Peacebuilding Commission Research Articles

A Case for a Normative Local Involvement in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding

ABSTRACTLiberal peacebuilding’s imperfect record of involving local actors in rebuilding post-conflict societies paved the way for the local turn in peacebuilding. One of the issues the local turn highlights is local involvement in peacebuilding processes. Drawing from the experiences of previous peacebuilding missions in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste, this paper contributes to the local turn by identifying the types of local involvement in peacebuilding and their consequences on post-conflict societies. This identification could be useful in steering the local turn away from the same flawed local involvement that brought liberal peacebuilding into crisis. The analysis in this paper demonstrates how exclusive, superficial, non-representative, and politicized types of local involvement failed to achieve or sustain peace in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste. The conflict-promoting tendencies of these types of local involvement make a case for a normative agenda that is inclusive, substantive, representative, and transformative.

Positive Peace and the Methodology of Costing Peacebuilding Needs: The Case of Burundi

Studies on conflict and social justice issues are increasingly focusing on positive peace instead of violence itself. Accordingly, a key challenge facing the international community in promoting positive peace is the cost of peacebuilding needs. This is a particularly difficult issue for the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, tasked with developing peacebuilding programs for fragile countries at risk of returning to civil war and putting them on the path to positive peace. Peacebuilding efforts address a wide variety of issues rooted in positive peace. Such a developmental approach to peacebuilding requires significant resources which must be properly targeted. That is to say, a central problem in implementing the peacebuilding mission and promoting positive peace is simply determining what needs should be focused upon and what amount of resources should be allocated. In this article, we develop a novel and creative way to costing the peacebuilding needs that underpin positive peace based on a project that we recently undertook for the UN Peacebuilding Commission and applied it to Burundi. We refer to our approach as the Adjusted Comparative Historical Method (ACHM). This work contributes to the theory and praxis of positive peace by addressing both conceptual and practical issues in administering positive peace.

To Serve and Survey: French Gendarmes as International Police in Peacebuilding Missions in Bosnia and Kosovo

ABSTRACTThis article scrutinises everyday practices of French gendarmes who were sent as international police in UN and NATO missions in Bosnia and Kosovo. Drawing on qualitative material, it argues that their encounters on the ground largely shaped their practices. Rather than melting into the internationalised peacebuilding milieu, gendarmes endeavoured to serve and survey, that is, to establish relationships with civilian populations as a means to collect security-related intelligence for their national government. The sociology of peacebuilding encounters on the ground thus unveils Peaceland’s social divides and invites to take into account the historicity of the peacebuilders’ societies.

From power-blind binaries to the intersectionality of peace: connecting feminism and critical peace and conflict studies

ABSTRACTCritical Peace and Conflict Studies scholars have increasingly sought to overcome binary approaches to engage more fully the ways in which peacebuilding missions are designed, implemented and contested. In doing so, scholars have tried to understand ‘the local’ and mobilised three different concepts to do so – hybridity, the everyday and narratives. However, this shift has failed to translate into fully convincing research transcending the old binaries of ‘international’ and ‘local’. The use of the ‘everyday’ sees power everywhere, hybridity approaches fall into the same binary trap scholars want to avoid in the first place, and narrative approaches tend to focus on very personal stories, removing structural power from the equation. We suggest that a fruitful interaction with Feminist approaches and methodologies, and especially the scholarship on intersectionality, can help shed a new light on the power imbalances and inequalities within peacebuilding missions. We highlight the possible contribution of the concept of intersectionality to Critical Peace and Conflict Studies through an intersectionality of peace approach, which allows for a better understanding of multiple and complex identities of researchers and researchees. We illustrate this argument through a discussion of intersectional narratives centred around the space of the ‘guesthouse’ of South Africa.

Speculating on the World Bank’s Involvement in Post-Conflict Reconstruction Operations and Activities

Over the last few decades, the World Bank (‘WB’) has gained wide experience in post-conflict peacebuilding by experimenting new approaches to peace-and state-building in a wide range of difficult, fragile and conflict-affected countries such as Burundi, Liberia, and Nepal, all of which were undergoing significant political processes in the area of post-conflict reconstruction and democratic consolidation. The WB is the principal organization of the UN system providing low-interest loans for improvements in countries in difficulties. This paper explores the extent to which the WB can assert a role in the operational management of post-conflict reconstruction and argues that the WB’s increasing engagement with post-reconstruction issues is proper and permissible according both to its Establishing Agreement and its Relationship Agreement with the UN. But this is only provided it is balanced against a recognition of its intrinsic and operational limitations: namely and in particular the limitations that arise, respectively, from the UN Security Council’s competing competence in the same sector and the enduring existence of political prohibition clauses in the WB’s and IDA’s Establishing Agreements. If the WB’s post-conflict activities continue, it will turn out to be a player of great significance and actuality in developing and applying international post-conflict reconstruction norms and principles. Ultimately, given the inextricable link between development and conflict, the WB’s competence over post-conflict reconstruction issues is functional to its legitimacy. Support for the WB’s evolving role in post-conflict reconstruction scenarios will be highest if the WB enacts measures to promote its substantive and procedural legitimacy among member countries. This paper therefore collocates its analysis within the framework of democratic decision-making and argues for a clearer definition of responsibilities among the WB financial institutions and other organizations and organs belonging to the same UN family, such the UN Security Council, ECOSOC and the UN Peacebuilding Commission.

Enabling autocracy? Peacebuilding and post-conflict authoritarianism in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Does peacebuilding shape the regime type of countries where international missions are deployed? Most peacebuilding missions take place in authoritarian contexts, and seek to overcome the legacies of conflict by overseeing transitions to democratic rule; however, most regimes that experience peacebuilding still retain some form of authoritarian rule. In this article, we examine the extent to which international peacebuilding missions contribute to the consolidation of post-conflict authoritarian regimes even when their stated aims involve the promotion of democracy. We argue that international peacebuilders can act as enablers of authoritarianism in host countries. We distinguish this category of behaviour from explicit ‘autocracy promotion’, which implies intentional support to autocracy. Instead, enabling is often an unintended consequence, and we identify two mechanisms through which enabling occurs: by building the capacity of incumbent authoritarian leaders and by signalling a permissive environment for authoritarian behaviour for national actors. We illustrate our argument with the case of the United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Reassessing the 2003–17 Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands

The 2003–17 Australian and New Zealand-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) is widely considered to be a comparatively successful peacebuilding mission. Jon Fraenkel argues that a fuller assessment of RAMSI needs to consider the low intensity of the preceding conflict, and the way that conflict changed over 2001–03 in ways that encouraged a law and order focus. Within Oceania, RAMSI is usually seen as fairly successful in achieving its short-term security objectives, but less effective in reaching its more ambitious state-building goals, though without much attention to the reasons for that contrast. There has been little appreciation of the longer-run ramifications of the 2006–07 crisis in relations between Australian authorities and the Solomon Islands government.

La Comisión para la Consolidación de la Paz en Guinea-Bisáu o de los límites de la paz instaurada

A partir de un estudio de caso y de investigación de archivo, este artículo discute las prácticas de la Comisión para la Consolidación de la Paz de las Naciones Unidas (PBC, según sus siglas en inglés) en Guinea-Bisáu, con el propósito de replantear el concepto de consolidación de la paz que surge de la actuación de la Comisión. El argumento esencial consiste en que la PBC, al presuponer la validez universal del paradigma de la paz liberal, no considera adecuadamente los condicionantes históricos, políticos y socioeconómicos locales. Al señalar una inadecuación entre la PBC y la realidad local, este estudio amplía el debate sobre el papel de la PBC en escenarios posteriores a los conflictos contemporáneos.

Is Peacebuilding Coordinated and Coherent?

Reforms on the policies and actions of the United Nations (UN) due to peace operations highlight the first decade of the 2000s. In December 2005, the Security Council at the UN General Assembly created the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). As an institutional mechanism, its role is to articulate the interests of various peacebuilding actors and to develop country-specific strategies to address distinguishing post-conflict scenarios. Moreover, the PBC is the UN’s attempt to respond to the inconsistencies regarding cooperation and coherence found in the peacebuilding architecture.What follows will examine how the PBC contributes to ensuring a coordinated and coherent strategy in UN Peacebuilding actions through analysis of the commission’s primary instrument, the Integrated Peacebuilding Strategy (IPBS). The PBC has taken part in six cases, and this essay will focus on how the IPBS was operationalized in two of these cases: Burundi and Sierra Leone.

A theory of democratisation through peace-building

This contribution presents a theory of democratisation through peace-building. Peace-building is seen as an interactive process between external peace-builders and domestic elites; whether a post-war state develops into a democracy or not depends to a large extent on the outcome of the bargaining process between domestic elites and peace-builders. It is argued that domestic elites typically face many constraints which make adopting democratic reforms a risky and costly proposition. Also, peace-builders usually have much less leverage over domestic elites than one would expect given their resources and man-power. High adoption costs and low leverage explain the outcome of the interaction between peace-builders and domestic elites often results in a peace which is not democratic. The paper uses an analysis of 19 major peace-building missions for exemplifying the theory.

Domino Effect of Negative Hybrid Peace in Kosovo's Peacebuilding

ABSTRACTThe concept of hybrid peace is at the forefront of recent scholarship on the local turn in peacebuilding. It highlights the interplay between the international and local, and advocates for better involvement of local actors and agencies. This paper adds to the growing scholarship on hybrid peace by substantiating the concept of negative hybrid peace and characterizing its dynamics on the ground. Using the case of Kosovo's post-conflict peacebuilding process this paper reveals that the co-option of a select group of local actors unintentionally contributed to a rejection of minority rights, resistance to liberal justice, and contextualization of healthcare provision. It shows that negative hybrid peace has a domino effect in that when a negative form of hybrid peace takes root in a peacebuilding component, other peacebuilding components become susceptible to other forms of negative hybrid peace. The analysis in this paper proves the utility of the concept of negative hybrid peace in understanding the consequences of unresolved tensions from international/liberal–local encounters during internationally administered peacebuilding missions.

Estados desestructurados en situaciones de conflictos armados

This article discusses how unstructured or failed states are a threat to the international community and their own populations. Taking the case of Somalia, it analyzes how the rules of international humanitarian law do not provide satisfactory solutions for the resolution of conflicts, despite the express commitment of the belligerents to abide by the rules of IHL and the efforts of the Peacebuilding Commission and other international initiatives.

The European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo: An Effective Conflict Prevention and Peace-Building Mission?

ABSTRACTThis article appraises effectiveness in operational conflict prevention. By focusing on the European Union Rule of Law Mission (EULEX) in Kosovo, it assesses the most extensive civilian Common Security and Defence Policy mission so far. Contrary to prevailing assessments, it posits that EULEX, despite its challenges and deficiencies, presents positive contributions to operational conflict prevention, and peace-building in general. This is uncovered through structured focused analysis according to effectiveness criteria and success indicators that allow for identification of and distinction between different types and levels of effectiveness, considering both means applied and ends achieved. In so doing, the article contributes to the general literature on operational conflict prevention and on the specific case of Kosovo. The empirical analysis is based on fieldwork and semi-structured interviews with EU personnel, governmental and non-governmental actors in Kosovo, and independent observers.

The interaction between local and international power in EU police reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACTThis article explores the interaction between local and international power structures in EU peacebuilding. While citizens in a state only face order from one authority (the state), local actors in a peacebuilding context are subject to orders from two institutions (the domestic state and the peacebuilding mission). This article explores the nature of interactions of these two institutions and their effect on local police officers’ compliance and resistance. Specifically, it analyzes the example of the police restructuring process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It demonstrates that the choices of local officers to comply or resist depended on whether the interactions between the EU Police Mission and the local police organization were positive and mutually supportive, or whether they were competitive and contradictory. The findings of the article contribute to the debates on the role of local power and the importance of local legitimacy in peacebuilding.

Effective? Locally owned? Beyond the technocratic perspective on the European Union Police Mission for the Palestinian Territories

ABSTRACTThe European Union Police Mission for the Palestinian Territories (EUPOL COPPS) was established in 2006 to contribute to the establishment of effective policing in support of an independent and democratic Palestinian state. EUPOL COPPS is often commended for its contribution to the professionalization of the Palestinian security sector under local ownership. Drawing on 40 interviews, we argue that the mission can be considered effective and locally owned only from a narrow technocratic perspective, which denies the political reality of continued occupation and absence of democracy. A broader analysis, which includes the voices of ordinary Palestinians, reveals that EUPOL COPPS contributed to the professionalization of authoritarian policing under continued Israeli occupation. Our findings show the limits of technocratic approaches to peacebuilding interventions and call for a stronger engagement with the ultimate beneficiaries of peacebuilding missions.

Moderator or Manipulator? How International–Local Relations Emerged as a Function of UN Authority-Building in Cambodia

ABSTRACT The success or failure of international peacebuilding missions is predominantly evaluated in reference to interveners’ ability to exercise their mandated authorities. To test the value of an empirically based analysis of authority-building processes in the course of such missions the article turns to the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC, 1992–1993). In order to safeguard the country’s stability many supported the idea of holding presidential elections in addition to the ones for the Constituent Assembly forming the new government. To organize such unforeseen elections UNTAC would have had to change its mandate as determined by the Paris Peace Accords (PPA). Based on extensive archival research the paper analyses the debate surrounding this proposal as a series of legitimacy claims that were selectively recognized and rejected. The article concludes that evaluations of peacebuilding missions are indeed too focused on interveners’ authority to decide, while neglecting or underestimating challenges to their authority to interpret. This fosters a false sense of control over the direction of political processes.

Military involvement in post-conflict transformation in African Peace-Building

Post-conflict transformation is a difficult task, since renewed violence frequently flares up after peace treaties have been signed. Failure to end conflict often results from misinterpretations of the roots or an inability of the conflict to create suitable exit strategies for military forces. Reintegration of soldiers and non-state armed actors entails delicate and complex procedures, which are central in maintaining security in a newly created democracy. These all point to the important role of the military in post-conflict transformation. The focus of the study on which this article is based, was on evaluating the role and place of military forces in post-conflict peace-building activities. These activities relate to diverse peacekeeping experiences in Africa, and focused on flaws and challenges in post-conflict peace-building missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic; post-conflict transformation and development; security sector reform and South Africa’s participation as member of the Southern African Development Community.

Contested Implementation: The Unilateral Influence of Member States on Peacebuilding Policy in Kosovo

AbstractInternational organizations play an important role in policy implementation. As member states do not necessarily resolve political disagreements before delegating tasks, this article focuses on how individual member states seek to influence policy implementation by international organizations. It argues that the institutional context in which delegation takes place affects the opportunities for such unilateral influence. Particularly when the agent has considerable autonomy, implementation is likely to be a contested process. The article presents evidence on the implementation of peacebuilding policy by three international organizations in Kosovo after independence in 2008. Despite the fact that the member states within the UN, OSCE and EU fundamentally disagree on the legal status of Kosovo, the organizations have deployed substantial peacebuilding missions. The UN, OSCE and EU have, however, different institutional designs: implementing agents in the UN and OSCE have, by default, more autonomy than those in the EU. We analogously observe variation in how and to what extent member states exert unilateral influence during implementation of peacebuilding policy on the ground in Kosovo.

In ‘no man’s land’: the im/mobility of Serb NGO workers in Kosovo

ABSTRACTWhile the technical dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade proceeds, inter-ethnic tensions in the city of Mitrovica in north Kosovo continue to instil uncertainty and insecurity among its inhabitants. This article delves into the im/mobilities for NGO work that the ethnic and conflict related division of the town poses for local Serb NGO workers. The division of the city into a Serbian north and a Kosovo Albanian south, with separate political systems and influence from the international peacebuilding mission, poses obstacles for inter-ethnic cooperation between north and south NGOs. The article explores the ways in which Serb NGO workers navigate these obstacles in order to create physical, social and economic mobility for themselves. It identifies two interrelated dynamics essential to understanding the impact on NGO workers of the conflict reality: one is between national identity and ethno-political space in the context of the specific community; the other, between the local moral order of being ‘good Serbs’ and internationally formulated aims to engage the locals in peace and reconciliation work. The paper argues that the focus of international peacebuilding missions on inter-ethnic cooperation and policy influencing activities, at least for Serb NGO workers in Mitrovica, impedes the mobility of local NGOs.

Building peace abroad and coming back home: experiences of Swedish police officers

ABSTRACTEver since the Swedish Police Authority established a unit for Peace Support Operations in 2000, approximately 70–110 Swedish police officers have participated in peacebuilding missions around the globe on an annual basis. This signifies that a substantial number of Swedish police officers have gained practical experience of assisting post-conflict states to rebuild their societies, reform their security sectors and establish a police force that acts in accordance with the principles of democratic policing. However, to date, there is no research that has set out to investigate these police officers’ experiences; not only of building peace abroad within the framework of democratic policing, but also of coming back home to reengage in Swedish police work. In this paper we begin to address this research gap. We do so through a number of qualitative interviews with Swedish police officers who have recent experiences of participating in peacebuilding missions in Liberia, Kosovo and Haiti. The findings show that despite certain obstacles, the police officers find ways to conduct police work in a manner that they believe supports the advancement of a democratic police force, and that their overall sentiment of building peace abroad is positive. However, their experiences of returning home to reengage in Swedish police work are less satisfactory. Officers express frustration that new insights and new knowledge gained abroad do not seem to be valued by the Swedish Police Authority. This is a finding that aligns with results from previous studies on Canadian and Australian police officers.