https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9418-969X
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ABSTRACT
Liberal peacebuilding’s imperfect record of involving local actors in rebuilding post-conflict societies paved the way for the local turn in peacebuilding. One of the issues the local turn highlights is local involvement in peacebuilding processes. Drawing from the experiences of previous peacebuilding missions in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste, this paper contributes to the local turn by identifying the types of local involvement in peacebuilding and their consequences on post-conflict societies. This identification could be useful in steering the local turn away from the same flawed local involvement that brought liberal peacebuilding into crisis. The analysis in this paper demonstrates how exclusive, superficial, non-representative, and politicized types of local involvement failed to achieve or sustain peace in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste. The conflict-promoting tendencies of these types of local involvement make a case for a normative agenda that is inclusive, substantive, representative, and transformative.
Acknowledgements
This research would not have been completed without the research support of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Australian National University, and the academic guidance of Luke Glanville, Joanne Wallis, Benjamin Zala, and Hiroya Sugita.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Dahlia Simangan is an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of International Cooperation and Development (IDEC) and Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability (NERPS) at Hiroshima University in Japan. She is formerly a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the United Nations University in Tokyo. She holds a PhD in International, Political, and Strategic Studies from the Australian National University.
ORCID
Dahlia Simangan http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9418-969X
Notes
1 For example, Chesterman, You, the People; Duffield, Global Governance; Tadjbakhsh, Rethinking the Liberal Peace.
2 Leonardsson and Rudd, “The Local Turn.”
3 World Bank, World Development Report.
4 UN Doc. A/69/968-S/2015/490. Although the review has a strong stance against external actors imposing peace on post-conflict societies, it is also a reiteration of previous recommendations for external actors to facilitate instead of leading the achievement of peace and development. UN Doc. S/2001/394, 2.
5 Ibid., 5.
6 UN Doc. S/2001/394, 7.
7 Simangan, International Peacebuilding. The types of local involvement in peacebuilding are derived from a more comprehensive analysis of UN transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste. This paper, however, focuses on the normative agenda for peacebuilding using the types of local involvement as supporting evidence.
8 Paris, At War’s End.
9 For the cases of Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste see Franks and Richmond, “Coopting Liberal Peace-building”; Lemay-Hébert, “The Empty-shell”; Öjendal and Ou, “The Local Turn”; and Richmond and Franks, “Liberal Peacebuilding,” respectively.
10 Campbell, Chandler, and Sabaratnam, Liberal Peace?; Chandler, Peacebuilding; Cooper, “On the Crisis.”
11 For example, Andrieu, “Civilizing Peacebuilding”; Mitchell, “Peace Beyond Process?”
12 Hughes, Öjendal, and Schierenbeck, “The Struggle.”
13 Leonardsson and Rudd, “The Local Turn.”
14 Paffenholz, “Unpacking the Local,” 860.
15 Ibid., 857, 861.
16 Mac Ginty and Richmond, “The Local Turn”; Schierenbeck, “Beyond the Local.”
17 Hirblinger and Simons, “The Good”; Kappler, “The Dynamic Local”; Mac Ginty, “Where Is the Local?”
18 See Donais, “Empowerment or Imposition”; Hellmüller, “The Ambiguities”; Thiessen, “Local Ownership.”
19 Nathan, “No Ownership,” 4.
20 von Billerbeck, “Local Ownership.”
21 Ibid.
22 Lemay-Hébert and Kappler, “What Attachment.”
23 Donais, “Empowerment of Imposition,” 7.
24 Richmond, “Beyond Local,” 359.
25 Stedman, “Spoiler Problems.”
26 Paris, At War’s End, 7.
27 Jarstad, Dilemmas of War-to-Democracy.
28 Hughes, Öjendal, and Schierenbeck, “The Struggle.” 818.
29 Belloni, “Hybrid Peace Governance,” 33–4.
30 Ibid.
31 Mac Ginty, “No War”; see also, Mac Ginty, “Hybrid Peace”; Richmond, “A Post-liberal Peace.”
32 Moe and Stepputat, “Introduction”; Peter, “UN Peace Operations.”
33 de Coning, “Adaptive Peacebuilding”; see also, Chandler, Resilience.
34 Call and de Coning, “Conclusion.”
35 Galtung, “Violence, Peace.”
36 Lederach, Building Peace; Preparing for Peace.
37 Lederach, Preparing for Peace.
38 Donais, “Peacebuilding and Local Ownership.”
39 Paris, “Saving Liberal Peacebuilding.” Paris argued in 2010 that liberal peacebuilding was the only available legitimate and functioning framework at that time given the absence of clear, plausible, and less problematic alternatives.
40 Lederach, Preparing for Peace, 22.
41 Schaefer, “Local Practices.”
42 Neufeldt, “Ethics of Peacebuilding”; see also, Neufeldt, “Doing Good Better.”
43 Ibid.
44 Björkdahl and Höglund, “Precarious Peacebuilding.”
45 Rowley, “The Making.”
46 von Billerbeck, “Local Ownership.”
47 UNMIK official, personal interview, Prishtina, May 2014.
48 UN Doc. S/2006/353.
49 UNMIK’s attempts to involve the Serb elite in the transitional administration did not come into fruition because of the persistence of Serb-controlled structures aligned with Belgrade and operating only in parallel with UNMIK and the mistrust of Serb communities towards UNMIK, which they perceived as biased towards the Albanians and a dent to Serbia’s sovereignty. These difficulties were compounded by the lack of political will and of an agreed comprehensive strategy for integration. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Parallel Structures.
50 A former legal system monitor for OSCE, Skype interview, Canberra, November 2013; see also, Hartmann, International Judges.
51 Simangan, “A Detour.”
52 UN Doc. UNTAET/REG/2001/2.
53 Wallis, “Victors, Villains.”
54 Wallis, “Constitution Making,” 318.
55 Rees, Under Pressure.
56 UN Independent Special Commission of Inquiry for Timor-Leste, Report of the United Nations, 24.
57 Richmond, “Beyond Local,” 365.
58 Paris, “Peacebuilding and the Limits.”
59 CTF, Final Report.
60 For example, Bhuta, “East Timor”; Kent, “Interrogating the Gap”; Amnesty International UK, “Indonesia”; ETAN, “ETAN Supports.”
61 For example, Bowman, “Letting the Big Fish”; de Bertodano, “Current Developments.”
62 Mari Alkatiri and Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo supported the recommendations for an international tribunal while Xanana Gusmão and José Ramos-Horta worked towards political reconciliation with Indonesia.
63 Grenfell, “When Remembering.”
64 Kosovo politician, personal interview, Prishtina, May 2014.
65 Suhrke, “Peacekeepers as Nation-builders.”
66 Chopra, “Introductory Note.”
67 Former UNMIK official, personal interview, Prishtina, May 2014.
68 Security sector reform expert in Kosovo, personal interview, Prishtina, May 2014.
69 Personal interviews, Prishtina, May 2014.
70 Simangan, “When Hybridity.”
71 Barria and Roper, “Providing Justice.”
72 Ledgerwood, “Patterns of CPP.”
73 Dicklitch and Malik, “Justice, Human Rights.”
74 Everyday elements of peace are those ‘culturally appropriate form of individual or community life and care.’ Richmond, “A Post-liberal Peace,” 558.
75 Cambodian peacebuilding scholar, Skype interview, Phnom Penh, January 2014.
76 UN Doc. UNTAET/REG/2001/10.
77 Shaw and Waldorf, “Localizing Transitional Justice.”
78 McRae, “Truth-seeking for Justice.”
79 Personal interview, Dili, March 2014.
80 CAVR, “Chega!”
81 Himaduna, Gender Mainstreaming; Howard, Municipal Spatial Planning.
82 UN-Habitat, Setting Up.
83 Ibid., 2.
84 Women’s rights advocate in Timor-Leste and former member of Women’s Network of Timor-Leste (Rede Feto Timór Lorosa’e in Tetun language), personal interview, Dili, March 2014; see also, Cristalis and Scott, “Independent Women.”
85 Timorese women’s rights activists, personal interviews, Dili, March 2014.
86 Former UNTAET official, Skype interview, Canberra, October 2013.
87 Ibid.
88 Ibid.
89 See also, Visoka and Richmond, “After Liberal Peace,” 114.
90 Roberts, “Post-conflict Peacebuilding,” 421.