1st Edition

Liberal Peacebuilding and the Locus of Legitimacy

Edited By David Roberts Copyright 2015
    118 Pages
    by Routledge

    118 Pages
    by Routledge

    Liberal peacebuilding too often builds neither peace nor Liberalism. In a growing number of cases, people aren’t rejecting and relegating democracy because it’s bad; they’re challenging it because it isn’t relevant to their priorities and needs. The peacebuilding ‘moment’ – when consent for intervention is present and the opportunity to build a sustainable social contract between peacebuilders and people is most fruitful – is being squandered. This relationship, between governed and governance, relies on mutual needs realization, but there is no formal or informal requirement and mechanism for ascertaining what the ‘subjects’ of peacebuilding might prioritize. Instead, peacebuilders give the ‘subjects’ of peacebuilding what they think they should have.

    This legitimacy gap – between what peacebuilders give and what subjects want - is the subject of this book. Through a range of empirical case studies conducted by country specialists, the book reveals that, when asked, people often prioritize roads, electricity, jobs, housing, schooling and pertinent justice (amongst other things) in the immediate aftermath of war. We find that mapping this locus of legitimacy may help develop the kind of relationship upon which the sustainability of any social contract between governed and governance rests.

    This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.

    1. Everyday Legitimacy and Postconflict States: Introduction David Roberts

    2. Everyday Legitimacy in Post-Conflict Spaces: The Creation of Social Legitimacy in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Cultural Arenas Stefanie Kappler

    3. Health, Conflict, Stability and Statebuilding: A House Built on Sand? Stuart Gordon

    4. An Empirical Approach to Post-conflict Legitimacy: Victims’ Needs and the Everyday Simon Robins

    5. Surveying South Sudan: The Liberal, the Local and the Legitimate David Roberts

    6. Everyday Legitimacy and International Administration: Global Governance and Local Legitimacy in Kosovo Nicolas Lemay-Hébert

    Biography

    David Roberts is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Loughborough University, UK. He is the author of four books on positive peace and numerous articles on peacebuilding, human security and Cambodia.