No such thing as cosmopolitanism: Field- dependent consequences in international administrative governance and criminal justice

Abstract

Cosmopolitan and communitarian questions formerly posed in relation to wars between democracies (the core tradition of the Liberal Peace literature) have been supplemented by questions about democracies that go to war on non-democracies or intervene in regional conflict situations – and by questions about what happens next, in terms of stabilisation, democratisation and development. The claim made here is that the consequences for post-conflict states differ between, on the one hand, cosmopolitan involvement in international administrative measures of governance and, on the other hand, cosmopolitan involvement in the creation of international criminal tribunals. When cosmopolitan impulses are articulated as an aspect of international administrative governance, as in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a form of 'administrative cosmopolitanism' is produced, the unintended consequences of which include state in-capacitating and de-democratisation. By contrast, international criminal tribunals have a smaller political footprint upon transitional societies, thus the consequences of 'legal cosmopolitism' for democracy and human rights may on balance be positive, or at least not negative. This chapter argues for cosmopolitan discourses and practices to be evaluated not in terms of any essential quality but in terms of contexts; not in terms of intentions but in terms of effects; and not in terms in terms of the moral pedagogics and legal powers to which transitional populations are subjected, but rather in terms of the extant to which cosmopolitan forces hold themselves subject to law. This chapter is in part II of Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh's edited book. The book as a whole presents a critical analysis of the liberal peace project and offers possible alternatives and models. In the past decade, the model used for reconstructing societies after conflicts has been based on liberal assumptions about the pacifiying effects of 'open markets' and 'open societies'. Yet, despite the vast resources invested in helping establish the precepts of this liberal peace, outcomes have left much to be desired. The book argues that failures in the liberal peace project are not only due to efficiency problems related to its adaptation in adverse local environments, but mostly due to problems of legitimacy of turning an ideal into a doctrine for action. The aim of the book is to scrutinize assumptions about the value of democratization and marketization and realities on the ground by combining theoretical discussions with empirical evidence from key post-conflict settings such as Iraq and Afghanistan. These show the disparities that exist between the ideals and the reality of the liberal peace project, as seen by external peacebuilders and domestic actors. The book then proposes various alternatives and modifications to better accommodate local perspectives, values and agency in attempts to forge a new consensus.This book will be of great interest to students of peacebuilding/peacekeeping, statebuilding, war and conflict studies, international security and IR.