Hoorcollege 4: current debates in conflict management

Question 1

Main points Autesserre

Answer 1

• Assumptions are important and need to be challenged.
• International support does increase chances of peace but has to be done in right way. It needs to be done bottom-up, not top-down.
• There is a knowledge hierarchy.

Question 2

Assumptions

Answer 2

Are socially constructed over long periods of time. One can locate their sources:
- on the global stage (for instance, the idea that outsiders have what local populations lack)

• in the peacebuilding field (the view that good things always go together and that peacebuilding efforts are always necessary)
• or in practice (the funding of education to promote peace) combined with the belief that lessons from one place can be transferred to another.

Question 3

2 main incorrect assumptions in the peacebuilding field:

Answer 3

1. People living in conflict zones lack something.
2. International interveners can bring what local people are missing.

Question 4

Interveners believe they can bring 2 primary contributions to conflict zones:

Answer 4

Resources and knowledge.

Question 5

Main point Paris

Answer 5

We need to look more into geopolitics.

Question 6

Paris looks at 3 connotations of geopolitics:

Answer 6

• As global competition
• As global constitutive norms
• As territoriality

Question 7

Geopolitics as global competition

Answer 7

Refers to global competition among major powers or aspiring major powers. Intensifying geopolitical competition could have profound effects on the deployment, design, implementation and outcomes of international peace operations, which have always reflected the broader patterns of power politics. Is realist.

Question 8

Geopolitics as global constitutive norms

Answer 8

Spoken and unspoken assumptions about what types of actors are rightful participants in world affairs underly the interests and rivalries of major powers. They constitute the principal agents of global politics – by identifying these agents as legitimate actors and endowing them with certain capabilities and powers.
Falls into the constructivist tradition, which pays attention to the role of norms and shared understandings in creating and reproducing the actors themselves and the social environment in which they interact.

Question 9

Geopolitics as territoriality

Answer 9

Refers to the ‘spatial context’ for understanding international relations, most often understood as the link between global politics and physical geography.

2 branches:

1. The classical branch: examines the importance in international relations of geographical facts, or essentially unchanging natural features, along with elements of human and political geography.
2. The post-modern/critical branch: investigates the implicit assumptions and power relationships that are ‘embedded in geopolitical discourses’ and in ostensibly neutral geographical facts.

Question 10

Critiques & debates about peacebuilding/conflict management

Answer 10

• General frameworks (blueprints/cookie cutter) vs complexity & variety of conflicts (cookie cutter critique)
• Intra- vs interstate conflict –> more focus on intra-state
• Western actors: bringers of solutions or part of conflicts?
• Lack of attention to geopolitics (geopolitics critique) –> power stage is changing
• (Western) blueprints, top-down –> neocolonial? (liberal peace critique), not taking local realities into account

Question 11

Liberal peace

Answer 11

Democracy, rule of law, free and globalized markets, neoliberal development, state-centric peace-as-governance.

Question 12

Liberal peace critiques

Answer 12

• Top down (re)building of institutions, promotion of liberal democracy, free market led development.
• Lack of sensitivity towards local needs and desires; absence of local ownership.
• Market reform can result in inequality, social problems and unemployment.
• Hybrid outcomes (neo-patrimonialism).
• Democratizing societies can be highly volatile.
• Tendency to emphasize stability through brokering elite bargaining has meant that the sources of conflict – e.g., sectarianism – have often been perpetuated.
• Are there exit strategies? Missions tend to stay for much longer than was intended, negative peace because of their presence, but they can’t leave without the situation exploding again –> accusations of neocolonialism

Question 13

Geopolitics critique

Answer 13

The post-modern/critical branch: investigates the implicit assumptions and power relationships that are ‘embedded in geopolitical discourses’ and in ostensibly neutral geographical facts.