The limits of technocracy and local encounters: The European Union and peacebuilding

Ginty, Roger Mac

doi:10.1080/13523260.2017.1407191

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Case-studies of the failure of implementing ownership in the CSDP missions, ranging from Bosnia, to Kosovo, Afghanistan to Somalia or Mali and so forth (Dursun-Ozkanca & Vandemoortele, 2012). These case studies, have named the European Union's approach to local ownership as overly technical, directed only to the governmental elites in a top-down manner and are doubtful in regard to the EU's success to refrain from imposing their own vision of a sustainable peace (Bojicic-Dzelilovic & Martin, 2018;Ejdus, 2017;Mac Ginty, 2018). Following the so-called 'local turn' in the peacekeeping literature, the European Union, in recent years, has tried to include other stakeholders than just government elites into their peacebuilding projects, particularly when it comes to aid grants from the European Commission, and it shifted some focus towards women and youth, as well as other marginalised groups (Bojicic-Dzelilovic & Martin, 2018;Mac Ginty & Richmond, 2013).…”

Section: Whose Peace? Locating Local Ownership Within a Larger Framewmentioning

confidence: 99%

India’s ‘Silent Contestation’ of the EU’s Perspective on Local Ownership

Klossek

2019

Norm Research in International Relations

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Peacebuilding has become a central activity to the international community's pursuit of sustainable peace. The rising number of violent conflicts over the last decades and the increasing complexity of conflict scenarios have contributed to this development (Strand, Rustad, Urdal & Nygård, 2019). With conflict centres remaining in many parts of the world, such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen or South Sudan, it is likely that the urge for the international community to engage in peacebuilding activities will not end any time soon. Given the weakening of a shared understanding over the right tools to address conflicts and a diversification of actors, we can thereby see an increasing contestation over the norms guiding peacebuilding endeavours. One of these contested norms is the norm of local ownership, i.e. the importance to include the 'local' into peacebuilding processes to achieve sustainable peace. The European Union has enthusiastically embraced this norm but has been challenged by other countries and the literature in regard to its inability to successfully implement it (Bojicic-Dzelilovic & Martin, 2018; Dursun-Ozkanca & Vandemoortele, 2012; Ejdus, 2017; Mac Ginty, 2018). The 'new' actors on the scene such as the BRICS and other countries from the global south have argued that the European Union and other traditional donors are not moving beyond their liberal peacebuilding approaches, which are often tied to a heavy external intervention in the sovereignty of the host state and hence in their eyes fail to ensure local participation (De Carvalho & De Coning, 2013). At the same time, these new donors have claimed for themselves that their southsouth partnerships are more successful in engaging the local population on a horizontal level (Brasilia Declaration, 2010; United Nations, 2018a). India has been The original version of this chapter was revised: It has been changed to open access under a CC BY 4.

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Section: Whose Peace? Locating Local Ownership Within a Larger Framewmentioning

confidence: 99%

India’s ‘Silent Contestation’ of the EU’s Perspective on Local Ownership

Klossek

2019

Norm Research in International Relations

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“…36 At the international and national levels, the organisation cooperates with the UN, and governments and partners in civil society on global challenges such as war and peace, sustainable development, 34 See https://www.icj.org/myanmar-reverse-laws-and-practices-that-perpetuate-military-impunity-new-icj-report/; https://www.icj.org/lawand-policy-reform-necessary-to-combat-intolerance-and-discrimination-based-on-religion-or-belief-recommends-new-briefing-paperon-myanmar/; https://www.icj.org/four-immediate-reforms-to-strengthen-the-myanmar-national-human-rights-commission/. 35 See (Philpott 2012;Mac Ginty and Richmond 2013;Mac Ginty 2018). 36 The General Secretary was at this time an advisor to several governments on matters related to religion and peace.…”

Section: A Multireligious 'Secular' and Values-led Model Of Transculmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Promise and Challenge of Multireligious Peacebuilding in the 21st Century: A Myanmar Case Study

King

Owen

2020

Religions

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This article explores whether a relational approach to peacebuilding, shared multireligious perspectives and widening networks can bring sources of strength which enable positive peacebuilding and create grassroots, cross-community peace. While religious peacebuilding organizations have become the object of a burgeoning literature, the role of multireligious organisations in peacebuilding has received far less attention. The purpose of this paper is to redress this lack. By examining the influence, challenges and benefits of multireligious approaches to transnational peacebuilding, we hope to develop a sharper and more critically nuanced understanding of the potential role of multireligious organisations in global peacebuilding, and consider what, if anything, distinguishes them from secular and other faith-based organisations. We do so by analysing the impact of a project carried out in Myanmar by Religions for Peace. The project provides three case studies which offer unique opportunities to consider the limits and potential of multireligious grassroots interventions in conflict contexts with very different histories and cultural configurations.

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“…A previous special issue of Contemporary Security Policy examines whether the EU has advanced in granting power and responsibility to local agents, while embracing their perceptions and values. The authors resolutely conclude that the rhetoric-practice gap is still yawning (Ejdus & Juncos, 2018;Mac Ginty, 2018). For example, examining the EU intervention in the Horn of Africa, Ejdus (2018) notes that ownership translates into techniques to make the local population responsible for objectives that are externally set, thereby triggering various forms of protest and resistance (see, also, De Heredia, 2012).…”

Section: The Limits Of the Local Turn: Just Can't Get Enoughmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although practitioners proclaim attachment to local ownership, critics suggest that in practice ownership has not been transferred to local stakeholders. Most difficulties in peace or resilience support activities are rationalized on the grounds that local ownership has not yet been meaningful (Mac Ginty, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience is “always more” than our practices: Limits, critiques, and skepticism about international intervention

Bargués–Pedreny

2019

Contemporary Security Policy

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This article examines the response to the crisis of liberal statebuilding in conflict affected societies since the end of the 2000s. It shows how both resilience policy approaches and academic critical understandings are dissatisfied with the implementation of policies and programs, which seem to fail time and again. That is, there is a widespread perception that resilience is "always more" than what current approaches are providing. In consequence, it is assumed that international interventions require even more locally-sensitive initiatives that are in tune with local needs; new and better technologies, for instance, digital maps to assist practitioners in obtaining sheer volumes of information and accurate representations of space; and programs that are open-ended and flexible. The article cautions that by assuming that satisfactory outcomes are yet to come (i.e., that resilience, or a desired outcome such as peace and security, is still lacking), policy and critical approaches are reproducing and legitimizing failure, furthering neoliberal governance and cementing a profound skepticism. KEYWORDS Resilience; ownership; digital maps; peacebuilding; critique During the 1990s and 2000s, international intervention was conceived as "statebuilding," a process to guarantee a stable peace by the means of strengthening governmental institutions and consolidating a liberal democratic state; yet, towards the end of the decade of 2000s, most operations were not delivering (Paris, 2010). While just an anecdote, the UN advertisement speaks to the crisis of the theory and practice of liberal statebuilding: It was felt that international interventions were full of limitations and any attempt to achieve peace was deemed insufficient; so peace had to be continually attended, waged. Critical scholars helped highlighting the negative impact of statebuilding approaches, which resulted in costly and burdensome projects. These were engineered and executed top-down by external actors and had little resonance with local interests, experiences, and perceptions (for example, see S. Campbell, Chandler, & Sabaratnam, 2011). Accordingly, international interventions had to be reimagined against over-simplified, linear, technocratic, and Eurocentric understandings of development and peace (Autesserre, 2014;Mac Ginty, 2011;McLeod, 2015;Richmond, 2011). These critics argued for an emancipatory "hybrid" or "post-liberal peace," rooted in everyday settings and inclusive of diverse perspectives.Over the last decade, the idea of resilience has become central in diverse areas such as development, food, cyber and energy security, conflict prevention and peacebuilding, disaster risk reduction, climate change, and poverty reduction. Although it has never been a coherent policy framework and takes on multiple forms (Cavelty, Kaufmann, & Søby Kristensen, 2015;Joseph, 2018), resilience is generally understood as the capacity of systems to withstand and adapt to complex crises and shocks (

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The limits of technocracy and local encounters: The European Union and peacebuilding

Cited by 13 publications

References 17 publications

India’s ‘Silent Contestation’ of the EU’s Perspective on Local Ownership

India’s ‘Silent Contestation’ of the EU’s Perspective on Local Ownership

The Promise and Challenge of Multireligious Peacebuilding in the 21st Century: A Myanmar Case Study

Resilience is “always more” than our practices: Limits, critiques, and skepticism about international intervention

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