International relations theory and peacebuilding

The chapter examines the contribution that International Relations theory has made to the reading and practice of peacebuilding.

Local ownership and UN peacebuilding: discourse versus operationalization

The UN asserts that local ownership boosts the legitimacy and sustainabil- ity of peacebuilding by preserving the principles of self-determination and nonimposition in an activity that can contravene them. At the same time, it also perceives local ownership to imperil the achievement of its operational goals, thus bringing its normative and operational obligations into conflict. This article evaluates the UN’s discourse and operationalization of local ownership, showing that despite the UN’s invocation of ownership dis- course, it operationalizes ownership in restrictive ways that are intended to protect the achievement of operational goals but that consequently limit self-determination and increase imposition. Moreover, because of contra- dictions in the UN’s practices of ownership, it also undercuts its ability to re- alize the very operational goals that it is trying to protect. KEYWORDS: UN peacebuilding, local ownership, discourse vs. practice.

Post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding

Civil wars are the most common type of large scale violent conflict. They are long, brutal and continue to harm societies long after the shooting stops. Post-conflict countries face extraordinary challenges with respect to development and security. In this paper we examine how countries can recover economically from these devastating conflicts and how international interventions can help to build lasting peace. We revisit the aid and growth debate and confirm that aid does not increase growth in general. However, we find that countries experience increased growth after the end of the war and that aid helps to make the most of this peace dividend. However, aid is only growth enhancing when the violence has stopped, in violent post-war societies aid has no growth enhancing effect. We also find that good governance is robustly correlated with growth, however we cannot confirm that aid increases growth conditional on good policies. We examine various aspects of aid and governance by disaggregating the aid and governance variables. Our analysis does not provide a clear picture of which types of aid and policy should be prioritized. We find little evidence for a growth enhancing effect of UN missions and suggest that case studies may provide better insight into the relationship between security guarantees and economic stabilization.

Whose peace? Local ownership and UN peacebuilding

In recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis on the participation of national actors in United Nations peace operations, reflecting what has become a near orthodox commitment to ‘local ownership.’ Advocates of local ownership assert that it: (1) increases the legitimacy of UN peacebuilding efforts; (2) increases the sustainability of peacebuilding activities after the departure of the UN; and (3) increases democratic governance in post-conflict states. While such thinking about local ownership has informed UN peacebuilding policy to a large extent, the UN has, to date, assumed these positive benefits without critically examining the causal mechanisms that allegedly produce them, specifying the conditions under which this correlation holds, or providing convincing evidence for these assertions. Moreover, exactly what local ownership is, what is being owned, and who local ‘owners’ are remain unclear. Indeed a closer examination of ownership’s relation with legitimacy, sustainability, and democratization reveal a plethora of contradictions that imply that local ownership may in fact decrease the UN’s ability to deliver peacekeeping results. Crucially, however, the UN persists in adopting a local ownership approach to peacebuilding, suggesting that it does so because it is normatively appropriate rather than operationally effective.

Advancing Australian 'shared security' : secular-religious peacebuilding networks

The role of religious leaders in promoting social cohesion and ‘shared security’ is increasingly being examined by scholars, as is the growing multifaith movement. The VIIIth World Assembly of Religions for Peace first proposed the notion of ‘shared security’ and the importance of religious leaders’ role in advancing such a concept in Kyoto 2006. A recent study, Managing the Impact of Global Crisis Events on Community Relations in Multicultural Australia (Bouma et al. 2007) has documented the impacts of international crisis events and discourses of exclusion on religiously diverse communities in Australia, in particular rising Islamophobia, migrantophobia and attacks on multiculturalism. Religious communities have been far from passive in their responses to the impact of these events initiating dialogue and educational activities to dispel negative stereotypes and attitudes. State actors, including police, have prioritized engagement with religious leaders resulting in a rise of state supported multifaith and secular-religious peacebuilding activities. This paper argues that, in response to global risks of terror and exclusion, secular-religious networks including religious leaders, state actors, educators and the media have the potential to advance ‘shared security’ in multifaith societies, by drawing on Australian experiences documented in the Global Crisis Events study.

Civic integration for religious community leaders new to Australia : a multifaith peacebuilding approach

We inhabit a mobile world. Globalisation has resulted in the rise of the movement of religion and therefore an increase in religiously diverse societies. A heightened awareness of global risks has also produced an unprecedented interest in global peace and security initiatives. Multifaith peacebuilding is an example of this phenomenon as it has gained increasing prominence on the global agenda since September 11. The role of religious leaders in promoting violence and peace is being examined by scholars, as is the growing multifaith peacebuilding movement. This paper will discuss a recent Australian pilot study, which applied a multifaith peacebuilding approach to civic integration training for religious community leaders. It argues that the peacebuilding potential of religious community leaders must be recognised and that integration strategies that are inclusive and promote the building of networks between multiple function systems, can contribute to security and social cohesion in diverse societies. Alternately, assimilationist, exclusionist strategies can exacerbate security risks. In an increasingly mobile world, religious diversity has become the norm and multifaith peacebuilding strategies require further research and state support.

Post-conflict peacebuilding: strategies and lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina, El Salvador and Sierra Leone

Includes bibliography

Invisible Suffering: Practitioner Reflections on Peacebuilding Programs with Youth Exposed to Traumatic Stressors in Intergroup Conflict

For decades, the international community has recognized that youth are some of the most vulnerable to mental and emotional distress within the intractable and cyclical nature of identity-based violent conflict. Exposure to traumatic stressors within these intergroup conflicts poses unique risks not only to the neurological and social development of youth, but also to the capacities of youth to fully participate in peacebuilding interventions. The peacebuilding field has yet to strongly consider how traumatic stress affects dynamics within programs for youth and how these programs may need to modify expectations of youth’s cognitive, social, and emotional functioning to account for the traumatic dimensions of political and social violence. Through a qualitative analysis of practitioner reflections gathered from an online survey distributed worldwide, this study explores how practitioners conceptualize and approach issues of traumatic stress in peacebuilding programs focused on youth in conflict-affected contexts. The objective is to identify the working assumptions undergirding practitioner conceptualizations and approaches to traumatic stress and gaps in trauma interventions in peacebuilding programs for youth. The implications of these findings will support efforts to enhance trauma-sensitive peacebuilding practice by revisiting and reconsidering preexisting norms.