Introduction: liberal peace in dispute

Abstract

Since the end of the Cold War, international peacebuilding missions in war-torn states have been legitimatized by the aim of building a ‘liberal peace’, based on assumptions around the pacifying effects of open and integrated societies and markets framed by a liberal state and international institutions, law and norms.1 Despite the resources invested in helping establish the precepts of this type of peace, i.e. liberal democracy, free market economy and jurisdiction in accordance with human rights, the outcomes have left much to be desired. Indeed, evidence from a variety of cases around the world have showed not only that interventions have often failed to ensure sustainable peace, but that liberal institutions have not taken root when they have been exogenously introduced in societies while traditional indigenous structures have been undermined and welfare needs ignored.2 Not only do populations fail to appropriate for themselves the newly created institutions, but new and renewed grievances lead to spoiler behaviour and subtle forms of resistance. As a result, liberal peacebuilding is in ‘crisis’,3 or as Richmond mentions is, ‘backsliding’, i.e. leading to a physical deterioration of peace during the peacebuilding process or a retreat from the liberal peace framework itself by international and local actors.4