Outside Agents and the Politics of Peacebuilding and Reconciliation

Abstract

AT THE CLOSE OF ONE OF THE MORE INFAMOUS CENTURIES in recorded history, we must also acknowledge one of its most violent decades, marked by two apparently contradictory trends in international politics. The first was a substantial increase in violent conflict, much of which took the form of civil wars and many of the victims of which were civilians. In 1996 all of the major conflicts in the world were civil or intra-state in nature. While the exact toll in human life and suffering is unknown, estimates put more than 42 million people at serious risk. This was not, of course, as it was supposed to be. The end of the cold war was to have introduced an era of peace with an emphasis on the rights and privileges of human beings. Indeed the second prominent feature of international politics in the 1990s was the emphasis on individual human rights and human security. Along with various declarations and charters, there was a noteworthy increase in the number, variety, scope, and prominence of interventions for allegedly humanitarian purposes. Motivated, it seems, by a concern for human rights and a sense of urgency in the face of the scope of humanitarian and political disasters in all regions of the world, a variety of individuals, groups, governments, and organizations intervened in the affairs of other countries in the hope of contributing to a more stable, peaceful, and just world. Within this context the theory and practice of peace-building emerged as a central part of what the rest of the world has to offer to divided societies.For many years, the response of outsiders focused on the cessation of hostilities and was drawn from the United Nations experience in peacekeeping. As the complexities and societal repercussions of civil conflicts became more evident, peacekeeping operations took on a wider range of tasks, a phenomenon commonly described as second generation peacekeeping. Since the mid-1990s, some governments, international and regional inter governmental organizations (IGOs), and many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well, have adopted an even more comprehensive view of civil conflict and identified the need for a multifaceted approach that supports a sustainable peace in a post-conflict situation to avoid the recurrence of violent conflict in the future. Commonly referred to as peacebuilding, the idea was raised by the former secretary general of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, in his 1992 An Agenda for Peace.Some scholars have conceptualized peacebuilding in terms of a strategic and responsive framework - an approach that is more comprehensive than that offered by Boutros-Ghali. John Lederach, for instance, finds fault with Boutros-Ghali's use of the term peacebuilding as limited to postconflict support of peace agreements and the rebuilding of torn societies. He stresses instead the problems encountered in peacebuilding - that is, transforming hostile and violent relationships into a peace system characterized by just and interdependent relationships. For him 'peacebuilding is more than postaccord reconstruction ... peacebuilding is understood as a comprehensive concept that encompasses, generates, and sustains the full array of processes, approaches, and stages needed to transform conflict toward more sustainable, peaceful relationships. The term thus involves a wide range of activities and functions that both precede and follow formal peace accords.'(f.1) In the broad view, this conceptual framework responds to the set of needs and challenges confronted by societies torn by war. It addresses structural issues dividing parties, the social dynamics of building relationships, and the development of supportive structures and institutions. Jonathan Goodhand and David Hulme also note how peacebuilding is used loosely and is only partly explained. They list several assumption that underlie peacebuilding as a concept: peace requires social transformation and must be a long endeavour; that peace embraces economic, social, cultural, political, and humanitarian issues and goes beyond the absence of violence to include notions of sustainable development and social justice; peacebuilding is not a specific activity but a consequence of an activity - it is defined by its outcome or process; and it is grounded on the premise that socities affected by violence are still comprised of individuals, groups, attitudes, and processes that promote peace. …