The 'Local Turn' in Peacebuilding

The Liberal Peace Challenged

Joakim Ojendal, Isabell Schierenbeck, Caroline Hughes, Joakim Ojendal, Isabell Schierenbeck, Caroline Hughes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138293007
• eBook ISBN: 9781351867535
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique

Contemporary practices of international peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction are often unsatisfactory. There is now a growing awareness of the significance of local governments and local communitites as an intergrated part of peacebuilding in order to improve quality and enhance precision of interventions. In spite of this, 'the local' is rarely a key factor in peacebuilding, hence 'everyday peace' is hardly achieved. The aim of this volume is threefold: firstly it illuminates the substantial reasons for working with a more localised approach in politically volatile contexts. Secondly it consolidates a growing debate on the significance of the local in these contexts. Thirdly, it problematizes the often too swiftly used concept, 'the local', and critically discuss to what extent it is at all feasible to integrate this into macro-oriented and securitized contexts. This is a unique volume, tackling the 'local turn' of peacebuilding in a comprehensive and critical way.

This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

The ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding: a literature review of effective and emancipatory local peacebuilding

Hanna Leonardsson and Gustav Rudd

School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

This article is a literature review of the current local turn in peacebuilding. After a short introduction on the origins of ‘the local’ in peacebuilding, it gives an overview of current research and policy debates on the issue along two different lines. First, it emphasises the local in peacebuilding as a measure to increase peacebuilding effectiveness, as explored in the literature on the benefits of decentralisation and local governments for peace, as well as in the debates on local capacity and ownership as essential parts of peacebuilding policy. Second, it focuses on the local in peacebuilding as a means of emancipation and inclusion of local agency, expressed partly through the emphasis on voices from below and partly within the critical approaches to how the local has been interpreted in peacebuilding so far, arguing for a peacebuilding that is essentially local.

Introduction

Discussions on ‘the local’ in relation to peacebuilding are not new. As will be seen below, the inclusion of the local context, local communities and local agencies has been emphasised in conflict resolution and conflict transformation debates for at least two decades. In addition, the UN and other international peacebuilding partners have for some time talked about local governance, local capacities and local ownership. Nevertheless, more recent analyses of the failures of peacebuilding, or of instances where the peace implemented is too shallow, too centralised or neglects the local context, have exposed the use of the local as a rhetorical tool, implemented in practice to a limited extent.¹ As a response, a current local turn in peacebuilding is starting to form, putting emphasis on ‘the local’ in terms of the local context, local agency and dealing with local partners.²

Despite a growing number of research and policy papers focusing on the potential and liabilities of including the local in peacebuilding processes, to our knowledge few attempts have been made to give an overview of what constitutes the local turn.³ After an initial discussion on ‘peace from below’, originating from the mid-1990s, this article aims to provide a broad overview of the forefront of the literature when it comes to two central dimensions of the current local turn. The first dimension refers to the local in peacebuilding as a means of effective peacebuilding. The literature within this approach focuses on sub-national governments as pillars in peacebuilding and statebuilding design, emphasising local ownership and local capacity building. The second dimension instead focuses on the local as a means of emancipation expressed through the emphasis on voices from below. The literature within this approach argues for the inclusion of local agency in peacebuilding and criticises the way the local has been interpreted in peacebuilding so far.

Post-cold war peacebuilding and the origins of the local

With the end of the Cold War the international community faced new security challenges of internal violence and state failure. To address these challenges, in particular the UN launched a number of peace interventions.⁴ The promotion of peace was based on liberal ideals of democracy and market economies, which were reflected in framing documents such as the UN’s Agenda for Peace.⁵ However, the sad failures in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia showed that, accompanied by a frequent lack of political will in the international community, the UN’s peace intervention toolbox – including diplomacy, peace-making, peacekeeping and peacebuilding strategies – was ill-equipped for managing intrastate conflicts.⁶ These failures were followed by criticism of the liberal constitutional order designed and implemented by the West in post-conflict contexts.⁷

In parallel the emphasis on the role of civil society, local communities and local actors in peacebuilding grew during the 1990s, nurturing the idea of ‘peace from below’. Pioneering work by, for example, Lederach argued that ‘the greatest resource for sustaining peace in the long term is always rooted in the local people and their culture’.⁸ While taking a holistic approach to peacebuilding, in which domestic actors at different societal levels as well as international actors are considered important, Lederach emphasised the visions for peace inherent among local people and the need for the international community to recognise such people as resources and not recipients in peacebuilding. Thus ‘citizen-based peace making’ should be recognised as a principal component in peacebuilding efforts.⁹ Similarly, drawing on his experiences as a mediator in the wars in former Yugoslavia, Curle suggested that the best peace-making potential is found in the communities in conflict themselves. Thus, efforts should be made to empower and develop ‘local peacemakers’ and to build on indigenous sociocultural structures and practices.¹⁰ Addressing the issue of local actors as owners and builders of peace, Rupesinghe and Fetherston argue that local actors are ‘the primary architects, owners and long-term stakeholders’ of peace,¹¹ and that peace must be produced and reproduced by the people living in a specific post-conflict context.¹² War-zone ethnographer Nordstrom similarly shows how local people and communities affected by violent conflicts use indigenous practices to handle post-conflict situations.¹³ Boulding adds that ‘each social group has developed its own strategies of conflict resolution, uniquely rooted in local culture’.¹⁴ In relation to UN peace interventions Fetherston and Nordstrom write, ‘given that peacekeepers interact extensively with communities in conflict, a reorientation that integrates macro- and micro-level activity aimed at long-term transformation is necessary’.¹⁵ They conclude that third-party interventions should be ‘guided by a broader definition of success that is not only deduced from the top but also articulated from local frameworks of peacebuilding’.¹⁶ Thus, the common denominator of the holistic, transformative and long-term perspective is the emphasis on a peace built on internal, domestic and local traditions as well as cultural practices. Outside actors can lend valuable support but are never more than bystanders in decisions on what type of peace is to be built.

In the early 2000s, as a response to the emerging critique of peacebuilding operations, a new generation of international peace operations emerged, offering a more robust and coherent international ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• The struggle versus the song – the local turn in peacebuilding: an introduction
• 1. The ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding: a literature review of effective and emancipatory local peacebuilding
• 2. Where is the local? Critical localism and peacebuilding
• 3. Unpacking the local turn in peacebuilding: a critical assessment towards an agenda for future research
• 4. The dynamic local: delocalisation and (re-)localisation in the search for peacebuilding identity
• 5. Palestinian unity and everyday state formation: subaltern ‘ungovernmentality’ versus elite interests
• 6. Poor people’s politics in East Timor
• 7. The ‘local turn’ saving liberal peacebuilding? Unpacking virtual peace in Cambodia
• 8. National policy in local practice: the case of Rwanda
• 9. Local violence and politics in KwaZulu-Natal: perceptions of agency in a post-conflict society
• 10. Reducing fragility through strengthening local governance in Guinea
• 11. Rethinking justice and institutions in African peacebuilding
• 12. Beyond the local turn divide: lessons learnt, relearnt and unlearnt
• Index