Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Friction Sites and Local-level Peacebuilding in Haiti, Liberia and South Sudan

Bibliographic Data

ID7429136
AuthorsNiels Nagelhus Schia, John Karlsrud (0000-0002-8409-1098)
Year2013
Volume20
Issue2
Pages233-248
Publication date2013-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Peacekeeping (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1353-3312 • E-ISSN: 1743-906X
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13533312.2013.791581
OpenAlexW1964925328
LanguageEN
Citations received13

Peacebuilding actors have been heavily criticized for being postcolonial, orientalist and mired in a Western rationality, causing a gap between needs on the ground and the means provided, and resulting in poor delivery. From recent fieldwork in Liberia, Haiti and South Sudan we argue that while there is merit to much of this critique, there is also a will to analyse and understand the local political economy and how international actors become a part of it, but that peacebuilding tends to fall victim to conflicting power structures within the UN and between international actors, as well as to the lack of application of acquired knowledge and cumbersome processes. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank the anonymous peer reviewers for their many useful suggestions. This article is based on fieldwork in Haiti, Liberia and South Sudan, carried out together with Diana Felix da Costa and Hannah Neumann in the project ‘Contextualizing Peacebuilding Activities to Local Circumstances’, funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and draws on the reports from the fieldwork and the inputs from Felix da Costa and Neumann. Notes Interview by author with national CAO, Liberia, September 2011. Such as Carl von Clausewitz, ‘Book One: On the Nature of War’, in Michael Howard and Peter Paret (trans and eds), On War, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984, see for instance p.119. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, pp.73–4. Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social – An introduction to Actor-Network Theory, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, p.204. Mark R. Duffield, Global Governance and the New War: The Merging of Development and Security, London: Zed, 2001; David Chandler, Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building, London: Pluto, 2006. Roland Paris, ‘International Peacebuilding and the “Mission Civilisatrice”’, Review of International Studies, Vol.28, No.4, 2002, pp.637–56; Michael M. Pugh, ‘The Political Economy of Peacebuilding: A Critical Theory Perspective’, International Journal of Peace Studies Vol.10, No.2, 2005, pp.23–42. Beatrice Pouligny, ‘Local Ownership’ in V. Chetail (ed.), Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: A Lexicon, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009; Ole J. Sending, ‘Why Peacebuilders Fail to Secure Ownership and be Sensitive to Context’, NUPI Working Paper 755, Oslo: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), 2009. Oliver P. Richmond, ‘Beyond Liberal Peace? Responses to “Backsliding”’, in Edward Newman, Roland Paris and Oliver P. Richmond (eds), New Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding, New York: United Nations University Press, 2009, pp.54–77; Roger Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance: Hybrid Forms of Peace. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Roland Paris, ‘Saving Liberal Peacebuilding’, Review of International Studies, Vol.36, No.2, 2010, p.2. See, for instance Philippa Atkinson, ‘Liberal Interventionism in Liberia: Towards a Tentatively Just Approach?’, Conflict, Security and Development, Vol.8, No.1, 2008, pp.15–45; Louise Andersen, ‘Outsiders Inside the State: Post-Conflict Liberia between Trusteeship and Partnership’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Vol.4, No.2, 2010, pp.129–52; Morten Bøås, ‘Making Plans for Liberia: A Trusteeship Approach or Good Governance?’, Third World Quarterly, Vol.30, No.7, 2009, pp.1329–41; Morten Bøås and Karianne Stig, ‘Security Sector Reform in Liberia: An Uneven Partnership without Local Ownership’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Vol.4, No.3, 2010, pp.285–303; Hannah Neumann, ‘Taking a Micro-social Perspective of Impact of Peacebuilding Interventions on Rural Citizens’, Journal of Peace, Conflict & Development, Vol.18, 2011, pp.47–67; Niels Nagelhus Schia and Benjamin de Carvalho, ‘“Nobody Gets Justice Here!”: Addressing Sexual and Gender-based Violence and the Rule of Law in Liberia’, NUPI Working Paper 761, Oslo: NUPI, 2009; Niels Nagelhus Schia and Benjamin de Carvalho, ‘Peacebuilding in Liberia and the Case for a Perspective from Below’, NUPI Working Paper 778, Oslo: NUPI, 2010. The term ‘light footprint mission’ was introduced in scholarly discourse to differentiate missions where full authority remains with the sovereign state from ‘heavy footprint missions’ where the international transitional administration holds full executive authority. See for example: Stephen D. Krasner, ‘Sharing Sovereignty: New Institutions for Collapsed and Failed States’, International Security, Vol.29, No.2, 2004, pp.85–120; Simon Chesterman, Tiptoeing Through Afghanistan: The Future of UN State-Building, New York: International Peace Academy, 2002 (at: www.ipinst.org/media/pdf/publications/afghanistan0902.pdf). For a critique of this dichotomization see Rory Keane, ‘The Partnership-Conditionality Binary in the West Balkans: Promoting Local Ownership for Sustainable Democratic Transition’, Review of International Affairs, Vol.18, No.2, 2005, pp.247–57. Andersen (see n.10 above). Bøås (see n.10 above). See e.g. Severine Autesserre, The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding, New York: Columbia University, 2010; Hannah Neumann, ‘Taking a Micro-Social Perspective of Impact of Peacebuilding Interventions on Rural Citizens: Case Study of a Liberian Community’, Peace, Conflict & Development, Vol.18, December, 2011, pp.47–67. UN, Policy Directive: Civil Affairs, New York: United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Department of Field Support, 2008, p.3. See e.g. Diana Felix da Costa and John Karlsrud, ‘Moving Towards Local-Level Peacebuilding?’, Security in Practice 5, Oslo: NUPI, 2012; Hannah Neumann and Niels Nagelhus Schia, ‘Contextualizing Peacebuilding Activities to Local Circumstances’, Security in Practice 6, Oslo: NUPI, 2012; Diana Felix da Costa and John Karlsrud, ‘UN Local Peacebuilding and Transition in Haiti’, Security in Practice 4, Oslo: NUPI, 2012; Niels Nagelhus Schia, ‘Historical Overview of the UN Civil Affairs’, (forthcoming). These overviews of Civil Affairs staffing, as of January 2012, was shared to us through correspondence with the UN DPKO Peacekeeping Best Practices Section, 16 March 2012. By August 2012 the number of CAOs deployed to the field had risen to over one thousand officers deployed in 17 field missions. UN, UN DPKO/DFS Civil Affairs Handbook, New York: Policy and Best Practices Service, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, 2012. While the focus of our article is on Civil Affairs, we do not conflate our understanding of CAOs and their work with that of all peacebuilders, but we do not underestimate the influence they have on local peacebuilding either. Andrew H. Van de Ven and Marshall Scott Poole, ‘Alternative Approaches for Studying Organizational Change’, Organization Studies, Vol.26, No.9, 2005, pp.339–55. Niels Nagelhus Schia spent one year with the Civil Affairs desk of the UN DPKO Policy and Best Practices Service, from 2009 to 2010, doing anthropological fieldwork for his PhD. John Karlsrud spent 19 months (2008–2010) as Special Assistant to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) in Chad. Together they thus have significant relevant experience from the UN. Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson, Culture, Power, Place – Explorations in Critical Anthropology, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997, p.5. Hannerz, Ulf, ‘Several Sites in One’, in Thomas Hylland Eriksen (ed.), Globalisation: Studies in Anthropology, London: Pluto, 2003, pp.18–38. Gupta and Ferguson (see n.21 above), p.6. Tsing (see n.3 above), p.5. Autesserre (see n.14 above); Paris, (see n.6 above); Michael Barnett, ‘Building a Republican Peace: Stabilizing States after War’, International Security, Vol.30, No.4, 2006, pp.87–112. Tsing (see n.3 above), p.6. Alex De Waal, ‘Mission without End? Peacekeeping in the African Political Marketplace’, International Affairs, Vol.85, No.1, 2009, pp.99–113. Ole Jacob Sending makes a similar point in his new book: The Field of Peace Building: Archimedes in Africa, Oslo: NUPI, (forthcoming). Interview by author with CAO, Liberia, September 2011. This expression was repeatedly used by CAOs in Monrovia and the counties in referring to their role within the mission. Interview by author with CAO, Liberia, September 2011. Felix da Costa and Karlsrud (see n.16 above). Ibid. Neumann and Schia (see n.16 above). This conclusion is a result of the fieldwork in Liberia and was confirmed in focus group discussions held with civil society umbrella organizations at the national level. Ibid., p.31. Peter Woodrow and Diana Chigas, ‘A Distinction with a Difference: Conflict Sensitivity and Peacebuilding’, Reflecting on Peace Practice Project, Cambridge, MA: CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, 2009 (at: http://toolkit.ineesite.org/toolkit/INEEcms/uploads/1053/Distinction_with_a_Difference.pdf). See International Alert, Conflict-Sensitive Approaches to Development, Humanitarian Assistance and Peacebuilding: A Resource Pack, London: International Alert, 2004. Christopher Clapham, ‘Being Peacekept’, in Oliver Furley and Roy May (eds), Peacekeeping in Africa, Aldershot: Ashgate 1998, p.306. Ibid., p.308. Michael Barnett and Christopher Zürcher, ‘The Peacebuilder's Contract: How External Statebuilding Reinforces Weak Statehood’, in Roland Paris and Timothy Sisk (eds), The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations, New York: Routledge, 2009, pp.23–52. This argument was first developed together with Diana Felix da Costa and presented as a paper at the Annual International Studies Convention in San Diego, 2012. See Diana Felix da Costa and John Karlsrud, Liberal Peacebuilding Navigating Hybrid Political Orders: Local Peacebuilding in South Sudan, Paper presented at the annual ISA convention, San Diego, 1–4 April 2012. Interview by author with national CAO, South Sudan, October 2012. Interview by author with international CAO, Liberia, September 2011. Interview by author with international CAO, Liberia, September 2011. Nils Brunsson, The Organization of Hypocrisy – Talk, Decisions and Actions in Organizations, Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press, 2002. Interview by author with international CAO, Liberia, September 2011. Ibid. Interview by author with senior CAO, South Sudan, October 2011. Interview by author with CAO, South Sudan, October 2011. See for instance Schia and Carvalho (see n.10 above). As defined by the UN Secretary-General in his opening remarks to the Security Council discussion on peacebuilding, 13 October 2010 (UN, 2010), where he stressed that peacekeeping missions should be enabled ‘to have an impact as “early peacebuilders”’. The meeting in the Security Council was held to discuss the latest Progress Report of the Secretary-General on peacebuilding in the immediate aftermath of conflict (UN, 2010). See also United Nations, Peace: Keep it. Build it. The Contribution of United Nations Peacekeeping to Early Peacebuilding: Strategy, New York: UN DPKO and DFS, 2012: p.10. For further examples, see Felix da Costa and Karlsrud; Neumann and Schia; and Felix da Costa and Karlsrud (see n.16 above). Interview by author with CSO representative, Liberia, September 2011. See for instance Benjamin de Carvalho and Niels Nagelhus Schia, ‘Local and National Ownership in Post-conflict Liberia – Foreign and Domestic Inside Out?’ NUPI Working Paper 787, Security in Practice 3, Oslo: NUPI, 2011. Giulia Piccolino and John Karlsrud, ‘Withering Consent, but Mutual Dependency: UN Peace Operations and African Assertiveness’, Conflict, Security and Development, Vol.11, No.4, 2011, p.451. Sending (see n.28 above), p.5. For instance in Bosnia, Burundi, Liberia, Nepal, Sierra Leone, and Timor Leste. See Virginia Page Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents' Choices after Civil Wars, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008

Christian ministry · Peacebuilding · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Development and Aid · Peacebuilding and International Security

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