Between War and the Liberal Peace: The Politics of NGO Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This article explores the interface between international and local approaches to peacebuilding by analysing the experience of two national NGOs involved in peacebuilding work in Sri Lanka between 2006 and 2008. During this transitional period, Sri Lanka's fragile peace process began to unravel. This analysis uses the lens of NGO legitimacy to reflect on the dilemmas and tensions associated with the liberal peacebuilding project and NGOs' role within it. It identifies a critical tension between liberal cosmopolitan and nationalist models of political engagement, which NGOs and the international donors that supported them struggled to negotiate. It argues that NGOs' efforts to reconcile international and local peacebuilding agendas involve uncomfortable trade-offs, and that these processes of negotiation are influenced by NGOs' concerns about organizational survival.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This article is based on research funded by grants from the School of Oriental and African Studies and the University of London. I am grateful to Jonathan Goodhand, Jonathan Spencer and David Lewis for their constructive feedback on this research, and to Danielle Beswick and two anonymous referees who provided comments on the article. An earlier draft was presented at the British Association of South Asian Studies Conference in Edinburgh in 2009. I am grateful to the chair and other panel members (Tony Good, Becky Walker, Ariel Sanchez Meertens and Mihirini Sirisena) for their helpful comments.

Notes

Michael Barnett and Christoph Zuercher, ‘The Peacebuilder's Contract: How External Statebuilding Reinforces Weak Statehood’, in Roland Paris and Timothy D. Sisk (eds), The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations, London: Routledge, 2009; Oliver Richmond and Jason Franks, Liberal Peace Transitions: Between Statebuilding and Peacebuilding, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009; Jonathan Goodhand and Oliver Walton, ‘The Limits of Liberal Peacebuilding? International Engagement in the Sri Lankan Peace Process’, Journal of Statebuilding and Intervention, Vol.3, No.3, 2009, pp. 303–23; Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Hybrid Peace: The Interaction between Top-Down and Bottom-Up Peace’, Security Dialogue, Vol.41, 2010, pp.391–412.

Oliver Richmond, ‘The Dilemmas of Subcontracting the Liberal Peace’, in Oliver Richmond and Henry Carey (eds), Subcontracting Peace: The Challenges of NGO Peacebuilding, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005; Oliver Walton, ‘Conflict, Peacebuilding and NGO legitimacy: National NGOs in Sri Lanka’, Conflict, Security and Development, Vol.8, No.1, 2008, pp.133–67.

Richmond (see n.2 above), p.26.

Mark Suchman, ‘Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and Institutional Approaches’, Academy of Management Review, Vol.20, 1995, pp.374–5.

See Michael Edwards and David Hulme (eds), NGOs, States and Donors: Too Close for Comfort?, Basingstoke: Macmillan and Save the Children, 1997.

Sarah Lister, ‘NGO Legitimacy: Technical Issue or Social Construct?’, Critique of Anthropology, Vol.23, No.2, 2003, pp.175–92.

Vivienne Collingwood and Louis Logister, ‘State of the Art: Addressing the INGO “Legitimacy Deficit”', Political Studies Review, Vol.3, No.2, 2005, p.178.

David Roberts, ‘Post-conflict Statebuilding and State Legitimacy: From Negative to Positive Peace?’, Development and Change, Vol.39, No.4, 2008, pp.537–55; Department for International Development, Building Peaceful States and Societies: A DFID Practice Paper, London, 2010; Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), ‘Peacebuilding and Statebuilding: Priorities and Challenges’, Synthesis Paper, International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding, Paris, 2010; Eli Moen and Stein Sundstøl, Political Economy Analysis with a Legitimacy Twist: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?, Oslo: NORAD, 2010.

The ceasefire agreement between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was signed in February 2002. For more background see Walton (n.2 above).

Oliver Walton with Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, ‘In the Balance? Civil Society and the Peace Process 2002–2008’, in Jonathan Goodhand, Jonathan Spencer and Benedikt Korf (eds), Conflict and Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka: Caught in the Peace Trap?, London: Routledge, 2011, pp.183–200.

Walton (see n.2 above).

Walton with Saravanamuttu (see n.10 above).

Oliver Richmond, ‘The Problem of Peace: Understanding the “Liberal Peace”’, Conflict, Security and Development, Vol.6, No.3, 2006, pp. 291–314.

Walton with Saravanamuttu (see n.10 above).

Mark Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War, London: Polity, 2007.

John Heathershaw, ‘Unpacking the Liberal Peace: Dividing and Merging of Peacebuilding Discourses’, Millennium, Vol.36, 2008, pp.597–621; Richmond (see n.2 above).

Walton with Saravanamuttu (see n.10 above).

Sarvodaya Shramadana broadly translates as ‘the awakening of all through shared labour’.

‘Our Vision’, FCE website (at: www.fce.lk/OurVision.aspx), 12 Nov. 2009 (now offline).

Walton (see n.2 above).

NAWF, ‘Briefing Paper (Draft) on a Re-strategizing Framework for the NAWF Network’, 2006.

Nalani Hennayake, Culture, Politics and Development in Postcolonial Sri Lanka, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006.

Walton (see n.2 above).

See Suchman (n.4 above).

See ibid., p.575.

Jonathan Spencer, Anthropology, Politics and the State: Democracy and Violence in South Asia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

See Michel Feher, Nongovernmental Politics, New York: Zone Books, 2007.

The JVP are a youth-based Sinhala nationalist political party that initiated two armed uprisings against the government in 1971 and between 1987 and 1989.

See, for instance, Rajpal Abeynayake, ‘This Is a Hostile Interview – Kumar Rupesinghe’, Sunday Observer, 2 Oct. 2006.

Acting politically was often seen as synonymous with working nationally in the accounts of many NGOs. One organization, for example, stated, ‘[w]e are mostly working with community directly. We don't get into the political agenda, we mostly focus on the community issues.’ Author's interview with leader of small peacebuilding NGO, Colombo, 26 Sept. 2006.

Interviews with NGO leaders, Colombo, 26 Sept. 2006, 11 Oct. 2006, 14 Feb. 2007.

Interview with NGO leader, Colombo, 4 May 2007.

Interview with NGO leader, Colombo, 6 May 2007.

Prayathna, ‘Mission Statement’, 2008.

NAWF, ‘No to Violence Campaign’, brief, 2008.

Ibid.

Raymond Bryant, Nongovernmental Organizations in Environmental Struggles: Politics and the Making of Moral Capital, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.

Interview with national NGO leader, 11 Nov. 2008; informal discussions with NGO commentator, 14 Mar. 2009.

These impressions are based on several interviews with various national and local NGOs in Colombo, Kandy and Galle between 2006 and 2007.

Interview with representative of national NGO, Colombo, 15 Mar. 2007.

Interview with donor representative, Colombo, 4 May 2007.

Interview with senior staff member, Moratuwa, 14 Feb. 2007.

Ibid.

Interview with national NGO leader, 11 Dec. 2008.

Michael Barnett, ‘Building a Republican Peace: Stabilizing States after War’, International Security, Vol.30, No.4, 2006, pp.87–112.

See David Rampton and Asanga Welikala, ‘Would the Real Dutugemunu Please Stand Up? The Politics of Sinhala Nationalist Authenticity and Populist Discontent’, in Jonathan Goodhand, Jonathan Spencer and Benedikt Korf (eds), Conflict and Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka: Caught in the Peace Trap?, London: Routledge, 2011, pp.92–105.

Norbert Ropers, ‘Systemic Conflict Transformation: Reflections on the Conflict and Peace Process in Sri Lanka’, in Daniela Körppen, Beatrix Schmelzle and Oliver Wils (eds), A Systemic Approach to Conflict Transformation. Exploring Strengths and Limitations, Berlin: Berghof Conflict Research, 2008, pp.11–41.