Global

Governance
of Conflict &
Security

Peace

Dr Stephan Engelkamp
31 July 2022
Introduction

 Concepts/frames: making peace and

international order/ing
 Debates: Liberal peace and the local turn
in peacebuilding
 Why does liberal peacebuilding fail to
produce democracy (most of the times)?
 Post-conflict orders and justice
Concepts and framings

Negative and positive peace

(Peace enforcement)
Peacekeeping
Peacebuilding
State-building, nation-building
Development-security nexus
Context: An Agenda for Peace

 1990s: ‘failed states’, ‘fragile states’, ‘new

wars’, ethnic cleansing, genocide
 Boutros Boutros-Ghali‘s Agenda for Peace
(1992, 1995) → peacebuilding as new
instrument for UN
“In surveying the range of efforts for peace,
the concept of peacebuilding as the
construction of a new environment should
be viewed as the counterpart of preventive
diplomacy.”
An Agenda for Peace
– aims –
 Maintaining international peace and
security
 Securing justice and human rights
 Promoting social progress and better
standards of life in larger freedom
 Peacebuilding as remaking of identities,
societies, economies and polities
From peacekeeping to
peacebuilding

 June 1992: Boutros-Ghali’s Agenda for

Peace
 June 1992: accelerating violence in Bosnia
 1993: UN troops ambushed in Somalia,
Black Hawk Dawn incident
 1994: UN failure in Rwanda
 1995: Massacre in Srebrenica
Supplement to the Agenda for
Peace (1995)

“Another feature of such conflicts is the collapse of

state institutions, especially the police and judiciary,
with resulting paralysis of governance, a breakdown of
law and order, and general banditry and chaos. Not
only are the functions of government suspended, its
assets are destroyed or looted and experienced
officials are killed or flee the country. This is rarely the
case in inter-state wars. It means that international
intervention must extent beyond military and
humanitarian tasks and must include the promotion of
national reconciliation and the re-establishment of
effective government.” (Boutros-Ghali 1995, section 13)
From peacebuilding to state-
building
 9/11: securitisation of failed states and
counter-terrorism policies
 New focus on governance, security and
conflict (e.g., USAID, UK DfID, World Bank,
OECD)
 From ‘peace’ & ‘justice’ to ‘order’ &
‘stability’ → focus on perceived security
threats rather than ‘conflict resolution’
Promoting liberal peace?

 ‘Democratic Peace’ paradigm

 Promotion of democratic governance, human

rights, independent judiciaries, free markets

 Liberal peacebuilding as ‘gentler version of the

mission civilisatrice’ (Roland Paris)

 ‘Institutionalisation before liberalisation’?

 Dilemma: imposing liberal peace by illiberal

means?
The ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding

 critique of liberal peace as neoliberal and

neocolonial domination (‘only the markets are
free’, disciplining the Global South)
 ‘pragmatic’ and ‘techno-strategic’ peacebuilding
discourse is political
 Critique of universalising assumptions vs bottom-up
focus on local agency, context and power
relations
 ‘hybrid’ peace: (local) ‘civil society’, localising
narratives, political economy of post-conflict
contexts
What’s at stake in the liberal
peace debate?
 The international context? Securitisation of the
a-liberal other?
 Development-security nexus? Zones of peace
and zones of conflict? Disciplining the Global
South?
 Universal assumptions vs local/regional context
of conflict resolution? Role of local actors?
 ‘Critical’ vs ‘problem-solving’ approaches to
liberal peacebuilding: a ‘meta-debate’?
 Order vs justice in fragile post-conflict contexts?
Why does liberal peacebuilding
rarely lead to democracy?
 What determines democratic peacebuilding?
 after conflict, ‘democratisation’ may increase
political competition, while institutional
safeguards are still weak
 elections may ensure representation of societal
groups, but also lead to dominance over
minority groups
→double transition towards peace &
democracy as dilemma → two objectives may
compete in short-term → stability vs elections?
legitimacy? (Zürcher et al)
Post-conflict democratic
transitions case studies
Afghanistan Macedonia
Bosnia Mozambique
East-Timor Namibia
Haiti Rwanda
Kosovo Tajikistan
Agency, power, and post-
conflict peacebuilding
 state capacity vs local demand for democracy
→ interests of local elites in post-conflict
situations to maintain power
 External factors → capacity and resources of
peacebuilding missions? Coordination issues?
 Peacebuilders often compromise between
stability and democratisation
‘peacebuilders contract’ → tacit agreement
between peacebuilders and local elites → status
quo
Agency, power, and post-
conflict orders
 Postwar countries remain stable when
peacebuilders have a robust mandate and
enough troops (Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina,
Tajikistan, backlashes in Timor-Leste & Kosovo;
exception: Afghanistan)
 Relatively successful transition to democracy
after independence (Namibia, Timor-Leste), or
after civil war stalemate (Mozambique) → elite
and popular demand for democracy
 Ethnic divisions and elite interests in status quo
(Kosovo, Bosnia, Tajikistan)
Order vs justice?

 Order vs justice in fragile post-conflict

contexts
 Role of elites?
 Role of the international context?
 Context of conflict resolution?
 Perspective of the disinterested historian
vs the engaged political mind (Arendt),
the importance of memory and change
 Agential & structural factors in
dispositions of interventions

Normative/ Material
ideational distribution of
structures resources

Symbolic
capital

subject
positions/self- Interpretative
understandings dispositions

Reference: ICS Lecture 16: Regionalism, by Vivienne Jabri

 Today’s quiz question:

Does the idea of ‘liberal

peacebuilding’ do more harm than
good? Discuss, in one to two
sentences.
UNSC: Permanent & Non-
Permanent Members
5 permanent members:
China, France, Russia, UK, US
10 non-permanent members:
 Albania (2023)  Ireland (2022)
 Brazil (2023)  Kenya (2022)
 Gabon (2023)  Mexico (2022)
 Ghana (2023)  Norway (2022)
 India (2022)  United Arab Emirates (2023)
Further reading I

 Campbell, S., Chandler, D.; Sabaratnam, M.

2011. A Liberal Peace? The Problems and
Practices of Peacebuilding. London: Zed Books.

 Zürcher, C.; Roehner, N.; Riese, S. 2009. “External

Democracy Promotion in Post-Conflict Zones. A
Comparative-Analytical Framework", Taiwan
Journal of Democracy 5 (1): 1–26.

 Zürcher, C.; Roehner, N.; Riese, S. 2009. “External

Democracy Promotion in Post-Conflict Zones.
Evidence from Case Studies", Taiwan Journal of
Democracy 5 (1): 241–259.
Further reading II
 Higate, P.; Henry, M. 2010. Space, Performance and
Everyday Security in the Peacekeeping Context,
International Peacekeeping 17(1).

 Andrieu K (2010). Civilizing peacebuilding: Transitional

justice, civil society and the liberal paradigm. Security
Dialogue 41(5): 537-558.

 Björkdahl, A. and Selimovic, JM, Gendering Agency in

Transitional Justice, Security Dialogue, Vol. 46, No. 2 (2015):
165-182.

 Gheciu, A. 2011. Divided Partners: The Challenges of

NATO-NGO Cooperation in Peacebuilding Operations,
Global Governance 17(1).
Extra slides on post-
conflict justice
What is Transitional Justice?

Transitional justice refers to the ways

countries emerging from periods of
conflict and repression address large scale
or systematic human rights violations so
numerous and so serious that the normal
justice system will not be able to provide
an adequate response.
(ICTJ 2019)
Why transitional justice?

 Revealing “the truth”: achieving ‘closure’ for

traumatized societies → precondition for former
enemies to live together? (South Africa)
 Creating a historical record
 Removing worst offenders from positions of
power (Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia)
 Deterring ongoing atrocities (Yugoslavia)
 Material reparation programs (Argentina, Brazil,
Chile, Guatemala, Peru, scaled-down in South
Africa)
Transitional justice

 a “conception of justice associated with periods

of political change, characterized by legal
responses to confront the wrongdoings of
repressive predecessor regimes” (Teitel 2003, 69)
 problematic concept → transition as fixed
period? Transitioning to…?
 set of practices, mechanisms and concerns that
arise following a period of conflict, civil strife or
repression, and that are aimed directly at
confronting and dealing with past violations of
human rights and humanitarian law
What does TJ involve?

 Criminal prosecutions for at least the most

responsible for the most serious crimes
 “Truth-seeking” (or fact-finding) processes
into human rights violations by (non-)judicial
bodies
 Reparations taking a variety of forms:
individual, collective, material and symbolic
 Reform of laws and institutions including the
police, judiciary, military and military
intelligence
Mechanisms

 Establishing accountable institutions and

restoring confidence in them
 Providing access to justice for the most
vulnerable in society in the aftermath of
violations
 Ensuring that women and marginalized
groups play an effective role in the pursuit
of a just society
 Respect for the rule of law
Trials and tribunals

 Retributive justice approach, focus on

individual perpetrator/s → useful to identify
individual responsibility, e.g., after ethnic
conflicts (Rwanda)
 But: divide society in small group of guilty
perpetrators and an innocent majority →
can not adequately engage nuances
 Germany, Japan, Cambodia, Former
Yugoslavia, Rwanda
Amnesties

 Order vs justice in fragile post-conflict

contexts
 elicit information from perpetrators that
would be unlikely to emerge in a criminal
trial where the burden of proof remained
on the state → exchange truth vs justice?
 South Africa
Truth-commissions

 ‘less destabilising’ and confrontational

 official institutions, focus on a defined period of the
past
 compiling an overall narrative of past violations, with
focus of testimony on victims rather than perpetrators
→ allow victims to testify in supportive setting →
healing
 recommend ways to repair the damage and prevent
its repetition
 Latin America, South Africa, Sierra Leone, East Timor
Transitional justice – effects

 “diffusion” of transitional justice since the

1990s

 Trend towards mix of different instruments

 Creation of the International Criminal Court

 Important for development on international

criminal law, training of lawyers, etc.

 How, if at all, does reconciliation affect local

power structures?
Transitional justice – critique

 “the truth” as a singular narrative? → is it

even possible to compile a common
narrative or understanding?
 model of short-term catharsis useful for
societies? (maybe useful for some but
not others)
 How, if at all, does reconciliation affect
local power structures?
 Sustainability issues?
Levels of justice: local

 International, national, or local level

 Local: decentralized fact-finding,
informal justice, and, to some extent
reparation, conducted by local villagers,
in part by customary law
 Example: gacaca processes in Rwanda,
in combination with national and
international courts (ICTR)
Levels of justice: national

 National: Cambodia and the ECCC

 Hybrid tribunal, international and
Cambodian judges
 Focus on retributive justice of top-Khmer
Rouge leader
 Hearings of witnesses → mix of justice
and reconciliation
Levels of justice:
international
 International: International Criminal Court
(ICC), The Hague, since July 2002
 international tribunal to prosecute individuals
for the international crimes of genocide,
crimes against humanity, and war crimes
 Focus on retributive justice, intended to
complement existing national judicial systems,
may exercise jurisdiction when national courts
are unwilling or unable to prosecute criminals
or when UNSC or individual states refer
situations to the ICC
Questions for discussion

 What is or should be the role of justice in

peacebuilding and/or post-conflict order?
 Does retributive justice trump reconciliation?
Or is this a false dichotomy?
 How do you assess the aim to reconstruct
the truth after conflict, e.g. through truth-
commissions?