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Abstract
The trajectory of the liberal peacebuilding project has encountered a fundamental critique of its failure to deliver the expected sustainable peace. This paper questions the approach with which it has been, and largely still is, pursued. We reflect on a more communicative, nuanced, contextual and time-bound approach. In particular, we identify the failure of the liberal peace to localise peace and to make it a part of everyday life in Cambodia. Nevertheless, we claim that liberal peace has unintentionally created space for progress, while a ‘local turn’ has proved significant. We demonstrate empirically that certain forms of local and everyday peace have emerged for the ‘wrong’ reason, and may evolve further. Hence, a local peace has gradually sunk in, although its liberal foundations remain virtual.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank several contributors from within this issue for constructive comments, as well as participants at workshops in Bradford and Stockholm, respectively in 2013 and 2014. In addition, two anonymous reviewers brought several important points forward.
Notes
1. Roberts, Liberal Peacebuilding.
2. Richmond and Franks, “Liberal Hubris?”
3. Paris, “Saving Liberal Peacebuilding.”
4. Jahn, “The Tragedy,” 87.
5. Cooper et al., “The End of History.”
6. Mac Ginty and Richmond, “The Local Turn”; Richmond and Mitchell, Hybrid Forms of Peace; Chandler, “Peacebuilding”; and Stern and Öjendal, “The Security–Development Nexus.”
7. Newman et al., New Perspectives; and Roberts, Liberal Peacebuilding.
8. Richmond, Maintaining Order, Making Peace.
9. Newman et al., New Perspectives, 15.
10. Mac Ginty, “Hybrid Peace,” 2011; and Richmond and Mitchell, Hybrid Forms of Peace.
11. Ramsbotham et al., Contemporary Conflict Resolution; and Lederach, Building Peace.
12. Cooper et al., “The End of History.”
13. Öjendal and Kim, “Korob, Kaud, Klach.”
14. Mehmet, “Development in a Wartorn Society”; Chandler, “The Burden of Cambodia’s Past”; Lizée, Peace, Power and Resistance; McCargo, “Cambodia”; Heder, “Hun Sen’s Consolidation”; and Roberts, Liberal Peacebuilding.
15. While we recognise a wealth of critical points, it should simultaneously be observed that the GDP per capita rose to roughly $931 in 2012, reducing poverty from 47.81% in 2007 to 19.83% in 2011. RGC, 2012 Annual Progress Report, 3. In other areas, child and infant mortality and HIV/AIDS prevalence have dropped and maternal has health improved significantly over the decade between 2000 and 2010. Ngo, “Cambodia Millennium Development Goals.”
16. UNTAC was the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia, a massive operation with a deeply interventionist design, and at the time the largest of its kind. Formally it lasted from 1 March 1992 to 1 September 1993. Doyle, UN Peacekeeping in Cambodia.
17. Paris, At War’s End, 79.
18. Roberts, “The Superficiality of Statebuilding,” 149.
19. Adler and So, “Toward Equity”; Öjendal and Lilja, Beyond Democracy; Hughes, Dependent Communities; Ou and Kim, “NGOs”; Paris, At War’s End; Peou, International Democracy Assistance; and Un, “Cambodia.”
20. IRI, Survey of Cambodian Public Opinion, 2008 and 2013. See also “Extended Interview: David Chandler by Kesha West.” July 29, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpkS24mHWiU.
21. NEC, “Temporary Result Announcement”; and COMFREL, Assessment.
22. “Extended Interview.”
23. Hughes, Dependent Communities.
24. This paper is based on four years of observation and research, an extensive review of a wide range of relevant international and local literature, and interviews and discussions with some 23 male and female (former) senior politicians and local civil servants from the ruling and opposition parties, scholars and observers in the field, donor and NGO representatives, conducted in 2010 and in July and November 2012, and followed up by a new round in spring 2014. Most interviews were held in Phnom Penh and Battambang provinces. Additional field observations were made in the three provinces of Takeo, Kampot and Kep for a one-week period in June 2013. A vast amount of primary and secondary literary research has been screened to underpin the claims in this paper.
25. Mac Ginty, “Hybrid Peace,” 2010, 399.
26. Paris, “Saving Liberal Peacebuilding,” 362. Cf. Greener, “Revisiting the Politics of Post-conflict Peacebuilding.”
27. Cf. Ottaway, “Rebuilding State Institutions.”
28. Chandler, “Peacebuilding”; and Roberts, Liberal Peacebuilding.
29. Tsing, Friction; and Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm.” Cf. Mac Ginty and Sanghera, “Hybridity in Peacebuilding.” See also Björkdahl and Höglund, “Precarious Peacebuilding”; Hughes, “Friction, Good Governance”; and Öjendal and Ou, “From Friction to Hybridity.”
30. Newman et al., New Perspectives. Cf. Roberts, Liberal Peacebuilding; and Paris, “International Peacebuilding.”
31. Boutros-Ghali, Report of the UN Secretary-General.
32. Ghani and Lockhart, Fixing Failed States.
33. Roberts, Liberal Peacebuilding.
34. Paris and Sisk, “Managing Contradictions”; Newman et al., New Perspectives; and Roberts, Liberal Peacebuilding.
35. In the post-9/11 world, failed states and civil war situations were seen as the primary threat to international stability. Newman et al., New Perspectives, 9. See also Ghani and Lockhart, Fixing Failed States.
36. Fukuyama, Statebuilding, 92.
37. A ‘fourth generation’ has also been discussed – ‘beyond liberal peace’, as Richmond coins it – but it is rarely actually seen in peacebuilding operations. Richmond, Maintaining Order, Making Peace; and Richmond, Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding, 2010.
38. Richmond, “Resistance and the Post-liberal Peace.” This is a familiar critique also in the development field. See Rist, The History of Development.
39. Mac Ginty, “Routine Peace”; and Öjendal and Lilja, Beyond Democracy. See also Scott, Seeing like a State, for a major argument on this theme, going far beyond the peacebuilding debate.
40. Van Leeuwen et al., “Thinking beyond the Liberal Peace,” 293.
41. Duffield, “The Liberal Way”; and Chandler, “Peacebuilding.”
42. Mac Ginty and Richmond, “The Local Turn,” 1.
43. Richmond and Mitchell, Hybrid Forms of Peace; and Richmond, “Resistance and the Post-liberal.”
44. Richmond and Franks, “Liberal Hubris?,” 46.
45. Lederach, Building Peace; Brinkerhoff, Governance in Post-conflict Societies; Öjendal and Kim, “Korob, Kaud, Klach”; and Hughes, “Friction, Good Governance.”
46. Öjendal and Dellnäs, The Imperative of Good Local Governance; Eaton et al., The Political Economy; and Grindle, Going Local.
47. Springer, Cambodia’s Neoliberal Order; St. John, “Democracy in Cambodia”; and Mehmet, “Development in Wartorn Society.”
48. Chandler, “Peacebuilding.”
49. Heder, “Hun Sen’s Consolidation”; McCargo, “Cambodia”; Un, “State, Society and Democratic Consolidation”; Un, “Cambodia”; Roberts, “From ‘Communism’ to ‘Democracy’”; and Roberts, “The Superficiality of Statebuilding.”
50. Akashi, “An Assessment”; Lizée, Peace, Power and Resistance; Peou, International Democracy; Richmond and Franks, “Liberal Hubris?”; and Roberts, Liberal Peacebuilding.
51. Chandler, A History of Cambodia, 287; and Hughes, “International Intervention.”
52. Lizée, Peace, Power and Resistance; and Peou, International Democracy.
53. Repeated in interview 05, July 11, 2012; interview 06, July 13, 2012; interview 07, July 20, 2012; and interview 09, July 13, 2012.
54. Öjendal and Lilja, Beyond Democracy; Richmond and Franks, “Liberal Hubris?”; Hughes, The Political Economy; Roberts, “The Superficiality of Peacebuilding”; Un, “Cambodia”; and Un, “Cambodia in 2012.”
55. Paris, At War’s End.
56. Hughes, Dependent Communities.
57. Slocomb, An Economic History; Un and Hughes, “The Political Economy”; and World Bank, Voice, Choice and Decision.
58. Hughes and Un, Cambodia’s Economic Transition.
59. Roberts, “The Superficiality of Peacebuilding,” 149.
60. Karbaum, “Cambodia’s Façade,” 113.
61. Roberts, “The Superficiality of Peacebuilding.”
62. Un, “Cambodia in 2011.”
63. Un, “Cambodia.”
64. Öjendal and Ou, “From Friction to Hybridity.”
65. “Cambodian Political Standoff.”
66. Richmond and Franks, “Liberal Hubris?”
67. Nissen, Living under the Rule of Corruption, 2.
68. Interview 18, August 9, 2012. A number of informants, national and local, expressed similar concerns. Interview 05, July 11, 2012; interview 06, July 13, 2012; interview 07, July 20, 2012; interview 10, July 20, 2012; interview 13, July 16, 2012; interview 14, July 18, 2012; interview 17, August 8, 2012; and interview 23, August 9, 2012.
69. Ou et al., Understanding Civil Society; and Un, “State, Society and Democratic Consolidation”. A number of informants agreed with this. Interview 06, July 13, 2012; interview 09, July 13, 2012; interview 10, July 20, 2012; and interview 14, July 18, 2012.
70. Un and So, “Cambodia’s Judiciary,” 184.
71. Guimbert, Cambodia 1998–2008, 25.
72. World Bank, Cambodia at the Crossroads.
73. Ten of the national and local informants reminded us of the poor quality of state administration from the top to the lower tiers, and of the fact that it is marred by nepotism, corruption and in some instances collusion with the companies taking people’s land.
74. Cock, “External Actors,” 265.
75. Numerous local (commune-level) and national-level informants had also observed this trend. Interview 02, October 3, 2012; interview 04, July 21, 2012; interview 05, July 11, 2012; interview 06, July 13, 2012; interview 07, July 20, 2012; interview 17, August 8, 2012; and interview 1, August 9, 2012. See EIC, Cambodia Economic Watch, 15.
76. Heder, “Cambodia in 2010,” 211.
77. Un, “Cambodia in 2012,” 146; and Un, “Cambodia in 2011,” 204.
78. Hughes, “Cambodia in 2007,” 69–70. Local informants in particular strongly voice such concerns, pointing to the consequences of land-grabbing and the wealth gap. Interview 17, August 8, 2012; and interview 21, August 21, 2012.
79. Interview, July 20, 2012.
80. In this paper we argue the significance of the ‘local turn’. This does not deny that there is a wealth of other processes affecting change in Cambodia.
81. Mac Ginty and Sanghera, “Hybridity in Peacebuilding.”
82. Simons and Zanker, “Questioning the ‘Local’”; von Billerbeck, “Whose Peace?”; and Donais, “Empowerment or Imposition?”
83. Donais, “Empowerment or Imposition?”
84. For a thorough reflection on the ‘everyday’, and on methodological dilemmas with this, see Richmond, Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding.
85. Admittedly peacebuilding projects set up some high-profile NGOs at an early stage, but these were highly elitist, politicised and lacked a constituency. They had very little to do with the idea of either ‘the local’ or ‘the everyday’ as we see it here.
86. Roberts, Liberal Peacebuilding.
87. Hughes, “International Intervention,” 540.
88. Öjendal and Ou, “From Friction to Hybridity,” 366.
89. Roberts, “From ‘Communism’ to ‘Democracy’”; and Roberts, Liberal Peacebuilding.
90. ‘Seila’ is a Khmer term, invented by the government, meaning ‘foundation in stone’. The symbolism of this is that this democratic decentralisation (which is what it eventually amounted to) was to be the base for a new and firmly grounded Cambodian polity.
91. One of the authors of this paper was deeply involved in monitoring this process from 1996 until 2001. Its story can be found in Rudengren and Öjendal, Learning by Doing.
92. Rudengren and Öjendal, Learning by Doing, 16.
93. Ibid; McAndrew, Experiences of Commune Councils; Mansfield and MacLeod, Commune Councils; Kim, “Democracy in Action”; TAF, Commune Councils; Rusten et al., The Challenge; and COMFREL, Assessment.
94. Öjendal and Kim, “Reconstruction and local Democratization.” Local perceptions of the performance of commune councils on a range of indicators such as reconciliation, state legitimacy, democracy and participation were consistently ranging around 80%–90%. This should not be seen as indicating that it was already an ideal local democracy. It should rather be seen as constituting a substantial change as the citizens of the investigated sites perceived it.
95. Luco, Between a Tiger and a Crocodile.
96. Öjendal and Kim, “Korob, Kaud, Klach.”
97. Ibid.
98. Interview 18, August 8, 2012; interview 20, August 10, 2012; interview 21, August 8, 2012; interview 22, August 8, 2012; and interview 23, August 9, 2012.
99. Interview 18, August 9, 2012.
100. Hughes, “Friction, Good Governance,” 151.
101. Ibid., 150.
102. Öjendal and Kim, “Korob, Kaud, Klach.”
103. Mabbet and Chandler, The Khmers.
104. Mac Ginty and Sanghera, “Hybridity in Peacebuilding.”
105. One of the authors also witnessed similar encounters twice, although their scale was less dramatic.
106. The Extraordinary Chambers were set up with the aim of prosecuting the leaders responsible for the killings during the Khmer Rouge era but, as a peacebuilding measure, this process has become irrelevant.
107. We have no intention to engage with the debate on civil society itself in this paper, and in this context we refer to civil society as ‘an intermediate associational realm between state and family populated by organisations which are separate from the state, enjoy autonomy in relation to the state and are formed voluntarily by members of society to protect or extend their interests or values’. White, “Civil Society,” 337–338. The authors have separately and in a different context elaborated on the state of the art of civil society development in Cambodia. See Ou and Kim, “NGOs”; Ou, Subnational Civil Society in Cambodia; and Öjendal, “In Search of a Civil Society.”
108. Nuon and Serrano, Building Unions.
109. Ou and Kim, “NGOs.”
110. “Cambodian Political Standoff.”
111. Öjendal, “In Search of a Civil Society.”
112. Ou and Kim, 20 Years’ of Strengthening
113. SPM, Civil Society.
114. Öjendal, “In Search of a Civil Society.”
115. Ou and Kim, 20 Years’ of Strengthening.
116. According to Nuon and Serrano, Building Unions, as of 2010 there were 37 federations, comprising at least 915 unions, in the garment and footwear sector; three federations, comprising at least 19 unions, in the construction and wood sector; four associations representing teachers and civil servants, comprising 56 unions/branches; two federations with 13 unions in the food and beverage sector; eight federations or associations representing some 57 branches or communities (categorised as being in the informal economy and in which the members are tuk-tuk drivers, farmers, street vendors, cart pullers); and one federation with 20 local unions in the hotel and tourism sector. There is also evidence of other business associations, such as a bar association, rice mill associations, brick associations, pig associations, and various rural citizens’ movements emerging across the country, around functional issues that demand a solution.
117. Ou and Kim, “NGOs.”
118. Öjendal and Kim, “Korob, Kaud, Klach.”
119. Landau, “Law and Civil Society.”
120. “Cambodian Political Standoff.”
121. Mac Ginty and Sanghera, “Hybridity in Peacebuilding.”
122. Cooper et al., “The End of History.”