Committee for Conflict Transformation Support

CCTS
Newsletter 13

The Interplay of Domestic, Regional and International Forces in Peacebuilding

A discussion paper by Judith Large

"The awful experience with UN hurt me so bad. As an Indonesian I can't receive their dehuman acting. This is my country, why (do) they think they are more super than us? I realise that recently we have a lot of troubles and need their help but I think better we don't accept their aid if they think they can conduct us after they gave the aid."
A.R., Mediator, Jakarta, summer 2000

The above quotation is a direct one, taken from correspondence following a shared experience "on mission" in Indonesia, ostensibly to assist a particular UN agency with its strategy on peacebuilding. The target for operations was to be the troubled islands of North and South Maluku (known once as "the Spice Islands"), where clearly "domestic and regional" forces were having dynamic effects. "Forces" presumably are those agents or factors which can exert pressure, movement or change which may be destructive or creative. In this particular example such "forces" might include searing economic collapse, gangsterism, high level political manipulation, population influx due to transmigration and displacement, incitement through propaganda and misinformation, increasingly radicalised Christian and Muslim identity, religious mobilisation and military response/occupation.

International "forces" would be another question. How far do we wish to look? Diaspora politics, recent take-over and monopoly of the clove trade, mission and theology influence in Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands, electronic banking systems, arms sales from the UK, IMF policy, training for Indonesian special forces in the U.S.A., global media - all this before we even begin to consider the United Nations or international relief agencies based in the country itself.

Our topic then, is enormous, and a framework will assist in grappling with it. The very wording of this commissioned discussion paper title is intriguing. It could be taken as a theme of linkage between levels - as per Kenneth Waltz's (1959) time-honoured framework for understanding conflict processes:

  • The individual Level
  • The Societal /National Level
  • The Trans-societal/International Level
  • The Global Level

Then again, twenty years ago (in a book which was gloriously unremarked in this country) Ernst Czempiel (1989) postulated a model of the world as an "asymmetric broken grid of interactions" and argued that:

    "It is not enough to locate the actors and to describe the interaction...We are interested in outcomes and their causes...We should be able to analyze interactions. Because today we lack the methodology to do so, we are bound to confine ourselves to the analysis of actions taken by actors. This limitation is not without danger. Actions as such are not discernible because they are always part of interactions. As we are unable to analyse them we have to accept the disadvantages stemming from the reductionism..." (p.125)

Reductionism in thought may impede effectiveness in action. It can be understandable in light of the need to make sense of complexity. For example, in attempting to understand violent conflict we do tend to think in levels as above, with an implicit strata or even a hierarchy extending from the domestic to international. Ordinary people are "below", agencies and governments are "above" somehow in the natural order of things. (Historically when this thinking has been reversed and sufficient direct action is exerted the word "revolution" is used.)

This paper will attempt to provide a discussion framework on current dilemmas in local, regional and international "inter-action" for peacebuilding. It will draw on contrasting examples from central Europe and Southeast Asia, namely Bosnia and Kosovo/a, Maluku and East Timor. The original suggested title stipulates this to be "post-conflict" peacebuilding - but I have resisted this. While the concept of post-conflict peacebuilding is a familiar one since its inscription in Boutros Boutros-Ghali's 1991 Agenda for Peace - we have seen repeatedly since then how the conflicts of power, interest or identity which underlie localised collective violence and war "do not disappear after the cessation of formal hostilities" (Patrick, 2000). The term is useful for naming particular administrative or policy (Moore, 2000) units, but it will not be stipulated here.

At the time of writing, a major study is being undertaken by the United Nations (as follow-up to the Brahimi Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations). Research and debate within the UN are positing the "need for change". It is recognised that dedicated "peacekeeping" and more deployment of inter-positioning forces "alone may not build peace; it can only create a space in which peace can be built". It is timely then that similar debate be held among concerned practitioners, second or "multi-track" NGOs who strive for development, for dialogue, for the empowerment of peace constituencies, for reconciliation, and indeed local and regional representation from affected areas.

The paper will centre around propositions intended to stimulate us in our own debate and consideration, namely that:

I. Peacebuilding is in danger of doctrinal paralysis which is counter-productive in implementation.

II. The stratified pre-occupation with imposing standardised structures impedes regeneration of relationships and the range of initiatives and recovery undertaken by locals themselves.

III. A revolution of sorts is needed, from "top-down" to "sideways" thinking - both to encompass regional dimensions and to free the "lateral thinking" needed for creative transformation.

Part I.

 

 

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