9789185509607

Building Peace, Creating Conflict?

Conflictual Dimensions of Local and International Peace-building

Edited by Hanne Fjelde & Kristine Hรถglund

nordic academic press

Nordic Academic Press P.O. Box 1206 SE-221 05 Lund Sweden www.nordicacademicpress.com

© Nordic Academic Press and the authors 2011 Typesetting: Frederic Täckström, www.sbmolle.com Cover: Jacob Wiberg Cover images: Scenes from Serbia and Afghanistan.

UN Photo/John Isaac and UNAMA Printed by ScandBook, Falun 2011 ISBN: 978-91-85509-60-7

Contents Foreword

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1. Building peace, creating conflict?

Hanne Fjelde & Kristine Höglund

11

2. Just peace postponed

25

Unending peace processes and frozen conflicts

Karin Aggestam & Annika Björkdahl

3. Peacekeeping and transitions to democracy Birger Heldt

47

4. Interveners and intervened upon

73

The missing link in building peace and avoiding conflict

Linnéa Gelot & Fredrik Söderbaum

5. Local ownership of peace

89

Hobbes, Rousseau and international support for state-building in Afghanistan

Louise Olsson & Anna K. Jarstad

6. Education through regulation?

105

External intervention in domestic politics in post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina

Roland Kostić

7. Individual justice and collective innocence The role of the ICTY in a Bosnian town

Johanna Mannergren Selimovic

131

8. Humanitarian assistance and the politics of gender equality

149

A study of refugee camps on the Thai–Burma border

Elisabeth Olivius

References

169

About the authors

189

Foreword This book builds on research presented at the Swedish National Conference on Peace and Conflict Research held in Uppsala on 16–17 December 2010. The conference considered case-studies, broad empirical studies, and theoretical contributions. Readers of this book are left to study a sample thereof. As a practitioner, it is always refreshing to encounter theory- and concept-driven treatments of subjects of immediate relevance.

Let me begin by extending my heartfelt appreciation and thanks.

First, to the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University for the excellent organization of the conference. Second, to all participants who contributed to the event. I was pleased to notice the major part played by postgraduate students at the conference. This was the fourth national conference on the theme that the Folke Bernadotte Academy has sponsored, and we already look forward to supporting and attending the 2012 national conference.

For my own part, I took with me a number of reflections prompted by the conference presentations. One reflection is that issues confronting practitioners are often – or perhaps always – instances of classical problems; issues dealt with centuries ago, although under different labels. For instance, one conference paper suggested that the issue of local ownership could be subsumed under the works of classical philosophers who dealt with statehood and the role of the state, instead of being regarded as a completely new challenge.

Another conference paper showed that, rather than using issuespecific theories, the question of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration can be analysed using general theories of the causes of civil war. The phenomenon to be explained – the outbreak of violence – remains the same, which means that tried, tested, and to varying degrees accepted theories can be applied. Practitioners may occasionally be well served by taking a step back and reflecting 7

building peace, creating conflict?

on this in general, as doing so may simplify the challenges at hand, and suggest solutions. Many ‘new’ issues are thus basically versions of classical problems and issues pondered centuries ago.

In the mid- or even late 1980s I do not think that many Swedish scholars thought that by 1995, peace research in Scandinavia would have moved from largely studying interstate conflicts to focusing on intrastate conflicts, and in particular ethnic conflicts.

This transformation may have been due to the increasing number of armed conflicts after the Cold War, increased availability of data on civil wars (for which the Uppsala Conflict Data Project deserves credit), and/or increased media focus on civil wars. Fifteen years later, this pattern still applies by and large, although many new research puzzles generated by intrastate conflicts have been added to the Scandinavian agenda.

What kind of research might we see in Swedish, and indeed international, peace research ten years from now? Divining the future is never easy, so I will limit myself to just one prediction and a number of hopes. My prediction is that we will see more studies built on large-scale field studies involving the collection of survey data from individuals. Starting in 2005, the Folke Bernadotte Academy has financed a number of such field surveys by scholars in other countries, with a focus on peacekeeping and the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of combatants. Since many theories of civil war and post-conflict peace are based on theories of individual motivation, such theories can strictly speaking only be assessed with the help of individual-level data compiled in field surveys.

Turning from predictions to hopes, more research on all aspects of peace operations as well as preventive diplomacy/peacemaking would be most welcome. Important steps have been taken in Sweden in this field, but there is plenty of room for additional work. One can also hope for increased interest in assessing Swedish peacekeeping operations. There are already strong signs of this, such as the recently created working group on Swedish peace operations at Lund University. There is also a need for more research – be it on issues such as disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration; security sector reform; or the rule of law – that is of immediate relevance to post-conflict peace-building and to practitioners. Ultimately, the 8

foreword

hope is that greater attention will be paid to exit strategies, as well as the protection of civilians, by peace operations. This would be a natural addition to the present peace and conflict research agenda.

Henrik Landerholm Director-General, The Folke Bernadotte Academy

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chapter 1

Building peace, creating conflict?

Hanne Fjelde & Kristine Hรถglund 1

Introduction One of the most significant challenges facing the international community today is how to secure stability and rebuild societies emerging from civil war. Since the end of the Cold War, international agencies such as the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Union, and the African Union have, in their capacity as representatives of their member states, taken on increased responsibility for creating the conditions for durable peace in post-conflict societies. International peace-building missions have been deployed to a range of countries emerging from civil war, including Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Cambodia, East Timor, the former Yugoslavia, Burundi, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Haiti. These peace-building missions have not only had extensive conflict-management mandates, but have also authorized the relevant international agencies to intervene extensively in the domestic affairs of the post-conflict societies concerned. The current international approach to peace-building in war-torn societies has thus moved far beyond crisis management and a focus on military and security priorities to include a broad range of issues relating to institutional transformation, economic reconstruction, social inclusion, and reconciliation.

The record of international efforts to advance peace has been mixed. While some post-war countries have made significant strides 11

building peace, creating conflict?

towards peace, democracy, and development, other countries have seen a return to war, and yet others a partial implementation of peace, where the transition has generated new conflicts between local and international actors or between local communities. Whereas the promotion by international actors of policies and norms such as liberal democracy, economic liberalization, and human rights is intended to contribute to a sustainable peace, these efforts have frequently given rise to tensions between the diverse set of actors involved – at the international, national and local level – about the substance of these norms and policies. This book is about these conflictual dimensions of peace-building. It covers several themes and cases. Aggestam and Björkdahl explore the reasons behind ‘frozen conflicts’ and ‘unending peace processes’, and use examples from the peace processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Israel–Palestine to illustrate the dynamics in play (Chapter 2). The efficiency of peacekeeping operations is the topic of Held’s chapter. He employs a quantitative test – covering the period 1960 to 2005 – to assess whether peacekeeping operations contribute to transitions to democracy (Chapter 3). Gelot and Söderbaum address the local ownership problematique by theoretically analysing the nature of the ‘intervener’ relative to the local context (Chapter 4). The necessity of local ownership in peace-building operations is also the topic of Jarstad and Olsson’s chapter. They use the case of Afghanistan to illustrate how understandings of ‘the local’ in peace-building operations deviate among various types of international actor (Chapter 5). Kostić explores the interplay between local dynamics and international peace-building efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a particular focus on the external regulation of domestic politics in the aftermath of the 1996 Dayton Peace Accords (Chapter 6). Mannergren Selimovic considers peace-building from the perspective of transitional justice, using qualitative evidence from interviews in the Bosnian town of Foča about the role of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (Chapter 7). The tension and conflict between international and local actors created by international gender-equality interventions among Karen refugees in Thailand is the topic in Olivius’ chapter (Chapter 8).

In this introductory chapter we outline the main contemporary 12

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debates and research on peace-building and relate the chapters in this volume to these debates. After a brief overview of the concept of peace-building, we highlight four controversies in peace-building research relating to (i) the uneven track record of peace-building efforts; (ii) the normative and ideological underpinnings of peacebuilding; (iii) the dilemmas that are engendered by simultaneously promoting a variety of goals, such as democracy and stability; and (iv) the significance of local ownership. We conclude by pointing to areas for future research on the conflictual dimensions of peacebuilding, and suggest an actor-oriented approach to analysing the tensions that arise in a peace-building environment.

The concept of peace-building The concept of peace-building has no clear and unambiguous meaning. A broad understanding of the term is that peace-building denotes the various efforts in support of the political, institutional, social, and economic transformations necessary to reduce the risk of conflict recurrence, and laying the foundations for sustainable peace and development (see, for example, Boutros-Ghali 1992; Jarstad & Sisk 2008; UN 2008). It is an attempt, after a peace has been negotiated or imposed, to address the sources of current hostility and to build national capacities for conflict management and resolution (Doyle & Sambanis 2000). The concept of peace-building is broad, and the difficulties in constructing a clear, coherent typology of peacebuilding operations mean that many fall back on referring to them in generic terms as ‘multidimensional’ or ‘complex’ peacekeeping operations (Chetail 2009). The complexities of these peace-building operations stem partly from the fact that they include tasks far beyond conventional crisis management and peacekeeping mandates, and aim at a more thoroughgoing transformation of political, economic, and social structures to promote sustainable peace and development.

As Chetail (2009) suggests, peace-building operations involve at least three overall processes of change. First, peace-building aims to foster a security transition, whereby societies move from open violence to peace. Second, building peace after conflict involves a democratic transition from authoritarian rule to one of democratic 13

building peace, creating conflict?

governance. Third, peace-building is envisaged as incorporating socio-economic recovery, involving a transition from a conflict economy to an economy of peace.

Of these three, the process of security transformation is often linked to conventional peacekeeping efforts and the aim of bringing the immediate violence to an end. But moving beyond that, the conflict-transformation aspect of peace-building also incorporates a process whereby the actors consciously work towards a modification of the structural dimensions of the conflict with the long-term goal of securing durable peace (Goetschel 2009). Police and military reform, demobilization, and demilitarization efforts targeted at former combatants and the security establishment are examples of peace-building efforts geared towards security transformation (Berdal & Ucko 2009; ThemnĂŠr 2011).

The process of democratic transformation, meanwhile, focuses on the establishment of legitimate political authority in the postconflict state. Post-conflict societies vary considerably, but a majority of the countries that emerge from civil war share a history of non-representative government, widespread political repression, and exclusionary and dysfunctional institutions. A move towards more open and accommodating political institutions is an integral part of contemporary peace-building efforts, and most peacekeeping missions since the end of the Cold War have involved a significant democratization component (Hegre & Fjelde 2010; Fortna 2008).

Facilitating democratic transition involves preparing for, administrating and overseeing political elections, promoting basic civil and political rights, drafting national constitutions that codify political and civil rights, sponsoring the growth of civil society, and ensuring the transformation of warring actors into political parties (Paris 2004; Kumar 1998).

The imperative for democratization in the course of peace-building reflects two ideas about fostering the conditions for durable peace.

First, democracy promotion is seen as a security strategy (Mani & Krause 2009; Hegre & Fjelde 2010). The assumption is that if only democratization is achieved, peace will take root. As such, democracy is not only seen as the ideal standard of good governance, but also the most secure foundation for creating durable peace (Donais 14

building peace, creating conflict?

2009). Second, the focus on democratization stems from a belief in the ‘promotion of “good governance” as a developmental concern’, where democratic governance is held to lay the foundations for economic development (Mani & Krause 2009: 105).

The third process of change involves economic recovery and a transformation of wartime economic relations into the patterns of economic exchange deemed profitable for peace. Economic development is critical in the post-war phase, for two reasons: (i) poverty and underdevelopment are exacerbated during violent conflict; and (ii) poverty makes societies susceptible to violent conflict (Junne & Verkoren 2005). In economic terms, peace-building typically involves not only economic reform, but also massive development aid for poverty reduction by international donors. Neither of these strategies is unproblematic. Liberalization and marketization, coupled with structural adjustment packages, may serve to destabilize vulnerable, war-torn societies and reduce the ability of their governments to address domestic dissatisfaction. Conversely, foreign development aid may not only create donor dependence, but, if unequally distributed and politicized, it may serve to create new conflicts (Berdal & Wennman 2010).

Current debates on peace-building Given the comprehensiveness and ambition of the peace-building agenda, it is no surprise that it has given rise to controversy in academic circles as well as among politicians and those on the ground.

The chapters in this book provide novel insights and observations relating to several of these controversies.

The peace-building track record First, several observers question the track record of the current approach to peace-building. In spite of the multiple actions and huge resources devoted to the process of peace-building, it has, many conclude, yielded few clear-cut results. The outcome has been more difficult and unpredictable than expected, in some cases even having a destabilizing effect on the post-conflict countries (Paris 2010).

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