essential argument but overlooking nuances. Indeed, not all European citi-
zens and governments share a Kantian understanding of ‘peace’ and ways of
promoting it. While agreeing in principle over the importance of values such
as multi-lateralism, negotiation, compromise and the respect for international
law, European governments were split between different perspectives on how to
address the rapidly evolving Iraq crisis, while citizens protested en masse against
what they understood as an illegitimate and unnecessary war. On 15 February
2003, millions of citizens took to the streets in all major European cities (as well
as in many other cities worldwide) in the largest transnational anti-war protest
in human history. ‘Pacifism’ and not ‘anti-Americanism’ was the reason against
war most frequently cited by the protestors, who also levelled criticism against
neoliberal globalization.25
Jurgen Habermas interpreted the feelings of many disconcerted citizens
by invoking the notion of a ‘core Europe’, composed essentially of France,
Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries, defined by its secular, Enlight-
enment and social democratic tradition and committed to the defence and
promotion of ‘a cosmopolitan order on the basis of international law’. This
notion of a ‘core Europe’ is distinct from both ‘new’ and ‘old’ Europe.26 ‘New’
Europeans, including most of the CEE countries and the rather misnamed UK,
Spain, Italy, Portugal and Denmark, endorsed an Atlanticist position and sup-
ported intervention against Saddam Hussein. In particular, CEE states have
been quite outspoken in favour of American policy. Their geographical proxim-
ity to Russia, still identified as a potential threat, has made them more hawkish,
pro-American and committed to hard power than their Western European

counterparts. In addition, these states have often assessed calls for dialogue,
cooperation and compromise as being akin to that kind of appeasement for
which they were abandoned in the course of the twentieth century by their
Western neighbours. As a result, it is in this part of Europe that most of the
European Martians are located – as some jokingly put it, they come from
Vilnius.
By contrast, ‘old’ Europeans included Belgium, Greece, Ireland and Norway –
all gathered around the Franco-German leadership to condemn the looming
invasion of Iraq. ‘Old’ Europe adopted the approach to international relations,
conflict management and peace promotion celebrated by the Nobel Com-
mittee and arising from Europe’s own transformation within the framework
of European integration. As with other security issues, old Europeans have
stressed the importance of adopting long-term solutions alternative to vio-
lence, but with some differences. Germany resolutely rejected the use of force
in Iraq, regardless of the results of the UN inspections searching for proof of
Saddam Hussein’s availability of weapons of mass destruction. France, by con-
trast, was determined to give the inspectors more time to carry out their work
and to invest the UN Security Council with the task of discussing the issue
and adopting a resolution to address it. Franco-German condemnation of the
war was supported by EU citizens, two thirds of whom considered the military
intervention in Iraq not to be justified.27
Europe’s response to the Iraq war has brought to light at least two struc-
tural elements in relation to its peace promotion role. First, there is a large
constituency within Europe rejecting the use of force. Following the military
and political disaster in Iraq (and Afghanistan), only 15 per cent of Europeans
believe that Europe needs to further its military role in the world, and 39 per
cent would like to see a cut in defence budgets.28 The prevailing attitude
among European publics involves both the celebration of peace and a rooted
commitment to the avoidance of war.
Second, European governments may celebrate Europe’s constructive role
in the promotion of a peaceful world order, but they both fail to interpret
the mood on peace and security issues prevailing among European citizens
and remain unhelpfully divided on how to advance the ‘peace agenda’.
Unsurprisingly, the 2012 Nobel Peace award ceremony, held in a context
marked by growing Euroscepticism, the Euro and sovereign debt crisis, and
mass unemployment, was met with a yawn. Even six prominent European
heads of state and government, including British prime minister David
Cameron, emphatically demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the award by
deserting the ceremony. In addition, three former Nobel Peace laureates sent
a letter asking the prize board to withhold the award because ‘the EU is not
seeking to realize Nobel’s demilitarized global peace order’. Rather, the EU
supposedly condones ‘security based on military force and waging wars, rather
Roberto Belloni 421
than insisting on the need for an alternative approach’.29 While this assessment
may be too harsh, it nonetheless reveals a rooted dissatisfaction with institu-
tionalized Europe and its effectiveness in advancing the norms and values it
officially stands for.
Conclusion
Europe’s own transformation from a continent torn by bloody and recurrent

wars to a safe and secure area based on the pooling of (some) sovereignty among
nation-states, the search for dialogue and compromise, and the promotion of
world order grounded in international law and cooperation has been remark-
able. Motivated by its own success, Europe has proposed itself as a model for
other regions. While embracing the norms and values of the liberal peace based
on democratic institutions and a market economy, at the same time Europe
has attempted to sustain bottom-up, civilian peace initiatives based more on
domestic ownership and less on international coercion.
As this chapter has shown, this prevailing conception of peace and ways to
promote it has been both contested and contradictory. Mass movements dur-
ing the Cold War challenged a condition of peace heavily dependent on the
division of the continent and on a risky arms race. After the fall of the Berlin
Wall, when the liberal peace model became the standard point of reference and
inspired European involvement in its neighbourhood and beyond, peace move-
ments attempted to make peace concrete by addressing the wars of Yugoslav
secession and, later, in vociferously contesting the war in Iraq.
The post-2008 Eurozone crisis has led to strong tensions among EU member
states and between governments and their citizens. Foreign policy has been
increasingly re-nationalized, with European institutions continuously sub-
jected to intergovernmental pressures. Europe’s celebrated civilian/normative
power has also lost some of its appeal. As a whole, Europe’s crisis has opened the
door to alternative narratives of European integration and its overall direction.
While Habermas’s view, based on modern, democratic and humanistic values
and shared with most European elites, is still prevailing, an alternative con-
ception of what Europe means is gaining ground.30 In its extreme version, this
conception is characterized by nationalist, xenophobic and racist values politi-
cized by Eurosceptic right-wing and populist political parties. To what extent
this alternative vision will displace the prevailing narrative remains to be seen.
To be sure, Europe’s appealing image as an area of peace, humanistic values and
prosperity is increasingly challenged.
Notes
1. Nobel Committee, ‘The Nobel Peace Prize 2012 to the European Union (EU) –
Press Release’, 2012, www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2012/press.
html, accessed 26 October 2015.
2. I use ‘EU’ and ‘Europe’ interchangeably, both to make the prose more readable and
in recognition of the fact that the EU has effectively occupied the identity space
of Europe as a political community. Needless to say, there are other international
organizations (such as the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe, etc.) which compete with the EU in representing Europe. For
reasons of space, these organizations are not part of the analysis. See T. Risse, A Com-
munity of Europeans? Transnational Identities and Public Spheres (Ithaca and London:
3. S. Rosato, Europe United: Power Politics and the Making of the European Community
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010).
4. J. Mearsheimer, ‘Why Is Europe Peaceful Today?’ European Political Science 9, no. 3
(2010): 387–397; Robert Kagan, Paradise and Power (London: Atlantic Books, 2003).
5. O. Waever, ‘Insecurity, Security, and Asecurity in the West European Non-War Com-
munity’, in Security Communities, eds E. Adler and M. Barnett (Cambridge: Cambridge
6. Kagan, Paradise, cit., 57.
7. H. Maull, ‘Germany and the Use of Force: Still a “Civilian Power”?’ Survival, 42, no. 2
(2000): 56–80.
8. D. Cortright, Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008): 151–154.
9. Thomas Rochon, Mobilising for Peace: The Antinuclear Movements in Western Europe
10. Cortright, Peace, cit., p. 142.
11. M. Kaldor, G. Holden and R. Falk, The New Détente: Rethinking East-West Relations
(London and New York: Verso/Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1989).
12. L. Rastello, La Guerra in casa (Torino: Einaudi, 1998).
13. G. Marcon and M. Pianta, ‘New Wars, New Peace Movements’, Soundings: A Journal
of Politics and Culture 17 (2001): 11–24.
14. W. Wallace, ‘Is There a European Approach to War?’ in The Price of Peace: Just War in
the Twenty-First Century, eds C. Reed and D. Ryall (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007).
15. European Union, A More Secure Europe in a Better World: European Security Strategy
(Brussels, 12 December 2003).
16. O. Richmond, A. Björkdahl and S. Kappler, ‘The Emerging EU Peacebuilding Frame-
work: Confirming or Transcending Liberal Peacebuilding?’ Cambridge Review of
International Affairs 24, no. 3 (2011): 449–469.
17. V. A. Dias, ‘The EU’s Post-Liberal Approach to Peace: Framing EUBAM’s Contribu-
tion to the Moldova-Transnistria Conflict Transformation’, European Security 22, no. 3
(2013): 338–354.
18. F. Duchêne, ‘Europe’s Role in World Peace’, in Europe Tomorrow: Sixteen Europeans
Look Ahead, ed. R. Mayne (London: Fontana/Collins, 1972).
19. I. Manners, ‘Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?’ Journal of Common
Market Studies 40, no. 2 (2002): 235–258.
20. European Union, A More Secure Europe in a Better World, cit., p. 17.
21. R. Cooper, The Making and Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First
Century (London: Atlantic Books, 2004).
22. Giovanna Bono, ‘The Perils of Conceiving EU Foreign Policy as a “Civilizing” Force’,
Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft 1 (2006): 150–163.
23. S. Lucarelli and L. Fioramonti, eds, External Perceptions of the European Union as a
Global Actor (London and New York: Routledge, 2011).
Roberto Belloni 423
24. Kagan, Paradise, cit., p. 3.

25. D. Rucht and J. Verhulst, ‘The Framing of Opposition to the War on Iraq’, in The
World Says No to War, eds S. Walgrave and D. Rucht (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2010), cit., p. 256.
26. D. Levy, M. Pensky and J. Torpey, eds, Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe:
Transatlantic Relations after the Iraq War (London and New York: Verso, 2005).
27. Eurobarometer, Iraq and Peace in the World (Brussels: realized by Gallup Europe upon
the request of the European Commission, 2003).
28. E. Fabry and A. Vitorino, ‘Europeans and the Use of Force’, Notre Europe – Jacques
Delors Institute, 13 December 2013.
29. M. Pearson, ‘From War to Peace: European Union Accepts the Nobel Prize’,
10 December 2012, http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/10/world/nobel-peace-prize/.
30. Risse, A Community of Europeans? Cit.
32
Peace in the Balkans: (En)countering
the European Other
Jasmin Ramović
Introduction
The negative perception of the Balkans came with the first Western travellers
and their writings about the region.1 Their views were reified by the Balkan
wars, which occurred as the practice of journalism was developing in the early
twentieth century. This made the information from the region more accessible
to the West, therefore contributing to the perception of the Balkans as primi-
tive and violent. The eruption of the First World War further entrenched this
image. During the communist era, the region remained mostly closed to the
Western world, with some of the first images from the Balkans being those of
the execution of Romania’s ruling couple during the fall of communism. This,
together with the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the development of 24-
hour satellite broadcasting, enabled most of the world to watch live broadcasts
from the war in the region. The images of violence coming from the Balkans
advanced misperceptions of this part of Europe. As a result, the Balkans were
assigned an inferior position within the European continent, and this view of
the region was transferred to international intervention in the 1990s. Liberal
peacebuilding, devised by Western interveners who were guided by the orien-
talist discourse, was applied in the intervention. This left almost no room for
the inclusion of local history, culture and identity. However, things started to
change with the legitimacy crisis of the liberal peacebuilding project and the
growing assertiveness of local actors. This chapter argues that the international
approach to the region based on the neoliberal and orientalist discourse cannot
shape the peace which is desired by the people in the region. Additionally, evi-
dence shows that the EU integration of the region cannot be seen as a panacea
for the Balkans, and may even lead to further destabilization in some countries.
Orientalism, balkanism and peacebuilding
At the end of the twentieth century, some Western authors reified Rebeca West’s
particularly negative impressions about the region.2 However, the narrative in
424
which the Balkans have been violent throughout history neglects the fact that
this region was one of the most peaceful parts of the European continent until
the twentieth century. Some sources identify a ‘remarkable coexistence between
the different ethnoreligious groups’.3 Additionally, Maria Todorova highlights
the fact that the Balkans played a minor role in the Second World War, and
points to examples of atrocities by Western powers which show that the Balkans
do not have exclusive rights to savagery.4
Cathie Carmichael argues that the arrival of the European ideas of nation-
alism, followed later by fascism and communism, inspired violence in the
region.5 Carmichael identifies a clear link between the triumph of national-
ism and the ‘Europeanization’ of the Balkans.6 Grigor’ev and Severin agree
with Carmichael when they highlight the role of European powers in incit-
ing nationalism in the Balkans, resulting in a policy which forced people in the
Balkans ‘to replace cultural cohabitation with cultural exclusion’.7 Similarly,
Warren Zimmerman, in his refusal of the ‘ancient hatred’ argument, points out
that ‘Serbs and Croats, the most antagonistic adversaries of today, had never
fought each other before the twentieth century.’8 However, with the advance
of nationalism, the Balkans were not able to resist the negative practices that
come with it.9 Nationalism led to this initial Europeanization of the Balkans,
resulting in confrontations and creation of ethnically pure structures.10
Tom Gallagher argues that sensitive geopolitical location is one of the reasons
why the Balkans have been exposed to international pressures throughout their
history.11 Location is also a factor in the ‘orientalist’ discourse which played
an important role in the perception of the Balkans as the ‘other’ within the
European continent. Milica Bakić Hayden sees the negative discourse on the
Balkans as a variant form of orientalism, whereas Todorova sees this as a similar,
but not identical, phenomenon to orientalism, and calls it ‘balkanism’.12 While
the nuances with which the two notions are differentiated are not of particu-
lar importance for this chapter, their common background is. The superiority
of the West, and inferiority of the ‘other’, forms the basis of these discourses,
and was unfortunately transferred into the international intervention in the
Balkans.
‘Ancient enmities’ and the implied ‘non-Europeanness’ of the Balkans were
used as justification for non-involvement of the international community in
the 1990s wars.13 When the community did finally intervene, the approach was
rather superficial, as the needs of local population are rarely its priority.14 This is
because post-conflict interventions are shaped by the same neoliberal blueprint
that focuses on the state, and the liberalization of politics and markets. This
approach marginalizes the local agency in peacebuilding, and the resulting
peace is not shaped in accordance with local culture, history and identity.15
Gradually, the peacebuilding focus shifted to the local, thanks to the develop-
ments in post-colonial studies16 as well as events taking place in peacebuilding
practice. The populations in peacebuilding settings became disillusioned with

the international interveners and their liberal peacebuilding agenda. The grow-
ing assertiveness of local actors was driven by their realization that the ‘liberal
or neoliberal prescriptiveness [of peace and development] does not accord with
their own identity or norms’.17
Early in the period of shifting towards the local, the international interveners
were afraid that they might lose their legitimacy in the field if an empha-
sis was put on local solutions.18 This is why they included local actors who
were ready to implement ‘a pre-existing (and externally defined) set of policy
prescriptions’.19 This was mainly carried out through non-governmental orga-
nizations (NGOs), which were recognized as civil society by the international
community. Oliver Richmond argues that civil society in such settings becomes
a ‘parallel society’20 or an ‘artificial, external imaginary civil society’.21 This
‘artificial’ society ‘does not represent the local-local but allows the state, elites
and donors alike to ignore the immediacy of the plight of the poor, inequality,
and human needs more generally in favour of their structural and institutional
reform processes’.22 The Balkans, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in partic-
ular, have gone through the same process, and the number of NGOs swelled
in the post-conflict period.23 The international community in BiH does not see
this as a problem, as it tends almost exclusively to work with NGOs which
are ready to implement the pre-assigned agendas. This became a vicious circle
and one of the main reasons why the country has not witnessed advances in
peacebuilding originating from civil society initiatives. This is clearly a side-
effect of the neoliberal approach to peacebuilding, which fails to deliver peace
shaped by local views.
This is not to romanticize the local, as peacebuilding can sometimes be co-
opted by locals for their own benefit. This was the case in Kosovo, when a
majority group in a conflict used peacebuilding to further an agenda that suited
only that group.24 The local is not homogeneous; there are ‘differences based
on age, gender, social status, and so on’.25 Local resources have the potential
to lead to both positive and negative outcomes, but they should be taken seri-
ously instead of ‘being duplicated or simply ignored’.26 Another reason why
local agency should be taken seriously is because when it is combined with
international undertakings, then the resulting hybrid arrangements can move
things forward in a positive manner.
In peacebuilding debates, hybridity is generally understood to be a combi-
nation of structures and ideas in Western-led liberal peacebuilding with those
of the context in which the intervention is taking place. Volker Boege finds
that ‘hybrid models have better chances to deliver effective and legitimate gov-
ernance’27 due to the combination of ideas which are acceptable to both the
local and international communities. Despite its obvious potential, hybridity
still has to be treated with caution, especially because the agency engaged
in hybridization can be ‘critical and emancipatory or conservative and exclu-

sive’.28 This is extremely important within peacebuilding contexts, as it can
shape the entire setting and, unfortunately, take peacebuilding on a road which
can lead to the divisions that caused the conflict in the first place.
Challenges of the Balkans
This chapter follows the delineation of the Balkans as set out by Todorova, as
the region is perceived through its geopolitical location as well as the historical
legacy shared among these countries, especially the Ottoman legacy. There-
fore, the Balkans are seen to consist of Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia,
Kosovo, Montenegro, BiH, Albania, Serbia and Croatia.
While this section will consider the most dominant tensions in the Balkans
which challenge(d) peace in the region, the focus will be on the countries of the
former Yugoslavia. This is due to the influence the conflict in this part of the
Balkans had on debates in international relations, and peace and conflict stud-
ies in particular. Also, the interventions in BiH and Kosovo brilliantly expose
the characteristics of a long-term, wide-reaching international intervention
based on the neoliberal paradigm.
Limitations of space also prevent a more detailed account of the poverty
in the region, as well as high unemployment rates and growing inequality.
Similarly, organized crime and corruption resulting from wars, sanctions and
the transition from communism to democracy will not be discussed in greater
detail. The section will focus on ethnic tensions, as these issues were used by
political elites to stir up violence in the region.
Greece serves as a good starting point, given the fact that it is a Balkan coun-
try and at the same time has an image of the ‘cradle of western civilisation’.29
However, Greece is also involved in one of the longest disputes in the region
with neighbouring Turkey. This dates from Ottoman times, and it peaked over
the conflict in Cyprus,30 which has been the cause of tensions between the two
countries for the greater part of the twentieth century. The breakthrough in
their relations came with the so-called ‘earthquake diplomacy’31 when Greece
and Turkey were hit by devastating earthquakes in 1999. The two countries
assisted each other in the rescue efforts, which gradually led to a lessening of
the tensions between them. On the other hand, tensions are still quite high
in the dispute between Greece and Macedonia over the flag and the name of
the former Yugoslav republic.32 Finally, current debt crisis in Greece is also a
potential source of tensions in the region, as it has provided space for radical
right-wing dynamics. The crisis may have even stronger negative repercussions
on the EU enlargement in the Balkans.
Bulgaria is a positive example of how disputes with neighbours can be set-
tled in a peaceful manner, acknowledging the historical changes in the region.
Macedonia’s importance for Bulgaria is witnessed throughout the history of the

region,33 including Bulgarian attempts to seize it during the Balkan wars and
in the Second World War; however, when Macedonia declared independence
in 1991, Bulgaria was among the first countries to recognize it. Additionally,
interethnic relations in Bulgaria were quite strained in the late 1980s when
Bulgarian Turks were coerced into leaving the country.34 Their return in the
1990s improved these relations, as well as relations with neighbouring Turkey.
Romania, on the other hand, is still in the process of accommodating
the rights of the Hungarian ethnic minority in the region of Transylvania.35
Even though the situation has improved in the last couple of decades, this
issue remains an obstacle in relations between Romania and Hungary,36 and
nationalists still use it to stir up ethnic tensions in the region.
While Albania is a rare example of a Balkan country which avoided intereth-
nic tensions, the rule of Enver Hoxha left the society in ruins and resulted
in vast migration from the country. This created a vast diaspora in Europe
and North America, with some involved in transnational organized crime
activities.37 Some of the most important tensions involving Albania stem
from its connection with ethnic kin in Kosovo and Macedonia, which pro-
vokes regional fears of creation of Greater Albania; however, the evidence
shows that the narrative on the Albanian unification in the region is noth-
ing more than a ‘show of nationalism’38 displayed to cover harsh economic
realities.
Unlike neighbouring Romania, Bulgaria and Albania, Yugoslavia fared much
better during communist rule. Nonetheless, with the death of Tito, the rise of
nationalism and the economic crisis of the 1980s, the country dissolved in one
of the most violent episodes of Balkan history. The dissolution of Yugoslavia
did not start with Kosovo, as everyone expected, but with the ten-day war in
Slovenia. The wars of Yugoslav succession, as they were termed, continued with
the war in Croatia and reached their climax in BiH, leaving more than 100,000
dead.39 The final stages of these wars took place in Kosovo in 1999, before they
came to an end with a minor conflict in Macedonia in 2001.
These conflicts left various precedents which shaped the debates in interna-
tional relations and international justice at the turn of the twentieth century.
The weakness of the UN was completely exposed in the war in BiH; the first
international criminal tribunal was established and the first convictions on
genocide passed since the Second World War; systematic rape was added to
the list of crimes against humanity; NATO undertook its first air campaign;
and the ‘human security’ and the ‘responsibility to protect’ paradigms have
seriously challenged the state sovereignty principle in international relations
debates. Finally, Kosovo, a former autonomous Yugoslav province, declared
independence in 2008, setting a precedent for international law and the
self-determination principle.
Grassroots initiatives
Even though the demise of Yugoslavia was one of the most violent episodes
in the history of the region, it also brought some positive developments in
terms of peace activism in the region. The first grassroots peace initiatives were
established in the final years of Yugoslavia. Despite the rigidity of the previous
system, the first initiative, the Movement for the Culture of Peace and Non-
Violence from Ljubljana, was established as far back as 1984. It openly criticized
Yugoslavia’s political system in the 1980s, in particular the Yugoslav National
Army.40 Similar initiatives appeared in other parts of the country on the eve of
the country’s dissolution. Among the most active were the Center for Anti-War
Action, the Women in Black, the Humanitarian Law Fund from Belgrade, the
Anti-War Campaign from Zagreb, the Citizen’s Forum from Sarajevo and the
Civil Forum from Tuzla.41 These initiatives focused mostly on street demonstra-
tions before the violence escalated. Sarajevans were particularly committed to
this type of protest, as quite a few large-scale demonstrations and events were
staged on the eve of the war. The demonstrations culminated in April 1992
when approximately 100,000 people assembled in front of the BiH parliament
in Sarajevo, demanding peace. However, the sniper shots fired at protestors
assembled in front of the parliament introduced the siege of Sarajevo and the
ensuing tragedy.
During the war, most of these initiatives provided support for refugees from
the region, collected data on violations of human rights,42 and actively resisted
divisions in their societies and the region. One of the most famous, and perhaps
the most successful, was the initiative from Tuzla, which managed to pre-
serve the multiethnic character of the town throughout the war in BiH.43 The
Women in Black have also left an important mark with their weekly protests
in Belgrade’s central square during the war in BiH and Kosovo. Most of these
initiatives also published magazines containing information the mainstream
media in the region tried to hide.44
Some of these initiatives are still active in the region, and they had to find
their place in the new environment after the wars had come to an end. This
was especially difficult due to the fact that the emphasis placed by liberal
peacebuilding on civil society has led to a massive increase in the number of
NGOs in the region; however, only a small number of these NGOs have based
their work on true grassroots activism.
While it would be wrong to write off the contributions of the entire NGO sec-
tor in the region, it is fair to say that most have accepted a way of working in
which their priorities are shaped by the international donors, and not by the
needs of their communities. The neoliberal approach to peacebuilding has led
things in this direction. On a more positive note, this led to changes in the ways
some people perceive peace, as they realized that relying on the international
community and donor-driven civil society would never result in the kind of
peace they want to see. This is why BiH is witnessing a growing number of
different initiatives which shape peace in accordance with the actual needs of
their communities.45 Some of the most prominent examples of grassroots actors
which managed to resist imposed version of civil society space are discussed
below.
The youth cultural centre ‘OKC Abrašević’ from Mostar is one of those ini-
tiatives which managed to preserve its grassroots nature. The organization is
located on the former front line which separated the two warring sides during
the war. It all started with a few individuals from both sides of town who real-
ized that the town lacked a space dedicated to youth. They cleaned the ruins
of the former cultural centre and fought the city administration in court to get
legal ownership of the centre. After success in court, they rebuilt the centre and
started organizing events to attract youth from both sides of the divide, such as
concerts, book promotions, public discussions and so on. They created a space
which enables youth to ‘work and creatively express themselves, a space which
offers cultural education, wide-ranging social discussion, analysis and criticism
of the global and BiH society’46 and, most importantly, a space which bridges
the divides imposed by the war. The director of the centre said in an inter-
view that in the past he used to be a hooligan with nationalistic views before
he started to get involved in the work of the centre. This helped him change
his views, and he now feels lucky to be running such a centre.47 Abrašević are
not dependent on donors’ funding; they are self-sustainable, as they want to
preserve their grassroots character.
Another initiative is ‘Jer me se tiče’ (‘Because it concerns me’), which was
established in 2013. It is a network comprised of various organizations from all
parts of BiH. Their objective is to respond to widespread discrimination, and
abuse of human rights of civilian victims of the war.48
[C]itizens of BiH are hostages of the closed circle of people created through
manipulation of ethnic interests, encouragement of feelings of being endan-
gered on the ethnic basis, and constant voting for parties which represent
themselves as alleged protectors of national interests. The victims of this cir-
cle are the marginalized and the vulnerable. The hostages of this situation
are us – all those who have survived the events of the 1990s . . . If we do not
raise our voices now . . . the hostages will be those who are yet to be born.49
One of their main activities is facing political elites with crimes committed
by their ethnic group. They organize visits to sites known for being places
of torture in all corners of the country. They also put up ‘guerrilla memo-
rials’, memorial plaques which they cement at entrances to torture sites in
coordinated actions in ethnically different parts of the country. They do this to
show nationalist elites that their attempt at collective amnesia is not working.50
‘We want to shame our politicians and the international community’,51 says
one of the activists of this initiative, highlighting the fact that more than 20
years after these crimes were committed, the victims are still not allowed to
commemorate these places. They work hard to preserve their self-sustainability
and the grassroots character of the initiative, and take pride in the fact that
‘nobody’s financial, material, political or any other dishonest interests are
behind this initiative’.52
‘Ambrosia’ (‘Ragweed’), an association of academics and artists, is another
initiative. The focus of its work is on the development of uncensored ways
of interacting which aim at transformation of social constellations in BiH.
Kappler points out that by transcending existing social and political bound-
aries, Ambrosia can impact society from a critical perspective.53 Ambrosia works
on ‘the development of a rebellious and critical counter-culture, counterbal-
ancing the mainstream and thus becoming central actors of social correction
and transformation’.54 Ambrosia activists refuse to register as an NGO, and are
mainly funded from contributions of Ambrosia’s members.
The Movement for Social Justice was established in Sarajevo in 2014. It came
out of the protests which erupted in February 2014. Led by former factory
workers, the protests began in Tuzla and quickly spread to other major urban
centres in BiH. After a couple of days, protests evolved into plenums, which
were effectively informal citizen councils, established throughout BiH, giving
people opportunities to voice their concerns, which had been ignored for such
a long time by the political elites of the country and by the international inter-
veners. The most common concerns were labour rights, ‘thieving privatization’,
welfare and healthcare, which displayed the appalling state of social justice in
the country.55
Towards the end of 2014, the Movement established a network comprised of
plenums and similar initiatives from both administrative entities, cutting across
ethnic divisions imposed during the Bosnian war.56 At the moment, one of the
activities of the Movement and the new network is alerting the public about
the potential consequences of the ‘Compact for Growth and Employment’, a
set of measures the EU Delegation to BiH has adopted to supposedly respond to
requests voiced in protests in February 2014. The Movement issued an analysis
of this document that repudiates the claims made by the EU delegation. Accord-
ing to the Movement, the measures proposed in this document will not result
in increased employment and economic growth, because they are nothing but
austerity measures copied from other countries, and are mainly followed by
additional liberalization of the labour market and cuts in government spend-
ing.57 The response of the EU delegation was to avoid activists of the Movement
and task selected NGOs with advocacy campaigns for the Compact.58 This reac-
tion suggests that the ignorance of grassroots initiatives continues. It also shows
that the EU-led phase of intervention is not likely to result in a meaningful,
hybrid peace.
EU: A panacea for the Balkans?
While the process of EU integration has brought about many positive changes
in the Balkans,59 one should still be cautious when assessing the EU’s potential
to bring stability to the region, as the situation is not that simple.60 The deba-
cle of the EU in solving the crisis in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s left an
impression of Europe’s inability and unwillingness to be involved in matters in
the region in a meaningful way. This left a rather bitter taste regarding the role
of the EU in the region, but things gradually started to change in the late 1990s.
The EU then realized that the only way it could ensure European security was
through the integration of the Balkans into the EU family.61 Gallagher’s find-
ings also suggest that the EU’s involvement in the Balkans is motivated by the
EU’s fear of drug trafficking, which might affect West European cities if South
America’s drug cartels use Balkan connections for drug trafficking.62 Therefore,
the EU’s enthusiasm for the integration of the Balkans begs the question of its
motivation: is it a genuine concern for the Balkans, or is it a security concern
for the EU? The EU–Western Balkans summit in Thessaloniki in 2003 showed a
commitment to the integration perspective of the Western Balkan countries;63
however, France’s open scepticism over the EU’s ‘absorption capacity’64 in 2006
was met with pessimistic tones in the Balkans. The EU’s reluctant approach
suggests that its new-found commitment to the region, especially to BiH and
Serbia, is driven by fear of Russia’s renewed interest in the Balkans65 rather
than genuine dedication to the region. This is further supported by the events
surrounding the Compact for Growth and Employment in BiH, and its vague
content, which could be used to further entrench a neoliberal approach to the
country’s economy, resulting in the weakening of social safety nets and expos-
ing more citizens to poverty. This is also indicative of the top-down approach
to which the EU still adheres.
Experience from the region also suggests that the process of EU integration
can cause disputes between countries. The case of Greece and Macedonia is
one example: blockage of Macedonia’s progress in the Euro-Atlantic integra-
tion contributed to a rise in nationalism in Macedonia, as well as a weakening
of its institutions.66 Also, the agreement that ended the conflict in Macedonia
in 2001 was signed and implemented under the pretext of the country’s per-
spective of joining the EU, and Macedonia’s progress in the process of EU
integration was remarkable until 2006. However, the EU’s lack of commitment
to broker the resolution of the name dispute hindered Macedonia’s prospect
of EU and NATO membership. This allowed ethno-nationalist parties to thrive,
and strengthened their hold on power.67 Macedonia has struggled since 2006,
and, rather than strengthening democracy and institutions, the lack of EU per-
spective led to a loss of credibility of Macedonian institutions and the reversal
of the progress made since 2001.
The territorial dispute between Slovenia and Croatia over a portion of the
Adriatic coast is a similar case. This, plus the issue of financial compensation
for Croatian depositors in a Slovenian bank, had delayed Croatia’s progress
towards the EU, as Slovenia made the ratification of Croatia’s accession treaty
conditional on the resolution of these issues.68 On the other hand, Croatia’s
first year of EU membership was marked by demands from right-wing pop-
ulists aimed at curtailing minority rights. The referendum on marriage was
followed by requests for a referendum that would ban Cyrillic signs in eastern
parts of Croatia with a significant Serb minority.69 These examples are in
line with Cosmina Tanasiou’s observation that once a country joins the EU,
national political elites are no longer pressured by benchmarks and adopt a
more relaxed approach towards contractual obligations.70 The EU responds
to these problems with statements containing forceful language, but it rarely
follows them with concrete measures.71 This results in the EU losing credibil-
ity, and its conditions are not taken seriously. The cases mentioned above are
illustrative of this, and nationalist parties in the region seem to be using EU
membership as leverage to affect their neighbouring countries in a negative
way. If this practice continues, it is possible that relations in the region might
worsen.
Conclusion
The negative perception of the Balkans as a backward periphery of Europe

was transferred to international intervention in the region. The ‘otherness’
of the Balkans was first used as a justification for non-involvement in the
region; however, as the conflict in the former Yugoslavia spilled over from one
republic to another, the international community intervened. The interven-
tion was mainly guided by liberal peacebuilding, which largely marginalized
local agency. In BiH, this led to a type of peace which failed to meet the expec-
tations of the population and continuing instability, while in Kosovo, liberal
peacebuilding was co-opted by one side in the conflict.
Despite the fact that various grassroots peace initiatives started to appear in
the final years of Yugoslavia, liberal peacebuilding deliberately reduced civil
society in the region to NGOs, which were intended to provide an artificial
sense of the inclusion of local agency. Gradually, local actors started to resist
the imposed definitions of civil society and the type of peace that came through
liberal peacebuilding. In BiH, this led to a few initiatives with alternative views
of how peace should be shaped in the country. They are guided by actual local
concerns, which have long been ignored by the international community and
political elites. However, post-liberal, hybrid peace can only come if the actual
concerns of the local are merged with those of the interveners. These initia-
tives have proved to be able to voice these concerns, and, if taken seriously by
the international community, could provide guidelines on how hybrid peace

should be shaped in the country.
The EU perspective of the region resulted in substantial accommodation
of minority rights, especially in parts of the Balkans not engulfed by the
1990s conflict. This led to the lessening of ethnic tensions. However, the EU
integration also has some negative aspects, as examples in the chapter have
shown.
Notes
1. See Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey through Yugoslavia (New York:
Penguin, 1982 [1942]).
2. See Robert D. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1993), xxiii.
3. Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 167.
See also John R. Lampe, ‘Introduction’, in Ideologies and National Identities, eds John
R. Lampe and Mark Mazower (Budapest and New York: Central European University
Press, 2004), 1.
4. Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 7.
5. Cathie Carmichael, Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans: Nationalism and the Destruction of
Tradition (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 109.
6. Ibid., 109.
7. Alex N. Grigor’ev and Adrian Severin, ‘Debalkanizing the Balkans: A Strategy for
a Sustainable Peace in Kosovo’, International Politics and Society 1 (2007): 129. See
also Tom Gallagher, Outcast Europe: The Balkans, 1789–1989 (New York, London:
Routledge, 2001), viii, x.
8. Warren Zimmermann, Origins of a Catastrophe (New York: Times Books, 1996), 209.
9. It should be noted, though, that this chapter by no means aims to absolve the
Balkans from its responsibility for upheavals in its history, especially the 1990s
episode. Political elites in particular showed readiness to resort to ideologies which
led to the violence in the region. By provoking fear among the population, they also
managed to attract a massive number of followers.
10. Grigor’ev and Severin, ‘Debalkanizing the Balkans’, 125.
11. Gallagher, Outcast Europe: The Balkans, 286.
12. Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 11.
13. Ibid., 185.
14. Gallagher, Outcast Europe, 4.
15. Roger Mac Ginty and Oliver P. Richmond, ‘The Local Turn in Peace Building:
A Critical Agenda for Peace’, Third World Quarterly 34, no. 5 (2013): 769.
16. See Homi Bhabha, ‘Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse’,
Discipleship 28 (1984): 125–133; Gayatri C. Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern speak?’, in
Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, eds C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (London:
Macmillan, 1998), 24–28.
17. Mac Ginty and Richmond, ‘The Local Turn in Peace Building’, 776.
18. Jason Miklian, Kristoffer Liden and Ashild Kolas, ‘The Perils of Going Local: Liberal
Peace-Building Agendas in Nepal’, Conflict Security and Development 11, no. 3 (2011):
285–308.
19. Timothy Donais, ‘Empowerment or Imposition? Dilemmas of Local Ownership in
Post-Conflict Peacebuilding Processes’, Peace & Change 34, no. 1 (2009): 7.
20. Oliver P. Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace (London: Routledge, 2011), 70.

21. Ibid., 69.
22. Ibid., 70.
23. In 2011, it was estimated that around 12,000 NGOs were registered in BiH; see
‘Nevladine organizacije u vladinoj sluzbi’, Radio Slobodna Evropa, 27 October 2011,
http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/content/bih_nevladine_organizacije/24373373.html,
accessed 23 November 2014.
24. Jenny H. Peterson, ‘A Conceptual Unpacking of Hybridity: Accounting for Notions
of Power, Politics and Progress in Analyses of Aid-Driven Interfaces’, Journal of
Peacebuilding & Development 7, no. 2 (2012): 14.
25. Oliver P. Richmond and Audra Mitchell, ‘Introduction’, in Hybrid Forms of Peace.
From Everyday Agency to Post-Liberalism, eds Oliver P. Richmond and Audra Mitchell
(Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 11.
26. Beatrice Pouligny, ‘Civil Society and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: Ambiguities of
International Programmes Aimed at Building “New” Societies’, Security Dialogue 36,
no. 4 (2005): 503.
27. Volker Boege, M. Anne Brown, Kevin P. Clements and Anna Nolan, ‘States Emerging
from Hybrid Political Orders – Pacific Experiences’, The Australian Centre for Peace
and Conflict Studies Occasional Papers Series, Number 11, September 2008, 36.
28. Pnina Werbner, ‘The Limits of Cultural Hybridity: On Ritual Monsters, Poetic License
and Contested Post-Colonial Purifications’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Insti-
tute 7, no. 1 (2001): 149, quoted in Peterson, ‘A Conceptual Unpacking of Hybridity’,
19.
29. Gallagher, Outcast Europe, 265.
30. Nora Fisher Onar and Othon Anastasakis, ‘Sustaining Engagement? On Sym-
metries and Asymmetries in Greek–Turkish Relations’, Southeast European and
Black Sea Studies 13, no. 3 (2013): 401–406; see also Stephen Kinzer,
‘Earthquakes Help Warm Greek–Turkish Relations’, The New York Times,
13 September 1999, http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/13/world/earthquakes-help-
warm-greek-turkish-relations.html, accessed 20 December 2014. The two countries
are also in dispute over the Aegean Sea.
31. Stephen Kinzer, ‘Earthquakes Help Warm Greek–Turkish Relations’.
32. Elizabeth Pond, Endgame in the Balkans (Washington: The Brookings Institution,
2006); Andrew Rossos, Macedonia and the Macedonians (Stanford, CA: Hoover Insti-
tution Press, 2008). For alternative views on the dispute, see Aristotle Tziampiris,
‘Greece and the Macedonian Question: An Assessment of Recent Claims and
Criticisms’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 11, no. 1 (2011): 69–83.
33. Rossos, Macedonia and the Macedonians, 148–153.
34. See Iskra Baeva and Evgenia Kalinova, ‘Bulgarian Turks during the Transition Period’,
in Bulgaria and Europe, ed. Stefanos Katsikas (London: Anthem Press, 2010).
35. See Claude Karnoouh, ‘Multiculturalism and Ethnic Relations in Transylvania’, in
Romania since 1989, ed. Henry F. Carey (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2004).
36. Marian Chiriac, ‘Romania and Hungary Row over Ethnic Minority Rights’,
Balkan Insight, 17 March 2014, http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/romania-
and-hungary-row-over-ethnic-minorities-rights, accessed 20 December 2014.
37. Pond, Endgame in the Balkans, 198.
38. Gjergj Erebara, ‘Albania’s Nationalist Show: All Bark and No Bite’, Balkan Insight,
25 March 2015, http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/blog/albania-s-nationalist-show-
all-bark-and-no-bite, accessed 29 March 2015. See also Robert C. Austin, ‘Greater
Albania: The Albanian State and the Question of Kosovo’, in Ideologies and National
Identities, eds John R. Lampe and Mark Mazower (Budapest and New York: Central
European University Press, 2004).
39. ‘Bosnia War Dead Figure Announced’, BBC, 21 June 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/
hi/europe/6228152.stm, accessed 8 January 2015.
40. Paul Stubbs, ‘Nationalisms, Globalization and Civil Society in Croatia and Slovenia’,
Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change 19 (1996): 5.
41. Ana Devic, ‘Anti-War Initiatives and the Un-Making of Civic Identities in the Former
Yugoslav Republics’, Journal of Historical Sociology 10, no. 2 (1997): 127–156.
42. Orli Fridman, ‘ “It Was Like Fighting a War with Our Own People”: Anti-War Activism
in Serbia during the 1990s’, Nationalities Papers 39, no. 4 (2011): 510.
43. See Ioannis Armakolas, ‘The “Paradox” of Tuzla City: Explaining Non-Nationalist
Local Politics during the Bosnian War’, Europe-Asia Studies 63, no. 2 (2011): 229–261.
44. Devic, ‘Anti-War Initiatives and the Un-Making of Civic Identities in the Former
Yugoslav Republics’.
45. Stefanie Kappler, Local Agency and Peacebuilding – EU and International Engagement in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus and South Africa (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
46. OKC Abrašević, ‘About Us’, http://www.okcabrasevic.org/o-abraševiću, accessed
20 January 2015.
47. Interview with Vladimir Ćorić, director of OKC Abrašević, 1 April 2015.
48. ‘Ujedinjavanje civilnog sektora – Inicijativa: “Jer me se tiče” ’, EFM Radio, 16 April
2013, http://www.efm.ba/tagovi?tags= jer+me+se+tice, accessed 20 February 2015.
49. Ibid.
50. Daria Sito-Sucic, ‘Bosnian Activists Erect “Guerrilla Memorials” to War Crime
Victims’, 26 October 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/26/us-bosnia-
memorials-idUSBRE99P02U20131026, accessed 21 February 2015.
51. Ibid.
52. ‘Ujedinjavanje civilnog sektora – Inicijativa: “Jer me se tiče” ’.
53. Kappler, Local Agency and Peacebuilding – EU and International Engagement in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, Cyprus and South Africa, 132.
54. Ibid.
55. See Plenum gradjana i gradjanki Sarajeva, ‘Zahtjevi Plenuma gradjana i gradjanki
Sarajeva prema Skupstini Kantona Sarajevo’, http://plenumsa.org/zahtjevi-plenuma-
gradana-i-gradanki-sarajeva-prema-skupstini-kantona-sarajevo/, accessed 28 August
2014.
56. ‘ “Mreza peti i sedmi februar” kao korektiv vlasti’, Federalna TV, http://www.
federalna.ba/bhs/vijest/118289/video-blizi-se-godisnjica-februarskih-protesta,
accessed 10 March 2015.
57. Pokret za socijalnu pravdu, ‘KomPAKT s d̄avolom: Zašto ne podržavamo
Sporazum za rast i zapošljavanje i inicijativu Evropske unije?’ 23 Febru-
ary 2015, http://www.bljesak.info/rubrika/business/clanak/zasto-ne-podrzavamo-
sporazum-za-rast-i-zaposljavanje-i-inicijativu-europske-unije/109894, accessed 28
February 2015.
58. Interview with an activist of the Movement for Social Justice.
59. Pond, Endgame in the Balkans, conclusion, 270–284.
60. Judy Batt, ed., ‘The Western Balkans: Moving on’, Chaillot Paper No. 70, Institute
for Security Studies, Paris, October 2003, http://www.iss-eu.org/chaillot, accessed
17 December 2014; International Commission on the Balkans, ‘The Balkans in
Europe’s Future’, 2005.
61. Pond, Endgame in the Balkans, 5.
62. Tom Gallagher, The Balkans in the New Millennium (London and New York: Routledge,
2005), 190.
63. The European Commission, EU–Western Balkans Summit Declaration, http://europa.
eu/rapid/press-release_PRES-03-163_en.htm, accessed 10 January 2015.
64. Guilame Durand and Antonio Missiroli, ‘Absorption Capacity: Old Wine in New
Bottles’, European Policy Centre, Policy brief, September 2006.
65. Anthony Czuczka and Brian Parkin, ‘Merkel Bids to Stall Putin Influence at EU’s
Balkan Edge’, Bloomberg, 21 November 2014, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/
articles/2014-11-20/merkel-bids-to-stall-putin-influence-at-eu-s-balkan-edge, accessed
10 January 2015.
66. The espionage affair is the latest affair to shake Macedonia.
67. Zoran Ilievski and Dane Taleski, ‘Was the EU’s Role in Conflict Management in
Macedonia a Success?’ Ethnopolitics 8, nos. 3–4 (2009): 364.
68. Andrew Rettman, ‘Slovenia Puts 172EUR Price Tag on Croatia’s EU Entry’, EU
Observer, 21 September 2012, https://euobserver.com/enlargement/117629, accessed
15 December 2014.
69. ‘Croatians Vote against Gay Marriage’, The Economist, 5 December 2013, http://
www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/12/croatia, accessed 12 Febru-
ary 2015.
70. Cosmina Tanasoiu, ‘Europeanization Post-Accession: Rule Adoption and National
Political Elites in Romania and Bulgaria’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies
12, no. 1 (2012): 174.
71. Ibid., 178.
33
Peacebuilding in South America
Roddy Brett and Diana Florez
Introduction
This chapter explores the logics of peacebuilding practices in South America,

delineating the characteristics of the region in this regard. The research focuses
in particular on the case of Colombia and on the region of Montes de
María, located on Colombia’s Atlantic coast. The chapter initially discusses the
patterns of conflict transformation in the South American region, and subse-
quently turns to an analysis of how peace has been contested at the local level
in Colombia. Significantly, the Colombia case study has been selected because
of two overriding factors. First, Colombia remains the only country in South
America that is currently experiencing an armed conflict, suggesting that it rep-
resents, at best, a regional exception or, at worst, an aberration. While all other
armed conflicts have come to a close and all authoritarian regimes have eventu-
ally undergone political transitions, Colombia is still experiencing widespread
political violence wielded by diverse illegal armed groups. Second, Colombia
represents the most pronounced case of local-level peacebuilding initiatives
(LPBIs) being proven to have an important, albeit limited, impact upon the
causes and consequences of armed conflict, in spite of the presence of con-
ventional liberal peace politics. Consequently, Colombia speaks to, yet differs
from, broader processes within the region, where civil society mobilizations
were critical not only in shaping transition from authoritarian rule, such as in
Chile and Argentina, but also where civil society actors assumed a formal role
in peace negotiations, such as the case of Guatemala.
The research builds on previous academic scholarship and practitioner
thinking that has increasingly sought to adopt a multi-layered and
multi-dimensional approach to peacebuilding, proposing the formulation of
The opinions contained in this article are exclusive to the authors and imply no
commitment on the part of the UNDP.
438
Roddy Brett and Diana Florez 439
multi-level interventions for conflict transformation, including at local and

national levels,1 focusing specifically on LPBIs. As Ghebremeskel and Smith
have signalled, these ‘need to be understood as one element within the complex
transformational response that is required in an engagement with a complex
conflict system’.2 For Richmond, the central importance of a post-liberal pol-
itics of peacebuilding articulated from the local level is that ‘local agencies,
rights, needs, culture, custom and kinship are recognized as webs of meaning’.3
The chapter analyses LPBIs as a sub-system, understanding this to be a set of
interrelated state, government and non-state actors and interventions aimed at
building peace from the grassroots level.
Based upon protracted fieldwork carried out between 2012 and 2014, the
chapter examines the dynamics shaping how peace has been built at the local
level and documents the impact of LPBIs on the ground.
The Latin American context
Since Latin America’s relatively early struggles for independence in the nine-
teenth century, very few interstate conflicts have erupted in the region.
Patterns in South America reflect those patterns in Central America; rather
than facing the challenges of reconstruction and reconciliation in the after-
math of international conflict, states here have been obliged to turn their gaze
inwards, to confront the causes, consequences and legacies of the embedded
political violence and ideological polarization that characterized the region’s
long and brutal twentieth century and definitive, vicious Cold War.4 In fact,
Grandin has argued that the Cold War counter-revolutions in Latin America
decisively defeated revolutionary insurgency so effectively that they deeply
transformed the region’s societies, principally as a result of the impact of
egregious violence.5 In this regard, internal armed conflict and authoritar-
ian rule devastated South America, leaving many countries acutely divided
and militarized, governed by corrupt, weak states, bereft of effective and
trustworthy institutions. Post-conflict and post-authoritarian reconstruction in
South America has faced challenges similar to those in other regions in this
respect.6
The causes engendering authoritarian rule and armed conflict in South
America have been diverse, dependent upon the social formations, historical
trajectories and demographic constituencies of particular countries, yet tend-
ing still to share a set of embedded characteristics.7 Insurgencies emerged to
oppose the closure of formal political channels and systematic exclusion, acute
levels of inequality, and unequal control and distribution of land and natu-
ral resources, factors that also drove the consolidation of those authoritarian
regimes that sought to protect these conditions. In this context, the violence
that characterized the Latin American experience was exemplary in the history
of twentieth-century state terrorism, a violence that was framed within the

paradigm of the Cold War, yet not defined entirely by it. As Grandin has
argued, ‘Escalating political repression was made possible by the provision,
coordination and enthusiasm provided by the United States. Yet its animal
spirit was driven by a domestic reaction against the democratization of the
region’s status hierarchy that had steadily advanced since the decades prior to
independence.’8
Latin America, however, remains underrepresented in the international
relations scholarship on peacebuilding, despite the fact that, since the end
of the 1980s, the region has experienced a series of unprecedented formal
peacemaking and peacebuilding operations aimed at transforming the causes
and consequences of violence, and has been the recipient of considerable multi-
lateral and bilateral North American and European aid. Moreover, the peace and
conflict studies literatures remain of relevance to South America, given that, in
the post-Cold War context, peace is fragile, a condition that much scholarship
has identified in the case of other regions.
Historically, peacebuilding thinking and practice in the region have been
framed through both liberal institutionalism, the predominant paradigm of
the contemporary peacebuilding architecture, and, more recently, through
sub-state, locally driven initiatives, particularly in the case of Colombia. Never-
theless, the waging and cessation of civil wars and internal armed conflicts, the
transformation of Latin America’s Cold War authoritarian regimes, and subse-
quent post-conflict reconstruction have primarily been addressed through the
transitology scholarship (addressing political transition) and the democratiza-
tion and social movement literatures.9 Within this framework, and with few
exceptions, scholars have accounted for the nature of Latin America’s post-
authoritarian/post-conflict polities and the minimal ‘peace’ attained therein
as being contingent upon the limited breadth and scope of democratization.
Scholarship has dismissed, or dramatically played down, the role that the pol-
icy designs and subsequent impact of liberal peacemaking and peacebuilding
mechanisms, such as peace processes, may have had on the post-conflict
scenario.
It is, in this respect, the contention of this chapter that the region should
be revisited within the framework of critical peace studies literature, with the
objective of rethinking many of the assumed truths so preponderant within the
transitology and democratization literatures. In particular, it would be germane
to challenge the perspective, predominant in democratization scholarship, that
the region’s lamentable performance in the indices relating to homicide, vio-
lence, inequality and exclusion is due to low-quality democracy, rather than
the nature and content of the peace settlements/transitions that were framed
within the formal paradigm of the liberal peace.10
Peacebuilding and South America after the Cold War
The history of South America during the twentieth century was shaped deci-
sively by internal armed conflict (in Colombia and Peru) and by violent
authoritarian regimes (in Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay). Nev-
ertheless, in the wake of the Cold War, with the exception of Colombia, South
America’s protracted armed conflicts and once embedded authoritarian regimes
have slowly receded, to permit the longest uninterrupted period of democratic
electoral politics. In short, more and increasingly diverse sectors of the region’s
populations are exercising their political right to vote. In this context, South
America’s new democracies have gradually shaped and, in turn, been shaped
by an evolving framework of ‘negative peace’, where formally hostile parties
no longer remain in conflict with each other, where democratic institutions
are consolidated, but where levels of direct and structural violence make the
region one of the most violent and unequal on the planet. How peaceful is
Latin America’s peace is the obvious question that arises.
Significantly, in cases such as the Southern Cone, civil society mobilization
played a key role in shaping political transition and, to a degree, subsequent
democratization. It was this process of systematic political contention and
widespread civil resistance that at once shaped the direction of the transitions
and subsequently laid the foundations for a peace architecture, as Lederach
has defined it, a set of networks bringing civil society and broader actors
together. Consequently, civil society mobilizations have since given democratic
orientation to formally authoritarian states, while providing these states with
counterparts that have demanded a broad and diverse set of claims from their
governments and political systems.11 Without civil society mobilization, the
region’s meagre, threadbare democracies and evidently negative peace would
likely be yet more violent, precarious and unequal.
Despite an incipient peace infrastructure and the increased exercise and
guarantee of certain civil and political rights, negative peace and political
democracy mean very little for many South Americans who continue to strug-
gle against poverty, lack of land, exclusion, impunity and diverse forms of
direct violence, patterns that represented the original causes of the conflicts
in the first place. In fact, ‘negative peace’ in many countries in the region, such
as Brazil, has brought with it escalating indices of homicide and insecurity,
while political inclusion has wielded little significant impact on people’s daily
lives. While transformations in the formal political sphere, including increasing
levels of voting and broadened suffrage, have taken root in both post-conflict
and post-authoritarian countries in South America, severe deficits continue to
limit the embedding of peacebuilding processes and mechanisms and a more
meaningful, sustainable, ‘positive’ peace. In this regard, Azpuru has argued that,
compared with their post-authoritarian counterparts, post-conflict countries in

the region appear to confront deeper challenges with regard to establishing
effective state capacity, rule of law, and social and political inclusion, while they
also experience greater and more penetrating patterns of crime and violence,
including organized crime and narco-trafficking.12
Since the decade of the dictators, then, South America has experienced the
gradual institutionalization of political democracy, not least as the result of
pressure from civil society, and the gradual consolidation of political parties,
but remains characterized by ‘hybrid’ states, where authoritarian practices,
norms and behaviour coincide with more democratic patterns.13 At the same
time, neoliberal economics has impacted deeply on the region. Democratiza-
tion has coincided and been conflated with the transition from war to peace
and from a war economy to a globalized economy. Peace, however, remains
elusive. Notwithstanding this, a key achievement has been the emergence of
those sectors hitherto excluded and targeted by state actors under authoritar-
ian rule, including oppositional movements, indigenous peoples, women and
youth. In South America, in countries such as Bolivia, Colombia and Uruguay,
social movements have begun to assert unprecedented levels of leverage over
the shape of institutional arrangements, legislation, public policy and political
culture, building peace from the bottom up. In the case of Colombia, as we shall
see, social movements have emerged in the midst of armed conflict, and have
begun to play a crucial role in peacebuilding, particularly at the local level.
International actors also assumed a key role in peacebuilding in post-conflict
countries in the region, although those countries transitioning from author-
itarian rule enjoyed less international intervention and, logically, were not
the recipients of UN-led missions. Unlike those countries experiencing civil
war, then, the transitions from authoritarianism to civilian rule in the South-
ern Cone did not undergo formal peacemaking processes, and were eventu-
ally consolidated through political transition and democratization. Pioneering
UN missions were, however, established to support the peace processes in
post-conflict countries, first in El Salvador (1991–92) and, subsequently, in
Guatemala (1994–96). The UN missions in Central America were shaped pro-
foundly by the UN Agenda for Peace, launched by Boutros-Ghali in 1992,
and by the liberal peace paradigm.14 Other multi-actor-led regional initiatives
aimed at ending armed conflict, such as the Contadora Group and Esquipulas
II, and protracted UN involvement in Haiti and Colombia, also evidence what
has been a multi-faceted, although top-down, approach taken by international
actors towards supporting peace in the region.
Scholarship on peacebuilding in Latin America generally, and South
America in particular, has tended to adopt a state-centric approach, focus-
ing upon formal peace processes and other top-down mechanisms of conflict
transformation, dismissing the role of locally driven initiatives in conflict
transformation or characterizing them, rather, as social movements isolated

from the peacebuilding enterprise.15 As we shall see, it is the contention of
this chapter that scholars should revisit and recalibrate the lens through which
peacebuilding in Latin America has been understood, even if it would appear
that sub-state processes remain limited with regard to the impact they may
ultimately wield. In this respect, even in spite of their limited impact, it will be
argued in the following case study that LPBIs may indeed possess the capacity
to embed partially the social-political and cultural infrastructure necessary for
generating an everyday, meaningful and emancipatory peace forged by those
who are obliged to live it. We now turn to the Colombia case study.
The Colombia case study: Montes de María
The onset of Colombia’s armed conflict came in 1964 with the establishment
of two guerrilla organizations, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC)) and the Army of National
Liberation (Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN)). These organizations emerged
in rural zones of the country, principally in response to structural factors that
had shaped historical conditions of exclusion, poverty and inequality, includ-
ing, in particular, Colombia’s unjust system of land distribution and tenure.
Lack of meaningful access to formal political channels was a further deci-
sive factor pushing disaffected peasant farmers to take up arms within the
context of the Cold War. During the 1970s, a series of paramilitary organi-
zations emerged in diverse regions of Colombia, mirroring the increasingly
consolidated guerrilla armies. Initially, they were legally recognized self-defence
groups, established by regional rural landowning elites with the specific aim of
protecting their property from the guerrilla, and enjoying broad operational,
financial and technical support from certain elements in the military high
command. Over time, they extended their mandate and infrastructure beyond
combatting the guerrilla, and became involved in drug-trafficking and other
criminal enterprises.
The conflict in Montes de María developed within the framework of
Colombia’s national conflict. A strategic region on Colombia’s Caribbean coast,
populated by approximately 440,000 inhabitants, 45 per cent of whom live in
rural zones, Montes de María has historically experienced high poverty rates,
inequality and unequal land distribution. This context of adversity has histori-
cally precipitated high levels of political mobilization and social organization,
and in the 1970s the region became the epicentre of Colombia’s most impor-
tant peasant movement pushing for land reform. At the same time, however,
Montes de María has become a scenario of embedded political violence and
armed conflict, as guerrilla and subsequently paramilitary organizations sought
to capture the state and win the hearts and minds of peasant populations.
Montes de María has seen the active presence of all armed groups since the
early 1980s, including the FARC, the ELN and the arrival of the paramilitaries
in the 1990s.16 In the early 2000s, as a result of conventional counter-
insurgency operations and brutal paramilitary operations, often coordinated
with state security forces, the FARC were strategically defeated and withdrew
from the zone.
After 2003, the apparent lull caused by the defeat of the guerrilla, the
armed pacification process imposed by the paramilitaries, and its subsequent
demobilization in the region permitted the gradual emergence of diverse net-
works of LPBIs. Independently of formal peace negotiations, organizations took
advantage of the increasing political space – consolidated by the presence of
international actors on the ground – and reactivated mobilizations and net-
works that had been forged previously. In this context, international actors,
including the EU and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
began increasingly to finance LPBIs working in the spheres of human rights
and development, as the region became a zone for the implementation of
internationally and nationally led pilot projects. LPBIs have been focused upon
creating opportunities for political participation within local-level institutions,
implementing projects for localized economic alternatives aimed at meeting
basic needs and generating awareness on issues relevant to human rights, devel-
opment and conflict in the region. However, according to interviews,17 the
majority of initiatives in the region have remained disconnected from the
national sphere and lacked the capacity both to position the local agenda at
the national level and to shape national peace policy.
The emergence of LPBIs in Colombia reflects similar processes elsewhere,
where non-state actors have carried out resistance in contexts of violent con-
flict.18 Over the last two decades, and independently of formal peace talks,
actors within Colombia’s regions have sought to build peace in the midst
of armed conflict, often funded by international organizations.19 LPBIs in
Colombia are highly diverse and have emerged at national, regional and local
levels. As yet, a comprehensive understanding of the impact of LPBIs remains
elusive, given their breadth, diversity and sheer number. However, in practice,
rather than direct interlocution with illegal armed actors, LPBIs have instead
favoured actions targeting local government, state institutions and civil society
that are focused upon the generation of conditions that redress the causes and
consequences of armed conflict.
The impact of local-level peacebuilding initiatives in Colombia
The impact of LPBIs that emerged organically at grassroots level, such as the
Peace and Development Programme (PDP), was key. Rights frameworks and
local agency were strengthened and political subjectivity was made more robust
by human rights training and capacity-building programmes with civil society

and local government actors. The permanent presence of the PDP in the region
and its permanent local staff consolidated a peace infrastructure, and generated
trust between organizations and local state and government institutions. In this
respect, local actors began to evidence their own capacity to design and imple-
ment the recovery process in a region hard hit by political violence from both
sides of the ideological spectrum, and to advance along the path from being
victims towards being citizens, subjects of rights.
However, after several years, LPBIs became locked into a technocratic logic,
reflecting the insights posited by Mac Ginty (2012) with regard to the ideolog-
ical nature and pernicious impact of technocratic approaches to peacebuilding
initiatives.20 Funding was obtained from the UN, the World Bank and, predomi-
nantly, the European Union. According to interviewees, in many cases, projects
were pre-designed and evaluated through frameworks that stipulated a set of
products that would be required regardless of the capacity and needs of the
Montes de María: ‘priorities did not mesh with our realities. The instruments
utilized were inflexible in the face of complex regional dynamics.’21 Moreover,
interviews evidence how the EU imposed a complex and vertical approach for
project implementation, while being insensitive to the capabilities and needs
of local actors. This deficiency, combined with lack of interest from formal gov-
ernmental and state actors, limited sustainable impact. However, members of
LPBIs claimed that the ultimate impact of EU cooperation was to depoliticize,
weaken and, over the long term, dismantle those organizations it had sought to
strengthen, limiting LPBIs’ scope and impact and diminishing their legitimacy.
Finally, the issue that most profoundly weakened and delegitimized LPBIs in
the region was financial. Interviewees talk of accusations of corruption and mis-
use of resources and a dependence upon external funding, a phenomenon that
ultimately prevented the possibility of strengthening endogenous processes.
The initial objective of the PDP, for example, had been to empower citizens
to construct and enact visions of government, state and society that were not
imposed from above and from outside, but, rather, responded directly to the
self-defined and differential needs, priorities and cultural values of local actors.
In this regard, LPBIs inferred the possibility of ‘a state or polity built from
the bottom-up . . . [where] local and international understandings of peace’ may
converge, contradict and complement each other.22 This approach differs pro-
foundly from the role of social movements in political transitions and within
formal peace negotiations, as had been the case in the Southern Cone and
Guatemala respectively, a key characteristic of the Colombia case study. How-
ever, the state and international actors in Montes de María ultimately got in
the way, regardless of the strategic capacity and agency of local actors.
LPBIs in Montes de María have had, in general, a restricted impact upon
the logic of violent actors, particularly since there was no buy-in from state
and governmental actors. While scholars and practitioners have tended to load
heavy expectations upon the capacity of LBPIs to wield impact, the limitations
of LPBIs in Colombia reflect those signalled by scholars for similar initiatives
elsewhere. Odendaal has argued that the fundamental achievement of local
peace committees has been that they create opportunities for dialogue and,
by so doing, possess the potential to wield broader, more significant impact.
LPBIs tended to articulate a broader agenda focusing on conditions for positive
peace (social justice, equality, empowerment), rather than the minimal condi-
tions of negative peace (an end to formal hostilities). In this way, they provided
the state and local government with a counterpart that pushed the bound-
aries of the conventional in relation to peacebuilding standards, expectations
and practices. Odendaal has similarly indicated that local-level peacebuilding
actors may wield a key impact as enablers by precipitating communication
between current or former protagonists to overcome fears and mistrust; pre-
venting violence by carrying out joint exercises; and facilitating negotiations
between parties in conflict at the local level. LPBIs in Montes de María played a
role in generating an enabling environment, particularly in the realm of enabling
an active political and rights culture based upon the rule of law, ultimately
strengthening social cohesion.23 While actors have utilized typical liberal peace
discourses and mechanisms, such as local democratic frameworks, public policy
and rights legislation, they have done so to advance their own self-identified
needs and priorities, not those imposed by the state or top-down from external
actors.
LPBIs in Montes de María have faced acute challenges, not only in terms
of their own strengths and weaknesses and contingent capacity to shape the
peace agenda, but also because, as we have seen, top-down, state and interna-
tionally led interventions enjoy resources that are both stable and abundant,
while LPBIs have tended to be financed by international liberal peace heavy-
weights, such as the UNDP and the EU. Top-down initiatives made use of their
considerable levels of financial support to monopolize discourses and practices,
to impose their legitimacy on national and local imaginaries, and to flood
recipient communities with resources that were derived from and reflected the
logic of state-centric sources of power. In this context, international bodies
have been key supporters of LPBIs, and local actors have become increasingly
dependent upon UN agencies and EU funding, a factor that challenged the
sustainability/stability of their impact and local appropriation or ownership of
interventions.
Asymmetric power relations limited the capacity of LPBIs to wield enduring
impact in building peace. At the same time, the ‘Achilles’ heel’ of sub-national
peacebuilding, as Odendaal has defined it,24 has resided in LPBIs’ relative inde-
pendence from formal processes at the national level. Autonomy may have
permitted local actors to maintain an agenda that reflected their self-identified
interests and contextual sensibilities, permitting LPBIs to retain an important

degree of prerogative. However, this autonomy has also tended to lessen the
legitimacy and restrict the impact of LPBIs. The logical question, the dilemma,
arises, then, as to whether it would be more germane for LBPIs to remain
autonomous from international and state actors: would this ultimately increase
or decrease their leverage and impact?
Given the tendency of LPBIs to eschew articulation with state policy
frameworks at the national level and to retain agendas that are discrete from
top-down peacebuilding mechanisms, a further challenge faced by LPBIs in
Colombia has been to disperse their impact, rather than permitting the
creation of quarantined islands of impact. While LPBIs did seek to shape
the national agenda, the ultimate impact of this endeavour was negligible;
what happened in Montes de María appears to have stayed in Montes de
María.
A fundamental question in the case study and for future research is the degree
to which articulation between local, regional, national and international actors
may either restrict or deepen impact.25 Mary Anderson has suggested that it is
imperative to develop strategic links between local-level initiatives and broader
socio-political developments, and that the former should demonstrate their
strategic relevance to the latter. In the Colombian case, LPBIs framed around
local actors’ visions of state, government and society have tended to be isolated
from formal peace processes and invisible to national-level state prerogatives
and broader debates on public policy. This characteristic has, indeed, generated
localized impact that has rarely spread beyond its immediate zone of inter-
vention. While local-level mobilizations evidence non-state-centric sources of
power, the question that arises here is to what extent the state remains a key
and necessary component in peacebuilding at the local level. In this regard,
a former member of a regional peacebuilding initiative in Magdalena Medio,
Colombia, observed:
Our institution was unable to transform economic and social relations at

local level within what has been a marginalised region. How could we fight
against corrupt state institutions and officials, armed groups and landowners
with links to illegal actors? How could we stop mining companies?26
At the same time, the lack of direct articulation with, or sanction from, the
state has meant that local actors in Montes de María, as has been the case else-
where, have been unable to enforce peace or radically transform the attitudes of
armed actors, especially among groups intent on wielding violence. The degree
to which local actors are able to redress structural root causes of conflict and
of overriding national political imperatives emanating from the state, then, is
a key point of inquiry.27
Some closing reflections
In conclusion, South America evidences a particularly diverse set of patterns

in peacebuilding, ranging from formal peace processes to LPBIs, and to less
conventional forms of conflict transformation, such as political transition. The
Colombia case study signals the importance of rethinking the importance of
multi-layered and multi-dimensional approaches to peacebuilding that include
non-state actors. However, it may also demonstrate how ‘flat-packed peace’,
a universal model for peacebuilding conceptualized and designed outside of
the conflict environment, is unlikely to wield long-term, sustainable impact,
given its lack of capacity to respond to the specific context in which it is
applied, its dependence upon external funding, and the corresponding ille-
gitimacy with which it is likely to be perceived locally. In this regard, future
research should explore further the degree to which local actors might wield
meaningful and widespread impact, particularly in those cases where inter-
national actors have tended to impose or set the peacebuilding agenda, and
how to develop points of effective articulation between non-state, state and
international actors that redress, rather than embed, asymmetrical relations of
power.
Notes
1. Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall, Contemporary Conflict Resolu-
tion (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011), chapter XX.
2. Adane Ghebremeskel and Richard Smith, ‘Comments on Paul van Tongeren’s “Poten-
tial Cornerstone of Infrastructure for Peace? How Local Peace Committees Can Make
a Difference” ’, Peacebuilding 1, no. 1 (2013): 65–68.
3. Oliver Richmond, ‘From Peacebuilding as Resistance to Peacebuilding as Liberation’,
in Rethinking Peacebuilding: The Quest for Just Peace in the Middle East and the Western
Balkans, eds Karin Aggestam and Annika Björkdahl (London: Routledge, 2013), 64–77
(67).
4. See George Joseph and Greg Grandin, eds, A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and
Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America’s Long Cold War (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2010) for a detailed analysis of Latin America’s Cold War.
5. See Greg Grandin, ‘Living in Revolutionary Time: Coming to Terms with the Vio-
lence of Latin America’s Long Cold War’, in A Century of Revolution, G. Joseph and
G. Grandin (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010).
6. See Roger Mac Ginty and Andrew Williams, Conflict and Development, especially
chapter five (London: Routledge, 2009).
7. See Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead, Transitions
from Authoritarian Rule. Prospects for Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1986).
8. Grandin and Joseph, ‘Living in Revolutionary Time’.
9. See O’Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule; See also
Terry Karl, ‘What Democracy Is . . . and Is Not’, Journal of Democracy 2, no. 3 (1991):
75–88.
10. See, for example, Cynthia Arnson, ed., In the Wake of War: Democratization and Inter-
nal Armed Conflict in Latin America (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press
and Stanford University Press, 2012).
11. See John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies
(Washington, DC: USIP, 1997). See also Graham Gill, Dynamics of Democratiza-
tion: Elites, Civil Society, and the Transition Processes (London: Palgrave, 2000); Erica
Chenoweth and María Stepan, Why Civil Resistance Works (New York: Columbia
12. See Dinorah Azpuru, ‘Democracy and Governance in Conflict and Postwar Latin
America: A Quantitative Assessment’, in In the Wake of War, ed. Cynthia Arnson
(Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press,
2012).
13. See Terry Karl, From Democracy to Democratization and Back: Before Transitions from
Authoritarian Rule (CDDRL Working Papers, Stanford University, 2005).
14. See Roddy Brett, Local Level Peacebuilding in Colombia (Bogota: United Nations, 2014).
15. See, for example, Joe Foweraker, Theorizing Social Movements (London: Pluto Press,
1995); Sonia Alvarez et al., Cultures of Politics/Politics of Cultures Re-visioning Latin
American Social Movements (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998).
16. Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación (CNRR), Grupo de Memoria
Histórica. La Masacre de El Salado. Esa Guerra no Era Nuestra (Bogotá: Editorial
Taurus-Ediciones Semana, 2009), 9.
17. Interviews carried out in Sucre and Bogota, September 2013–March 2014.
18. Paul van Tongeren, ‘Potential Cornerstone of Infrastructures for Peace? How Local
Peace Committees Can Make a Difference’, Peacebuilding 1, no. 1 (2013): 39–60;
Andries Odendaal, An Architecture for Building Peace at the Local Level: A Comparative
Study of Local Peace Committees (New York: UNDP-BCPR, 2010).
19. According to Garcia Duran, Colombia could, in fact, be identified as the country
with the highest level of peace mobilizations during armed conflict. See M. Garcia
Duran, Movimiento por la Paz en Colombia, 1978–2003 (Bogotá: CINEP, 2006).
20. Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Routine Peace: Technocracy and Peacebuilding’, Cooperation and
Conflict 47, no. 3 (2012): 287–308.
21. Alfonso Henriquez, former EU advisor, interview with the authors. Personal inter-
view, Sincelejo, Colombia, 12 April 2014.
22. Richmond, From Peacebuilding as Resistance to Peacebuilding as Liberation, 72.
23. Odendaal, An Architecture for Building Peace at the Local Level, 2–21.
24. Ibid., 7–9.
25. Andries Odendaal, ‘Cornerstones or Scattered Bricks?, Comments on Paul van
Tongeren’s “Potential Cornerstone of Infrastructures for Peace? How Local Peace
Committees Can Make a Difference” ’, Peacebuilding 1, no. 1 (2013): 61–62.
26. Former employee PDP Magdalena Medio, interview with the authors. Personal
interview, Bogota, 13 April 2013.
27. Odendaal, An Architecture for Building Peace at the Local Level, 7–11.
34
Central America: From War to Violence
Jenny Pearce
Introduction
The de facto ending of the contra war in Nicaragua1 in 1987, the formal Peace
Agreement in El Salvador in 1992, and the Peace Accords in Guatemala in 1996
were significant events in the inception of what I call the post-Cold War ‘Peace
Turn’. This was the moment when peace and peacebuilding became part of
the agenda of Western governments and international agencies. El Salvador
was one of the first countries to engage in a formal UN-brokered peace agree-
ment, and the experience was one of a number of Cold War peace settlements
that influenced the UN secretary-general’s announcement of a UN ‘Agenda
for Peace’ in 1992. A supplementary paper in 19952 noted that since the late
1980s, the UN had helped parties in conflict to implement post-conflict settle-
ments, and cited Namibia, Angola, El Salvador, Cambodia and Mozambique as
examples of successful operations. The document developed the idea of post-
conflict peacebuilding as a further aspect of the Agenda for Peace. ‘Building
Peace’ became a major enterprise of the international community, intergov-
ernmental, governmental and non-governmental organizations. It was rarely
recognized that there could be a fundamental tension between the ‘Peace Turn’
and the global ‘Neoliberal Turn’ with which it coincided.3
A quarter of a century later, Central America is one of the most violent regions
of the world:
The global average homicide rate stands at 6.2 per 100,000 population,
but Southern Africa and Central America have rates over four times higher
than that (above 24 victims per 100,000 population), making them the
sub-regions with the highest homicide rates on record, followed by South
America, Middle Africa and the Caribbean (between 16 and 23 homicides
per 100,000 population).4
450
Jenny Pearce 451
These rates are differentiated across and within countries. Central America
encompasses six countries: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa
Rica and Panama. The first three are known as the ‘Northern Triangle’, and it
is here that violence has reached exceptional levels. Both Guatemala and El
Salvador were theatres of civil war, while Honduras acted as a base for US oper-
ations in the region, but was not at war itself. Nicaragua was at war; however,
its levels of violence are not as high as those of these other countries, a topic of
considerable study and debate.5 Costa Rica and Panama were not sites of civil
war, and Costa Rica in particular has historically been one of the least unequal
and least violent countries of the region. Violence rates fluctuate; the level of
homicide in El Salvador, for example, had fallen to 41.2 per 100,000 in 2012
due to a truce between gang members; it then rocketed to 68.6 per 100,000 in
2014 after the truce broke down.6 This chapter cannot analyse all the variables
involved in Central American violence. It seeks, rather, to highlight the limita-
tions of peacebuilding in the region, focusing on the two countries at the heart
of the civil wars of the 1980s.
My experiences in the Central American civil wars and their aftermaths have
led me to the firm conclusion that peace can only be seen as the opposite of vio-
lence, not the opposite of war or even conflict. This chapter uses the trajectory
from war to violence in two countries of the Northern Triangle to make this
argument.7 It focuses on El Salvador and Guatemala, and builds on long-term
connections with many social and political actors in Central America during
and after war, to analyse the meaning of ‘peace’ in local contexts, in the light
of peace processes which failed to end violence or bring development to the
majority of the population. By focusing on violence as the opposite of peace,
it becomes possible to broaden the discussion around dimensions of peace to
encompass the relationship of violence to the political economy as well as to
the intimate and community spaces in which people live. In terms of the for-
mer, the evolution of organized crime and the involvement of youth gangs
in transporting drugs, for instance, has played an important role in patterns
of violence diffusion in the Northern Triangle. However, this is in contexts
where local economies have failed to generate employment or address extreme
inequalities of opportunity.8 Drug-trafficking per se does not explain post-war
violences. With respect to spaces of everyday life, many poor communities
live with cultures of extortion and threat and such systematic violence against
women that women’s groups have adopted the term ‘feminicide’ to describe it.
At the same time, however, I argue that mutating forms of violence reflect the
way global incentive structures for elites in the post-Cold War years have failed
to foster statebuilding, the rule of law and violence reduction. This is despite the
fact that these components were integral to many international peacebuilding
efforts and well-funded donor programmes in both El Salvador and Guatemala.
In the 1992 Agenda for Peace, for example, the secretary-general argued that
the foundation stone of peacebuilding must be the state.9 Rather, those elites
who supported the peace processes did so in the belief that economic mod-
ernization and participation in the neoliberalized markets opening up in the
1990s required them to do so. However, Central America has few competitive
advantages in the global economy, particularly as the traditional export sectors
of coffee, sugar and cotton have declined. In El Salvador and Guatemala, this
opened up some new opportunities and a potentially more democratic recon-
figuration of political power as old landowning classes were forced to confront
challenges of modernization. For this potential to be realized, however, also
required a new fiscal agreement and patterns of investment, which would gen-
erate employment and international competitiveness.10 The failure of elites to
realize this potential is also part of the failure of peacebuilding.
The Northern Triangle is, however, an ideal corridor for trafficking of all sorts.
This, together with the rise of a powerful financial and service sector, the turn
to legal but highly contested natural resource extraction, and the export of
its people (mostly illegally) to the US, has meant that this region of Central
America, particularly Guatemala and Honduras,11 has been overcome by what
might be called newly enriched ‘emergent’ elites, engaged in all kinds of illicit
activities, sometimes in strange and difficult-to-disentangle relationships with
traditional landowners and businessmen as well as retired and active members
of the army and security services.
Against this background, the chapter will focus on the post-war trajectory of
Guatemala and El Salvador and the way expectations around peace unravelled.
At the closing conference of the UN Mission to Guatemala, for instance, an
indigenous peasant activist shocked me when he told me he wanted nothing to
do with this word ‘peace’. The chapter begins by briefly exploring the meaning
of the ‘Peace Turn’ in the regional context, and will then use the case studies
of Huehuetenango (Guatemala) and Chalatenango (El Salvador) to explore the
contingent possibilities and potentialities for violence-reducing development
or peace on what I call the ‘periphery of the periphery’ and what kinds of local
meanings of peace have emerged. The final argument of this chapter suggests
that peace as an idea needs rehabilitation in the context under discussion.
‘The Peace Turn’ in Central America
Central America was one of the ‘hot’ zones of the ‘Cold War’. Geopolitics played
themselves out in the region in overt and covert ways. In El Salvador, the Peace
Accord was signed in 1992, on the basis that neither side could win the war,
but also in recognition that the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
(Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN) could not be defeated
either. In Guatemala, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (Unidad
Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca, URNG) was militarily much weaker, and,
Jenny Pearce 453
by the time of the discussions which led to the Peace Accords of 1996, was
not in a position of strength at the negotiating table. This also meant, that
unlike in El Salvador, the social/popular organizations and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), which had gained some space to act publicly with the
relative decline of violence in the mid-1980s, were also more autonomous than
their counterparts in El Salvador, which were mostly linked to different groups
within the FMLN.
In Guatemala, the UN made an important effort to open a space for these civil
society organizations – as they became known – to feed into the peace talks.
The Guatemalan Civil Society Assembly was an important attempt to involve
non-state voices in the peace process. Despite various participatory commis-
sions set up to generate policies on indigenous rights, land issues and other
reforms, however, it proved extremely difficult to implement the changes that
civil society organizations deemed essential for a sustainable peace.
Despite the differences in the two wars and their endings, the two countries
shared some general features. The first of these was the decline of traditional
export crops and the crisis in the alternative model of import substitution
industrialization. The industrial classes were, therefore, relatively weak. These
tendencies were evident already in the 1970s, and civil wars gestated and
erupted in the context of these economic dynamics. The decline of traditional
exports, however, encouraged the search for alternatives, a search that coin-
cided with the shift in the course of the 1980s towards the neoliberal economic
paradigm. A United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-
funded economic institute, FUSADES (Salvadorean Foundation for Social and
Economic Development), had been founded in 1983. Its goal was to prepare
the way for a transition in the economic direction of the country after the war
ended. The seminal FUSADES policy paper, entitled The Need for a New Eco-
nomic Model for El Salvador, released in 1985, called for a systematic economic
shift to embrace liberalization, privatization and deregulation policies based
on private investment and small government.12 The implementation of this
strategy became possible under the presidency of the right-wing government
of Cristiani, closely linked to the modernizing sector of business, and which
signed the Peace Accords with the FMLN. The 2013 UNDP Human Develop-
ment Report for El Salvador13 offers a comprehensive analysis of the ongoing
failure of the various models of development that have been tried over the
last decades in El Salvador to deliver basic well-being to large sectors of the
population:
Up till now, El Salvador had tried at least three socioeconomic models:

the agro export model, that of import substitution industrialization and
that of the promotion of exports and attraction of investment. Their appli-
cation, although they have contributed considerable advances in various
socio-economic indicators, have failed to guarantee minimum levels of

wellbeing to wide and important sectors of the society.
The post-war economic model, argues the report, which focused on three
neoliberal premises (privatization, deregulation and commercial liberalization),
paid some attention to poverty alleviation but not its eradication. Each year
over the last three decades, some 60,000 people have emigrated from El
Salvador to other countries, particularly the US. An estimated three out of ten
Salvadoreans live outside the country.14 Remittances have been one of the main
sources of survival of the population, while over half the economically active
population of the country are unemployed or underemployed. In reality, the
Salvadorean model has been about exporting labour and importing consumer
goods. Levels of poverty, particularly absolute poverty, have declined since the
war, due largely to the impact of remittances, but there are strong regional vari-
ations between rural and urban El Salvador, and the country is one of the most
unequal in the Western hemisphere.
A similar story is true of Guatemala, but with the additional variant that the
country is ethnically diverse,15 divided into 24 ethno-linguistic groups, while
an elite of the ladino population, emergent originally from interethnic mixing
but where ‘whiteness’ determines closeness to power, controls the majority of
the country’s economic and political resources. The indigenous population bear
the disproportionate impacts of impoverishment and political exclusion, and
the peace process has had little impact on patterns of exclusion, as the 2014
UNDP synopsis of human development in Guatemala 1998–2012 highlighted:
Poverty and exclusion suffocate an important part of the population, of

which two thirds are less than 30 years of age. The wounds provoked by
the conflict still generate tensions and a process of effective reconciliation
has not been invoked that could facilitate big national agreements.16
The Peace Turn at the beginning of the 1990s brought international agencies
into a multiplicity of actions to support the Central American peace process.
However, it was very difficult for their interventions to compensate for the dis-
interest, if not hostility, of the region’s elites to building the basis for social
development and opportunity after a cruel war. Indeed, the elites were vir-
tually exonerated from paying any costs for peace, despite their contribution
to the devastation of the armed conflict, a point made particularly well by
James Boyce17 in the case of El Salvador. Boyce pointed to the lack of a ‘peace
conditionality’ by international agencies on the elites, and argues that the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank preferred to concen-
trate on their support for structural adjustment and economic conditionality,
Jenny Pearce 455
reducing the state’s role just at a time when former combatants were des-
perate for dignified civil livelihoods and the state was required to ensure a
fair socio-economic settlement after war. Elites in El Salvador and Guatemala
have steadfastly refused fiscal reform, which would generate a tax base capable
of strengthening the state and building equitable public security and justice
systems, for instance.
On the political front, although armed groups converted into political par-
ties and contested elections – the FMLN came to power through elections in
2009 and 2014 in El Salvador – democracy, beyond the right to vote, remains
mediated by corruption and clientelistic party politics, also weakening the
peace-generating potentialities of a more inclusive and democratic political
order.18
The critics of the liberal peace draw attention to misguided and abstracted
assumptions derived from Western experiences in the peacebuilding interven-
tions of international agencies. The Central America story illustrates that part
of the problem may, indeed, lie in the role played by international (Western-
dominated) institutions and their ignorance of local complexities. However,
the role of local elites in this process is often forgotten. The active undermin-
ing of the possibility of democratic change by such elites was as much the
problem as the global context and the promotion of an economic paradigm,
which encouraged concentration of wealth and corruption. It is these macro
considerations which enable us to explore and see more clearly the dilemmas
and contradictions of ‘local’ peacebuilding in the two case study countries.
Local dimensions of peace: Chalatenango, El Salvador
Chalatenango, particularly the north-eastern region close to the Honduran bor-

der, was at the centre of the Salvadorean civil war. Its peasant communities
organized into the Union of Rural Workers (UTC) in the 1970s, and became
the base of the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación (FPL) guerrillas in the 1980s.
Following the 1981 guerrilla offensive, the area became a guerrilla-controlled
zone, but one subject to frequent army invasions and, by 1984, regular bom-
bardment. It also became a site of an experiment in local popular government,
Local Popular Power (Poder Popular Local – PPL) as it was called, in which illit-
erate peasants took over the running of their communities as the old order
collapsed.19 Education classes based on popular education methods were held
under the trees for fear of bombs targeting the few remaining buildings. Peas-
ant nurses were trained in basic healthcare and to revive medicinal plants due
to the lack of other medicines. The civilian population organized into mili-
tias to defend themselves. These activities were partly responses to the needs
of the war, but represented important advances for a peasantry that had never
had state services. The skills the peasants developed in analysing their reality
and organizing for their security and everyday needs proved vital when an
army invasion in 1985 forced those who had not yet fled to refugee camps in
Honduras to do so. And in 1987, it allowed them to organize their repatriation,
following efforts by peasant leaders and their supporters to get recognition of
their status as a civilian population (Todd, 2010).20
The people of Chalatenango were disproportionately impacted by the vio-
lence of the Salvadorean army, supported by the US, and the stories of hardship
and suffering remained very much alive among the peasants I interviewed in
September 2014. There was no national process for dealing with the legacy of
violence on the population. The 1993 Truth Commission established by the UN
concluded that 85 per cent of the acts of violence in the country (at least 75,000
deaths and some 10,000 disappeared) had been committed by state agents, and
mostly in rural areas. It was followed five days later by an Amnesty Law passed
in the Legislative Assembly for all acts of violence during the 12-year civil war.
Although they were responsible for far fewer abuses, the FMLN went along with
the Amnesty, knowing that judicial processes would also implicate their lead-
ers.21 In El Salvador, only when the FMLN came to power in 2009 did President
Funes finally recognize and apologize for state involvement in the violence of
the war.
In the meantime, it was left to grassroots groups, in which many Chalatecos
participated, to keep memories of political violence alive through a success-
ful struggle for a monument to victims in the main square of the capital, for
example. A number of municipalities in the north-east of Chalatenango are
run by former PPL leaders. The organizational capacity of the Chalateco peas-
ants remained a feature of the post-war situation and a significant aspect of
what might be called ‘local’ efforts to address the deficits of the Peace Accord.
The peasants would not refer to these efforts as ‘peacebuilding’. For them, they
are about making visible the lack of serious government attention to atrocities
of the war and their legacy, and building a culture of human rights to prevent
the recurrence of such atrocities.
The north-east of Chalatenango has not experienced the levels of violence
characteristic of the rest of El Salvador. It is difficult to evidence, and one can
only hypothesize, that this has also something to do with the histories of peas-
ant organization in the department. Indeed, conversations with peasants from
Arcatao in 2013 and 2014 reveal that they were able to mobilize strongly when
gangs arrived in the town – very close to the Honduran border – to try and
establish a base for drug-trafficking.
The Chalatenango local case study demonstrates that where organizational
processes during war foster conscious, grassroots agency, the possibility of con-
tinuing the struggles for development, justice and violence reduction after the
war remain, despite the absence of a national or global project of support. The
presence of international development and peacebuilding programmes (Van
Jenny Pearce 457
der Burgh, 2004)22 can play supporting roles, but it is this sense of agency
that matters. However, this agency is greatly circumscribed in its effectiveness.
Twelve years of ‘peace’ in the wake of 12 years of war have led to a shift in
political power to the group – the FMLN – that waged guerrilla war against the
country’s elites. The FMLN has focused more on the state than on the base
of its support during the war. And elites remain strong, the country deeply
polarized and violent, and the global economic context adverse to the kind of
development that might reverse these trends.
Local dimensions of peace: Huehuetenango, Guatemala
The mid-1990s coincided with huge interest in the concept of ‘civil soci-
ety’ and its role in peacebuilding, and a great deal of donor money was
invested in strengthening its role in Guatemala.23 However, there was a lack
of deep knowledge and understanding among international governmental
and non-governmental agencies of the complexities of Guatemala’s social fab-
ric, in particular of its indigenous communities. The very notion of ‘civil
society’ was in some tension with the idea of ‘community’ and efforts to
build a Mayan movement in the wake of the Peace Accords capable of
reversing centuries of discrimination.24 The legacy of racism, marginality, mil-
itarism and violence on the Mayan population was enormous and would
not be overcome rapidly, although one of the achievements of the Peace
Accords was to at least declare Guatemala a multi-cultural and pluri-ethnic
country.
Most donor efforts in the wake of the Accords focused on the Guatemala City-
based NGOs, many of which lacked connections to rural communities. Thus,
peacebuilding became a strongly urban, NGO affair, and funding often divided
organizations and movements25 rather than enabling them to build together
for peace. As in El Salvador, there was no governmental effort to bring to jus-
tice those responsible for crimes against humanity. The UN-sponsored Truth
Commission found government forces and right-wing death squads to have
been responsible for 93 per cent of the 200,000 killings during the 36-year civil
war; over 80 per cent of those killed were indigenous people. It was only in
2013 that former Guatemalan head of state and army general, Rios Montt, was
charged with genocide, due to consistent effort and pressure from Guatemalan
and international human rights bodies. Although he was convicted, the convic-
tion was overruled by the Constitutional Court. In the meantime, it has been
up to grassroots human rights organizations, and particularly women’s organi-
zations, to try to deal with the huge trauma that hangs over the country and
its victims.26
Huehuetenango was one of the departments of Guatemala most impacted
by the violence of the Guatemalan civil war; it experienced the second highest
numbers of massacres after Quiche, and a huge exodus of refugees to Mexico.

It is a region of nine different ethno-linguistic groups, each of which had a
distinct and complex relationship to the war.27 In some cases, municipalities
dominated by a particular ethnic group related differently to the government
project of arming peasants in Civil Defence Patrols than municipalities of the
same ethnic group. Legacies of colonial and post-colonial manipulation of eth-
nicity weighed heavily on the differential trajectories, for instance between the
trading Qu’anjobal of San Pedro Soloma and the Qu’anjobal teachers of Santa
Eulalia. The former would become the source of the coyotes, those who orga-
nized migrant journeys to the US in the post-war period and, later, other forms
of illegal trafficking. While San Sebastian Coatan was a heartland of the Patrols,
San Miguel Acatan, a shortish distance away, was a heartland of the URNG
guerrillas.
This mosaic of experiences of war was made even more complex by the differ-
ential economic prospects of this extremely impoverished part of the country.
Populations returned from refugee camps, but Huehuetenango offered limited
possibilities for economic development, leaving migration to the US one of
the few options. Many old landowners had left the region during the war, but
access to productive land remained a major source of conflict. Coffee produc-
tion could flourish in limited areas of the department, but was subject to the
ebbs and flows of the market, and in the 1990s, just as the Peace Accords were
negotiated and signed, the price of coffee fell. A multiplicity of small conflicts
over land and identity arose in the wake of the Accords.
At the same time, Huehuetenango became a focal point of international
peacebuilding efforts, particularly an innovative project funded by the Inter-
American Development Bank (IDB) known as DECOPAZ. The project tried to
develop participatory local implementation committees and strengthen devel-
opment capacity on the ground. It was, nevertheless, greatly weakened by the
lack of interest of the state in peace and development. It was an intensive effort
by international organizations to deliver ‘peace’ at the pace required by a bank,
and in a broader and very adverse global economic context.
Once again, the political economy clashed with the goals of peacebuilding.
A basis was laid for a very limited and uneven ‘modernization’ in
Huehuetenango, but exacerbated the fragmentation of the region. There were
only two roads in Huehuetenango in 1980 that were passable all year. Grad-
ually, roads were built to connect a limited number of potential economic
poles; however, these have also exposed Huehuetenango to a new range of
interventions from multi-national hydroelectric companies and mining con-
cessions. Despite anti-poverty and developmental interventions from the EU,
the Dutch government and international NGOs, sustained post-war develop-
ment remains elusive, and efforts to open up the department to global interests
have generated a new wave of conflictivity.
Jenny Pearce 459
At the same time, Huehuetenango has become easy prey to the drug-
trafficking cartels, which arrived around 2004 to dispute the corridors through
the department and set off a new wave of violence. The lack of function-
ing security and justice has facilitated the territorial inroads of the drugs
cartels. It has also led the population to exercise popular justice at times,
in their frustration at the many insecurities they face. In August 2014, for
instance, three suspected rapists were burned alive in the village of Yalamciop
in San Mateo Iztatan in the north of the department. A report in 2009
showed Huehuetenango to have the highest number of lynchings that year,
14 out of 49.28
There has been some indigenization of local politics, with indigenous may-
ors in many municipalities, but they have been sucked into the clientelistic
national party culture, in which transactions around infrastructural works
and services are traded for political support. Like Chalatenango, however,
Huehuetenango is by no means without its organizational capacity. Refugee
and displaced returns were highly participatory processes. Peacebuilding initia-
tives such as the Mesas de Concertacion (Concertation Round Tables) were rolled
out in an effort to bring together local actors around issues of common concern
in the post-Accords era. However, these often brought together NGOs that were
not deeply connected on the ground and to the fractured post-war reality. Social
movements, on the other hand, have struggled to consolidate after the war. The
Mayan ‘movement’ found it difficult to build a ‘Pan Mayan’ identity in a depart-
ment of multiple ethnic groups that had responded very differently to the civil
war. More recently, differences between ladino and indigenous activists have
impacted on the unity of the anti-mining movement which emerged in the
later 2000s, and is the most active form of social organizing in the region today.
The Huehuetenango case study illustrates that local organizing for peace
requires a benign and patient environment. Quick-fix projects or short-term
programmes do not work in socially and culturally complex regions recover-
ing from systematic abuse and violence in contexts of extreme poverty. Yet,
organizational capacity is there. This capacity needs to be nurtured with great
sensitivity to local context and its complexity. The concept of ‘local’ gains
its problematic dimensions in this case study. There is no homogeneous or
straightforward ‘local’ in Huehuetenango. While there is a strong discourse of
indigenous ‘community’, the reality has been diminished by the challenges of
survival, the inroads of marketization and migration. There are local organiza-
tions which recognize the challenges, from gender violence to insecurity and
impunity, to alternative forms of development and resistance to those forms
which threaten the fragile ecology and livelihoods of the region. They might
not frame their actions in terms of peacebuilding, but they aim to reduce
violence by proposing inclusive development and democratic opportunities
for all.
Conclusion
The trajectory of local peacebuilding in Huehuetenango has similar threads to

that of Chalatenango, but within a more complex social context and following
a more prolonged civil war, in which indigenous peoples were a particular target
of racist violence. These threads point to the difficulty people face in building
local capacities for peace without supportive layers from the national state and
the global economic environment. It is extremely difficult to compensate for a
national state that represents a small minority of the interests of a country, or
for a global economic dynamic which empowers that small minority.
An outcome of this reality is that violence has diffused in the region despite
the ending of the form of collective violence called ‘war’. Violence proliferates
and reproduces across the spaces of socialization in El Salvador and Guatemala,
and elsewhere in Central America. The chapter has shown that there are many
grassroots efforts to build the conditions to live without violence. They mani-
fest themselves particularly in contexts where people have gained capacity for
self-organizing and critical analysis, as some communities from these countries
did during the war. They need recognition and support as the basis for what
might be called sustainable peacebuilding. Through understanding better the
centrality of violence and its reproduction in these case studies, it is possible to
appreciate the full complexity of the task of building peace.
Notes
1. The ‘contras’ was the name given to the anti-Sandinista fighters armed and funded
by the Reagan presidency in the US, funding which continued clandestinely after
Congress cut it off in the late 1980s. There was no peace process in Nicaragua, but an
agreement in 1987 for elections in return for contra disarmament, and an election
was held in 1990, which the Sandinistas lost.
2. Secretary-general, ‘An Agenda for Peace. Report of the Secretary-General to the state-
ment adopted by the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 January 1992’,
http://www.unrol.org/files/A_47_277.pdf, accessed 13 January 2015.
3. Jenny Pearce, ‘Peace-Building in the Periphery: Lessons from Central America’, Third
World Quarterly 20, no. 1 (1999): 51–68.
4. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), ‘The Global Study
on Homicide, 2013’, http://www.unodc.org/documents/gsh/pdfs/2014_GLOBAL_
HOMICIDE_BOOK_web.pdf, accessed 13 January 2015.
5. Jose Miguel Cruz, ‘Criminal Violence and Democratization in Central America: The
Survival of the Violent State’, Latin American Politics and Society 53, no. 4 (2011):
1–33.
6. Kate Gurney, ‘El Salvador Homicides Skyrocket after Gang Truce Unravels’, Insight
Crime, 9 January 2015, http://www.insightcrime.org, accessed 13 January 2015.
7. These are countries where I did fieldwork during and after the civil wars, with partic-
ular attention to two regions of the periphery of both countries, Huehuetenango in
Guatemala and Chalatenango in El Salvador. The former is a site of a protracted, lon-
gitudinal study of peacebuilding since 1999, working with the Centre for Education
Jenny Pearce 461
and Development of the Western Frontier of Guatemala (CEDFOG), set up through a

research grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.
I spent time in Chalatenango in 1984 doing an oral history of the peasant move-
ment. I have returned there a number of times, though less regularly. However,
in September 2014, I worked with the Museum of Historical Memory of Arcatao,
Chalatenango, a museum set up by the peasants who supported the FMLN guer-
rillas and were also victims of brutal reprisals, to co-construct a history of peasant
organizing during the civil war.
8. Gustavo Arcia, ‘The Evolution of Violence: Economic Development and Intergroup
Conflict in Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica’, in Economic Development Strate-
gies and the Evolution of Violence in Latin America, eds, William Ascher and Natalia
Mirovitskaya (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 71–93.
9. Secretary-general, ‘An Agenda for Peace’, http://www.unrol.org/files/A_47_277.pdf,
10. Alex Segovia, Transformación Estructural y Reforma Económica en El Salvador
(Guatemala: F&G Editores, 2002).
11. With its dollarized economy, El Salvador became known for money laundering as
well as its youth gang violence.
12. Carlos Velasquez Carrillo, The Persistence of Oligarchic Rule in El Salvador: Neoliberal
Transformation and the Entrenchment of Privilege and Inequality in the Post-Civil War
Period (unpublished dissertation, York University, 2012), https://www.academia.edu/
4790438/The_Rise_of_Neoliberalism_in_El_Salvador_ARENA_FUSADES_and_the_Soft
ness_of_the_Peace_Accords, accessed 13 January 2015.
13. UNDP, InformeSobreDesarrolloHumano El Salvador: ImaginarUn Nuevo País. Hacerlo
Posible.Diagnóstica y Propuesta (San Salvador: UNDP, 2013), http://www.sv.undp.org/
content/el_salvador/es/home.html, accessed 13 January 2015.
14. Ibid.
15. Two out of every five Guatemalans self-identify as belonging to one of the 24 ethno-
linguistic communities, the Mayan peoples, the Garifuna or the Xinca (UNDP, 2012,
23).
16. UNDP, Sinopsis del DesarrolloHumano en Guatemala 1998–2012 (Guatemala: UNDP,
2014), http://redproteccionsocial.org/recursos/sinopsis-del-desarrollo-humano-en-
guatemala, accessed 13 January 2015.
17. James Boyce, ‘El Salvador’s Adjustment toward Peace: An Introduction’, in James
Boyce, ed., Economic Policy for Building Peace. The Lessons of El Salvador, 1–2 (Boulder,
CO: Lynne Rienner, 1996).
18. Dinorah Azpuru et al., Construyendo la Democracia en SociedadesPosconflicto: Un
EnfoqueComparado entre Guatemala y El Salvador (Guatemala City and Ottawa: F&G
editores and IDRC Publishers, 2007).
19. Jenny Pearce, Promised Land: Peasant Rebellion in Chalatenango, El Salvador (London:
Latin America Bureau, 1986).
20. Molly Todd, Beyond Displacement: Campesinos, Refugees and Collective Action in the
Salvadorean Civil War (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010).
21. Ralph Sprenkels, ‘La Guerra Como Controversia: Reflexiones Sobre las Secuelas Polit-
icas del Informe de la Comisión de la Verdadpara El Salvador’, Revista Identidades Ano
2, no. 4 (2012) Enero/Junio: 68–92, http://www.ues.edu.sv/iehaa/docs/Identidades_
4.pdf
22. Chris Van der Borgh, CooperacionExterna, Gobierno Local y ReconstrucciónPosguerra:
La Experiencia de Chalatenango, El Salvador (Thela Latin American Studies Series,
Ashland: Purdue University Press, 2004).
23. Jude Howell and Jenny Pearce, Civil Society and Development: A Critical Appraisal
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001).
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Alison Crosby and Brynton Lykes, ‘Mayan Women Survivors Speak: The Gendered
Relations of Truth Telling in Post War Guatemala’, Transitional Justice 5, no. 3 (2011):
456–476.
27. Around 64 per cent of the population are indigenous and 36 per cent ladino (UNDP,
2007).
28. Jennifer Burrell, Maya after War: Conflict, Power and Politics in Guatemala (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2013).
35
North America: Peace Studies versus
the Hegemony of Realist and Liberal
Methods
Henry F. Carey
Introduction
The many North American understandings, applications and goals of

peacemaking, keeping and building, as well as mediation, sustainable peace,
preventive diplomacy, mediation, conflict resolution, sustainable peace and the
like, have many different conceptualizations, compounded by their paradig-
matic variants. This chapter focuses on how the concept of peace is understood
in North American scholarship and policy making; the author has undertaken
to represent the dominant analytic approaches. This means that international
politics and relations research, all of which discuss peace using both quanti-
tative and qualitative methods, overshadows the influence of peace studies.1
As the editors solicited a chapter that would explain how the term ‘peace’ is
actually used in North American theory and praxis, I have the fortunate con-
solation that peace studies and education and its precursors, such as the World
Order Models Project,2 have been well documented.3 While the discussion will
regrettably be cursory here, notwithstanding the large size of the peace studies
section in the International Studies Association, for example, the large major-
ity of North American academics, and an even larger share of practitioners,
analyse peace from realist and liberal interpretive frameworks. Moreover, most
North American academics are unfamiliar with the critiques of realism and
liberalism, whether from perspectives of Gramscian hegemony, Foucauldian
governmentality and/or imperialism. North American academics are not disin-
genuous when they assert that the discussion of peace comes from strength,
even to the point where ‘bombing for peace’ produces no apparent sense of
paradox, nor any sense that promoting peace might really be about the security
interests and power of the US government, and in practice means promoting
political stability, often by force.
The primary discourses of peace in North America are intertwined, if not
conflated, with discussions of unstated or explicit US foreign policy goals in
463
all their contextual variations and inconsistencies, at least from the viewpoint
of peace for its own sake. North American academia and policy networks
(the national security bureaucracies, defence contractors and their lobbyists,
and most DC-based think-tanks, which are mostly funded by foreign and
domestic governments) do face ideational competition, though most of it
comes from within the liberal paradigm, which assumes a world of anar-
chy and insecurity, and the robustness of international peace efforts is never
assumed. Put differently, the progressive transnational advocacy networks that
advocate for a peace studies approach have made important inroads in the
academy, but not in society – except against the Vietnam War, and to a lesser
extent the more recent statebuilding efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. It may
be that peace movements have constrained US interventionism, though since
9/11, such constraints have been weakened. The 1960s civil rights movement
and, since the 1970s, the environment, indigenous rights and gender equal-
ity movements have also been stronger than the peace movement, especially
since 9/11. Opposition to the Vietnam War helped to engender peace stud-
ies in North America, though in prior decades, individual scholars like Quincy
Wright simulated the work of peace studies, usually though a liberal or cos-
mopolitan lens. To the extent that the peace studies ‘movement’ reflected the
societal peace movement’s own dependency on failing US counter-insurgency
in South Vietnam and its coercive diplomacy in North Vietnam, this suggests
that future failures may facilitate growth in peace studies. In the meantime,
North American mass media, policy-making elites, and most undergraduates
in North America studying international politics conduct more of their stud-
ies using realist and liberal approaches, though they may also learn about
how empathy, discussion and social justice might reduce the number and
intensity of conflicts. In society, neoliberal transnational advocacy networks
(TANs)4 overshadow progressive TANs. The latter do occasionally ‘name and
shame’, reducing violent human rights violations and/or war efforts,5 especially
where the mass media can induce mobilization, though the opposite direc-
tion is also possible, strengthening military resolve if neoliberal movements
mobilize.
Peace within states, according to realism, requires a strong coercive author-
ity; for liberals, it is the result of national reconciliation. Statebuilding and
peacebuilding, in the absence of a strong state elicits different prescrip-
tions from realists (balancing against or bandwagoning with threats or pow-
ers) and liberalism (through conflict resolution, coercive diplomacy, inter-
governmentalism, supranationalism/functionalism, etc.).6 This has led to abun-
dant, if discordant, discourses of peace in North America. Realism sees peace as
a contextualized consequence of a correlation of forces, usually where a bal-
ance of power deters war or where war-weariness alleviates military resolve.
Henry F. Carey 465
Realists acknowledge that peace is lost when deterrence fails, thus making
war inevitable, especially when power imbalances occur. The realist peace
results from security and power, while pursuing national interests. This is epit-
omized by Henry Kissinger’s announcement after the 1972 Christmas bombing
of Hanoi that ‘Peace is at hand’, suggesting that coercive diplomacy is the
way to make peace. Cooperation is risky and is only possible, for some real-
ists, under hegemon-controlled, international regimes. Paradoxically, realism
resembles European critiques of liberal peace as fake multi-lateralism under
cover of national control.
Nevertheless, the steady growth of peace studies teaching, research and
action on campus has continued since the 1970s, originally emerging from
the study of war, but arguably constituting a separate paradigm from the domi-
nant realist and liberal approaches. Instead of treating peace as the consequence
(‘dependent variable’), peace studies treats peace as a unit of analysis, whether
an independent variable affecting the probability of war and/or social justice,
or a dependent variable based on desired inputs, risk factors, and agency by
leaders and social movements. Peace research and education have a large pres-
ence at important academic institutions, both as important sub-specialties and
specialty programmes. Peace studies in North America differs from its foreign
counterparts, both for reasons of academic parsimony and on policy grounds,
with more attention to a ‘negative peace’, though many do study social justice
as integral to positive peace.7 During its rapid growth in the 1990s, research
funded by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), itself funded by the
US government, funded peace research in support of peacebuilding, preventive
diplomacy, mediation and track-two diplomacy, as well as liberal conflict-
related research towards sustainable, negative peace research. In more recent
times, USIP has emulated the private MacArthur Foundation’s orientation
towards conflict stabilization.
Peace studies grew out of a larger tradition of cosmopolitan/world order
approaches, which takes international law as being normatively committed
to peace through law.8 However, they can be either pessimistic or optimistic,
depending on the extent to which the rule of international law has been insti-
tutionalized in practice. Falk, in particular, was bullish about the post-Cold War
prospects of a post-Westphalian, Grotian moment, because states acted to coun-
teract illegal, violent human rights violations in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo.9
However, following 9/11, the neoliberal coalition dominated progressive action
by announcing a ‘war against terrorism’. In the competition between neoliberal
and progress coalitions, Grotian eclectics believe that opportunities for progress
or regress reflect the correlation of forces over time, but that past successes mean
that even world order is within reach. However, cosmopolitanism and peace
studies are greatly overshadowed by realism and liberalism.
Realism: The dominant North American paradigm for peace
Normatively, realists emphasize national interests and capabilities, while nev-

ertheless arguing that power needs to be exercised.10 Realism has long been
the dominant approach in North American scholarship and for most American
presidents, including Obama and Clinton. Though they would never admit
it, many elements of the US Democratic Party depart from the realist policy
of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and speak of the ‘indispensable
nation’ and other robust military uses of power. Though they do use idealis-
tic Madisonian rhetoric, they mainly utilize Hamiltonian policies.11 Realists see
international politics as a zero-sum game, based on relative power relationships,
whereby uneven growth in power sets the world on a course that will under-
mine peace. Realism sees states as the key international actors, where politics
involves competition for power and where peace is always at risk because of
conflicts of state interests. Some realists, like Hans Morgenthau, who opposed
the Vietnam War, and John Mersheimer, who has opposed US intervention in
Iraq, Palestine and against ISIS, are sceptical about the articulation of national
interests, compared with the core goals. Peacebuilding, however, is nebulous
and unattainable for them. The neo-conservative variant of realism is based
on cultural claims to moral superiority and clarity in hegemonic action. Neo-
conservatives hold that the US is an exceptionalist state that is inherently good,
and support the export of democracy, by invasion if necessary, in order to
remove dire threats to the US, its allies and the international system.12 As real-
ist critics of neo-conservatism Walt and Mersheimer have argued against both
neo-conservative nation building in the Middle East and other areas with neo-
patrimonial and/or sultantistic states, as well as unconditional US support for
more bureaucratically rational states like Israel and Saudi Arabia, who more
likely to opt for war with the adversaries and other adversaries and factions.13
Classical realism (human nature realism), such as articulated first by
Morgenthau,14 argues that peace should be pursued in the enlightened national
self-interest, but that the will to power will lead to competition, so that war
is inevitable. Structural realism (neo-realism) is a systems approach which
only counts states by their power as the main actors, with conflicts of inter-
ests emerging as states’ power alters.15 Structural realists see war as inevitable
because of international systems dynamics and state conflicts of interests, along
with any changes in the rules governing international politics.16 Some systems
are more stable, particularly bipolar systems, which either ‘erode or explode’.
Multipolar systems are less stable, and rapidly changing distribution of power is
the most unstable and likely to produce war. Rising hegemons are particularly
unstable and destructive.
Defensive realism argues that the dynamic leans towards arms acquisition at
parity, whenever there is a balance of power.17 States have to balance against
Henry F. Carey 467
power imbalances only to the point of deterrence, which can maintain peace.
By contrast, offensive realism holds that peace is imperilled, since great powers
have to engage in an arms race, based on security dilemmas and the inability
to predict the future intentions of potential rivals. The rise of new, rival great
powers is seen as the greatest historical threat to peace.18 Mersheimer argues
that bloody warfare and imperial conquest are the result of this dynamic.19
For the dominant realist scholars, the calamitous ‘world wars’ of the twen-
tieth century produced emigré realist scholars in the US,20 such as Hans
Morgenthau21 (Germany) at the University of Chicago, Stanley Hoffman
(France) at Harvard, and John H. Herz of City University of New York,22
who were heavily influenced by European scholars like E. H. Carr23 in
London and Raymond Aron24 in Paris, and trained two generations of grad-
uate students at those two leading universities. At the same time, other
emigrés, such as Ernst B. Haas25 (Germany) at Berkeley, embraced liberal-
ism, inspired by the Council of Europe and the Common Market/European
Economic Community. Liberalism evolved in North America with much of
this emphasis on multi-lateralism.26 The 1990s engendered more system-
atic, liberal approaches, with systematic studies of microeconomic applica-
tions to international politics, along with the emergence of a ‘Washington
Consensus’ to support democracy and human rights promotion, but also
economic austerity. Still, a strand of full Kantian autonomy and perpet-
ual peace27 continued in liberal scholarship. Quantitative studies of con-
flict/security studies (positivist and realist, but also neoliberal institutionalism)
and qualitative studies of conditions for national reconciliation (liberalism) all
coexisted.
With the rise of coercive nation building under the ideology of neo-
conservatism, epitomized by the George W. Bush administration, there has
been relatively little examination of this alternative to realism and liberal-
ism.28 There are many critiques of neoliberal and neo-conservative scholarship
and policy, most often from a realist or liberal approach.29 Despite predic-
tions of North Atlantic integration and functionalist spillover from liberal
military alliances,30 liberal and realist approaches shared assumptions about
sovereign Westphalian territory, even if peaceful cooperation among states
remained possible. Critical theory, critical peacebuilding, Marxism and post-
Marxism, structuralism and post-structuralism, and the like have only token
representation, and not in media and public discourse. This is not to say that
prominent scholars (Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler and the late Tony Judt) do
not utilize these approaches and find dedicated readers in journals, as well as
public intellectual life. Yet, these exceptions prove the rule – as they have sug-
gested in their own statements.31 Most North American Scholars, especially
in the United States, ignore or find useless or absurd most critical and post-
modern concepts, theories, and approaches.32 Some modest attention is also
paid in the US mainstream to feminism, eco-feminism and, most importantly,

cosmopolitanism.
The culture of American exceptionalism is not strong in the US academy,
except in Straussian circles of neo-conservativism, which dominated the first
decade of the new century. In public life, American exceptionalism culturally
emphasizes the positive of American life, rejects intellectual criticism, inno-
cently denies the historical record, and fails to educate on important issues.
For example, no museum about the history of slavery and the genocide against
indigenous Americans exists. According to comparative public opinion surveys,
US civil society is much more nationalist than Western Europe,33 , which limits
public awareness and debate about its country’s military presence in some 150
countries; military spending comprising about half the world’s total; its colonial
and imperial history; and its contemporary goals and interests. US dominance
and capabilities are perceived as beneficent, showing leadership in peacemaking
and keeping by a country perceived as largely peaceful – though this may be
changing along a generational divide. As David Brooks noted, ‘Fifty percent of
Americans over 65 believe America stands above all others as the greatest nation
on earth. Only 27 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 believe that.’34
Peace as a dependent variable in liberalism
Thus, liberalism differs from the ‘liberal peace’35 in assuming a world of

enlightened self-interests, in which counter-terrorism is not pursued and where
securing a negative peace based on statebuilding precedes any suggestion of a
positive peace.36 Liberalism sees cooperation as risky, but possible with strong
international institutions that can mitigate international anarchy.37 Liberal-
ism regards international politics as a potentially positive-sum game, in which
cooperation is not only possible, but often desirable. Adopting the views of
Lockean social contract theory, peace can be seen as the consequence of a state
protecting life, liberty and property.38
Liberalism also asserts mutual gains from international trade and invest-
ment, which transforms rivals into allies, creating liberal peace39 and liberal
trade regimes. The establishment of liberal, civilian states in Western and Cen-
tral Europe after the Second World War replaced the militarist states that had
sought to gain economic advantage through conquest of land and territory.40
In recent decades, liberalism has been marginalized by the development of an
‘imperial presidency’ in the US, first during the Cold War with the creation of
the CIA and the Department of Defense under President Truman to contain
the Soviet Union and then, since 9/11, to contain terrorism and militant Islam.
Arthur Schlesinger41 analysed this new structure of the US executive branch and
more recent scholars argue it as a fact, perhaps a desirable reality, as argued by
Eric Posner.42
Henry F. Carey 469
Neoliberal institutionalism43 and complex interdependence44 are liberal the-

ories that can be, and sometimes are, applied to peacebuilding by raising the
opportunity costs from war and by creating positive linkages and social trust.
Stronger regimes are enforced by powerful states and international organiza-
tions, whereby sanctions and other objective or material incentives can be
subsidized or regulated. As with realists, neoliberal institutionalists warn that
weak international institutions and regimes are risky to peace.
When they are systematically violated, peace is disrupted by the ‘right to
revolution’, making violence another likely outcome. Liberals also empha-
size the positive (and negative) role of non-state actors in building peace.45
Locke’s assertion of executive prerogatives effectively permits derogations from
these principles in times of crisis, just when peace is most threatened. The
ultimate achievement of peace, however, involves acceptance of the intrin-
sic value of the rule of law, in which a Kantian ‘perpetual peace’ becomes
possible among similar democratic regimes. The debate over the ‘democratic
peace’, the contention that no democracy has ever gone to war with another
democracy, presumes Kant’s argument that voluntary respect for the law can be
institutionalized internationally.
Social movements and academic practitioners
The orthodox view is that peace studies is not a legitimate field of studies in the
US because it is interdisciplinary; because it does not employ positivist social
science; and, most importantly, because of the realist hegemony that views his-
tory as that of conflict and war. There is also broad suspicion of teaching for
action, rather than keeping a scholarly objectivity accruing from distance. Paci-
fism is viewed as mixing facts and values. Nevertheless, the US now has between
85 and 125 undergraduate and 45 graduate peace studies programmes, includ-
ing a few PhD programmes, and the largest growth at community colleges that
teach, research and engage in peace activism. Among the most prominent are
the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the Universities of Notre Dame
and at the University of San Diego, Clark University, and the Quaker colleges
discussed below.
Various religious groups have been active in the peace movement in the
US and, by extension, through their non-governmental organization (NGO)
activism in particular countries where they are active on peace and other issues.
For example, the Jesuit Order of the Roman Catholic Church, despite their
counter-revolutionary origins, have been supporting peace, justice and citizen-
ship movements of marginalized communities, especially in Latin America. The
Quakers’ peace movement in the US has been led by the American Friends Ser-
vice Committee, as well as by first-rate colleges originally established by certain
branches of the Quakers near Philadelphia and Ohio (Earlham, Swarthmore,
Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges), which train students to become peace
activists as well as to make scholarly contributions. The Mennonite (Protestant)
movement has also had university teaching commitments to peace (Eastern
Mennonite University) and a field presence in many countries in both peace
mediation and micro-projects focused on micro-lending and sustainable devel-
opment. The Presbyterian Church (US) has sponsored, most recently, the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign in Palestine, which follows a
similar campaign in South Africa, as has its practice in Northern Ireland,
Madagascar, Central America, and especially in the south of the US.
The anti-Vietnam War movement, conducted largely on university campuses,
as well as in several marches on Washington, was the second large-scale social
mobilization of the 1960s and early 1970s, which sadly fizzled out as soon
as President Nixon ended the draft in 1973. Important women’s peace move-
ments were part of the anti-slavery and suffrage movement, which is worthy of
attention. Small, but significant, anti-war protests occurred against US policy
in Central America (on behalf of the murderous governments of El Salvador
and Guatemala and against the funding of the contras based in Honduras
to coerce the Nicaraguan Sandinista government). Despite determined efforts
by the NGOs and social movements such as American Friends Service Com-
mittee (Quakers), United for Peace and Justice, Bridges for Peace, Veterans for
Peace, the ANSWER Coalition, and Vietnam Veterans against the War, few peace
movements were able to mobilize against the US-armed interventions in Iraq
and Afghanistan (despite a bipartisan divide on the 2003 invasion of Iraq), and
there have been almost no protests against the US–NATO war against Libya,
and, at the time of writing, the planned three-year war against the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria. As in Vietnam, significant and ultimately successful
opposition movements produced formal withdrawals, albeit with a large resid-
ual military presence in both Afghanistan and, especially, Iraq, as the declared
victories required what Americans call stabilization efforts, amounting to a
combination of European liberal peacebuilding and realist counter-insurgency
with frequent, if unreported, atrocities by US and US-backed forces, in the face
of determined armed resistance by armed groups of all types.
The largest social movements of the second decade of the new century, the
Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements, were intense and sustained for a
time, although they are more social justice and positive peace movements.
However, the legacy of the civil rights movement, and its relatively success-
ful, subsequent progeny advocating for the environment, LGBT rights and
indigenous Americans, suggests that the great peace movement against the
Vietnam War might also become replicated as the US continues to embark on
unwinnable counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations. These ongo-
ing efforts suggest that peace studies might play a more public role, not in
leading the movements, as in some European examples, but in providing the
Henry F. Carey 471
intellectual framework, à la Keynes’ dictum about the germ of ideas from a

solitary academic.
Conclusion
The North American approach to peace is largely a realist-liberal hybrid, rein-

forced by Eisenhower’s feared ‘military-industrial-complex’ in policy circles
and a realist constructivism orchestrated by norm entrepreneurs versed in the
euphemistic language of American leadership, exceptionalism and the burdens
of empire. However, strong subcultures of peace studies and movements are
part of the political culture, ready to urge peaceful goals for the frequent US mis-
adventures in asymmetric wars that inevitably go awry, as US policy makers
consistently fail to learn from past failures in subduing guerrilla and terrorist
enemies.46 As the late Chad Alger, who mentored so many contemporary North
American scholars in peace research and education, commented,
Peace studies must be at a second crossroads, between approaches of nega-

tive peace – stopping violence – and those of positive peace – overcoming
social injustice. Peace studies must also be at the crossroads of a grow-
ing array of movements at the grass roots, a challenge to more traditional
peace-research methodologies. Peace studies should endeavor to create a new
crossroads, between grass-roots movements and global organizations. Only
through grass-roots practice can the peace efforts of global organizations
acquire legitimacy.47
Notes
1. Richard A. Falk, The End of World Order: Essays on Normative International Relations
(New York: Holmes and Meier Publications, 1983); Richard Falk and Saul Mendlovitz,
eds, Regional Politics and World Order (San Francisco: Freeman, 1973).
2. Ibid.
3. See, for example, Carolyn Stephenson, ‘Peace Studies’, in International Studies Com-
pendium, ed. Robert Denemark (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2010), 5579–5603; George
A. Lopez, ‘An University Peace Studies Curriculum for the 1990s’, Journal of Peace
Research 22, no. 2 (1985): 117–128; Marie A. Dugan, ‘Peace Studies at the Graduate
Level’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 504 (July
1989): 72–79. For debates and critiques, see, for example, James G. Blight, ‘Peace and
Security Studies: Should We Seek Professorships or Apprenticeships?’ Political Psychol-
ogy 9, no. 3 (September 1988): 539–543; George H. Quester, ‘International Security
Criticisms of Peace Research’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science 504 (July 1989): 98–105.
4. David Austen-Smith, ‘Interest Groups: Money, Information, and Influence’, in Per-
spectives of Public Choice, ed. Denni. C. Mueller (Cambridge University Press, 1997),
296–321; Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy
Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).
5. James Meernik, Rosa Aloisi, Marsha Sowell and Angela Nichols, ‘The Impact of
Human Rights Organizations on Naming and Shaming Campaigns’, Journal of Con-
flict Resolution 56, no. 2 (2005): 233–256; James Ron, Howard Ramos and Kathleen
Rodgers, ‘Transnational Information Politics: NGO Human Rights Reporting, 1986–
2000’, International Studies Quarterly 49, no. 3 (2005): 557–588.
6. John Locke, Two Treatises on Government (New York: Mentor Books, 1965).
7. Kenneth Boulding, ‘Twelve Friendly Quarrels with Johan Galtung’, Journal of Peace
Research 14 (1977): 75–86.
8. Saul Mendlovitz and John Fousek, ‘A UN Constabulary to Enforce the Law on
Genocide and Crimes against Humanity’, in The International Legal System in Quest
of Equity and Universality, eds, Laurance Boisson de Chazournes and Vera Gowlland-
Debbas (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 2001), 449–461. See Onora O’Neill, ‘A Simpli-
fied Account of Kant’s Ethics’, in Matters of Life and Death, ed. Tom Regan (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1986); Thomas W. Pogge, ‘Cosmopolitanism and Sovereignty’, Ethics
103, no. 1 (October 1992): 48–75.
9. Henry F. Carey, ‘Naturalism vs. Positivism: Debates over Coercive Protection of
Human Rights in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo’, Civil Wars 5, no. 2 (Summer 2002):
25–76.
10. Michael E. Brown et al., eds, Primacy and Its Discontents: American Power and
International Stability (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008).
11. Fareed Zakharia, From Wealth to Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1998).
12. Irving and William Kristol, Fred Barnes, Robert Kagan and President George W. Bush
have epitomized this neo-conservative turn. See, for example, Douglas Murray, Neo-
Conservativism: Why We Need It (New York: Encounter Books, 2006). The Weekly
Standard is the standard-bearer for this normative ideology and political movement.
13. John J. Mersheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008).
14. Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1960).
15. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979).
See Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1986).
16. For a summary, see Steven E. Lobell, ‘Structural Realism/Offensive and Defensive
Realism’, in International Studies Compendium, ed. Robert Denemark (Oxford, UK:
Blackwell, 2010), 6651–6669.
17. Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca, NY:
18. Robert Gilpin, ‘A Realist Perspective on International Governance’, in Governing
Globalization, eds, Ahony McGrew and David Held (Oxford: Polity, 2002), 237–248.
19. John J. Mersheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton,
2001).
20. Felix Rösch, ed., Émigré Scholars and the Genesis of International Relations: A European
Discipline in America? (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2014).
21. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations.
22. Herz is sometimes credited with the development of the security dilemma con-
cept. John H. Herz, Political Realism and Political Idealism (Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press, 1951).
23. E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939 (London: Macmillan, 1939).
Henry F. Carey 473
24. Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (New Brunswick,
NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003).
25. Ernst B. Haas, Beyond the Nation State: Functionalism and International Organization
(Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1964).
26. G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding
of Order after Major Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); John
G. Ruggie, ‘Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution’, in Multilateralism
Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form, ed. Ruggie (Princeton, NJ:
New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); Ann Kent, Beyond Compliance: China,
International Organization and Global Security (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press,
2007).
27. Hans Reiss, ed., Kant: Political Writings (Cambridge University Press, 1990); Michael
W. Doyle, ‘Liberalism in World Politics’, American Political Science Review 80, no. 4
(1986): 1152.
28. For one analysis of neo-conservativism, see Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence:
American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
2001). The movement was started by ex-Stalinist intellectuals like Irving Kristol and
has been influenced by political theory students of Leo Strauss.
29. Part of the confusion is that the term ‘liberal’ in non-academic contexts in
the US connotes left-of-centre orientations. Almost no one identifies themselves
as neoliberal in US public life, yet most non-US critiques of foreign policy
have been of neoliberalism. Neo-conservatives have remained the main alterna-
tive to either realism or liberalism in US public discourse, and have not lost
much prestige, despite the discredit that would have accompanied US efforts in
Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Critiques of neo-conservatism include Josh Rogin,
‘James Baker: Realists Have Been Successful Stewards of Foreign Policy’, 9 August
2012, http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/09/jim_baker_realists_have_
been_successful_stewards_of_foreign_policy#.UCUJoD_v7sA.email; Andrew Bacevich,
American Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002); David P. Forsythe,
The Politics of Prisoner Abuse: The United States and Enemy Prisoners after 9/11
(Cambridge University Press, 2011).
30. Karl Deutsch, Political Community in the North Atlantic Area (Princeton University
Press, 1957).
31. Dianne Otto, ‘Rethinking the Universality of Human Rights Law’, Columbia Human
Rights Law Review 29, no. 1 (Fall 1997): 1–46; see also the contributions by
Nathaniel Berman, David Kennedy, Celina Romany, Angela Harris, et al. in On Vio-
lence, Money, Power and Culture: Reviewing the Internationalist Legacy, ed. Jonathan
Lawrence Hargrove (Proceedings of the 2000 Annual Meeting) (Washington, DC:
American Society for International Law, 2000, Vol. 93). Some of these US-based
scholars are Europeans, such as Francois Debrix, Re-Envisioning Peacekeeping: The
United Nations and the Mobilization of Ideology (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1999); Maku Mutua, ‘Hope and Despair for a New South Africa: The Limits
of Rights Discourse’, Harvard Human Rights Journal 10 (Spring, 1997): 63–114; see
also, Vasant Kaiwar and Michael West, eds, Divergent Modernities: Critical Perspectives
on Orientalism, Islamism, and Nationalism, Special issue of Special Issues: Comparative
Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 15.1 (Fall 1996).
32. See Thomas Cushman, ‘Critical Theory and the War in Croatia and Bosnia’, The
Donald W. Treadgold Papers, 13 (July 1997) (Seattle: University of Washington).
33. Matei Dogan, How to Compare Nations (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1991); John
Mueller, Capitalism, Democracy, and Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2001); Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security:
Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996);
John Mueller, ‘The Perfect Enemy: Assessing the Gulf War’, Security Studies 5, no. 1
(August 1995); Andrew J. Bacevich and Eliot A. Cohen, ‘Introduction: Strange Lit-
tle War’, War over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age (New York: Columbia
34. David Brooks, ‘The American Precariat’, The New York Times, 11 February 2014,
A27, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/opinion/brooks-the-american-precariat.
html?action= click&contentCollection= Europe&module= MostEmailed&version=
Full&region= Marginalia&src= me&pgtype= article, accessed 1 November 2015.
35. This is in distinction to the sense given to the term ‘liberal peace’ by Mark
Duffield and Oliver Richmond, which, in my view, characterizes a ‘realist peace’ or a
‘neoliberal peace’. Oliver P. Richmond, ‘Reclaiming Peace in International Relations’,
Millennium: Journal of International Studies 36, no. 3 (2008): 439–470; Mark Duffield,
Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security (London:
Zed Books, 2001).
36. Instead of his thesis in The End of History and the Last Man (London: Hamish
Hamilton, 1991), Francis Fukuyama has offered State-Building: Governance and World
Order in the Twenty-First Century (London: Profile Books, 2005). For a critique of his
original view of the rise of liberal hegemony, see John J. Mersheimer, ‘Back to the
Future: Instability after the Cold War’, International Security 15, no. 1 (1990): 5–56.
37. David M. Malone and Fen Osler Hampson, eds, From Reaction to Conflict Prevention,
co-edited by Fen Osler Hampson (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2002). For a realist cri-
tique of liberalism, see John J. Mersheimer, ‘The False Promises of International
Institutions’, International Security 19, no. 3 (1994–1995): 5–49.
38. Mark W. Zacher and Richard A. Matthew, ‘Liberal International Theory: Com-
mon Threads, Different Strands’, in Controversies in International Relations, ed.
Charles W. Kegley (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995); Michael Barnett and Martha
Finnemore, ‘The Power of Liberal International Organizations’, in Power in Global
Governance, eds, Barnett and Raymond Duvall (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2004), 161–184.
39. No one uses the term ‘liberal peace’; that concept would, perhaps, be called a
neoliberal peace or a realist peace, because the dominant peace approach in the
US/North America is based on the dominant paradigm, realism. Liberalism, even
in its unadulterated academic nomenclature (as opposed to its everyday meaning in
the US as the marginalized progressive). Nor are European concepts like ‘mainstream
positivism’ used in the US.
40. James Sheehan, Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? The Transformation of Modern Europe
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008).
41. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr, The Imperial Presidency (Mariner Books, 2004).
42. Eric A. Posner, The Perils of Global Legalism (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,
2009).
43. Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in World Political Economy
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).
44. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph Nye, Power and Inter-Dependence: World Politics in Tran-
sition (Boston: Little Brown, 1977); Bruce Russett and John O’Neal, Triangulating
Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organization (New York: W.W.
Norton, 2011).
45. A. Claire Cutler, Virginia Haufler and Tony Porter, eds, Private Authority and
International Affairs (Albany: State University of New York, 1999); Thomas Biersteker
Henry F. Carey 475
and Rodney Hall, eds, The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
46. Aaron Rapport, Waging War, Planning Peace: U.S. Noncombat Operations and Major Wars
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015).
47. Chadwick F. Alger, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 504
(July 1989): 117, 117–127.
36
Peace in the Pacific: Grounded in Local
Custom, Adapting to Change
Volker Boege
Introduction
The Pacific region is huge and highly diverse – linguistically, culturally and
otherwise. Outsiders think of it as a massive expanse of water scattered with
small isolated islands that are vulnerable and far apart (and, from a metropoli-
tan perspective, ‘far away’). By contrast, an insiders’ view of Oceania is one
of a ‘sea of islands’, focusing on the bonds and linkages that the ocean has
provided between the island societies for time immemorial.1 In today’s interna-
tional system, the region is divided into ‘nation’-states, most of them very small
by international standards. The Pacific has the greatest concentration of micro-
states worldwide. With approximately seven million inhabitants, Papua New
Guinea (PNG) is by far the country with the biggest population. Altogether, no
more than ten million people live in the region.
Apart from 22 independent states, several political entities with a colonial
or quasi-colonial status can be found. Decolonization in the region occurred
relatively late, with Vanuatu only becoming independent in 1980. Issues of
colonization and decolonization, which have otherwise largely disappeared
from international politics, are still a concern in the Pacific. The residues of
colonialism strongly reverberate. French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna are
overseas French territories, as is New Caledonia/Kanaky, though the latter has a
special political status and the option for a referendum on independence after
2014. Niue, the Cook Islands and Tokelau are in ‘free association’ with New
Zealand. The Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia,
the Marshall Islands, Palau and American Samoa are legally linked to the US.
Finally, some islands or territories are part of non-region states: Rapa Nui (Easter
Island) is part of Chile, Hawaii is part of the US, the Torres Strait Islands are part
of Australia, and (West) Papua is part of Indonesia.2
Talking about ‘dimensions of peace’ in such a diverse environment is chal-
lenging. It would be impossible to delve into all the different local notions of
476
Volker Boege 477
peace that can be found across the region, and it would be misleading just to
muse on the version of peace that is most visible from an international rela-
tions or peace studies perspective – which is very much the liberal variety.
Instead, I am going to explore ‘dimensions of peace’ in the Pacific in three
steps. I will only briefly touch on the modes of expression of the liberal peace
in the region, addressing the realm of states and the regional state system. In a
second step, some features of local understandings of peace in the realm of
communities and the everyday will be explored. Finally, the interconnected-
ness of these realms will be addressed, focusing on the hybridization of peace
in the course of liberal–local interactions.3 This will be exemplified by explor-
ing the most important current peace process in the region, followed by some
conclusions which might provide food for thought when comparing Oceania
with other regions.
States, regional organizations and the liberal peace
There are no conventional threats to peace in the Pacific region at the level of
the international state system. Nor are there conflicts between states which
have the potential to escalate into interstate war, nor are external powers
threatening to use military force against countries in the region. Pacific Island
Countries (PICs) do not have the means to project force beyond their borders,
and they often lack the monopoly of legitimate physical force within their
territories. The ‘state’ as the supposedly fundamental framework for maintain-
ing internal peace and for the non-violent conduct of conflicts was ‘delivered’
to the previously stateless societies of the region from the outside in the
course of (de)colonization. The Western model of ‘state’, ‘nation’, ‘politics’ and
‘democracy’ dominates in the region today (at least at first sight), strongly sup-
ported by the states of the Global North, and underpinned by an international
system based on that model. Accordingly, ‘peace’ at the level of states and
interstate relations is the liberal peace. All PICs are members of the UN and
subscribe to its peace; regional cooperation is grounded in this understanding
of peace.
The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), with its 16 member states (including the
major regional powers Australia and New Zealand), is the most important
regional organization. It is also the main protagonist of the liberal peace
agenda. It has issued several statements to this effect, most importantly the
2000 Biketawa Declaration. The PIF’s current basic document, the Pacific Plan,
has as one of its four pillars ‘regional security’ (besides economic growth,
sustainable development and good governance).4 The plan, which largely
reflects the interests and strategic thinking of the metropolitan powers Australia
and New Zealand, is solely focused on state-related security issues (such as
maritime and aviation security, law enforcement training, border security and
transnational crime). This state-centricity is characteristic of the overall regional

peace and security discourse.5 It is an expression of dominant Australian polit-
ical thinking about the region, which is informed by a Western international
discourse that focuses on state fragility and state failure as security issues and
accordingly advocates a liberal peacebuilding-as-statebuilding approach.6
The state-based regional cooperation along the lines of the liberal peace
is complemented by civil society regional cooperation.7 In the Pacific,
several transnational civil society networks work on conflict prevention,
peacebuilding, development and peace, peace and human rights, and human
security, for example the Pacific Islands Association of Nongovernment Orga-
nizations or the Pacific Women’s Network Against Violence Against Women.
They are linked into international networks, and some specialize in peace work,
for example the Pacific Centre for Peace-Building in Fiji, or Peace Founda-
tion Melanesia in PNG. Women’s peace organizations are strong, and many
Pacific non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are led by women. Given that
women often have problems playing prominent public roles in their commu-
nities and in the sphere of ‘politics’ and state structures, civil society offers
them opportunities to influence public affairs. As the churches in the Pacific
are very powerful – not only as institutions of a distinct religious sphere, but
also as social and governance actors – church-affiliated NGOs are of particu-
lar importance. The liberal peace agenda in the Pacific is markedly imbued
with Christian values, resulting in a focus on peace-oriented interfaith dialogue,
restorative justice, reconciliation and spiritual peacemaking – all this links with
local understandings of peace.
Communities, everyday life and local notions of peace
The most significant characteristic of the Pacific region with regard to ‘dimen-
sions of peace’ is the disjunction between ‘the state’ and civil society (in its
Western liberal form), on the one hand, and everyday community life, on
the other. The vast majority of Pacific Islanders live in small rural communi-
ties, often far away – both geographically and mentally – from the institutions
of the state and a civil society concentrated in the few urban centres. These
communities are the backbone of the remarkable resilience of Pacific soci-
eties. Kinship-based networks underpin social order and well-being for most
Pacific Islanders, and regulate the management of everyday village life. While
governments and state institutions are often weak, communities are mostly
peaceful and orderly. For the most part, peace in the local context is main-
tained by non-state actors. Police, courts and other institutions entrusted with
maintaining domestic peace in the fully-fledged states of the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) world hardly penetrate the
rural areas of the PICs. More often than not, they lack the capacities to make
Volker Boege 479
their presence felt in the communities, and often they do not even assume
that peace and order are primarily their responsibility; they are happy to leave
this responsibility to non-state local authorities. Police posts and courts are far
away, they do not function effectively, and often they lack legitimacy in the
eyes of the locals, who prefer to have conflicts dealt with by their custom-
ary leaders and according to customary law, not the law of the state and its
agents.8
The understanding of peace in community life is different from the liberal
peace discourse of governments in capital cities and urban NGOs. It is rooted in
profoundly different constructions of community and personhood, nature, and
the visible and invisible world. It is embedded in a close net of relations among
people and between people and land. Land is communally owned. It provides
the basis for subsistence economies and food security. Land is at the heart of
the economic, social, cultural and spiritual life of communities. It is crucial for
identity, social security and the cohesion of everyday life. Hence, local notions
of peace are intimately connected to land. Without secure access to land, there
cannot be peace. Accordingly, disturbances of peace are linked to challenges
to the land–people relationship. Issues of land ownership, usage and degrada-
tion are the most important factors in local as well as in large-scale violent
conflicts.
Conflict was, and is, a feature of everyday social life, and at times conflicts can
take on violent and disruptive forms. Communities have long traditions of con-
flict resolution and peacebuilding.9 Peace is understood in terms of harmony
and balance in the life of communities, with communities also comprising the
non-human natural world (the land, animals and other aspects of nature) and
the non-human spiritual world (the spirits of the ancestors, God). Harmony
and balance require reciprocity in all dimensions of everyday life. Disturbance
of balance is disturbance of peace. It can take the form of physical violence,10
but also other forms, like swearing or sorcery, adultery, gossip and verbal insults,
destruction of food gardens or property or sacred sites. Generally, a variety of
conflictual issues are intertwined: a land dispute might be the trigger of a cur-
rent conflict, but it escalates because of its link to previous issues, for example,
adultery or swearing or accusations of sorcery; or a sorcery case might have its
roots in previous land disputes, and so on.
Such disturbances necessitate peacebuilding activities that restore balance
and harmony. Peacebuilding is restorative and holistic. Restoration of rela-
tionships, not punishment of offenders, is key – hence the preference for
future-oriented restorative justice (instead of punitive, retributive justice).11
This, however, does not exclude reappraisal of the past. On the contrary: as
reconciliation is the prerequisite for restoration of social harmony, and recon-
ciliation can only take place based on a shared understanding of the history
of the conflict (or other disturbances of the peace), a consensus about history
has to be established. On this basis, perpetrators or members of conflict parties

can take responsibility for their deeds, apologize and ask for forgiveness, and
victims or members of the other conflict party can accept apologies and forgive;
only then can reconciliation take place.12
Usually, this is a long-term and multifaceted process. It is holistic – it does not
only address a single conflict or incident and an isolated issue, but takes into
account the overall relationships between conflict parties and their histories as
well as the overall ensemble of circumstances in which the conflict took place; it
does not only address issues of the visible world, but also of the invisible world;
it is not only a matter of reason, but also of emotions and feelings (of grief,
guilt, anger, loss, shame, love and kindness). Peace, thus, is not a ‘political’ or
a ‘justice’ or a ‘social’ issue; it cannot be compartmentalized, it can only be
as a whole. Restoration of peace always has both a material dimension and
an immaterial dimension. Peace cannot be without the spiritual and emotive
dimension. God is present in reconciliation and peace (and so are the spirits of
the ancestors), and one cannot experience that presence rationally. There is no
questioning of the existence of an invisible world as a source of peace and of
knowing peace (a dimension which is systematically excluded from the liberal
(knowledge of) peace).
Compensation, exchange of gifts (pigs, shell money, food, cash), is an out-
ward sign of reconciliation and a means to restore reciprocity; it takes place
in peace ceremonies which include symbolic activities such as breaking spears
and arrows, sharing of food, singing and dancing together, and exchange of
speeches. ‘In Pacific cultures, the public expression of peace and reconcilia-
tion is a central element of conflict resolution. The importance of custom and
ceremony in peacebuilding is a crucial part of island society.’13 Ceremonies
are means of peacebuilding in their own right, appealing to emotions and
the spiritual realm, providing cleansing and purification. Christian elements
like prayers and church services are included. As most Pacific Islanders are
devout Christians, peacemaking through prayer is an important form of con-
flict resolution, and it is common practice that customary peace ceremonies are
opened and closed by Christian prayers. Christianity and custom are seen as
complementary elements of peace(building).
Customary peacebuilding is crucial for maintaining relatively harmonious
community life, but it can also come into play at ‘higher’ levels, with
regard to large-scale violent conflicts and the sphere of ‘national’ politics.
A major violence-prone conflict between the police and the paramilitary
mobile force in Vanuatu in 2002, for example, was mainly dealt with by
means of customary dispute resolution (Kastom Peace Reconciliation), and
peacebuilding after the two largest violent conflicts in the region, in the
Solomon Islands and Bougainville, to a large extent depended on customary
conflict resolution.
Volker Boege 481
Interfaces: Local–liberal hybrid forms of peace
Local customary and introduced liberal understandings of peace are in constant

exchange today, with new hybrid forms emerging. Hybridization is character-
istic for both everyday dispute resolution and peacebuilding after large-scale
violent conflict.
In the following, I will take a closer look at one of the two major post-conflict
peacebuilding endeavours that have been carried out in the Pacific region most
recently,14 namely peacebuilding on Bougainville, in order to highlight some
remarkable features of local–liberal/international peacebuilding interaction and
the ensuing hybridization of peace.15
Local–liberal exchanges
Peacebuilding on the Pacific island of Bougainville, after a protracted internal

war between the security forces of the central government of PNG and the seces-
sionist Bougainville Revolutionary Army (1989–98), has been a success story so
far. Hybrid forms of peace emerged in the course of the interface of custom-
ary and liberal approaches to peacebuilding and the interaction of local and
international actors.
Peacebuilding in the local context was mainly conducted according to local
understandings of peace, and followed the lines of customary peacemaking out-
lined above: it was holistic, all-inclusive and relational, it had a long-term time
perspective, it focused on reconciliation and restoration of relationships, and
it gave prominence to the ‘soft’ dimensions of peacebuilding, such as spiritual
aspects, emotions and psychic conditions.16 Thousands of local reconciliations
have been held after the war, and many more are still to come.17
At the same time, Bougainvilleans selectively adapted ‘modern’ external con-
flict resolution practices which were brought to the island by NGOs like Peace
Foundation Melanesia and others who specialize in Western-style mediation
and alternative dispute resolution, offering workshops and trainings for local
peacebuilders. Still today, a variety of community-based organizations and
NGOs are working on peace issues in Bougainville, combining indigenous and
introduced approaches. So, peacebuilding at the local level is a local–liberal
hybrid, with a preponderance of the local.
High-level ‘political’ peacebuilding largely followed an international lib-
eral template, with peace negotiations, ceasefire and peace agreements,
constitution-making, elections, disarmament and so on.18 But this was also
imbued with local practices. Chiefs and elders, women and church leaders
successfully claimed a role in the realm of ‘high-level’ politics and managed
to – at least partially – introduce their ways of peacebuilding, for example
with regard to inclusiveness, the importance of reconciliation and the style of
negotiations.19 So, high-level peacebuilding was a liberal–local hybrid.
The Bougainville peace process owes its success to a combination of

peacebuilding at the top and at the bottom, and to a combination of liberal-
introduced and local customary ways, with the latter not only confined to the
bottom, but also permeating the ‘top’ processes; and it was due to this perme-
ation with local practices that political negotiations at the ‘higher’ level led to a
peace settlement, while the sustainability of that settlement depends to a large
extent on customary peace(building) in the local context.
So, while ‘the peace in Bougainville is two stories . . . the story of top-down
peace . . . and the story of zones of local reconciliation’, these stories at the same
time speak to each other all the time.20
International–grassroots interaction
With the consent of the conflict parties, neighbouring states and the UN con-
ducted a peacebuilding mission on Bougainville. A Truce Monitoring Group
(TMG), which later became the Peace Monitoring Group (PMG), arrived on
the island in late 1997 and stayed until June 2003, and the UN deployed an
Observer Mission (1998–2005).21 The TMG/PMG was an unarmed force, com-
prising both military and civilian personnel, men and women, from Australia,
New Zealand, Fiji and Vanuatu. The international intervention established a
safe environment for former adversaries to come together for conversations
about the conditions for reconciliation and peacebuilding.22
Bougainvilleans successfully insisted on an unarmed intervention, against
initial concerns of the internationals. This meant that the internationals were
dependent on the locals for their security. They only reluctantly learned to
appreciate this arrangement. It put them in the position of invited guests, and
the locals in the position of caring hosts. In Bougainville, the hosts’ responsi-
bility for the security and well-being of their guests is taken very seriously. This
arrangement provided a robust security guarantee for the internationals. On the
other hand, it impacted on the power relations between the internationals and
the locals in the latter’s favour.
The intervention set out with a liberal peacebuilding agenda, which, how-
ever, changed in the course of everyday interaction with the locals.23 Relation-
ships were rearranged, and the content, aims and strategies of peacebuilding
were renegotiated.24
The conceptualization of peace itself was subject to such renegotiation. One
peace monitor says:
I began to realize that my understanding of ‘peace’ was too narrow to

encompass its much more complex meaning for many Bougainvilleans.
We peace monitors tended to define peace in terms of the formal truce
Volker Boege 483
and cease-fire agreements . . . .We poorly grasped that peace meant dealing
with . . . less tangible elements . . . On a more complex level, which I only
glimpsed, Bougainvilleans seemed committed to ‘spiritual rehabilitation’.
Calls for ‘spiritual rehabilitation’ were linked to attempts to articulate the
kind of society that they wanted to build . . . .25
This indicates how misleading are liberal peacebuilding notions of ‘local cul-
ture’ as apolitical, and it hints at the fundamental political significance of
culture, spirituality, emotion. God(s), spirits, the ancestors and the unborn, and
the totem animals are peacebuilding actors in their own right; peace cannot be
conceptualized without taking this non-human dimension of the world into
account.
This fundamental difference in understanding of peace played out in various
dimensions of the local–international exchange, particularly in areas that are
easily discredited as ‘soft’ and ‘non-essential’ by internationals. To mention just
three:
First, the spiritual dimension. Another Australian peace monitor reported:

‘I experienced one healing ceremony, two crusades and a number of dis-
cussions with women who had just talked with Jesus.’26 For internationals
coming from a secular, presumably enlightened and rational, background,
it is difficult to engage with the spiritual, to appreciate the role of myth
and ritual for peacebuilding. The Ni-Vanuatu, the Fiji i-Taukei and the
Maori in the New Zealand contingent had far fewer problems in this
regard than the white Australians; they share a common cultural back-
ground with the Bougainvilleans. This proved to be important also during
the first rounds of peace negotiations between conflict parties in New
Zealand, when Maori cultural peacebuilding rituals were deliberately used
to establish an atmosphere of trust and commitment.27
Second, ‘gender issues’. A female monitor explains that the mission ‘risked
missing the boat with a key peace process resource – the women. We had
applied our European attitudes to Bougainville and had not realized the
role that women had customarily played.’28 Engaging with the women
led to significant recalibrations of exchanges between interveners and
locals. Given that male and female spheres are, to a large extent, sep-
arate in Bougainville society, male peace monitors could not have built
relationships as the females did.
Finally, different conceptualizations of time can have profound impacts
on peace(building), for example, if events of the internationals’ linear
clock time ‘past’ are still ‘present’: in Bougainville, the dead fighters of
the war are still fighting today, because their bodies could not yet be
laid to rest according to the appropriate customary burial and recon-

ciliation ceremonies. Time is not a universal given – it is different for
international peacekeepers, villagers in the mountains of Bougainville, or
politicians in Canberra or New York. On Bougainville, the internationals
tried to impose their understanding of time and their time frames, but
Bougainvilleans were largely able to stick to their pace of doing things
and to readjust internationals’ pre-planned timetables to local needs and
customs.29
Due to the everyday exchange with the local, the internationals were forced to
‘see’ what liberal peacebuilders usually overlook. At the end of the day, how-
ever, their engagement with local understandings of peace(building) remained
within their own cultural and epistemological comfort zone and confines,
with ‘the other’, the local ways of being, doing and knowing (conflict, peace,
culture . . . ) merely seen as challenging and/or enriching liberal ways. Nev-
ertheless, Bougainvilleans were able to renegotiate the liberal peace agenda,
making it more conducive to their interests, needs, norms and understanding
of peace. The seemingly all-powerful liberal peace approach was rearticulated
by its ‘recipients’ on the ground, who turned out to be not just grateful
and abiding subjects of external agendas and strategies, but powerful actors
in their own right, neither merely adopting the liberal peace agenda nor
merely resisting it. The next major challenge to the sustainability of peace
on Bougainville is just around the corner: according to the Bougainville
Peace Agreement, a referendum on the future political status of the region
(autonomy within PNG or independence) has to be held between 2015
and 2020.
The local–liberal contestation about appropriate forms of peace and politi-
cal order for Bougainville continues today. With regard to the internationals,
Australia and New Zealand in particular, the encounters in Bougainville and
other places in the Pacific have contributed to a debate at home about the need
to rethink and recalibrate their own understandings of peace(building). This
is, for example, triggering a reassessment of the relationship between custom-
ary and statutory law, restorative and punitive justice, or state and non-state
providers of security.30
Conclusion
Anne Brown reminds us that ‘most of Oceania, even in those countries that
have been marked by periods of serious violence, is orderly and peaceful – this is
almost entirely the work of local norms and justice practices’.31 Most people in
the region enjoy a generally peaceful everyday life in their villages. During the
civil war in the Solomons, for example, most Solomon Islanders lived in peace
Volker Boege 485
because local non-state customary institutions were able to maintain peace and
order in the communities. This is a strong indication of both the resilience of
community life and its disjunction from events in the context of state, politics
and capital cities.
Oceania is far from being a region permeated by violence or on the brink
of state and societal collapse – the epithet ‘arc of instability’ with which
the region has been labelled, particularly in Australian political and strategic
thinking, is inaccurate.32 People are engaged in negotiating the emergence of
forms of political order and belonging – beyond the Western liberal concepts
of state, nation and peace – that best suit their needs, history, culture, aims
and aspirations, and that can provide the framework for the peaceful con-
duct of conflicts – conflicts which inevitably will accompany ongoing social
change.
In this environment, ‘the state’ is at best seen as just ‘a component of
peacebuilding rather than the main prerequisite for peace as is the predominant
international view’.33 Peace is maintained not so much by states and according
to the liberal peace agenda, but by actors who usually are not on the radar of
protagonists of the liberal peace: village chiefs and clan elders, healers, male
and female community leaders, and church leaders.
These local actors and institutions ‘need to be taken seriously, not as some
form of “second best” or “good enough” governance. These are not throw-backs
or regressions, but inventive and potentially formidable political responses to
present realities and future aspirations.’34 Taking them seriously is not just
about ‘respecting culture’, but genuinely engaging with different ways of under-
standing the world and peace, engaging with local people as agents of their
own praxes of peace and political community, engaging them in conversations
about peace, belonging and governance in languages that bridge across cultural
differences.
Future sustainable peace in the Pacific depends on constructive relationships
between communities and governments and positive accommodation of local
customary and introduced liberal institutions. The interplay of profoundly dif-
ferent norms and forms of governance and peace need not be a problem.
Bougainvilleans live these enmeshments every day. Over the centuries, Pacific
Islanders have shown formidable pragmatism and adaptability when it comes
to combining the indigenous and the exogenous. They have demonstrated
ingenuity in picking what works for their circumstances and incorporating it
into their customs – which consequently are far from static and ‘traditional’,
but fluid and inter-culturally adaptive. Working with the strengths of commu-
nities, engaging with forms of socio-political order and belonging which are
already in place (instead of ignoring or rejecting them as hindrances to a liberal
peace), opens space for the emergence of sustainable post-liberal peace in the
Pacific.
Notes
1. E. Hau’ofa, ‘Our Sea of Islands’, The Contemporary Pacific 6, no. 1 (1994), 147–161,
152.
2. Australia and New Zealand are not PICs, although the islands of New Zealand are
geographically clearly Pacific islands, and Australia has a long Pacific coastline and
some islands in the Pacific. Both are industrialized countries of the OECD world,
dominated by settlers of mostly European descent, with their indigenous popula-
tions merely minorities today. This makes them clearly distinct from PICs. However,
both are very active in the region and influential members of regional Pacific
organizations.
3. For the purposes of exploring ‘dimensions of peace’ in the Pacific, it makes sense
to differentiate the local(s) from the realm of the non-local(s) so as to contrast pro-
foundly different understandings of peace. In the course of doing so, however, it
will become clear to what extent and how the local(s) and the non-local(s) become
enmeshed, with the local as ‘a site of various forms of power, resistance, and agency,
many of which overlap and even conflict’ (O. P. Richmond and A. Mitchell, ‘Intro-
duction – Towards a Post-Liberal Peace: Exploring Hybridity via Everyday Forms of
Resistance, Agency and Autonomy’, in Hybrid Forms of Peace. From Everyday Agency
to Post-Liberalism, eds O. P. Richmond and A. Mitchell (Houndmills and New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 1–38, 11.
4. Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, The Pacific Plan for Strengthening Regional Cooperation
and Integration (Suva: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2005).
5. See, for example, the PIF–UNDP strategic framework for security sector governance
in the Pacific: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and UNDP Pacific Centre, Enhanc-
ing Security Sector Governance in the Pacific Region: A Strategic Framework (Suva: UNDP
Pacific Centre, 2010).
6. M. Allen and S. Dinnen, ‘The North Down Under: Antinomies of Conflict and
Intervention in Solomon Islands’, Conflict, Security & Development 10, no. 3 (2010):
299–327.
7. ‘Civil society’ in the Pacific is usually understood in its Western liberal sense,
comprising NGOs, interest groups, business associations, trade unions, media,
community-based organizations and so on, which are usually presented as the ‘local’
voices of society. More often than not, however, they were introduced from the
outside, supported by donors, international organizations and international NGOs.
On the other hand, there are also homegrown civil society entities, and there are
connections and overlap between the ‘civil society local’ and the ‘local-local’.
8. For an overview, see S. Dinnen, A. Jowitt and T. Newton Cain, eds, A Kind of Mend-
ing. Restorative Justice in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2003). See
also S. Dinnen and M. Allen, ‘Paradoxes of Postcolonial Police-building: Solomon
Islands’, Policing and Society 23, no. 2 (2013): 222–242; S. Dinnen and J. Braithwaite,
‘Reinventing Policing through the Prism of the Colonial Kiap’, Policing and Society
19, no. 2 (2008): 161–173; S. Dinnen and A. McLeod, ‘Policing Melanesia – Interna-
tional Expectations and Local Realities’, Policing and Society 19, no. 4 (2009): 333–353.
For the situation in the Solomon Islands as an example, see M. Allen et al., Justice
Delivered Locally: Systems, Challenges and Innovations in Solomon Islands (J4P Research
Report) (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2013).
9. Understandings of peace and approaches to peacebuilding and conflict resolution
vary between societies and communities in the Pacific. Local embeddedness and
specificity are decisive features of these approaches. Hence, there is an inherent
Volker Boege 487
contradiction in the attempt to present ‘the’ Pacific understanding of peace in

general terms while at the same time stressing that peace in the Pacific is always
context-specific.
10. At times, however, the controlled and ritualized conduct of physical violence can
be seen as necessary for the restoration of peace. Such forms of violence are not
perceived as being destructive disturbances of peace, but as indispensable for peaceful
order.
11. It has to be said, though, that Pacific Islanders today in general do not have problems
with the combination of restorative justice in the customary context and punitive
justice in the context of the legal system of the state.
12. The understanding of reconciliation in Pacific communities is based in the Christian
faith and in local customary practices. It is a good example of the Christianization
of custom and the customization of Christianity – and hence, a hybrid concept.
13. N. MacLellan, ‘Regional Introduction: Creating Peace in the Pacific – Conflict
Resolution, Reconciliation, and Restorative Justice’, in Searching for Peace in Asia
Pacific. An Overview of Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Activities, A. Heijmans,
N. Simmonds and H. van de Veen (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2004),
526–542, 535.
14. The other case is the Solomon Islands, where, after years of internal violent con-
flicts, an international intervention set out to restore peace and order in 2003. This
Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) currently is in its final
stage.
15. In this context, ‘hybridization’ refers to the ways ‘in which local actors attempt to
respond to, resist and ultimately reshape peace initiatives through interactions with
international actors and institutions’ (Richmond and Mitchell, ‘Introduction’, 7–8).
16. For an overview, see V. Boege and L. Garasu ‘Bougainville: A Source of Inspiration
for Conflict Resolution’, in Mediating across Difference. Oceanic and Asian Approaches
to Conflict Resolution, eds, M. Brigg and R. Bleiker (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i
Press, 2011), 163–182.
17. Outstanding reconciliations and unfulfilled obligations from the times of the con-
flict leave the peace in the local customary context incomplete even today, 16 years
after the war’s end. For example, giving the war dead a proper burial is of utmost
importance for making reconciliation and peace possible (so as to appease the spirits
of the dead), and this is why the recovery of their remains continues to be a big issue.
18. Major milestones of political peacebuilding were: a truce in 1997, a perma-
nent cease-fire in 1998, a peace agreement in 2001 and elections for an
Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) in 2005 (and again in 2010 and
2015).
19. For more details, see V. Boege, ‘Hybrid Forms of Peace and Order on a South
Sea Island: Experiences from Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) in Richmond and
Mitchell’, Hybrid Forms (2012): 88–106.
20. J. Braithwaite, ‘Partial Truth and Reconciliation in the longue duree’, Contemporary
Social Science 6, no. 1 (2011): 129–146, 140.
21. A detailed account of the intervention can be found in A. J. Regan, Light Intervention.
Lessons from Bougainville (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press,
2010).
22. Braithwaite, ‘Partial Truth and Reconciliation in the longue duree’, 141.
23. For more on the following, see V. Boege, ‘Peacebuilding on Bougainville: Interna-
tional Intervention Meets Local Resilience’, in Relational Sensibility and the ‘Turn
to the Local’: Prospects for the Future of Peacebuilding (= Global Dialogues 2), eds
W. Chadwick, D. Debiel and F. Gadinger (Duisburg: Centre for Global Cooperation
Research, 2013), 36–43.
24. The following deals with the side of the internationals only. Of course, the locals
were also affected by the interaction; they partially and selectively accepted, resisted,
adopted and adapted to liberal peace attitudes and norms. These processes cannot be
retraced here.
25. K. Ruiz-Avila, ‘Peace Monitoring in Wakunai, 1998’, in Without a Gun. Australians’
Experiences Monitoring Peace in Bougainville, 1997–2001, eds M. Wehner and
D. Denoon (Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2001), 97–100, 98–99.
26. T. Parry, ‘Peace Monitoring in Wakunai, 1998’, in Ibid., 103–108, 106.
27. J. Braithwaite, H. Charlesworth, P. Reddy and L. Dunn, Reconciliation and Architectures
of Commitment. Sequencing Peace in Bougainville (Canberra: ANU e-Press, 2010), 46–48.
28. J. Castell, ‘Opening Doors’, in Peace on Bougainville – Truce Monitoring Group. Gudpela
Nius Bilong Peace, ed. R. Adams (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2001),
120–124, 121.
29. For example, time frames for negotiations or for weapons disposal had to be han-
dled in a flexible manner and to be adjusted to local needs; see Boege and Garasu,
‘Bougainville’, 175–176. The same flexible approach applies (should apply) to the
conduct of the referendum on independence, which is due between 2015 and 2020.
30. B. Hughes, C. Hunt and J. Curth-Bibb, Forging New Conventional Wisdom beyond Inter-
national Policing. Learning from Complex, Political Realities (Leiden – Boston: Martinus
Nijhoff, 2013).
31. M. A. Brown, ‘Security and Development: Conflict and Resilience in the Pacific
Islands Region’, in Security and Development in the Pacific Islands. Social Resilience in
Emerging States, ed. M. A. Brown (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2007), 1–31,
10.
32. For an overview of the history of the application of the concept of ‘arc of insta-
bility’ to the Pacific, see J. Wallis, ‘The Pacific: from “Arc of Instability” to “Arc of
Responsibility” and then to “Arc of Opportunity” ’, Security Challenges 8, no. 4 (2012):
1–12.
33. Richmond, Post-Liberal Peace, 196.
34. S. Dinnen, D. Porter and S. Sage, Conflict in Melanesia: Themes and Lessons (World
Development Report 2011 Background Paper) (Washington, DC: The World Bank,
2010), 29.
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Index
AAG, see Association of American The Arms Race (Noel-Baker), 28

Geographers Aronowitz, Stanley, 201
Aberystwyth School, security scholarship, arts, theatre
143 grassroots peacebuilding and, 82–4,
Adams, P. Robert, 26, 27 92–3
Addams, Jane, 28, 183 Jana Karaliya/Makkal Kalari, 88–9
Adichie, Ngozi Chimamanda, 321 Jana Sanskriti, 91–2
Adler, Emanuel, 60 multi-vocality vs. definitive factual
Adorno, Theodor W., 222 answers, 89–91
Afghanistan, 123, 371 organic/context-specific vs. universal
Africa, see Congo; Horn of Africa; West blueprints approaches, 87–8
Africa peacebuilding discourse and, 84–7
African National Congress (ANC), 289–93 Remaining Pages of History, 86–7
An Agenda for Peace (Boutros-Ghali), 156 Sarwanam theatre group, 86–7
Agnew, John, 130, 133 significance of arts, 83–4
Akude, John Emeka, 302 Association of American Geographers
Albania, 428 (AAG), 130–1
Alexander, Peter, 287, 294 Atlantic Philanthropies, 116, 118
Alfred, Taiaiake, 267 Atwood, Wallace, 126
Alger, Chadwick F., 471 Azpuru, Dinorah, 441
American Geographical Society, 130
Amin, Samir, 140 Bajpai, Kanti, 368
ANC, see African National Congress Balfour, Michael, 406
Anderlini, Sanam Naraghi, 187 Balkans, 10
Anderson, Mary, 144, 447 Albania, 428
Annals of the Association of American Bulgaria, 427–8
Geographers, 127–8 challenges, 427–8
anthropology of peace, 4, 68, 78 Croatia, 433
applications, implications, 74–7 European Union (EU) integration, 432–4
controversies, debates over human grassroots initiatives, 429–31, 433
nature, 71–4 Greece-Turkey conflict, 427
culturally comparative view, 70 hybrid models, 426
deep roots proponents, 71–2 Macedonia, 428, 432
evidence of warfare, archaeological non-governmental organizations
record, 71–2 (NGOs), 426
human potential for conflict resolution, orientalism, balkanism, peacebuilding
peaceful societies, peace system, in, 424–7
69–71 Romania, 428
nomadic foragers, war-peace Yugoslavia, 428–9
controversy, 72–4 Barnett, Michael, 48, 60
peaceful societies, belief systems, 70–1 Belfast Peace Agreement (1998), 116
Yanomamö of South America, 74 Bell, Daniel M. Jr, 176
Arab Uprisings, 397, 400 Belloni, Roberto, 12, 411
555
556 Index
Bennett, Tony, 206 Butler, Judith, 467

Berg, Elliott, 141 Buzan, Barry, 60, 61, 272, 273, 279
Berg Report (World Bank), 141
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India, 370 Caedel, Martin, 45, 46, 47
Bilali, Rezarta, 225, 229 Cambodia
biopolitics, 37 Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of
biopower concept, 148 Cambodia (ECCC), 340
Björkdahl, Annika, 6, 181 Khmer Rouge armed conflict and
BJP, see Bharatiya Janata Party, India resistance, 339–40
Bleiker, Roland, 5, 82 peace through retribution, 336, 340–2
Boege, Volker, 11, 13, 426, 476 peace through retributive justice, 340–2
Boehnke, Klaus, 226 retributive justice resistance, 342–3
Bombay, Amy, 212 CAPS, see Community Action for
Bonta, Bruce D., 70 Psychosocial Services, Sierra Leone
Booysen, Susan, 289, 290, 291 Carey, Henry F., 11
Bosnia Carmichael, Cathie, 425
grassroots initiatives, 431 Carr, E. H, 58, 467
human rights violations, 465 Central America, 10–11
‘post-conflict’ reconstruction projects, El Salvador Peace Accords, 452–4
129, 157, 426 Guatamala, 453–4
universalist framework, 35 local dimensions of peace,
Bougainville, 481–4 Chalatenango, El Salvador, 455–7
Boulding, Kenneth, 23 local dimensions of peace,
Bourdieu, Pierre, 97, 197 Huehuetenago, Guatamala, 457–9
Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 156 Peace Turn in, 452–5
Bowles, Samuel, 73, 198 violence in, 450–2
Boyce, James K., 454 Western governments, international
Brave Heart, M. Y. H., 211, 212 agencies peace agendas, 450
Brazil Central Asia
authoritarian regime, 441 conflict resolution projects, 388
economic development, 147 liberal peace, authoritarian regimes, 9
foreign policy, 379 national/official peace discourses, 391–3
human development indices (HDI), 378 peace, authoritarian control, 394–6
humanitarian actors, 244 popular peace conceptualizations,
interventionist policies, 196 389–91
peace systems, 70, 377, 381–3 post-Soviet period, 387–8
reality and self-perception, 380–1 Centre for the Study of Violence and
Brenner, Neal, 112 Reconciliation (CSVR) report, 295
Brett, Roddy, 10, 378, 438 Chagnon, Napoleon A., 74
Brewer, John, 101 Chalatenango, El Salvador, 455–7
Brigg, Morgan, 7, 259 Chandler, David, 32
Brock, Peter, 26 Chatfield, C., 22
Bryan, Joe, 130 Chatterton, Paul, 131
Buddhism, 170–1, 174, 176 Chen, Ching-Chang, 9, 350
Bulgaria, 427–8 children and peace, 6
Bull, Hedley, 58, 60 conflict, post-conflict state impact,
Burges, Sean, 383 211–12
Bush, Kenneth D., 199, 200 terror, children as targets, 207–11
Bussy, Josaphat Musamba, 8, 312 transition to peace, 212–16
Index 557
truth and reconciliation commission Coser, Lewis A., 101

(TRC) models, 214–15 Crane, Keith, 301
United Nations Convention on the critical conflict sociology, 5
Rights of the Child (UNCRC), 206 Croatia, 433
Chile, 131 CSVR, see Centre for the Study of Violence
Chou, Mark, 90 and Reconciliation report
Christianity, 171, 174, 176 culturally comparative view, 70
Christie, Daniel J., 6, 220 custom, 12, 439, 476, 480
civil disobedience, 172–174 Curti, Merle, 26, 27, 28
Clapham, Christopher, 8, 14, 325
classical peace, 24–5 Dart, Raymond, 115
Cohen, Cynthia E., 91 Deegalle, Mahinda, 176
Cohrs, J. Christopher, 226 deep roots proponents, 71–2
Cold War, 21–2, 25–6 De L’Esprit des Lois I (Montesquieu), 49
Collins, Bennett, 6, 206 Democratic Ideals and Reality (Mackinder),
colonial legacies, 6–8, 12–13, 102, 140, 125
147, 154–6, 160, 163, 165, 184, 197, democratic peace theses, 49–52
259, 262–4, 267, 269, 293, 302, 318, Department for International
321, 363, 399, 401, 407 Development (DFID) Growth and
colonial rationality, 155, 163 Resilience Operational Plan, UK, 38–9
Colombia Development as Freedom (Sen), 143
armed conflict (case study), 443–7 The Development Dictionary: a Guide to
peacebuilding practices, 438, 440–3 Knowledge as Power (Sachs), 142
violent conflicts, 194 development secularization, 147
Columbia, local-level peacebuilding development studies, peace studies, 5
initiatives (LPBIs), 438–9, 444–8 Aberystwyth School, security
Community Action for Psychosocial scholarship, 143
Services (CAPS), Sierra Leone, 307–9 biopower concept, 148
Congo Cold War era, 139–41
Great Lakes Region, DRC, 8 critiques, alternatives, 147–9
liberal state, conflict causes, 313–18 development secularization, 147
NGOs, 315–18, 320 do no harm doctrine, 144
Western exceptionalism, liberal economic structural adjustment and,
peacebuilding and, 318–20 141
constructivist approaches, states role, 60–1 Global South and, 140–1, 147–8
Convention on the Prevention and governmentality and, 148
Punishment of the Crime of human development, rights-based
Genocide, 248 approach, 143
Cooper, E. Sandi, 26 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Cooper, Neil, 110 Change, 149
Cooper, Robert, 418 International Monetary Fund, Global
Copenhagen Peace and Research Institute South, 141
(COPRI), 275–6 Millennium Campaign, 144–5
Copenhagen School, securitization, 61, neo-Marxist dependency theory and,
275, 276 140–1
COPRI, see Copenhagen Peace and New Institutionalism economics, 142–3
Research Institute Peacebuilding Commission (UN), 146
Cornwallis, Edward, 209 post-Cold War approaches to
Cortright, David, 130 development, 142–6
558 Index
Subsaharan Africa, 142 Stewartstown Road Regeneration Project

United Nations Development Program (SRRP), social impact analysis,
(UNDP), 143 117–20, 119f
US modernization theory and, 140 US-UK approach, 114
World Bank and, 141, 142–4 ECOWAS, see Economic Community of
DFID, see Department for International West Africa
Development Growth and Resilience education and conflict, 6
Operational Plan, UK education as liberation, from resistance
Dictionary of Geopolitics, 123 to revolution, 198–9
Dictionary of Human Geography, 123 education as peacebuilder, concepts and
Dillon, Michael, 37 pedagogies, 199–202
disciplinary approaches, summary, 3–7 education as perpetrator, contentious
disciplinary, regional approaches nexus, cultural reproduction, 195–8
disaggregation, 1–3 education as victim, attacks on
do no harm doctrine, 144 education, 193–5
Donnelly, Faye, 12, 272 militarization of education, 195
Duckitt, John, 222 Elias, Norbert, 74
Duffield, Mark, 144, 148, 149, 241 El Savador Peace Accords, 452–4
Duncan, Jane, 287 Elshtain, Jean Bethke, 184
emancipation version of peace, 62–3
East Asia Ember, Carol, 73
Confucian countries, 9, 350–3 emergency peace governance
harmony, East Asian international conflict management, transformation
society, 353–5 and, 39–40
Sino-Japanese territorial conflict, from emergency to emergence, 34–5,
diplomatic history, 9, 352–3, 355–9 41–2
East Timor, see Timor-Leste human rights-based approaches, 40–1
Economic Community of West Africa international statebuilding, Balkans, 35
(ECOWAS), 8, 299–300, 303–6 liberal forms of governance and, 35
economic perspectives, 5 mechanistic policy framework and, 36
Atlantic Philanthropies, 116, 118 new forms of governance and, 38–41
Belfast Peace Agreement (1998), 116 New Wars thesis, 36
EU Peace Programmes, 116–17 reductionist framework, 36–7
hybrid models, 115 state-level interventions and, 40
localized social economies vs. neoliberal supply-driven policies, 39
formations, 110–11 universalist model, 35
multi-scalar networks, 113 Western liberal democratic states and,
neoliberalism, politics of peace, 111–14 35
Northern Ireland, 112, 116–17, 119 emerging countries, IBSA group, 9, 376
pro-market ideologies and, 110 domestic/international divide, 377–9
social businesses, 114–15 government policy initiatives, 378–97
social economics as site of resistance, OECD Development Assistance
114–16 Committee (DAC) assistance, 382
social economy characteristics, 114 peace in practice, liberal paradigm,
social enterprises, urban peacebuilding, 381–3
116–20 South-South cooperation, 382
social investment, innovation, 115–16 systemic level, revisionist rhetoric in
state formation, 110 international fora, 379–81
Index 559
END, see European Nuclear Disarmament Flint, Colin, 126, 127, 129
movement Florez, Diana, 10, 438
English School, international society, 60 Foucault, Michel, 3, 34, 35, 102,
Enloe, Cynthia, 185, 186 148, 318
EPLF, see Eritrean People’s Liberation Front Franks, Jason, 344
EPRDF, see Ethiopian Peoples’ Fry, Douglas P., 4, 69, 73
Revolutionary Democratic Front
Erasmus, Desiderius, 21, 26, 27, 47 Gallagher, Kathleen, 85
Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), Gallagher, Tony, 215
329–30 Gallo, Carol Jean, 8, 312
Escobar, Arturo, 148, 149 Galtung, Johan, 29, 97, 128,
Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary 143, 172, 184, 185, 212,
Democratic Front (EPRDF), 329 317, 364
ethnographic considerations, 4–5 Garland Library of War and Peace, 27
EU Peace Programmes, 116–17 Gat, Azar, 23
Europe GEAR, see Growth, Employment and
Cold War and, 412–13 Redistribution programme
European Union (EU), as peace gender, 6, 181–3
promoter, 416–21 contemporary ties, tensions, 187–9
European Union (EU), Nobel Peace direct, indirect violence transformations
Award, 411 over time, 185–6
Germany, 414, 416 feminist approaches, gender, identity,
international organizations and, 413 64
liberal peace and, 10 gendered agent of peace, woman’s
multi-lateralism vs. unilateralism in, 414 agency, 186–7
path(s) to peace in, 412–14 gendered reading of peace, 184–5
peace seen from below, 415–16 pacifism and feminism, historical and
US role, 413 contemporary ties, tensions, 183–4
European Nuclear Disarmament R2P doctrine and, 188
movement (END), 29 security studies and, 187–8
European Union (EU) sexual violence and, 185
Balkans integration, 432–4 third wave, post-colonial feminist
Nobel Peace Award, 411 analysis, 184
as peace promoter, 416–21 UNSCR 1325, 188
everyday, 4–6, 13, 16, 40, 57, 62, 64, 65, Women, Peace and Security agenda
82–4, 88, 89, 119–21, 128, 129, 148, (WPS), 188
152, 182, 185, 186, 189, 215, 224, Women’s International League for Peace
227, 236, 273, 278, 301, 307, 387, and Freedom (WILPF), 183
389–91, 393, 406, 451, 456, 477, 478, Gentry, Caron E., 6, 168
481, 482, 484 geographic considerations, 5
evidence of warfare, archaeological Afghanistan, 123
records, 71–2 American Geographical Society, 130
Association of American Geographers
Fairbank, K. John, 25 (AAG), 130–1
Falk, Richard A., 29, 465 Chile, 131
Fanon, Frantz, 103, 159, 165 Dictionary of Geopolitics, 123
Featherstone, David, 131 Dictionary of Human Geography, 123
Ferguson, James, 198 geographies of practice, 130–3
Fiala, Andrew, 29 imperial, post-imperial traditions, 124–7
560 Index
geographic considerations – continued Hamashita, Takeshi, 354

International Geographical Union Harris, Donna L., 75, 76
(IGU), 131 Harvey, B., 116
Royal Geographical Society, 130 Harvey, David, 162
space, discourse, agency, 127–30 Hauerwas, Stanley, 46, 47, 48, 174
Geography and Education, 132 Heathershaw, John, 390
The Geography of Peace and War (Flint), Heese, Karen, 289
126, 127 Heffernan, Michael, 124
Germany, 414, 416 Hellmüller, Sara, 315, 319
Ghali, Boutros Boutros, 156, 442 Hermann, Margaret G., 227
Ghebremeskel, Adane, 439 Herrmann, Richard K., 227
Gill, Graham, 200 Herz, John H., 467
Gintis, Herbert, 198
Hinduism, 169–70, 173–4, 176
Giroux, Henry, 201
Hirst, Megan, 345
Gittings, John, 3, 21
historical revisionism, 3
Global Coalition to Protect Education from
Hobbes, Thomas, 3, 34, 35, 58
Attack, 194
Holmes, Richard, 46
Global South, 140–1, 147–8
Horn of Africa
Golden Rule, peace, nonviolence,
customary governance practices, 8
disinterested self, 172–5
Goldsmith, Jack, 338 Eritrean People’s Liberation Front
(EPLF), 329–30
governance interventions, 32–3
governmentality, 14, 112, 148, 320 Ethiopian highlands, peace as stable
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, 404, hierarchy, 327–30
406, 407 Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary
Gowan, Richard, 383 Democratic Front (EPRDF), 329
Grandin, Greg, 439, 440 external engagement, peacebuilding vs.
Greece-Turkey conflict, 427 peace destroying, 332–5
Gregor, Thomas, 24, 70 pastoral periphery, peace as negotiation,
Grigor’ev, Alex N., 425 330–2
Grotius, Hugo, 248 state formation, 330
Growth, Employment and Redistribution structural violence in, 325–7
programme (GEAR), 292–4 Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF),
Guatemala 328
anti-war protests, 470 Horrabin, Frank, 126
civil society’s role in peacebuilding, 457 Horrabin, J. Frank, 126
civil war, 451 Howard, Michael, 48
donor programmes, 451–2 Howland, D. R, 354, 358
Peace Accords, 450 Howlett, F. Charles, 22
peace negotiations, 438, 442, 445 Hudson, Heidi, 187
post-Cold war approaches, 142, 452–5 Huehuetenago, Guatamala, 457–9
Guha, Ramachandra, 369 Hughes, Caroline, 5, 139
Gunder, Andre Frank, 140 human development, rights-based
approach, 143
Haas, Jonathan, 72 humanitarianism, 7
Habermas, Jürgen, 419, 421 humanitarian assistance, 223–4
Habib, Adam, 292 International Federation of Red Cross
Haddad, Fanar, 401, 403 and Red Crescent Societies’
Hague Peace Conferences, 250 (IFRCRCS) Code of Conduct, 257
Index 561
liberal peace, fractured humanitarism, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

242–4 Change, 149
liberal peace synergy, 235–8 International Commission on
liberal peace vs., 238–42 Intervention and State Sovereignty
solidarist humanitarians, 224 (ICISS), 337
Stabilization and Recovery Funding International Criminal Court (ICC), 252
Facility (SRFF), 237 International Encyclopedia of Human
human potential for conflict resolution, Geography, 131
peaceful societies, peace system, International Federation of Red Cross and
69–71 Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRCRCS)
Huntington, Samuel, 140 Code of Conduct, 257
Hurrell, Andrew, 380 International Geographical Union (IGU),
hybridity/hybrid peace, 11, 15, 62–4, 119, 131
426 international humanitarian law (IHL), (jus
Balkans and, 433–4 in bello), 251–2
Nepal and, 371 international law, 7, 247
hybrid ontologies, 4 Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, 248
IBSA group, see emerging countries, IBSA emergence of, quest for peace and,
group 249–50
ICC, see International Criminal Hague Peace Conferences, 250
Court International Criminal Court (ICC), 252
ICISS, see International Commission international humanitarian law (IHL),
on Intervention and State (jus in bello), 251–2
Sovereignty
jus ad bellum, ending source of war,
IFRCRCS, see International Federation of 252–4
Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ jus post bellum, peace building with
Code of Conduct justice, 254–5
IGU, see International Geographic League of Nations and, 250
Union
liberal peace, state sovereignty and,
IHL, see international humanitarian law 256–7
India, 365–70 Pact of Paris (Kellogg-Braind Pact,
indigenous peoples 252–3
colonial context, 266–9 peaceful dispute settlement, arms
indigoes peace and, 261–3 control, disarmament, 250–1
indigoes peace, liberal peace and, 264–5 Permanent Court of International
recuperation, appropriation, Justice (PCIJ), 250
assimilation and, 266–8 UN international peace architecture,
relatedness, multiple connections and, 247–8
261–2 UN Security Council (UNSC), 252–4
inequality, 15, 62, 140, 145, 155, 248 International Monetary Fund, Global
Balkans and, 426–7 South, 141
Ethiopia and, 329 international political economy of
gender, 185–6 peacebuilding, 160–3
IBSA countries and, 378, 383 international relations (IR) theory
Latin America and, 439, 440, 443 constructivist approaches, states role,
South Africa and, 288–9, 291–3 60–1
South Asia and, 367, 370 Copenhagen School, securitization, 61
562 Index
international relations (IR) Keller, Jonathan W., 227

theory – continued Kelly, Robert, 73
discipline of peace evolution in, 1–2, 4 Kenkel, Kai M, 9, 376
emancipation version of peace and, Keohane, Robert O., 50
62–3 Kirsch, Scott, 129
English School, international society, 60 Kliot, Nuriot, 127
feminist approaches, gender, identity Kliot, Nurit, 127
and, 64
Koopman, Sara, 128, 133
hybridity, 64
Krampe, Florian, 9, 363
peace and critical IR theory, 61–4
Krasner, Stephen D., 338
peace as mainstream in, 57–61
Krause, Keith, 338
interventionist capacity, 156–7
Krishnamurti, Jiddu, 200, 202
intervention model, 3
Inwood, Joshua, 132 Kropotkin, Peter, 125
IR, see international relations
Islam, 171–2, 174–5, 177 Lacoste, Yves, 124
Ismailbekova, Aksana, 395 Lall, Marie, 196
Israel Lambourne, Wendy, 7, 247
collapse of state authority, 398
The Lancet, 131
colonialism, 399
language barriers, talking points
Egyptian–Israeli peace agreement, 400
academic ‘others,’ research storylines,
Gaza school attack, 194
274–6
‘humanitarian’ interventions, 243
desecuritization, human security, 278–9
Israeli–Palestinian conflict, 404–7
territorial conflicts, 127 ‘everyday,’ ‘local,’ 278
US support, 466 peace as essentially contested concept
Issues in Education and Culture, 132 (ECC), 274
peace, security lexicon, 272
Jabri, Vivienne, 6, 154 speech acts, securitization, 276–7
Jackson, Michael, 301 subaltern, forgotten speakers, 277
Jana Karaliya/Makkal Kalari, 88–9 trends, ‘the unknown,’ 279
Jana Sanskriti, 91–2 Latour, Bruno, 261
Jeng, Abou, 256 law of unintended consequences, liberal
Jenkins, Catherine, 126, 132 forms of governance, 37–8
Jessop, Bob, 119 Layne, Christopher, 28
Jones, Shelley McKeown, 6, 220 Leader, Nicholas, 238
justice components, 13 League of Nations, 250
Just War and International Order Lederach, John P, 39, 90, 168, 177, 364
(Rengger), 47
Levine, Donald, 327
Levine, Donald N, 327
Kabamba, Patience, 320
Lewin, K, 226
Kagan, Robert, 414, 419
Kalinovsky, Artemy, 123 Lewis, David, 9, 13, 14, 23, 387
Kalyvas, Stathis, 102 liberal forms of governance
Kant, Immanuel, 23, 26, 48–50, 49–50, 59, emergency peace governance, 35
249, 250, 412, 419, 469 law of unintended consequences and,
Kappler, Stefanie, 431 37–8
Keane, Fergal, 209 limits, false assumptions of, 37–8
Kearns, Gerry, 127 liberal global logistics, 337–8
Kegley Jr, Charles W., 227 critique, 338–9
Index 563
liberal peace (LP) model, conflict Middle East, North Africa

resolution (CR), 16 Arab-Israeli reconciliation, 400
sociological critique of, 95–101 hegemonic modes of pacification, 9–10,
sociological (re)construction, towards 398–400, 407–8
critical peace, 101–5 interstate wars, 399
liberal peace, state sovereignty, 256–7 Israeli-Palestinian peace process,
Lijphart, Arend, 368 diplomacy, 404–7
Liu, Morgan, 390, 392 sectarian conflicts, state formation,
local agency 401–3
Balkans and, 433 Sunni-Shi’a conflict, 401–3
grassroots movements, 16 US influence, 403
hybrid agency and, 158–159, 426 Millennium Campaign, 144–5
Palestinian nation and, 406–407 Milliken, Jennifer, 277
South Africa and, 294–295 Mills, W. Charles, 28
South Asia and, 367, 372 Mitchell, Audra, 110, 115
local ownership, 115 Moe, W. Louise, 40
Afghanistan and, 371 Montesquieu, 49–50
DRC and, 312 Morgenthau, Hans, 466, 467
India and, 383 Mostowlansky, Till, 389
localized social economies vs. neoliberal Moyo, Dambisa, 147
formations, 110–11 Muppidi, Himadeep, 164
Locke, John, 469 Murtagh, Brendan, 5, 110
Lynch, March, 26
Nader, Kathleen O., 211
Maathai, Wangari, 147 Nathan, Laurie, 382
Macedonia, 428, 432 A Natural History of Peace (Gregor), 24
Mac Ginty, Roger, 445 Needham, Joseph, 25
Mackinder, Halford, 124–7, 125, 133 Nef, John, 28
Macrae, Joanna, 238 negative forms of peace, 17
Maleševic, Siniša, 101, 103 IR theory and, 63
Mamadouh, Virginie, 123, 126 liberalism and, 48
Mann, Michael, 102 negative vs. forms of peace, 97, 184
Marcum, Edward, 114 negative vs. positive forms of peace, 225,
marginalization, 212, 214, 268, 280, 303, 226, 247, 254, 468, 471
368, 378, 402 Horn of Africa and, 325
of women, 181 North America and, 465
Marxism, 59–60 patriarchal structures, gendered agency
Maull, Hanns, 414 and, 185, 187
McConnell, Fiona, 5, 123 South America and, 441
McKeown, Shelley, 6, 220 negotiation, 26, 128, 236, 414, 419
mediation, 256, 268, 326, 407 Japan-China, 357
North America, 463, 465, 470 pastoral periphery, peace as, 330–3
South Africa and, 382 Nelson, Linden L, 229
West Africa and, 299, 303, 304, 309 neoliberalism, politics of peace,
Megoran, Nick, 5, 123, 392 111–14
Melko, Matthew, 23 neo-Marxist dependency theory,
Melman, Seymour, 31 140–1
Mersheimer, John J, 466, 467 Nepal, South Asia, 371–2
564 Index
New Institutionalism economics, local-liberal exchanges, 481–2

142–3 Pacific Island Forum (PIF), 477
New Wars thesis, emergency peace states, regional organizations, liberal
governance, 36 peace, 477–8
Ngwane, Trevor, 294 pacifism, 45–8
Nkrumah, Kwame, 161, 163 pacifism to violence, humans’ attempt at
Noel-Baker, P. J., 28 infinitude, 175–7
nomadic foragers, war-peace controversy, Pact of Paris (Kellogg-Braind) Pact, 252–3
72–4 Pakistan, 368
non-Northern actors, 2 Palestine
normative vs. scientific approaches to colonialism, 399, 407
peace, 11 Divestment and Sanctions campaign,
North America 470
American exceptionalism, 468 Israel’s control, 405–6
normative vs. scientific approaches to new wars, 207
peace, 11 peace process, 400
peace as dependent variable in US intervention, 466
liberalism, 468–9 Zionist movement, 404
peace discourses, research studies in, Palmieri, Daniel, 241
464–5 Paris, Roland, 208
realism paradigm for peace in, 466–8 Patterson, S. David, 22
social movements, academic PCIJ, see Permanet Court of International
practitioners, 469–71 Justice
US foreign policy goals, 463–4 peace
North, Douglass C, 40
divergent concepts of, 13–14
Northern Ireland, 112, 116–17, 119
internal/local debates, 2
Nuclear Test-ban Treaty, 28
peace agreements, 400, 481
Nye, Joseph, 50
peace and critical IR theory, 61–64
Nygaard, Jon, 86
peace formation, 120, 408
peacebuilding vs., 111
Oakeshott, Michael, 49, 52, 55, 74
peacebuilding as machinery of
Odendaal, Andries, 7, 287, 378, 446
government, 155–60
Ohaegbulam, Festus Ugboaja, 301
Olonisakin, Funmi, 304, 305 Peacebuilding Commmisison (UN), 146
O’Loughlin, John, 126 peaceful dispute settlement, arms control,
On Human Conduct (Oakeshott), 74 disarmament, 250–1
“Outline of Political Geography” peaceful societies, belief systems, 70–1
(Horrabin), 126 peace history
Oxford International Encyclopedia of classical peace, 24–5
Peace, 27 defined, 22
historian studies, 21–2
Pacific Island Forum (PIF), 477 in modern age, 25–7
Pacific region, 11 in twentieth century, 27–9
Bougainville, 481–4 Pearce, Jenny, 10, 450
communities, everyday life, local Peck, Jamie, 110, 112
notions of peace, 478–80 Peou, Sorpong, 8, 336
decolonization of, 11, 476 Pepper, David, 126
international-grassroots interaction, periodization of peace, 22–4
482–4 Permanent Court of International Justice
local-hybrid forms of peace, 481 (PCIJ), 250
Index 565
Perpetual Peace (Kant), 249 religion and peace, 6

Peterson, Jenny H, 7, 233 Buddhism, 170–1, 174, 176
Pham, Phuong, 314, 315, 317, 321 Christianity, 171, 174, 176
Pherali, Tejendra Jnawali, 6, 14, 193 Golden Rule, peace, nonviolence,
philosophical approaches to peace disinterested self, 172–5
democratic peace theses, 49–52 Hinduism, 169–70, 173–4, 176
pacifism and, 45–8 Islam, 171–2, 174–5, 177
regime type and, 48–53 pacifism to violence, humans’ attempt
PIF, see Pacific Island Forum at infinitude, 175–7
Pinker, Steven, 23, 72–4, 79 Remaining Pages of History, 86–7
Pogodda, Sandra, 1, 14, 398 Rengger, Nicholas, 4, 45, 47
Political Geography, 131 The Responsibility to Protect (ICISS), 337
The Political Geography of Conflict and Peace revolutions, 14, 102
(Kliot, Waterman), 127 Ethiopia, 327–8, 332
Political Order in Changing Societies Latin America and, 439
(Huntington), 140 South Asia, 367
Posner, Eric A., 46 Richardson, F. Lewis, 23
post-Cold War approaches to Richards, Paul, 301
development, 142–6 Richmond, Oliver P., 1, 4, 57, 110, 111,
post-colonialism 115, 120, 123, 172, 216, 217, 344,
colonial rationality and, 155 380, 426, 439
historical context, 154–5 Romania, 428
Rostow, W. W., 140
international political economy of
peacebuilding, 160–3 Royal Geographical Society, 130
R2P doctrine, 188
interventionist capacity and, 156–7
peacebuilding as machinery of
government, 155–60 Sachs, Jeffrey, 147
self-governance and, 156–9 Sachs, Wolfgang, 142
third wave feminist analysis, 184 Sachs,Wolfgang, 142
post-liberal peace, 372, 485 Said, Edward, 156, 160
Pratt, Nichola, 210 Saltarelli, Diana, 199, 200
Sarwanam theatre group, 86–7
Premaratna, Nilanjana, 5, 82
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, 168
proportional representation (PR) model,
Schober, Juliane, 176
290–1
security studies, 7
Pugh, Michael, 110, 119
self-determination, 14–15
Selimovic, Johanna Mannergren, 6, 181
Rahman, Zia Haider, 164 Sen, Amartya, 143, 365
Ramović, Jasmin, 1, 10, 216, 424 Service, Ivan, 85
Ramsbotham, Oliver, 100 Severin, Adrian, 425
RAND Corporation, 35 Sharify-Funk, Meena, 132
Rastello, Luca, 416 Sheppard, Eric, 131
Ratzel, Friedrich, 124 Sherif, Muzafer, 221
Reardon, Betty, 190 Sierra Leone
Reconstructing Conflict (Kirsch, Flint), 129 Community Action for Psychosocial
Red Cross, 48 Services (CAPS), 307–9
regime types, 48–53 international/grassroots peacebuilding,
regional approaches, summary, 7–11 306–9
relative deprivation theory, 288–9 Sikkink, Kathryn, 252
566 Index
Simojoki, Maria V., 40 dignity, inclusion in, 294

Singer, P. W, 208 governance, incomplete peace, 7–8
Singh, Sushant K., 383 Growth, Employment and
Sitas, Ari, 103, 104 Redistribution programme (GEAR),
Snyder, Jack, 338 292–4
social businesses, 114–15 neoliberalism and, 292–4
social economics as site of resistance, poverty, joblessness, inequality, 288–9
114–16 proportional representation (PR) model
social economy characteristics, 114 and, 290–1
social enterprises, urban peacebuilding, protest trends, 290–1
116–20 rebellion of poor, community protest
social investment, innovation, 115–16 statistics, 287–8
social peace practices, 15 Reconciliation Barometer, Institute for
see also liberal peace model Justice and Reconciliation, 291
social psychology, 6–7 relative deprivation theory, 288–9
contact hypothesis, 224 United Democratic Front (UDF), 295
current debates, levels of analysis South America, 10
question, 229–30 Columbia, local-level peacebuilding
current debates, methodological issues, initiatives (LPBIs), 438–9,
228–9 444–8
definition of peace, changes in, 224–5 Columbia, Montes de María, 438,
intergroup bias, 222 443–4
intergroup conflict, violence, 222–3
Latin American context, 439–40
intergroup contact, 223–4
local-level peacebuilding initiatives
intergroup relations, 220, 223
(LPBIs), 438–9
Robbers Cave Experiment, 224
peacebuilding after Cold War, 441–3
social identity theory, 222
South Asia
social influence, situational power,
Afghanistan, 371
220–1
demographics, 363–4
social-psychological study of peace,
group rights, minority ethnic violence,
225–6
373
Söderberg, P., 73
India, 365–70
Solomon Islands, violent conflicts, 480
Somalia multi-cultural democracy, 9
conflict-prone regions, 325 Nepal, 371–2
external engagement, 333 outside actors, 371–2
political system, 331–2 Pakistan, 368
Politicization of humanitarianism, 240 peace development in, 364–7
Somaliland peace empowerment in, 367–70
conflict-prone regions, 325 South-East Asia, 335
political system, 331–2 Cambodia, Extraordinary Chambers in
Sorokin, Pitirim, 23 the Court of Cambodia (ECCC), 340
Souillac, Geneviève, 4, 69 Cambodia, Khmer Rouge armed conflict
South Africa and resistance, 339–40
African National Congress (ANC), liberal frameworks, 8–9
289–93 peacebuilding, responsibility to protect,
Centre for the Study of Violence and 337
Reconciliation (CSVR) report, 295 peace through retribution, 336,
democratic order at risk, 294–5 340–2
Index 567
peace through retributive justice, Tajfel, Henri, 222

340–2 Tajikistan
retributive justice resistance, 342–3 aftermath of Soviet collapse, 387–8
Timor-Leste armed conflict, violence, civil war, 394
formal justice, 343 Economic systems, 393
Timor-Leste, limits/dangers of Ideas of unity, 391–2
retribution, 344–5 post-conflict peace efforts, 389–90
Timor-Leste, peace after 2009 Taplin, Oliver, 24
explanation, 345 Tardy, Thierry, 380
United Nations Transitional Authority Taylor, Griffith, 126
in East Timor (UNTAET), 343 Teitel, Ruti G, 257
Spencer, Tanya, 240 Theidon, Kimberley, 213
Spivak, Gayatri C, 160 On the Law of War and Peace (Grotius), 248
Springer, Simon, 133 In the Light of What We Know (Rahman),
Spykman, Nicholas, 124–6 164
Sriram, Chandra L, 338 The Military Essentials of Japanese
SRRP, see Stewartstown Road Regeneration Geography (Wendong), 359
Project, social impact analysis Theodore, Nik, 112
Stabilization and Recovery Funding Tickell, Adam, 110, 112
Facility (SRFF), 237 Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF),
Stages of Economic Growth: A 328
Non-Communist Manifesto (Rostow),
Timor-Leste (East Timor)
140
armed conflict, violence, formal justice,
Stanley, Elizabeth, 344
343
state institutions, 14
limits/dangers of retribution,
statebuilding, 3, 15, 95, 99, 145, 196, 241,
344–5
245, 256, 300, 306, 315, 367, 464,
peace after 2009, 345
468, 478
United Nations Transitional
Balkans and, 35
Authority in East Timor
Staub, Ervin, 223
(UNTAET), 343
Stewartstown Road Regeneration Project
Todd, Molly, 456
(SRRP), social impact analysis,
Todorova, Maria, 425, 427
117–20, 119f
Tom, Patrick, 8, 299
structural violence, 77, 140–141, 143,
TPLF, see Tigray People’s Liberation Front
172–173, 317, 336–337
Trimikliniotis, Nicos, 5, 95
Chrisitanity and, 171
Tritle, Lawrence A, 25
Horn of Africa and, 325–326
truth and reconciliation commission
Islam and, 174
(TRC) models, 214–15
patriarchal structures and, 185
Tuchman, Barbara, 26
social-psychology study of peace and,
Turner, Mandy, 110
225
South America and, 441 Tyner, James, 132
subaltern, 62, 110, 120, 147, 149, 156,
160–161 UDF, see United Democratic Front
forgotten speakers and, 277, 280 UN Declaration on the Rights of
Subsaharan Africa, 142 Indigenous Peoples, 259
Suu Kyi, Aung San, 170, 172, 174 UN international peace architecture,
Suzuki, Shogo, 353 247–8
Swain, Ashok, 9, 363, 378 United Democratic Front (UDF), 295
568 Index
United Nations Convention on the Rights Waterman, Stanley, 127

of the Child (UNCRC), 206 Watson, Alison M. S, 6, 206
United Nations Development Program Weigel, Richard, 23
(UNDP), 143 Wendong, Yao, 359
United Nations Transitional Authority in West Africa
East Timor (UNTAET), 343 conflicts in, 300–3
UNSCR 1325, 188 democratization in, 303
UN Security Council (UNSC), 33, Economic Community of
252–4 West Africa (ECOWAS), 8, 299–300,
UNTAET, see United Nations Transitional 303–6
Authority in East Timor international actors, 300
UN Working Group for Indigenous Sierra Leone, Community Action for
Peoples, 260 Psychosocial Services (CAPS),
uprisings 307–9
Arab, 397, 400 Sierra Leone, international/grassroots
political, 198 peacebuilding, 306–9
South Asia, 364, 367 Whose Peace? Critical Perspectives
Urdal, Henrik, 199 on the Political Economy of
US modernization theory, 140 Peacebuilding (Pugh, Cooper, Turner),
Uzbekistan 110
aftermath of Soviet collapse, 387–8 Williams, Philippa, 5, 123
violent conflicts, 393 WILPF, see Woman’s International
League for Peace and
van der Wusten, Herman, 126 Freedom
Vasiliev, Sergey, 344 Wittner, Lawrence, 21, 28
Väyrynen, Tarja, 207 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 183
Vickers, Brendan, 383 Women, Peace and Security agenda (WPS),
Vinck, Patrick, 314, 315, 317, 321 188
Vinjamuri, Leslie, 338 Women’s International League
Vollhardt, Johanna K., 225, 229 for Peace and Freedom
(WILPF), 183
Waever, Ole, 61, 376 Woolf, Virginia, 183
Wainwright, Joel, 131 Woon, Chih-Yuan, 129
Walker, Polly O., 7, 259 World Bank and, 141, 142–4
Walker, R. B. J, 64 WPS, see Women, Peace and Security
Wallensteen, Peter, 27, 29 agenda
Wallis, Joanne, 476
Walt, Stephen, 466 Yanomamö of South America, 74
Waltz, Kenneth, 58 Yoder, John H, 46–8, 174
Walzer, Michael, 46 Yugoslavia, 428–9
War and God (Levine), 327
Wasilewski, Jacqualine, 75, 76 Zimmern, Alfred, 50

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ISBN 978-1-137-40760-3 ISBN 978-1-137-40761-0 (eBook)

List of Figures viii

Notes on the Editors x

Notes on the Contributors xi

Part I Disciplinary Perspectives

2 Politics and Governance: From Emergency to Emergence 32

3 The Philosophy of Peace 45

4 Peace in International Relations Theory 57

5 Anthropology: Implications for Peace 69

6 Arts and Theatre for Peacebuilding 82

7 Sociology: A Sociological Critique of Liberal Peace 95

8 Economics: Neoliberal Peace and the Politics of Social Economics 110

9 Geography and Peace 123

10 Peace and Development Studies 139

11 Post-Colonialism: A Post-Colonial Perspective on Peacebuilding 154

12 Religion: Peace through Non-Violence in Four Religious

13 Gender: The Missing Piece in the Peace Puzzle 181

14 Education: Cultural Reproduction, Revolution and Peacebuilding

15 Children and Peace 206

16 Social Psychology and Peace 220

17 Humanitarianism and Peace 233

18 International Law: To End the Scourge of War . . . and to Build a

19 Indigeneity and Peace 259

20 Critical Security Studies and Alternative Dialogues for Peace:

Part II Regional Perspectives

22 Peace in West Africa 299

23 The Great Lakes Region of Africa: Local Perspectives on Liberal

24 Peace in the Horn of Africa 325

25 Peace through Retribution or Reconciliation? Some Insights and

26 East Asia: Understanding the Broken Harmony in Confucian Asia 350

27 Human Development and Minority Empowerment: Exploring

29 Central Asia: Contested Peace 387

30 Middle East and North Africa: Hegemonic Modes of Paciﬁcation

31 Peace in Europe 411

32 Peace in the Balkans: (En)countering the European Other 424

33 Peacebuilding in South America 438

34 Central America: From War to Violence 450

35 North America: Peace Studies versus the Hegemony of Realist and

36 Peace in the Paciﬁc: Grounded in Local Custom, Adapting to

8.1 SRRP social impact analysis 119

Oliver P. Richmond is Research Professor of IR, Peace and Conﬂict Studies in

Sandra Pogodda is Lecturer in Peace and Conﬂict Studies in the Humanitarian

Jasmin Ramović is a doctoral candidate at the Humanitarian and Conﬂict

Roberto Belloni is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Univer-

Annika Björkdahl is Professor of Political Science at Lund University, Sweden.

Roland Bleiker is Professor of International Relations at the University of

Roddy Brett is a lecturer at the School of International Relations, University

Josaphat Musamba Bussy is an instructor of graduate courses in international

Henry F. (Chip) Carey is Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia

David Chandler is Professor of International Relations and Director of the

Ching-Chang Chen is an associate professor in the Department of Global

Daniel Christie is professor emeritus at Ohio State University, Visiting

Christopher Clapham is based at the Centre of African Studies, Cambridge

Bennett Collins is a research fellow with the Centre for Global

Faye Donnelly is a lecturer in the School of International Relations at the

Diana Florez is a practitioner who works at the United Nations Development

Douglas P. Fry is a professor and chair of the Anthropology Department at

Carol Jean Gallo is a PhD student at Cambridge University. Her disserta-

Caron E. Gentry is a lecturer in the School of International Relations at the

Caroline Hughes is Professor of Conﬂict Resolution and Peace at the Univer-

Vivienne Jabri is Professor of International Politics in the Department of War