05.02.10 Values, Context and Hybridity Stamnes, Eli
NUPI Working Paper | 33 pages.
How can the insights from the liberal peace critique literature be brought to bear on the practices of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture?
This Working Paper is one of nine essays that examine the possible future role of the UN’s peacebuilding architecture. They were written as part of a project co-organized by the Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. All of the contributors to the project were asked to identify realistic but ambitious “stretch targets” for the Peacebuilding Commission and its associated bodies over the next five to ten years. The resulting Working Papers, including this one, seek to stimulate fresh thinking about the UN’s role in peacebuilding.
The liberal peace critique literature sheds light on the values promoted through contemporary peacebuilding efforts and the implications of this. It shows that peacebuilding currently assumes the universal validity of the ‘liberal peace thesis’, and therefore involves the introduction of reform packages and programmes aimed at creating market economies and liberal democracies. This particular operationalisation of liberal peacebuilding is to a large extent treated as indisputable and ‘common sense’, hence excluding alternatives. Pointing out the status quo bias and intrusive nature of such activities, the authors argue that local ownership should mean taking the recipient societies’(rather than simply governments’ and elites’) understanding of the problems and solutions as the starting point of peacebuilding.
The Future of the Peacebuilding Architecture Project
>> Summary
The liberal peace critique literature sheds light on the values promoted through contemporary peacebuilding efforts and the implications of this. It shows that peacebuilding currently assumes the universal validity of the ‘liberal peace thesis’, and therefore involves the introduction of reform packages and programmes aimed at creating market economies and liberal democracies. This particular operationalisation of liberal peacebuilding is to a large extent treated as indisputable and ‘common sense’, hence excluding alternatives. Pointing out the status quo bias and intrusive nature of such activities, the authors argue that local ownership should mean taking the recipient societies’(rather than simply governments’ and elites’) understanding of the problems and solutions as the starting point of peacebuilding. Moreover, there should be a stronger focus on redistribution and social justice in order to build a sustainable peace. The literature demonstrates that current peacebuilding efforts favour general knowledge, standardisation and template use, which, doubtless unintentionally, constitutes an obstacle to adequately addressing the concerns and conditions of the host society. Consequently, there is a tendency to assume that the recipients of peacebuilding must be taught what peacebuilding is about and what they need. A warning is also issued against seeing post-conflict societies as purely traditional or illiberal. Rather they should be treated as complex, or hybrid, societies, and peacebuilding solutions should be sought at the interface between external and internal normative agendas.
In order to address the insights from the liberal peace critique literature the Peacebuilding Architecture’s future development of Integrated Peacebuilding Strategies (IPBS) should:
- Start from broad-based and comprehensive consultations in the countries in question, in order to avoid privileging the views of governments and elites in their respective capitals as well as New York, and to mitigate the UN’s inherent statism.
- Discard preconceptions of what peacebuilding is about, and rather base the IPBSs firmly in the particular context and on existing local agents, capacities, and conceptions of peacebuilding.
- Further prioritise local knowledge over general knowledge by strengthening the relevant sections of the Peacebuilding Support Office and refocusing (and renaming) the Working Group on Lessons Learned.
- Allow for locally-based peacebuilding strategies that are not in line with what is considered to be desirable values and outcomes, nor ‘the proper way of doing things’ in New York.
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