Investing in peace: foreign direct investment as economic restoration in Sierra Leone?

Abstract

In peace-building and transitional justice literature economic restoration is considered central to sustainable peace in post-conflict societies. However, it is also widely recognised that many post-conflict states cannot afford mechanisms to provide restoration. Not only are many such states poor to begin with, but violent conflict further degrades their economic capacity. As a result, in their need to provide jobs, generate tax revenues, spur development and promote sustainable peace, many post-conflict states turn to alternative processes of economic restoration. This paper examines the potential for foreign direct investment (FDI) to serve as one alternative means by which to provide economic restoration in post-conflict states. Presenting findings from six months of fieldwork evaluating one such project in rural Sierra Leone, the paper describes how local people experience such projects and explores whether employment and land-lease payments can provide experiences of economic restoration so far unforthcoming from the state.

Keywords:

• restorative justice
• peace building
• transitional justice
• reparations
• Sierra Leone
• international development

Notes

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2. Shaw, “Linking Justice with Reintegration?,” 111–112.

3. Millar, “Local Evaluations of Justice,” 532.

4. Freeman, Truth Commission, 5–6.

5. Olsen et al., Transitional Justice in Balance, 1.

6. Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness, 91.

7. African News, quoted in ibid., 93.

8. Arriaza and Roht-Arriaza, “Weaving a Braid.”

9. Theidon, “Histories of Innocence”; and Shaw, “Linking Justice with Reintegration?,” 2.

10. Mani, Beyond Retribution, 5–6.

11. Duthie, “Transitional Justice.”

12. Keen, Conflict and Collusion; Ballentine and Sherman, “Introduction”; Fanthorpe, “Neither Citizen nor Subject?”; and Peters and Richards, “‘Why we Fight’.”

13. Paris, At War’s End.

14. Richmond and Franks, Liberal Peace, 4.

15. Zoomers, “Globalisation.”

16. Sparks, “Large Scale Land Acquisition,” 687.

17. Oya, “The Land Rush,” 1537.

18. Freeman, Truth Commission, 6.

19. Teitel, “Transitional Justice,” 129.

20. Ibid., 133.

21. Freeman, Truth Commission, 79–80.

22. McCarthy, “Reparations.”

23. Backer, “Cross-national Comparative Analysis,” 39–41.

24. Arriaza and Roht-Arriaza, “Weaving a Braid,” 220; Freeman, Truth Commissions, 63; and Phakathi and van der Merwe, “The Impact,” 136.

25. Theidon, “Histories of Innocence,” 95.

26. Arriaza and Roht-Arriaza, “Weaving a Braid,” 219.

27. Collier and Hoefler, “On the Economic Causes”; Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War; Reno, “The Politics of Insurgency”; Keen, Conflict and Collusion; and Berdal and Malone, Greed and Grievance.

28. Richmond and Franks, Liberal Peace Transitions, 43–44.

29. Ballentine, “Conclusion,” 280.

30. Pugh et al., War Economies, 132.

31. Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest; Abdullah, “Bush Path to Destruction”; Fanthorpe, “Neither Citizen nor Subject?”; Archibald and Richards, “Converts to Human Rights?”; Bangura, “The Political and Cultural Dunamics”; Rashid, “Student Radicals, Lumpen Youth”; Gberie, A Dirty War; and Keen, Conflict and Collusion.

32. Duthie, “Transitional Justice,” 165.

33. Aguilar, “Transitional or Post-Transitional Justice”; Han, “Transitional Justice”; and Park, The Reappeared.

34. Horovitz, “Transitional Criminal Justice,” 61.

35. Shaw, Memories of the Slave Trade; and Bolton, I did it to Save my Life.

36. Le Billon and Levin, “Building Peace,” 697; and Sesay, “Comprehensive African Development Process.”

37. Castañeda, “How Liberal Peacebuilding may be Failing,” 240.

38. Kelsall, “Truth, Lies, Ritual”; Shaw, Rethinking Truth and Reconciliation; Millar, “Assessing Local Experiences”; Millar, “Local Evaluations of Justice”; and Millar, “Between Western Theory.”

39. Strauss, Qualitative Analysis; Starks and Trinidad, “Choose your Method”; and Millar, An Ethnographic Approach.

40. Borras and Franco, “From Threat to Opportunity”; Borras and Franco, “Global Land Grabbing”; Millar, “‘We have no Voice for That’”; and Millar, “Knowledge and Control.”

41. Shaw, Memories of the Slave Trade, 256; Jackson, In Sierra Leone, 47; and Millar, “Between Western Theory,” 188.

42. Millar, “‘Ah Lef ma Case’.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Radboud University Nijmegen, Faculty of Management Faculty Fieldwork Grant.