Conceptualizing Resistance in Post-Conflict Environments

Abstract

While recent efforts to analyse resistance to post-conflict interventions have led to important insights into the nature of contemporary peacebuilding efforts, their failure to adequately problematize the concept of resistance itself and to adapt it to the specific realities of post-conflict neoliberalism has proven to be problematic. This article explores the internal tensions and inconsistencies that define the concept of resistance in post-conflict environments, focusing specifically on five topics: the interaction of structure and agency; the presence of intent; the role of power; the nature of markets; and the possibility of emancipation. Key problems are highlighted, and, where possible, potential solutions are proposed. The issues raised by this article demand immediate attention if the conceptual viability and analytical value of resistance are to be maintained in post-conflict contexts.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to Devon Curtis and Jaremey McMullin for their comments on early versions of this article, as well as to the editors and anonymous reviewers at International Peacekeeping.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Graeme Young is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Notes

1. The term ‘liberal’ is often employed to describe the reforms implemented in post-conflict environments. ‘Neoliberal’, however, is perhaps a more appropriate term because it more accurately captures the highly interventionist and disciplinary nature of the political, social and economic reforms being implemented. The latter term is thus employed in this article unless works that are being referenced instead use the former.

2. For a brief introduction to these criticisms, see Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security, London: Zed Books, 2001; Roland Paris, At War's End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

3. This term is used in Oliver Richmond and Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Where Now for the Critique of the Liberal Peace?’, Cooperation and Conflict (forthcoming).

4. Oliver Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace, Abingdon: Routledge, 2011.

5. Roger Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance: Hybrid Forms of Peace, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

6. Duffield (see n.2 above).

7. Michael Pugh, ‘Local Agency and Political Economies of Peacebuilding’, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, Vol.11, No.2, 2011, pp.308–20; Michael Pugh, ‘Reflections on Aggressive Peace’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.19, No.4, 2012, pp.410–25.

8. Ibid.

9. See, in particular, Béatrice Pouligny, Peace Operations Seen from Below: UN Missions and Local People, London: Hurst, 2006.

10. See, for example, Special Issue, ‘Frictions in Peacebuilding Interventions: The Unpredictability of Local–Global Interaction’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.20, No.2, 2013.

11. See, for example, Stephen Gill, Power and Resistance in the New World Order, Abingdon: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003; Stephen Gill, ‘Toward a Postmodern Prince? The Battle in Seattle as a Moment in the New Politics of Globalisation’, Millennium – Journal of International Studies, Vol.29, No.1, 2000, pp.131–40. Also see Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971.

12. See, for example, Catherine Eschle and Brice Maiguascha (eds), Critical Theory, International Relations and ‘the Anti-Globalisation Movement’: The Politics of Global Resistance, Abingdon: Routledge, 2005; Patrick Hayden and Chamsy el-Ojeili (eds), Confronting Globalization: Humanity, Justice and the Renewal of Politics, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

13. See, for example, Sankaran Krishna, Globalization and Postcolonialism: Hegemony and Resistance in the Twenty-First Century, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009; Amy Skonieczny, ‘Interrupting Inevitability: Globalization and Resistance’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol.35, No.1, 2010, pp.1–28.

14. See, for example, Mary E. Hawkesworth, Globalization & Feminist Activism, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.

15. This follows Richard Falk, ‘Resisting “Globalization-from-Above” through “Globalization-from-Below”’, in Barry K. Gills (ed.), Globalization and the Politics of Resistance, New York: St Martin's Press, 2000, pp.46–56. Also see Louise Amoore (ed.), The Global Resistance Reader, Abingdon: Routledge, 2005; Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello and Brendan Smith, Globalization from Below: The Power of Solidarity, Cambridge: South End Press, 2002; Robin Broad (ed.), Global Backlash: Citizen Initiatives for a Just World Economy, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002; James H. Mittelman, The Globalization Syndrome: Transformation and Resistance, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000; Jackie G. Smith and Hank Johnston (eds), Globalization and Resistance: Transnational Dimensions of Social Movements, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.

16. Polanyi's arguments are primarily advanced in Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, Boston, MA: Beacon, 2001. Also see Naeem Inayatullah and David L. Blaney, ‘Towards an Ethnological IPE: Karl Polanyi's Double Critique of Capitalism’, Millennium – Journal of International Studies, Vol.28, No.2, 1999, pp.311–40.

17. Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–79, ed. Michel Senellart, trans. Graham Burchell, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008; Michel Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power’, Critical Inquiry, Vol.8, No.4, 1982, pp.777–95. Also see Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991; David Couzens Hoy, Critical Resistance: From Poststructuralism to Post-Critique, London: MIT Press, 2004, pp.57–100; Brent L. Pickett, ‘Foucault and the Politics of Resistance’, Polity, Vol.28, No.4, 1996, pp.445–66.

18. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990; James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009; James C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976; James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.

19. Oliver Richmond, The Transformation of Peace, New York: Palgrave, 2005.

20. Scott, Weapons of the Weak (see n.18 above), pp.314–18.

21. See, for example, Milton Friedman with Rose D. Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1962; Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960.

22. David Keen, Complex Emergencies, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008.

23. Bruno Charbonneau, ‘War and Peace in Côte d'Ivoire: Violence, Agency and the Local/International Line’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.19, No.4, 2012, pp.508–24; Meera Sabaratnam, ‘Avatars of Eurocentrism in the Critique of the Liberal Peace’, Security Dialogue, Vol.44, No.3, 2013, pp.259–78.

24. Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power' (see n.17 above).

25. For a similar discussion of the importance of intent in resistance, see Scott, Weapons of the Weak (see n.18 above), pp.289–303.

26. Perhaps the most important critique of the ability to ‘speak’ for the oppressed is presented in Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988, pp.271–313.

27. See, for example, Duffield (see n.2 above).

28. See, for example, Ian Taylor, ‘Liberal Peace, Liberal Imperialism: A Gramscian Critique’, in Oliver Richmond (ed.), Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding: Critical Developments and Approaches, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp.154–74.

29. See, for example, John Heathershaw, ‘Seeing like the International Community: How Peacebuilding Failed (and Survived) in Tajikistan’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Vol.2, No.3, 2008, pp.329–51.

30. See, for example, Vivienne Jabri, ‘Peacebuilding, the Local and the International: A Colonial or a Postcolonial Rationality?’, Peacebuilding, Vol.1, No.1, 2013, pp.3–16. Hybridity is itself a post-colonial concept. See Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, London: Routledge, 1994.

31. The former understanding is best exemplified by Foucault's work, which has had a significant impact on the field of post-colonial studies. See Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader: An Introduction to Foucault's Thought, ed. Paul Rabinow, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1991; Edward Said, Orientalism, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978; Robert Nichols, ‘Postcolonial Studies and the Discourse of Foucault: Survey of a Field of Problematization’, Foucault Studies, No.9, 2010, pp.111–44; Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power' (see n.17 above). The latter understanding is more characteristic of Scott's work. See Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (see n.18 above).

32. This point is made in relation to Foucault and Gramsci in Asli Daldal, ‘Power and Ideology in Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramsci: A Comparative Analysis’, Review of History and Political Science, Vol.2, No.2, 2014, pp.149–67.

33. Randall D. Germain and Michael Kenny, ‘Engaging Gramsci: International Relations Theory and the New Gramscians’, Review of International Studies, Vol.24, No.1, 1998, pp.3–21; Vivienne Jabri, ‘Michel Foucault's Analytics of War: The Social, the International, and the Racial’, International Political Sociology, Vol.1, No.1, 2007, pp.67–81; Jan Selby, ‘Engaging Foucault: Discourse, Liberal Governance and the Limits of Foucauldian IR’, International Relations, Vol.21, No.3, 2007, pp.324–45; Owen Worth, ‘The Poverty and Potential of Gramscian Thought in International Relations’, International Politics, Vol.45, No.6, 2008, pp.633–49.

34. Michael C. Behrent, ‘Liberalism without Humanism: Michel Foucault and the Free-Market Creed, 1976–1979’, Modern Intellectual History, Vol.6, No.3, 2009, pp.539–68.

35. Henry Martyn Lloyd, ‘Power, Resistance, and the Foucauldian Technologies’, Philosophy Today, Vol.56, No.1, 2012, pp.26–38.

36. Boris Divkaj and Michael Pugh, ‘The Political Economy of Corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.15, No.3, 2008, pp.373–86.

37. Jonathan Goodhand, ‘From War Economy to Peace Economy? Reconstruction and State Building in Afghanistan’, Journal of International Affairs, Vol.58, No.1, 2004, pp.155–74.

38. Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, ‘Illiberal Peacebuilding in Angola’, Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.49, No.2, 2011, pp.287–314.

39. The importance of paying closer attention to the informal sphere in post-conflict environments is also emphasized in Dominik Zaum, ‘Beyond the “Liberal Peace”’, Global Governance, Vol.18, No.1, 2012, pp.126–9.

40. Francesco Strazzari and Bertine Kamphuis, ‘Hybrid Economies and Statebuilding: On the Resilience of the Extralegal’, Global Governance, Vol.18, No.1, 2012, pp.57–72; Achim Wennmann, ‘Resourcing the Recurrence of Intrastate Conflict: Parallel Economies and Their Implications for Peacebuilding’, Security Dialogue, Vol.36, No.4, 2005, pp.479–94.

41. A significant body of literature exists surrounding informal economies and neoliberalism. For contrasting perspectives, see Hernando de Soto, The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World, trans. June Abbott, New York: Harper & Row, 1989; Alejandro Portes, Manuel Castells and Lauren A. Benton (eds), The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.

42. A brief genealogy of the economic dimensions of contemporary neoliberalism reveals three dominant strands of thought: classical liberalism; neoclassical economics; and the so-called ‘Austrian School’. Each adheres to the concept, in different ways, that markets promote both individual freedoms and economic growth. For the association of markets with individual freedoms from, respectively, a classical liberal, a neoclassical and an ‘Austrian’ perspective, see Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Petersfield: Harriman House, 2007; Friedman and Friedman (see n.21 above); and Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (see n.21 above).

43. A similar point is made in Toby Dodge, ‘Intervention and Dreams of Exogenous Statebuilding: The Application of Liberal Peacebuilding in Afghanistan and Iraq’, Review of International Studies, Vol.39, No.5, 2013, pp.1189–212.

44. Mac Ginty (see n.5 above), pp.117–33; and Pugh, ‘Local Agency and Political Economies of Peacebuilding’ (see n.7 above).

45. This is tied to the broader failure on the part of the critical literature to escape adequately its fundamental (neo)liberal underpinnings. Different analyses of this problem can be found in Roland Paris, ‘Saving Liberal Peacebuilding’, Review of International Studies, Vol.36, No.2, 2010, pp.337–65; Sabaratnam (see n.23 above).

46. While initially advanced by Polanyi (see n.16 above), this argument has been subsequently been adopted – in whole or in part – by authors from a variety of theoretical positions. See, for example, Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans: The Guilty Secrets of Richs Nations and the Threat to Global Prosperity, London: Random House, 2007; Noam Chomsky, Profit over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order, New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999; Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown, New York: Verso, 2013.

47. A similar argument about neoliberalism in non-post-conflict environments can be found in Mirowsk (see n.46 above).

48. The argument that critical literature overemphasizes the (neo)liberal nature of contemporary peacebuilding is advanced in Jan Selby, ‘The Myth of Liberal Peace-Building’, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol.13, No.1, 2013, pp.57–86; Zaum (see n.39 above), pp.121–32. Other literature suggests that such a criticism is invalid. See, for example, Madhav Joshi, Sung Yong Lee and Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Just How Liberal Is the Liberal Peace?’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.21, No.3, 2014, pp.364–89.

49. See n.46 above.

50. See, for example, Karen Ballentine and Jake Sherman (eds), The Political Economy of Armed Conflict: Beyond Greed and Grievance, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003.

51. See, for example, Carolyn Nordstrom, Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004; Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper, with Jonathan Goodhand, War Economies in a Regional Context: Challenges of Transformation, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004; Michael Pugh, Neil Cooper and Mandy Turner (eds), Whose Peace? Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

52. Christopher Cramer, Civil War Is Not a Stupid Thing: Accounting for Violence in Developing Countries, London: Hurst, 2006.

53. See, for example, Ludwig von Mises, ‘Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth', in Friedrich A. Hayek (ed.), Collectivist Economic Planning, London: George Routeledge and Sons, 1935, pp.87–130; Friedrich A. Hayek, ‘Economics and Knowledge’, Economica, Vol.4, No.13, 1937, pp.33–54; Friedrich A. Hayek, ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’, The American Economic Review, Vol.35, No.4, 1945, pp.519–30.

54. See, for example, Robert J. Barro, ‘Rational Expectations and the Role of Monetary Policy’, Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol.2, No.1, 1976, pp.1–32; Robert E. Lucas, Jr, ‘Expectations and the Neutrality of Money’, Journal of Economic Theory, Vol.4, No.2, 1972, pp.103–24.

55. See, for example, Eugene F. Fama, ‘Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work’, The Journal of Finance, Vol.25, No.2, 1970, pp.383–417.

56. Again, the economic edifice of neoliberalism involves a combination of classical liberalism, neoclassical economics and ‘Austrian’ economic theory. While the ‘economic calculation problem’ is primarily associated with the heterodox ‘Austrian School’, it has nevertheless, like many other ‘Austrian’ ideas, entered the neoclassical mainstream to the extent that it is seen as a foundational critique of what is regarded as state intervention in the market. Both rational expectations and the efficient-market hypothesis emerged from the ‘Chicago School’ of free-market thinking, and have become two of the defining tenets of neoclassical economics since the late twentieth century. It is perhaps significant that some of the primary critiques of the neoliberal view of market knowledge come from within the neoclassical school itself. See, for example, Bruce C. Greenwald and Joseph E. Stiglitz, ‘Financial Market Imperfections and Business Cycles’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol.108, No.1, 1993, pp.77–114; Sanford J. Grossman and Joseph E. Stiglitz, ‘On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets’, The American Economic Review, Vol.70, No.3, 1980, pp.393–408; Robert J. Shiller, ‘Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?’, The American Economic Review, Vol.71, No.3, 1981, pp.421–36. These views, however, do not dominate neoclassical economics, particularly the form that informs neoliberalism.

57. Burchell et al. (see n.17 above); Thomas Lemke, ‘“The Birth of Bio-Politics”: Michel Foucault's Lecture at the Collège de France on Neo-Liberal Governmentality’, Economy and Society, Vol.30, No.2, 2001, pp.190–207.

58. A similar criticism of Foucault is presented in Mirowski (see n.46 above), pp.89–102.

59. See n.51 and n.52 above.

60. Richmond (see n.4 above).

61. See, for example, Gill, Power and Resistance in the New World Order and ‘Toward a Postmodern Prince?’ (n.11 above).

62. Matthew D. Stephen, ‘Alter-Globalism as Counter-Hegemony: Evaluating the “Postmodern Prince”’, Globalizations, Vol.6, No.4, 2009, pp.483–98; Matthew D. Stephen, ‘Globalisation and Resistance: Struggles over Common Sense in the Global Political Economy', Review of International Studies, Vol.37, No.1, 2011, pp.209–28.

63. Hoy (see n.17 above), pp.81–7.

64. Polanyi (see n.16 above).

65. Sabaratnan (see n.23 above).