Towards a ‘business-unusual’ approach to peacebuilding in an evolving international context

Overview

In my earlier post, I discussed the implications of the new era of geopolitics on the African peace and security landscape, amid emerging trends in conflict and peace processes. In this submission, I link the insights about the significance of geopolitical dynamics to the evolving discourses and debates about the shortcomings of the liberal peace model, and the attendant quest for more attainable and arguably, more pragmatic options. The disillusionment with the liberal peace model – premised on the promotion of democracy, human rights and free market economy – has grown in part from the failures of liberal interventions in cases such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and the DRC, which have illustrated the difficult and complex nature of issues in dealing with peacebuilding and conflict management. There is a greater realisation that the top-down, externally imposed solutions in a number of conflict contexts have failed to bring about transformative objectives. Furthermore, the liberal interveners have grown discontented with expensive, long-drawn interventions that have stalled or failed to deliver intended outcomes, forcing them to consider less-costly options that would also guarantee a swifter exit.

Uptake of a stabilisation agenda

In this context of evaluation of interventionism in fragile states, stabilisation has emerged as an appealing option in policy and academic circles. Stabilisation has a wide range of interpretations, which has meant that it has been employed to mean different things in different contexts, with implications at both strategic and operational levels. For instance, the U.S adopts a multi-dimensional view of stabilisation that includes both civilian and military activities that cut across the conflict spectrum. For its part, the UK takes on a narrow view and frame stabilisation as a political undertaking, which integrates with civilian and military actions to reduce violence and re-establish security. Despite these and other variations of stabilisation espoused by governments and international organizations, a common thread that runs through these doctrines is the focus on security as both a prerequisite and objective. In one sense, stabilisation is closely aligned with the securitisation of the peacebuilding and development agenda, characterised by the prioritisation of stability and the security lens in the conceptualisation, design and implementation of interventions and projects.

Relatedly, the uptake of the stabilisation agenda and the growing appeal of stability operations coincide with the ‘pragmatic turn’ in peacebuilding thinking and practice. The notion of pragmatism with regard to peacebuilding speaks to a shift towards more contextualized, realistic and bottom-up approaches in addressing conflict and crises, markedly different from the hierarchical, universalist and rationalist underpinnings of the liberal peace paradigm. Hence, pragmatic positions are critical of a one-size-fits-all approach, and urge instead for complexity-informed and context-sensitive approaches that work on enhancing the adaptive capacities of societies to establish and sustain peace. Pragmatic peacebuilding also calls for deeper interrogation of the power relations between the local and external spheres, with a view to leveraging the agency and ownership of local actors as part of an inclusive process.

The ongoing debates about the crisis of the liberal peace model also point to the imperative of moving beyond ‘a business-as-usual’ approach in fragile and conflict areas across the world. This begs the question: what does the ‘business-unusual’ approach to peacebuilding entail? And, what does a rethink of engagement mean for adapting and strengthening peacebuilding, especially in the African context?

What does a ‘business-unusual’ approach to peacebuilding look like?

For starters, a ‘business-unusual’ approach to peacebuilding necessitates a greater appreciation for risk-informed programming that cuts across institutions and sectors. Such an approach that takes into account contextual and programming risks goes hand in hand with systems thinking, which conceptualises related challenges as multi-dimensional and interlinked in specific ways. Moreover, pathways to peace are envisioned  as dynamic and self-modifying parts of a system. For instance, the Positive Peace report published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace, puts forward eight pillars that need to be present for peace to be sustainable; these include a well-functioning government, equitable distribution of resources, and acceptance of the rights of others, among others. A multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional approach to risk assessment is complementary to effective early warning mechanisms, such as the AU’s Continental Early Warning System (CEWS), which is one of the five pillars of African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). Furthermore, in order to enhance the AU's conflict prevention initiatives, it is imperative to strengthen the link between early warning and early response as a way of ensuring timely policy responses to evolving conflicts or crisis situations.

Secondly, adaptive peacebuilding has to take advantage of the digital innovation by making use of various technologies that could radically enhance peacebuilding in aspects such as data collection and analysis. A good example is the Conflict Cartographer project, conducted by the Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), which uses expert opinion surveys to produce predictions of armed conflict. It does this via an online application, on which local experts on the ground can map out where they believe conflict is likely to occur within a three-month period. Another example is the use of new technologies to build consensus among parties by engaging with a broader range of stakeholders rather than limiting engagement to only elite participants at the negotiating table.

Additionally, the notions of the ‘pragmatic turn’ and the ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding  scholarship and practice need to pay greater attention to key issues of legitimacy, ownership,  and contextualised approaches to sustainable peace. This necessitates a shift from conceptions of a dichotomy between ‘the local’ and ‘the international,’ towards a view of the local and international as mutually constitutive. As lessons from African peacebuilding case studies have aptly demonstrated, peacebuilding is as much about responding to conflict as it is about interrogating the practices and dynamics of interventions and governance, and the ways in which these inform the lived experiences of the people affected by conflict.

Finally, a ‘business-unusual’ approach to peacebuilding entails a more networked approach that blends aspects of institutionalised mechanisms and practices of peacebuilding with pragmatic alternatives that tend to be more attuned to evolving realities on the ground. Hence, peacebuilding policy and practice will have to move away from performative optics of handshakes and elite bargains to the less visible and painstaking work that happens at the micro-level, driven by local and grassroots initiatives. Overall, the evolving context of peacebuilding call for a keen awareness of both emerging and established trends that will influence its trajectory, coupled with adequate capacities of policymakers and practitioners to attend to the shifts with adeptness and informed pragmatism.