Two questions underlie the issue of micro-foundations of the current peacebuilding strategy:
(i) Do barriers to sustainable peace at the macro-level have the same level of significance at the micro-level? And (ii) can peacebuilding interventions designed to address the root causes
of conflict have the same effects at macro- and micro-levels? I argue that the assumptions and logics underlying the current peacebuilding strategy are, at best, incomplete, owing in part to false monoliths about local contexts and to failure to structure interventions in a way that aligns local people’s preferences and interests with the reforms being promoted. Specif-ically, as with peacebuilding dynamics at the macro-level, conventional wisdom frequently views social structures–broadly defined to encompass customary systems, institutions of power and authority, cultural practices and tradition–as illegitimate and conflict prone and therefore deserving of wholesale reform (Fanthorpe 2006; Pouligny 2005). But there is, in actuality, significant variation in existing social structures from setting to setting, as well as in local people’s orientations to them (Sawyer 2006; Gizelis’ and Kosek 2005; Chopra and Hohe 2004). This suggests different local settings may be differentially susceptible to change, especially change sought from outside, implying different patterns of response to peacebuilding interventions.
With respect to the first question, a survey of the peacebuilding literature suggests a positive answer. The barriers to peace–both security challenges in the immediate aftermath of war and the root causes of conflict–have the same salience at macro- and micro-levels.
The issue of postwar security challenges and gaps in addressing these challenges has received a great deal of attention (Muggah 2011; Rubin 2008; Call and Stanley 2002). The limited reach and penetration of the state into society means that its capacity to provide security to its populations and maintain public order is often weak or nonexistent. In many cases, Tschirgi (2004) argues, large-scale violence may have ended, but only to have ”mutation of political violence into criminal and common violence.” As experiences in countries such as DRC and Liberia suggest, pervasive insecurities are perhaps most severe in local communi-ties, especially in rural areas where the state and security institutions are less likely to have adequate presence (Mushi 2013; Fayemi 2005). Thus in addition to reforming the state’s security institutions, peacekeepers are typically deployed in various parts of the country to provide security to local communities, at least until the government is able to take over (United Nations 2008).
As for the root causes, the view that democracy deficit and legitimacy problems are the root of conflicts, both nationally and locally, is popular in many accounts of postwar
processes (Ponzio 2011; Donais 2009).8 In Sierra Leone, for example, a number of schol-ars (e.g., Jackson 2006; Richards 2005; Hanlon 2005) have argued that civil war was a form of revolt by resentful young farmers against the undemocratic and abusive custom-ary authority.9 ”The lack of opportunity for public debate of these issues,” according to Napiier (2004), ”meant that they were neither managed nor resolved, the consequence be-ing increasbe-ing social tension, eventually resultbe-ing in conflict.” In addition, scholars tend to point to certain cultural traditions and customs as the source of legitimacy problems.
The claims is that some social structures such as those favoring patriarchal leadership may be inherently unequal and abusive–dominated by male elders, and the exclusion of women, youth and minorities–or embody values that are inimical to universally shared human rights standards (Ponzio 2011; Hanlon 2005; Richards 2005).
Thus, in response to the second question, contemporary peacebuilding interventions rely on the same strategies they use to address the root causes both at the macro-level and micro-level, namely STs, democratization in particular, the assumption being that local communities face the same capacity problems as the state to address these problem autonomously (Sawyer 2005). In other words, peacebuilders attempt to democratize local structures and institutions in an effort to make them more inclusive and legitimate, at least as part of broader efforts to create a legitimate state. An array of democratic reform programs have been used to this end. In some cases, peacebuilders engage local structures and institutions directly, often as part of broader, legally mandated reforms. This was
8This despite an emergent line of research (e.g., Autesserre 2010; Kalyvas 2003) challenging this view.
As Autesserre argued forcefully in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the causes and other drivers of local conflicts were not the same as those driving the civil war. Locally, conflict over land and political power were much more salient, whereas top-town causes included governance issues, but also regional pressures.
9Anthropologist Paul Richards documented numerous and detailed accounts of the abuses rural Sierra Leoneans suffered at the hand of customary authority before the war’ including levying ”heavy and unjust fines,” often with customary law or other local traditions serving as a pretext; forcing people to work on chief’s farms without pay; escalating minor disputes; using intimidation and violence to extort compliance;
excluding women and youth from participating in community affairs; forced young girls to marry against their will or setting arbitrarily high dowries that it was impossible for young men to marry and so forth (Richard 2005).
the case of the ”Chiefdom Governance Reform Programme,” carried out by the United Kingdom’s Department of Foreign and International Development (DFID) (Fanthorpe et al. 2002). In others, reforms entail setting up new governance structures that are supposed to operate democratically, without attempting to challenge existing structures directly. This is the case with many Community Driven Development programs such as the ”Tuungane Program” carried out by the International Rescue Committee in the DRC (Humphreys et al.
2013) or the ”GoBifo” Program in Sierra Leone supported by the Government of Japan and the World Bank (Casey et al. 2013). The theory behind these initiatives is that ”exposure to democratic procedures and accountability practices leads to domestic adoption even in the absence of changes in structural social relations” (Humphreys et al. 2013).
However, the most common intervention to promote democracy and liberal values at the grassroots level is democratic education targeting the citizens directly on a wide range of issues–such as nationhood and citizenship; human rights and rule of law; democratic governance and political participation; the electoral process, social cohesion, among others (Jarstad and Sisk 2008; Stedman et al. 2002). Part of the aim in carrying out democratic education at the grassroots level is to bring to the political scene, through the process of po-litical participation, a new set of actors–voters, popo-litical parties, civil society groups–who can provide a democratic counterweight to the elites (Doyle and Sambanis 2006: 313; Pouligny 2006).10 As Russett and O’Neal (2001) noted in the case of Mozambique, democratic ed-ucation activities carried out by the United Nations Mission in Mozambique (UNUMOZ) were instrumental in the emergence of an electorate that stood up to the elite: ”a politically aware and mobilized electorate becomes an effective counterbalance to the elite. This is, after all, the essence of democracy (210).”
Theoretically, democratic education activities operate a coordination mechanism to mo-bilize citizens for collective action (Collier and Vicente 2011)–a significant point since the greater the number of people mobilizing for political action, the lower the individual cost to
10Such was the aim of the Timap for Justice Program, which offered free justice services in communities across Sierra Leone in an attempt to promote access to justice and peaceful conflict resolutions (Dale 2009).
Trained paralegals use ”a combination of mediation, negotiation, education, advocacy, and occasionally litigation to attempt to resolve disputes, promote community activism and agency, and develop equitable and responsive institutions” (ibid).
each (Kuran 1989).11 Beyond mobilization, democratic education can also change prefer-ences or reorder normative priorities by instilling new liberal values–such as tolerance and non-violence, that underpin liberal democracy (Belloni 2008; Paris 2004)–thereby raising the value of their political beliefs to such an extent that they become willing to take costly political action to defend those beliefs. The resulting increase in political participation might in turn increase state legitimacy (Papagianni 2008; Doyle and Sambanis 2008: 30).
Clearly, the viability of the current peacebuilding strategy as an effective mechanism for establishing self-sustaining peace in war-torn societies hinges on the prospects of successful democratization, which in turn rests on the premise that mass publics in these societies will rebuke existing structures and embrace liberal norms and values (Stedman et al. 2002).
Part of the reasoning for this is that existing social structures genuinely lack legitimacy, or may have suffered severe damage during wartime, so that if given the opportunity, local people will embrace a viable alternative. As Moore et al. (2003) write in their recent report recommending liberal reforms in postwar Sierra Leone: ”...Catastrophic changes prime society for major institutional transformation. Society is in a plastic state, like half melted wax out of which anything can be moulded. The war has provided an opportunity for Sierra Leoneans to rethink fundamental issues relating to their national dynamics and identity”
(cited in Fanthorpe 2006). Moreover, there seems to be abiding belief in the intrinsic peacefulness of liberal norms and values, making them universally appealing, especially to populations traumatized by violence and civil war (Roberts 2008; Clapham 2000).
In considering the above discussion, the promise of the current peacebuilding approach depends on achieving liberal transformations both at the national and local levels. To this end, peacebuilders typically carry out a wide range of STs encompassing a variety of activities such as civic education and information campaigns. These activities aim to: (i) either transform or displace local structures presumed to be the locus of root causes of conflict; and or (ii) promote new liberal norms and values. Arguably, these peacebuilding
11This is the analytical angle that Collier and Vicente use in their Nigeria study on the effects of civic education campaigns on political violence and electoral participation. The ideas is that by mobilizing for electoral activities in sufficiently large numbers communities will be able to deter or withstand aggressions from would-be violence perpetrators.
initiatives have a dual aim: both to transform societal actors at all levels and to increase the state’s legitimacy. Whether either or both aims are achieved, however, depends critically on citizens’ embracing liberal norms and values being promoted. Viewed from a micro-level perspective, such a vision and strategy of building stable peace can seem too ambitious and perhaps unrealistic.
A growing number of scholars and practitioners have been critical of the current peace-building strategy in general and some of these can be extended to the micro-level.12 My concern, however, is with another set of critical issues, namely important variation in local contexts where peacebuilding interventions take place, which have been overlooked in the current peacebuilding strategy (Sawyer 2005). I defined local contexts or settings broadly to refer to a wide range of factors related to local structures, cultures, institutions, and histories as well as the socioeconomic and political dynamics (Richmond 2011; Autesserre 2010; Gizelis and Kosek 2005). Variation in local settings is important because it can help clarify the conditions under which the local population might be predisposed to rebuke ex-isting structures and institutions targeted for change and/or to embrace new liberal norms and values being promoted. Thus our understanding of local context is important for our understanding of the performance and outcomes of peacebuilding interventions.