Abstract
Scholarship identified the present and future of war as increasingly characterized by urbanization and political-economic actors that Western international assistance defines as ‘illicit’, ‘illiberal’ or ‘criminal’. This article asks how Western international assistance could and should shape war-to-peace transitions for contributing to the emergence of lasting non-violent ‘peaces’. It combines scholarly insights from ‘pragmatic peacebuilding’ scholarship and practice with interviews and grey literature on masterplanning projects in two neighborhoods in Damascus, Syria, that are prepared for ‘reconstruction’ or ‘redevelopment’, namely Qaboun and Basateen al-Razi. Thereby, it, on the one hand, challenges current approaches that, as in the case of Syria, presume that macropolitical pressure, diplomacy, and sanctions would forge an enduring outcome. It argues that ‘peace’ must be recognized as an order that is particular to a given time, space, and their inherent relations of political-economic actors (political settlements) and is, thus, changeable and expandable to including more people’s interests and subject matters. On the other hand, it promotes an elongation and bridging of the emerging consensuses across the reviewed literatures that supporting local actors who are recognized and respected as mediators by all relevant conflict parties provide for a fruitful avenue to expanding the inclusivity of peaces and their underlying political settlements. This adds to the repertoire of newly emerging sustainable peacebuilding methods and signposts towards further studies of ‘localized elite bargaining’.
Highlights
The almost one-decade-long crisis in Syria is an telling case for many trends scholarship identified with regards to the present and future of war1: it is urbanized2 and characterized by actors that Western international assistance predominantly refers to as ‘illicit’, ‘illigeral’ or ‘criminal’ instead of legitimate peacebuilding3 actors
A ‘peace’ is an order that is particular to a given time, space, and their inherent relations, changeable and extendable to other matters and societal groups
It is sufficient if the initial post-war order is ‘inclusive enough’ and locally working – instead of instigating a full-blown ‘regime change’
Summary
The almost one-decade-long crisis in Syria is an telling case for many trends scholarship identified with regards to the present and future of war: it is urbanized and characterized by actors that Western international assistance predominantly refers to as ‘illicit’, ‘illigeral’ or ‘criminal’ instead of legitimate peacebuilding actors. After more than one decade of uprisings-turned-war, more than 30% of Syria’s built environment is destroyed, more than 60% of its population relying on humanitarian aid, and more than half of the countries pre-war population (12.2 mil people) displaced and living in cities (The World Bank 2017: 22; UNHCR, 2019). -called ‘insider mediators’, that is, persons who are from a conflicting environment and recognized and respected as interlocutors and shapers of social norms by all relevant conflict parties, arise as most worthwhile It shows that such ‘insider mediators’, without having been referred to as such, already play(ed) a significant role in the negotiations surrounding the exemplary studied masterplanning cases for the ‘reconstruction’ or ‘urban redevelopment’ of the neighborhoods Basateen al-Razi and Qaboun in Damascus. Because those were and are, well connected to ‘the regime’, the article highlights the need to explore potential means of collaboration with politically undesirable actors. Interview accounts were compared to those of other interviewees involved in a given project or phase (between-person in-/consistencies) and, in the absence of those, interviewee account’s credibility was tested in multi-staged interviews via the repetition of questions over the course of several months and the comparison of their answers (within-person inconsistencies)
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