Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Power of Perceptions: Localizing International Peacebuilding Approaches

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 20; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13533312.2013.791570

1743-906X

Sara Hellmüller,

Peacebuilding and International Security

Abstract Perceptions of peace and conflict differ among various actors. Exploring them can enhance our understanding of meanings that international and local actors ascribe to a conflict, and what strategies are chosen to respond to it. Drawing on academic literature and empirical data gathered in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this article analyses how perceptions of the conflict in the DRC influenced the different local and international peacebuilding strategies and the outcomes of their interaction. The international community's priority was the restoration of the state because they saw the conflict as a breakdown of authority at the national level. The liberal state that the international community had foreseen was however hybridized with local authority structures in the course of its interaction with local perceptions and experiences. At the same time, international strategies eschewed or only belatedly included local priorities, such as reconciliation between antagonistic communities and land conflicts. The article thus argues that the interplay of priorities – the space where friction occurs – remains dominated by international actors. As a consequence, it suggests exploring more carefully and pragmatically the potential intermediary role that local peacebuilding actors can play in rendering international strategies more relevant at the local level. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A previous version of this article was presented at the ECPR Conference in Bremen, Germany, 4–6 July 2012. The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewer, the editors, Deborah Ferber, Dr. Lea Hellmüller, Dr. Didier Péclard and Sandra Rubli for comments on draft versions of this article. Research for this article was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss Peace Foundation (swisspeace). The content of the article is the sole responsibility of the author. Notes Andrea Kathryn Talentino, ‘Perceptions of Peacebuilding: The Dynamic of Imposer and Imposed Upon’, International Studies Perspectives, Vol.8, No.2, 2007, p.153. Anna K. Jarstad and Roberto Belloni, ‘Introducing Hybrid Peace Governance: Impact and Prospects of Liberal Peacebuilding’, Global Governance, Vol.18, No.1, 2012, p.1. Dominik Zaum, ‘Beyond the “Liberal Peace”’, Global Governance, Vol.18, No.1, 2012, p.124. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, pp.3–4. Emeric Rogier, ‘The Inter-Congolese Dialogue: A Critical Overview’, in João Gomes Porto and Mark Malan (ed.), Challenges of Peace Implementation: The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2004, pp.25–42; Tatiana Carayannis, ‘The Challenge of Building Sustainable Peace in the DRC’, HD Background Paper, 2009, pp.1–16; Marta Iñiguez de Heredia, ‘The Space for Congolese Self-Determination between Absences and Presences of the African Union and the United Nations’, African Journal of Political Science and International Relations, Vol.3, No.1, 2009, pp.1–14. Cited in Paul Cowan, ‘le prix de la paix’, Movie, 2004. Koen Vlassenroot and Timothy Raeymaekers, ‘The Politics of Rebellion and Intervention in Ituri. The Emergence of a New Political Complex?’ African Affairs, Vol.103, No.412, 2004, pp.385–412. Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company, 1967. Roland Paris, ‘Peacekeeping and the Constraints of Global Culture’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol.9, No.3, 2003, pp.441–73. See also Séverine Autesserre who argues that ‘a dominant international peacebuilding culture shaped the intervention in the Congo in a way that precluded action on local violence’ (Séverine Autesserre, The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp.10–11 and 25–6). Gerald B. Helman and Steven R. Ratner, ‘Saving Failed States’, Foreign Policy, Vol.89, No.3, 1992. Tobias Hagmann and Didier Péclard, ‘Negotiating Statehood: Dynamics of Power and Domination in Africa’, Development and Change, Vol.41, No.4, 2010, p.540. Edward Newman, Roland Paris and Oliver P. Richmond, New perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding, New York: United Nations University Press, 2009, p.9. Seth D. Kaplan, Fixing Fragile States: A New Paradigm for Development, Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008. Manuel José Pureza, ‘Three Deconstructions’, in Manuel José Pureza, Mark Duffield, Robert Matthews, Susan Woodward, and David Sogge (eds), Peacebuilding and Failed States: Some Theoretical Notes, Lisbon: Oficina do Centro de Estudos Sociais, 2006, p.6. Hagmann and Péclard (see n.11 above), p.541. Jean-German Gros, ‘Towards a Taxonomy of Failed states in the New World Order: Decaying Somalia, Liberia, Rwanda and Haiti’, Third World Quarterly, Vol.17, No.3, 1996, p.457; Susan Woodward, ‘Peacebuilding and “Failed States”: Some Initial Considerations’, in Manuel Pureza, Mark Duffield, Robert Matthews, Susan Woodward, David Sogge (eds.), Peacebuilding and Failed States (see n.14 above), p.26; Patience Kabamba, ‘‘Heart of Darkness”: Current Images of the DRC and their Theoretical Underpinning', Antropological Theory, Vol.10, No.3, 2010, pp.265–301. Francis Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the Twenty-First Century, London: Profile Books, 2005, p.ix. Newman, Paris and Richmond, (see n.12 above), p.3. Paris (see n.9 above), p.442. E.g., Robert I. Rotberg (ed.), When States Fail: Causes and Consequences, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004; Sebastian Von Einsiedel, ‘Policy Responses to State Failure’, in Simon Chesterman, Michael Ignatieff and Ramesh Thakur (eds), Making States Work: State Failure and The Crisis of Governance, New York: United Nations University Press, 2005; Sarah Collier, ‘Failed State? The DRC and the Rhetoric of Dispair’, Think Africa Press, 2011. See Ola Olsson and Congdon Fors Heather, ‘Congo: The Prize of Predation’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol.41, No.3, 2004, pp.321–36; Jason K. Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa, New York: Public Affairs, 2011. Thomas Turner, The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality, London: Zed Books, 2007, pp.180–3. Kevin C. Dunn, Imagining the Congo - The International Relations of Identity, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, p.5. Carrol Faubert, Case Study Democratic Republic of Congo: Evaluation of UNDP Assistance in Conflict-Affected Countries, New York: UNDP, 2006, p.12. Autesserre (see n.9 above), pp.106–14. International Crisis Group, ‘Escaping the Conflict Trap: Promoting Good Governance in the Congo’, Africa Report, 2006, p.1. The Governance Unit budget of the UN Development Program (UNDP), for instance, rose from 5.5 million US$ to 153.6 million US$ from 2004 to 2005 (the year before the elections) which is an increase by more than 27 times. The dimension becomes more telling when compared to the budget of the UNDP Post-conflict Unit which only increased by a factor 1.72 from 16 to 27.5 million US$, Faubert (see n.24 above), p.19. These are: the national watchdog on human rights; the media authority; the truth and reconciliation commission; the committee on ethics and the fight against corruption, the national electoral commission. Faubert (see n.24 above), p.4; Elie Phambu Ngoma-Binda, Justice Transitionnelle en R.D.C., Paris: L'Harmattan, 2008, p.58; Interview by author with a professor, Kinshasa, May 2012. Autesserre (see n.9 above), p.81. Marina Ottaway, ‘Rebuilding State Institutions in Collapsed States’, Development and Change, Vol.33, No.5, 2002, pp.1001–23; Marina Ottaway, ‘Promoting Democracy after Conflict: The Difficult Choices’, International Studies Perspectives, Vol.4, No.3, 2003, pp.314–22; Roland Paris and Timothy Sisk, Managing Contradictions: The Inherent Dilemmas of Postwar Statebuilding, New York: IPA Publications, 2007; Dawn Brancati and Jack L. Snyder, ‘Rushing to the Polls: The Causes of Premature Post-Conflict Elections’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol.55, No.3, 2011, pp.469–92. Béatrice Pouligny, Peace Operations Seen from Below: UN Missions and Local People, Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2006, p.259. For the assessment of these perspectives, focus group discussions and interviews in 21 villages in Ituri with more than 72 people were conducted by the author in May–June 2011 and April–June 2012. See Johan Pottier, Emergency in Ituri, DRC: Political Complexity, Land and Other Challenges in Restoring Food Security, Paper read at FAO International Workshop on ‘Food Security in Complex Emergencies: Building Policy Frameworks to Address Longer-Term Programming Challenges”, at Tivoli, 2003, p.4. Interview by author with local chief, Ituri, April 2012; focus group discussions by the author with Communities, Ituri, April–June 2012. Interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, April 2012; interview by author with a professor, Ituri, April 2012; interview by author with a local chief, Ituri, May 2012. Interviews and focus group discussions by author, May–June 2011 and April–June 2012. The aspects mentioned to define peace by international representatives in Ituri included the accountability of state authorities, political alternation and the delivery of social services (interview by author with UN representative (international staff), Ituri, April 2012; interview by author with international NGO representative (national staff), Ituri, April 2012). Interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, April 2012; focus group discussion by author with communities, Ituri, April 2012. Interviews and focus group discussions by author, May–June 2011 and April–June 2012. Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Hybrid Peace: How Does Hybrid Peace Come About?’, in Susanna Campbell, David Chandler and Meera Sabaratnam (eds), A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding, London: Zed Books, 2011, p.210. Tsing (see n.4 above), p.4. Laurent Goetschel and Tobias Hagman, ‘Civilian Peacebuilding: Peace by Bureaucratic Means?’, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol.9, No.1, 2009, p.57. Newman, Paris and Richmond, (see n.12 above), p.4. A similar argument was made by the author in: Sara Hellmüller, ‘The Ambiguities of Local Ownership - Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo’, African Security, Vol.5, No. 3–4, 2012, pp.236–54. Interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, April 2012; interview by author with national politician, Kinshasa, May 2012. Interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, April 2012 (translation by author). In Ituri, 80 per cent of the registered citizens voted for Joseph Kabila in 2006 (USAID, Eastern Congo Initiative. Landscape Analysis of Community-Based Organizations: Maniema, North Kivu, Orientale and South Kivu Provinces of Democratic Republic of the Congo, Seattle: USAID, Eastern Congo Initiative, 2011, p.232). Thomas Carothers, ‘The End of the Transition Paradigm’, Journal of Democracy, Vol.13, No.1, 2002, p.8. Denis M. Tull, ‘Troubled State-Building in the DR Congo: The Challenge from the Margins’, Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.48, No.4, 2010, p.657. See Alex Veit, Intervention as Indirect Rule: Civil War and Statebuilding in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus Verlag, 2010. Field notes, Ituri, 2012 (translation by author). Interviews and focus group discussions by author, May–June 2011 and April–June 2012. Interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, May 2011; interview by author with church representative, Ituri, May 2011; interview by author with church representative, Ituri, April 2012. Interviews and focus group discussions by author, May–June 2011 and April–June 2012. Interview by author with a professor, Lausanne, 2012. Jarat Chopra and Tanja Hohe, ‘Participatory Intervention’, Global Governance, Vol.10, No.3, 2004, p.298. Interview by author with a local chief, Ituri, April 2012; interview by author with a local woman, Ituri, May 2012; focus group discussion by author with communities, Ituri, 2012. Interviews and focus group discussions by author, May–June 2011 and April–June 2012. Veit (see n.50 above), p.26. Chopra and Hohe (see n.56 above), p.292. Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Statebuilding, Peacebuilding and Hybridity’, Short paper prepared for Critical Statebuilding Workshop, Swedish Defence College, 5–6 May 2011, p.3. UNDP for instance only had a small project on the TRC while providing large-scale support to the electoral process (Jacques Kahorha, ‘Congolese Push for Reconciliation. Talk of Reviving Truth Commission to Deal with Legacy of Civil War’, 2009 (at: http://iwpr.net/report-news/congolese-push-reconciliation); Faubert (see n.23 above), p.3-4). Interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, April 2012; interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, April 2012; interview by author with a professor, Kinshasa, May 2012. Scott Baldauf, ‘A Bishop Prepares Volatile Congo for Peace’, 2006 (at: www.csmonitor.com/2006/1114/p06s01-woaf.html). Interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, April 2012; interview by author with a professor, Kinshasa, May 2012. Interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, April 2012; interview by author with a professor, Kinshasa, May 2012; Laura Davis and Priscilla Hayner, Difficult Peace, Limited Justice: Ten Years of Peacemaking in the DRC, New York: International Center for Transitional Justice, 2009, p.22. Commission Vérité et Réconciliation, Rapport final des activités, Kinshasa, 2007. Interviews and focus group discussions by author, May–June 2011 and April–June 2012. Loi No. 04/018 du Juillet 30 2004 portant sur l'organisation, attributions et fonctionnement de la Commission Vérité et Réconciliation. Interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, April 2012 (translation by author). Thierry Vircoulon, ‘The Ituri Paradox: When Armed Groups have a Land Policy and Peacemakers Do Not’, in Ward Anseeuw and Chris Alden (eds), The Struggle over Land in Africa: Conflicts, Politics & Change, Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2010, p.214. Interviews by author with local chiefs, Ituri, April–May 2012; focus group discussion by author with communities, Ituri, April–June 2012. Focus group discussion by author with communities, Ituri, April–May 2012. Stale Ulriksen, Catriona Gourlay and Catriona Mace, ‘Operation Artemis: The Shape of Things to Come?’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.11, No.3, 2004, p.508. UN Security Council Resolution 1493, 2003. Vircoulon (see n.71 above), p.213. Ibid. E.g. conflicts of rights of use, conflicts around collective pasture land and enclaves, conflicts between farmers and herders, between administrative entities, between landowners and communities, between religious missions and communities (Eric Mongo, Arthur Désiré Nkoy Elela and Joost van Puijenbroek, Conflits fonciers en Ituri - Poids du passé et défis pour l'avenir de la paix, Utrecht and Bunia: IKV Pax Christ and Réseau Haki na Amani, 2009). Vircoulon (see n.71 above), p.213. Examples of wording are: ‘disputes arising from land and property issues, from the return of refugees and internally displaced persons’ (Thirtieth report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, S/2009/623, 4 December 2009), ‘land disputes in areas of return’ (Thirty-first report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, S/2010/164, 30 March 2010), ‘land in the context of the spontaneous return of refugees and internally displaced persons’ (Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, S/2011/298, 12 May 2011). The wording is: ‘… address the underlying causes of instability, in particular the impact of the return of displaced persons and refugees and possible land-related social tensions’ (UN Security Council Resolution 2053). Interview by author with UN representative (national staff), Ituri, April 2012. Interview by author with UN representative (international staff), Ituri, April 2012. Interview by author with UN representative (international staff), Ituri, May 2011. UN Habitat, Bulletin Foncier, Goma, République Démocratique du Congo: UNHCR, 2012. Autesserre (see n.9 above), pp.106–14. The data from this section is drawn from a mapping of local peacebuilding NGOs in Ituri conducted by the author in May–June 2011 and April–June 2012. It involved 27 interviews and focus group discussions with representatives from 15 different local organizations. With some exceptions, see for instance Andrew S. Natsios, ‘NGOs and the UN System in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies: Conflict or Cooperation?’, Third World Quarterly, Vol.16, No.3, 1995, p.409; Paul van Tongeren, People Building Peace II : Successful Stories of Civil Society, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005; John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies, 7th print. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2006, p.102; Diana Francis, People, Peace and Power: Conflict Transformation in Action, London: Pluto Press, 2002. Oliver Richmond, ‘A Pedagogy of Peacebuilding: Infrapolitics, Resistance, and Liberation’, International Political Sociology, Vol.6, No.2, 2012, p.120. Interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, April 2012. Focus group discussion by author with local NGO representatives, Ituri, May 2011. Interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, May 2011; interview by author with church representative, Ituri, May 2011; interview by author with church representative, Ituri, April 2012. Interview by author with local NGO representative, Ituri, May 2011; interview by author with church representative, Ituri, May 2011. Vincent Tohbi, ‘Confidence Building Measures and Dispute Resolution; Local Ownership and Elections: The Elections in the DRC - International and National Contributions’, in Tobias Von Gienanth (ed.), Elections in Post-Conflict Countries - Lessons Learned from Liberia, Sierra Leone, DR Congo, and Kosovo, Accra/Ghana: Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF)/Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), 2008, p.90. Focus group discussion by author with local NGO representatives, Ituri, May 2011. Focus group discussion by author with local NGO representatives, Ituri, April 2012; interviews by author with local NGO representatives 2011 and 2012. Marie-Joëlle Zahar, ‘Norm Transmission in Peace- and Statebuilding: Lessons from Democracy Promotion in Sudan and Lebanon’, Global Governance, Vol.18, No.1, 2012, p.76. Béatrice Pouligny, ‘Civil Society and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: Ambiguities of International Programmes Aimed at Building “New” Societies’, Security Dialogue, Vol.36, No.4, 2005, p.500; Thania Paffenholz and Christoph Spurk, ‘Civil Society, Civic Engagement, and Peacebuilding’, Working Paper No.36, The World Bank, 2006, p.12; Timothy Donais, Peacebuilding and Local Ownership – Post-Conflict Consensus Building, London and New York: Routledge, 2012, p.66. Interview by author with a professor, Kinshasa, April 2012; interview by author with UN representative (national staff), Kinshasa, April 2012.