Review Essay: Critical Debates on Liberal Peacebuilding (original) (raw)

Abstract

The literature on contemporary peacebuilding is increasingly being framed by the liberal peace debate. Sometimes labelled "liberal interventionism" i or "liberal internationalism", ii the authors under review concur that the liberal peace paradigm is the dominant form of internationally--supported peacebuilding. The liberal peace debate is linked to the wider debate surrounding democratic peace theory, as defined by authors such as Bruce Russett or John Oneal. iii Liberal peace refers here to the idea that certain kinds of society will tend to be more peaceful, both in their domestic affairs and in their international relations, than "illiberal" states. iv Hence, liberal peacebuilding implies not just managing instability between states, the traditional focus of the IR discipline, but also to build peace within states on the basis of liberal democracy and market economics. Mirroring the democratic peace debate, the liberal peace encompasses socio--cultural norms associated with peacemaking, as well as the international and national structures instrumental to promoting the liberal peace. The liberal peace's main components vary, but usually include democracy promotion, the rule of law and good governance, promotion of human rights, economic reform and privatisation. More than an absence of violence and war, a negative peace to use Galtung's terminology, v advocates of the liberal peace focus on social engineering meant to constitute the foundations for a stable society. The blurring and convergence of development and security -dubbed the "security--development nexus" -is at the roots of the liberal peace, in the process bringing together two previously distinct policy areas, and different sets of actors and agencies. The double dynamic of the radicalisation of the politics of development and the reproblematisation of security entails the transformation of societies to fit liberal norms and Western expectations. vi Then the main objective underlying liberal peace promotion is to create a "a self--sustaining peace within domestic, regional and international frameworks of liberal governance in which both overt and structural violence are removed and social, economic and political models conform to a mixture of liberal and neo--liberal international expectations in a globalized and transnational setting." vii The process of taming "overt and structural violence" can in itself create or reinforce modes of cultural and social domination occurring within the everyday social habits, forms of order and social restraint produced by indirect, cultural mechanisms; what has been described as "symbolic violence" by Pierre Bourdieu. viii However, symbolic violence requires acceptance as legitimate by the subject to reach its aim - this is the process of misrecognition (méconnaissance):

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References (37)

  1. individual theories". xxxiv Not unlike IR theory, the potential for bringing together various approaches on liberal peacebuilding should not be overlooked.
  2. i Neil Cooper, "Review Article: On the Crisis of the Liberal Peace," Conflict, Security & Development 7/4 (2007), p. 605. ii Roland Paris, "Peacebuilding and the Limits of Liberal Internationalism," International Security 22/2 (1997), pp. 54-89. iii Different strands of the democratic peace theory have emerged over time, each having an impact on the liberal peace debate. They include studies of the obsolescence of major wars following a normative evolution of mental habits, economic theses based on cost--benefit analyses of conflict, and institutional perspectives, studying the impact of international institutions on the behaviour of states. See: John Mueller, Retreat of Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War. (New York: Basic Books, 1988);
  3. John Oneal and Bruce Russett, "Assessing the Liberal Peace with Alternative Specifications: Trade Still Reduces Conflict", Journal of Peace Research 36/4 (1999), pp. 423-442;
  4. Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post--Cold War World. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993);
  5. Bruce Russett and John Oneal, Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2001).
  6. iv For instance, Fareed Zakaria, in a somewhat mainstream study of "illiberal" democracy promotion, looks at how democracy and illiberalism are correlated, and how the democratic peace is actually the liberal peace. Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2003).
  7. Johan Galtung, Peace : Research -Education -Action. Essays in Peace Research Vol. 1 (Copenhague: Christian Ejlers, 1975), p. 245.
  8. vi Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars (New York: Zed Books, 2001), p. 15. vii Jason Franks and Oliver Richmond, "Coopting Liberal Peace--building : Untying the Gordian Knot in Kosovo", Cooperation and Conflict 43/1 (2008), p. 83.
  9. viii Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power: The Economy of Linguistic Exchanges (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 167. See also: Nicolas Lemay--Hébert, "The Bifurcation of the Two Worlds: Assessing the Gap Between Internationals and Locals in State--Building Processes", Third World Quarterly 32/10 (2011), pp. 1834--1835.
  10. ix Pierre Bourdieu and Jean--Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (London: Sage, 1990), p. xxii.
  11. x See: David Chandler, "Peacebuilding and the Politics of Non--Linearity: Rethinking 'Hidden' Agency and 'Resistance'", Peacebuilding 1/1 (2013), pp. 17--32.
  12. xi See for instance: John Heathershaw, "Unpacking the Liberal Peace: The Dividing and Merging of Peacebuilding Discourses", Millennium 36/3 (2008), pp. 597--621; Oliver Richmond, "The Problem of Peace: Understanding the 'Liberal' Peace", Conflict, Security and Development 6/3 (2006), pp. 291--314.
  13. xii David Chandler, "The Uncritical Critique of Liberal Peace", Review of International Studies 36/S1 (2010), 137- 155; See also the conclusion by Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh and Oliver Richmond in S. Tadjbakhsh, ed. Rethinking the Liberal Peace.
  14. David Chandler, "The security-development nexus and the rise of 'anti--foreign policy'" Journal of International Relations and Development 10/4 (2007), p. 363.
  15. xiv See for instance: Timothy Sisk, "Pathways of the Political: Electoral Processes After Civil War", in R. Paris and T. Sisk, eds. The Dilemmas of Statebuilding (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009).
  16. xv Nicolas Lemay--Hébert, "Coerced Transitions in Timor--Leste and Kosovo: Managing Competing Objectives of Institution--Building and Local Empowerment," Democratization 19/3 (2012), pp. 465--485; See also S. Tadjbakhsh's chapter "Open Societies, Open Markets", in Rethinking the Liberal Peace. xvi See: Alex Bellamy, "The 'Next Stage' in Peace Operations Theory?" in A. Bellamy and P. Williams, eds. Peace Operations and Global Order (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), pp. 17--38.
  17. xvii Robert Cox, "Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory," in Robert Keohane, ed. Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 207-208. Cox's work is itself inspired by Max Horkheimer's lecture on traditional and critical theory (1937).
  18. xviii Timothy Sinclair, "Beyond International Relations Theory: Robert W. Cox and Approaches to World Order," in Robert Cox and Timothy Sinclair, eds. Approaches to World Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 6.
  19. xix Robert Cox, "Social Forces, States and World Orders," p. 209.
  20. xx Ronen Palan, "A World of their Making: An Evaluation of the Constructivist Critique in International Relations," Review of International Studies 26/4 (2000), p. 576.
  21. xxi Roland Paris, "Saving Liberal Peacebuilding", Review of International Studies 36/2 (2010), p. 338.
  22. xxii Neil Cooper, Mandy Turner and Michael Pugh, "The end of history and the last liberal peacebuilder: a reply to Roland Paris", Review of International Studies 37/4 (2011), pp. 1995--2007.
  23. xxiii David Chandler, "The Uncritical Critique of Liberal Peace", Review of International Studies 36/S1 (2010), p. 139. xxiv Roland Paris and Timothy Sisk, eds. The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations (London: Routledge, 2009).
  24. xxv David Roberts, "Post--Conflict Peacebuilding, Liberal Irrelevance and the Locus of Legitimacy", International Peacekeeping 18/4 (2011), pp. 410--424;
  25. David Roberts, "Everyday Legitimacy and Postconflict States: Introduction", Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 7/1 (2013).
  26. xxvi See: Oliver Richmond, Peace in International Relations (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 150; or David Chandler's chapter in the edited book.
  27. xxvii Thomas P. M. Barnett, The Pentagon's New Map (New York: Penguin, 2004).
  28. xxviii See: Oliver Richmond, A Post--Liberal Peace (London: Routledge, 2011);
  29. David Chandler, International Statebuilding: The Rise of Post--Liberal Governance (London: Routledge, 2010);
  30. Ioannis Tellidis, "The End of the Liberal Peace? Post--Liberal Peace vs. Post--Liberal States," International Studies Review 14/3 (2012), pp. 429- 435. xxix Roland Paris, At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 179-211.
  31. xxx David Chandler, "Resilience and Human Security: The Post--Interventionist Paradigm", Security Dialogue 43/3 (2012), pp. 213--229;
  32. Edward Newman, "A Human Security Peace--Building Agenda", Third World Quarterly 32/10 (2011), pp. 1737--1756.
  33. xxxi Roger Mac Ginty, "Hybrid Peace: How Does Hybrid Peace Come About?" in S. Campbell, D. Chandler and M. Sabaratnam, eds. A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding (New York: Zed Books, 2011), pp. 209--225; Roger Mac Ginty, "Hybrid peace: The interaction between top--down and bottom--up peace," Security Dialogue, 41/4 (2010), pp. 391-412;
  34. Kevin Clements et al., "State Building Reconsidered: The Role of Hybridity in the Formation of Political Order," Political Science 59/1 (2008), pp. 45--56; Oliver Richmond and Audra Mitchell, eds. Hybrid Forms of Peace: From Everyday Agency to Post--Liberalism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Mac Millan, 2011).
  35. xxxii Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, "The State in Times of Statebuilding", Civil Wars 10/4 (2008), pp. 348--368;
  36. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, "Introduction: The Limits of Statebuilding and the Analysis of State--Formation", Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 4/2 (2010), pp. 111--128; Shahar Hameiri, "Failed States or a Failed Paradigm? State Capacity and the Limits of Institutionalism", Journal of International Relations and Development 10: 122--149; Nicolas Lemay--Hébert, ""Rethinking Weberian Approaches to Statebuilding," in D. Chandler and T. Sisk, eds. Routledge Handbook of International Statebuilding (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 3-- 14. xxxiii Deemed "unhelpful" by a collective of scholars on the subject. Susanna Campbell, David Chandler and Meera Sabaratnam, "Introduction: The Politics of Liberal Peace", in Susanna Campbell, David Chandler and Meera Sabaratnam, eds. A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding (New York: Zed Books, 2011), p. 1.
  37. xxxiv John Moolakkattu, "Robert W. Cox and Critical Theory of International Relations," International Studies 46/4 (2009), p. 444.