1st Edition
Rethinking the Liberal Peace External Models and Local Alternatives
This book presents a critical analysis of the liberal peace project and offers possible alternatives and models.
In the past decade, the model used for reconstructing societies after conflicts has been based on liberal assumptions about the pacifiying effects of 'open markets' and 'open societies'. Yet, despite the vast resources invested in helping establish the precepts of this liberal peace, outcomes have left much to be desired. The book argues that failures in the liberal peace project are not only due to efficiency problems related to its adaptation in adverse local environments, but mostly due to problems of legitimacy of turning an ideal into a doctrine for action.
The aim of the book is to scrutinize assumptions about the value of democratization and marketization and realities on the ground by combining theoretical discussions with empirical evidence from key post-conflict settings such as Iraq and Afghanistan. These show the disparities that exist between the ideals and the reality of the liberal peace project, as seen by external peacebuilders and domestic actors. The book then proposes various alternatives and modifications to better accommodate local perspectives, values and agency in attempts to forge a new consensus.
This book will be of great interest to students of peacebuilding/peacekeeping, statebuilding, war and conflict studies, international security and IR.
Introduction: Liberal Peace in Dispute Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh Part 1: Theory and Critics of the Liberal Peace 1. Open Societies, Open Markets: Assumptions and Illusions Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh 2. Becoming Liberal, Unbecoming Liberalism: Liberal-Local Hybridity via the Everyday as a Response to the Paradoxes of Liberal Peacebuilding Oliver P. Richmond 3. Peace, Self-Governance and International Engagement: From Neo-Colonial to Postcolonial Peacebuilding Kristoffer Lidén Part 2: Liberal Democracy 4. The Liberal Peace: Statebuilding, Democracy and Local Ownership David Chandler 5. Democracy and Security: A Shotgun Marriage? Robin Luckham 6. What’s Law got to do with it? The Role of Law in Post-Conflict Democratization and its (Flawed) Assumptions Michael Schoiswohl 7. No Such Thing as Cosmopolitanism: Field-dependent Consequences in International Administrative Governance and Criminal Justice Nicholas Dorn Part 3: Market Liberalism 8. Curing Strangeness in the Political Economy of Peacebuilding: Traces of Liberalism and Resistance Michael Pugh 9. Economic Dimensions of the Liberal Peace and its Implications for Conflict in Developing Countries Syed Mansoob Murshed Part 4: Case Studies 10. Reconstructing Post-2006 Lebanon: A Distorted Market Christine Sylva Hamieh and Roger Mac Ginty 11. Is Liberal Democracy Possible in Iraq? Amal Shlash and Patrick Tom 12. Liberal Peace and the Dialogue of the Deaf in Afghanistan Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh Conclusion: Typologies and Modifications Proposed by Critical Approaches Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh and Oliver P. Richmond
Biography
Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh directs a specialization on Human Security as part of the Master of Public Affairs (MPA) at Sciences Po in Paris and is a Research Associate with PRIO, Oslo. She is author with Anuradha Chenoy of Human Security: Concepts and implications (Routledge 2007).
