Shifting ideas of sustainable peace towards conversation in state-building

ABSTRACT

This article offers reflections on the meaning of peace and peace-building in Africa and proposes a reframing of the state-building problematic. It argues for a shift in analytical lens by providing alternative ways of looking at state-building in order to explore a different approach to peace-building. Thus, the paper re-centres the notion of conversation in the processes of building peace and state. This concept of conversation requires a shifting of the debate from a focus on which institutions, liberal or otherwise, and which policies are most effective for peace, to how inter-elite and society-elite conversation gives rise to, or fails to bring about particular ensembles of institutions and policy outcomes. We analyse the role of political settlement in shaping the nature and outcome of these conversations. We suggest that the pursuit of peace must account for the depth of conversation about the presence, absence or desire for peace as well as accompanying perspectives of state-building across the target society.

KEYWORDS:

• Peace
• elite-society conversation
• peace-building
• state-building
• political Settlement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Reiss, Kant’s Political Writings.

2. Ibid.

3. Galtung, Violence, Peace and Peace Research, 183.

4. Kant, Perpetual Peace,7-11.

5. See note 3 above.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Galtung, Violence, Peace and Peace Research, 171.

9. For a broader discussion of shift from classical to new ideals of liberalism, see, for example, Paul, Liberalism; For a summary of the liberal peace thesis, see, Paris, At War’s End, 40-51.

10. Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace.

11. Ibid.

12. Richmond, Peace in International Relations, 3.

13. Mac Ginty and Richmond, Liberal Peace and Post-War Reconstruction.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid.

17. On a broader discussion of contemporary discourses on peace-building see, Call and Cook, On Democratization and Peace-building, 233-246; Call and Cousens, Ending Wars and Building Peace, 1-21.

18. Mac Ginty, Introduction, 6.

19. Richmond, Peace formation, 9.

20. Joshi, Lee and Mac Ginty, Just how Liberal, 364-389.

21. Paris, Saving liberal peace-building, 337-365.

22. Sabaratnam, Avatars of Eurocenterism, 263-269

23. Mac Ginty, Every day peace, 548-564.

24. Richmond, Failed state-building, 383

25. Mac Ginty and Roger, The fallacy of constructing hybrid political orders, 229; Jarstad and Belloni, Introducing hybrid peace; Brown et al, Challenging state-building as peace -building, 99-115; Mac Ginty, International peace-building; Richmond, The dilemmas of a hybrid peace, 50-68; and Belloni, Hybrid peace governance, 21-38.

26. Tilly, Western State-making, 601-639.

27. The terms ‘collapsed state’ were earlier introduced by Zartman, Posing the Problem of State Collapse, 1-15; and Mazrui, The Blood of Experience, 28-34. On ‘failed’ and ‘weak’ states, see, Gros, Towards a Taxonomy of Failed States, 455-471; Rotberg, When States Fail. For a critique of these aphorisms, see, for example, Wai, Neo-patrimonialism; and Call, The Fallacy of the failed State, 1491-1507.

28. Collier and Hoeffler, Greed and grievances in Civil War, 23-55; and Fearon and David, Ethnicity, insurgency and civil war, 75-90

29. Weber, From Max Weber, 77-128.

30. See, for example, Tilly, Western State-making, 601-639; and Tilly, War Making and State Making as Organized Crime, 169-191.

31. For a general discussion on characteristics of modern states see, Pierson, The Modern State. Brautigam, Taxation and State-Building in Developing Countries; and Wai, Neo-patrimonialism, 27-43.

32. Some of the earlier scholars who have attempted to analyse challenges of state formation in Africa include: Sandbrook, Hobbled Leviathans, 707-733; Herbst, War and the State in Africa, 117-139; Kirby and Ward, Modernity and the Process of State Formation, 113-126; Discourses of state-building from and international development perspective are wide. For specific approaches in Africa of discourses, see, DFID. The Africa conflict prevention pool.; OECD, Concepts and dilemmas of State-building, 61-148; and Brzoska, Development Donors and The Concept of Security Sector Reform.

33. Chandler, The uncritical critique, 137-155.

34. Richmond, Jekyll or Hyde, 1-20

35. Hout, EU state-building, 362-374.

36. Sabaratnam, Avatars of Eurocentrism, 263-269.

37. Call, Building States to Build Peace.

38. Paris, At war’s end.

39. See for instance the introduction of Chandler and Sisk for Routledge handbook, XIX-XXVII.

40. See for example, Curtis, The limits of State-building for peace in Africa, 79-97; Brown, Challenging state-building as peace-building, 99-115; Menocal, State building for peace, 1715-1736; Wolff, Post-Conflict State Building, 1777-1802; and Paris, Saving Liberal peace-building, 337-365.

41. Huntington, Political Order.

42. Mac Ginty, International peace-building; Richmond, Jekyll or Hyde, 1-20; and Belloni, Hybrid peace governance, 21-38.

43. This paper grew out of a research project on the role of political settlements in Africa supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, from 2013-2016. See Olonisakin and Muteru, Reframing Narratives of Peacebuilding and State-building, 1-16.

44. See, for example, Halsey and Slinn, The Concept and Practice of Conversation.

45. Olonisakin, Conversation in State-building in Africa, 1-12.

46. Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.

47. Eagleton, The Function of Criticism. Cited in Halsey and Slinn, The Concept and Practice of Conversation, xi

48. See, for example, Griffin, The Essentialist Roots of the Public Sphere, 21-39

49. Ellis, Coffee-women, The Spectator and the public sphere, 27-52.

50. Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, 232-233.

51. Hume, Of Essay Writing, 533-37.

52. Halsey and Slinn, The Concept and Practice of Conversation, ix.

53. Jordanova, Picture-Talking, 1800-1830, 151-169.

54. De Bolla, Portraiture as Conversation, 170-182.

55. Ryan, The evolution of peace-building, 25-35.

56. Khan, Political Settlements.

57. Whaites, States in Development.

58. see note 56 above.

59. Di John and Putzel, Political Settlements, 14-17.

60. Scott-Villiers et al, Roots and Routes of Political Violence, 1-34.

61. OECD, From Power Struggles to Sustainable Peace.

62. Toft, Ending Civil Wars, 7–36; and Kreutz, How and when armed conflicts end, 243-250.

63. see note 56 above.

64. Keen, War and peace, 1-22.

65. Caroline, Civil Wars, 347-365.

66. Lewis, Amnesty in Sierra-Leone Opposed.

67. Shepler, Youth Music, 627-642.

68. UN News, The United Nations War Crimes Tribunal for Rwanda.

69. Longman, Church Politics, 163-186.

70. Olonisakin, Measuring Peace, 324-328.

71. United Nations, The Challenge of Sustaining Peace, 1-63.

72. Ibid., 34-35.

73. UN Security Council Resolution 2282, 2016, S/RES/2282/2016.

74. Olonisakin, Crises of War-to-Peace Transition, 49-64.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

'Funmi Olonisakin

'Funmi Olonisakin is Professor of Security, Leadership and Development at the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London, and Extra-Ordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria. Previously, she was Director of the Conflict, Security and Development Group at King’s; and worked in the UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.

Alagaw Ababu Kifle

Alagaw Ababu Kifle is an Alumnus of the ALC and Research Associate at the African Leadership Centre and a PhD Candidate in Leadership and Security Studies, a Joint PhD Programme of University of Pretoria and King’s College London.

Alfred Muteru

Alfred Muteru holds a Masters in Conflict, Security and Development and is currently a Doctoral Fellow at the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London undertaking a PhD in Leadership Studies, with Reference to Security and Development.