Patrick Peacebuilding Statebuilding and Liberal Peace

CHAPTER 3
Peacebuilding, Statebuilding
and Liberal Peace
The violent intrastate conflicts in many parts of Africa and other parts of
the developing world that coincided with the end of the Cold War
witnessed an increasing change in both the norms and practice of inter-
national response to violent intrastate conflict, involving both state and
non-state actors. In response to this, the UN took a leading role in
multidimensional peace support operations that were aimed at preventing
a return to conflict and promoting durable peace in situations including
Namibia (1989), Cambodia (1991–1992), Mozambique (1992–1994),
Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995–2002), El Salvador (1991–1995), Haiti
(1993–1996, the Central African Republic (1998–2000), Sierra Leone
(1999–2005) and East Timor (1999–2002). Since the UN’s traditional
peacekeeping approach primarily sought to minimize interstate conflict
through monitoring ceasefires between hostile states, it could not match
the emerging post-Cold War peace and security challenges in low-income
countries. Peacebuilding could no longer be limited to keeping warring
parties from returning to conflict, but also addressing the root causes of
conflict including promoting development. Underdevelopment became
increasingly linked with violent conflict and insecurity in low-income
countries. This was later linked to security and terrorism, particularly, in
the so-called collapsed, failed, failing and weak states. The development of
the concept of statebuilding in the 1990s should be seen as a response to
the challenges that such states posed. Moreover, the 11 September 2001
terrorist attacks on the USA witnessed the international community
© The Author(s) 2017 39

P. Tom, Liberal Peace and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in Africa,
Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57291-2_3
40 LIBERAL PEACE AND POST-CONFLICT PEACEBUILDING IN AFRICA
putting more emphasis on statebuilding. These attacks had been attribu-

ted to a ‘failed’ state in Afghanistan.
In the early 1990s, the idea of peacebuilding was not very clear in policy
terms and as such, there was a gradual development of the UN-led multi-
dimensional peace missions.1 These missions comprised of local (state elites)
and regional actors, international actors including leading states such as the
UK and the USA, the UN and its agencies, international financial institu-
tions including the World Bank and IMF, international and NGOs, bilateral
organizations such as the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) and UK’s Department for International
Development (DFID). Although these peace support operations lacked
coordination and cooperation among the various actors, a loose consensus
emerged – that of establishing strong and effective Western liberal demo-
cratic states in war-torn societies as a surest means to bring to an end
intrastate conflict and to establish lasting peace. Peacebuilding became
connected to the state through liberal peacebuilding.
This chapter provides an overview of some fundamental definitions of
the concepts post-conflict, peacebuilding, statebuilding, liberalism and the
liberal peace. It also offers a distinction between peacebuilding and state-
building. These concepts have often been used interchangeably; however,
they are distinct, thus should not be conflated. It is also crucial to point
out that the term ‘post-conflict’ is problematic, thus its meaning in the
context of this book needs to be clarified.
CONCEPTUALIZING ‘POST-CONFLICT’
The concept ‘post-conflict’ has been used in various senses and at times in
a confusing way. As Lambach (2007) points out, the challenge about the
concept of post-conflict relates to the fact that the prefix ‘post-’ is a
temporal signifier that is attached to a noun ‘conflict’ that does not have
a fixed temporal content. For him, an outcome of this is that the idea of
post-conflict leads to a mental dichotomy that transforms ‘conflict’ into a
synonym of war and post-conflict into a synonym of peace. In this dichot-
omy, the idea of ‘conflict’ relates to situations in which organized groups
engage in acts of violence against each other. For instance, a state against a
rebel movement, and this is conducted in accordance with a dominant
conflict narrative, whereas, post-conflict would mean the end of such
violence, and a return to normalcy and peace (Lambach 2007).
3 PEACEBUILDING, STATEBUILDING AND LIBERAL PEACE 41
Yet, such an understanding of post-conflict makes it hard to provide a

clear understanding of extensive violence, as in the case of the genocide in
Rwanda or situations where open warfare has taken long to end in which
there has been a slowdown in violence, for example, northern Uganda. In
northern Uganda, after the signing of the cessation of hostilities agreement
between the rebel movement, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the
government of Uganda in 2006 (the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was
never signed), the government of Uganda encouraged internally displaced
persons (IDPs) to return to their homes as it considered the situation a post-
conflict one. Yet, the LRA rebels have not laid down its arms, but are now
operating in eastern Central African Republic and north-eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the rebels engage in abduc-
tions and brutal attacks on civilians. As such, conflict in northern Uganda
has slowed down with the retreat of the LRA to DRC, Central African
Republic and South Sudan. The same question can be raised about South
Africa: whether it can be considered a post-conflict situation given an
increase in criminal violence and continued deterioration of human security
since the end of the struggle against apartheid rule in 1994.
Indeed, the concept post-conflict can be a misnomer for those
societies which continue to experience other forms of violence after
the end of open warfare or where violence has slowed down. As such,
the level of violence is not an adequate indicator that conflict has
ended. Although in these situations, overt violence is absent, it does
not necessarily mean that peace exists, and such a situation should be
best described as a ‘no war, no peace’ (Mac Ginty 2006) or ‘no peace,
no war’ (Richards 2005a) situation. The concept post-conflict can be
misleading since conflicts seldom end altogether as post-conflict situa-
tions remain tense for years or even decades and can easily return to
large-scale violent conflict, and as such, post-conflict should be under-
stood as ‘a shorthand for conflict situations, in which open warfare has
come to an end’ (Junne and Verkoren 2005: 1). Similarly, Finnstrom
and Atkinson (2008: 2) rightly state that a post-conflict situation ‘can
often be more violent than a conflict itself [ . . . ]. It is essential to
acknowledge that a peace agreement must be won over and over
again, on an everyday basis, in people’s everyday lives’. It is, thus,
crucial to understand the various uses of the concept post-conflict.
Call (2008a: 175) has identified three uses of the concept post-conflict:
(1) refers to the period when open warfare is said to have come to a virtual
end, either through a peace agreement or a military victory, as in Sierra

Leone after 2002, Angola after the death of Jonas Savimbi in 2002 and
Liberia after 2003; (2) refers to situation where a formal peace agreement
has been, even where violence that the peace agreement was intended to
end has not completely disappeared, rather this should be called a post-
accord situation, as in the DRC and northern Uganda; and (3) refers to
when one side in an armed conflict has been defeated militarily, but more
particularly the collapse of the regime in control of the army, for example,
the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001, that of Saddam
Hussein in Iraq in 2003 and the collapse of Muammar Gaddafi’s govern-
ment in Libya in 2011. The last two conceptions of post-conflict have
undermined the usefulness of the concept (Call 2008a). For instance, in
the three countries – Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan – organized violence has
continued years after the fall of the target regimes, and for societies
experiencing this violence, the term ‘post-conflict’ is a misnomer in rela-
tion to their situation. As Call (2008a) rightly points out, the first under-
standing of the term ‘post-conflict’ tends to be more useful than the last
two, since in such a situation certain changes happen including, security
sector reform, the building of more effective state institutions, elections,
disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), reconciliation
and transitional justice initiatives, development programs, and the (re)
construction or building economic institutions.
This book uses the idea of post-conflict adopted from Lambach, in which
a conflict is considered to have ended when ‘violence is no longer explained
in terms of the dominant narrative of conflict’ (2007: 10). As Lambach
argues, viewing conflict and post-conflict situations as social constructs,
‘discursive delimitations of the kind of behavior that is to be expected and
allowed in a given set of circumstances’ implies that a narrative of peace is
put at the center of the definition of post-conflict (2007: 10).
POST-CONFLICT PEACEBUILDING
During the Cold War the UN did not give political currency to the concept
of peacebuilding. Its emphasis was more on preserving the territorial integ-
rity of conflicting states through monitoring ceasefire agreements, creating
buffer zones and peacekeeping, among others, partly as a result of conflict-
ridden power politics between the USA and USSR, and their allies during
the Cold War. The end of the Cold War coincided with an increase in
intrastate conflicts and civil wars that posed a serious new threat to
international peace and security as well as human welfare. At the same time,
it provided the UN and other international actors with an opportunity to be
involved in efforts aimed at ending such violent conflicts within states in
different parts of the developing world. It appeared peace could now be
enforced as the impediment (the Cold War) to its enforcement had ended.
Media images of untold suffering of civilians in states from Africa to the
Balkans to Central Asia experiencing violent intrastate conflict played a
crucial role helping such societies to receive high-level international atten-
tion. Since the conflicts posed serious threats to international peace and
security, it was vital for the UN Security Council to respond to them and
take the lead in dealing with them. The dramatic increase in UN peace
support operations in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War witnessed
the first African UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt
establishing the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in
1992 with the role to adequately manage the peace support operations.
Although in 1965 the UN General Assembly founded the Special
Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, the establishment of the DPKO
saw the institutionalization of peacekeeping within the UN.
On 31 January 1992, the UN Security Council held a summit meeting
for the first time at the level of Heads of State and Government.
Concerned about the new threats to international peace and security
brought by the end of the Cold War, the Security Council included in
its agenda the need to address ‘the responsibility of the Security Council in
the maintenance of international peace and security’ (UN Security
Council 1992). The Security Council tasked Boutros-Ghali to prepare
an analysis and recommendations on how the UN could strengthen and
improve its capacity to maintain international peace and security in the
post-Cold War period. On 17 June 1992, Boutros-Ghali submitted to the
Security Council a report entitled, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive
Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping (hereafter, An Agenda for
Peace) in which he looked at the changing context of international rela-
tions and provided recommendations on how to improve the UN’s capa-
city to enhance international peace and security.
Although the term ‘peacebuilding’ is not recent, in his An Agenda for
Peace, Boutros-Ghali brought it to the UN agenda. The document had a
great influence on our understanding of the enterprise of peacebuilding
and as such, it is not surprising that it is often celebrated as a landmark
document in the development of contemporary peacebuilding. Boutros-
Ghali defined peacebuilding as ‘action to identify and support structures
which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse
into conflict’ (Boutros-Ghali 1992). Furthermore, he differentiated
between peacebuilding, preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-
keeping suggesting ways in which the concepts can be effectively used.
Peacebuilding was associated with post-conflict activities that aimed at
consolidating peace. It included the following activities: ‘rebuilding
the institutions and infrastructures of nations torn by civil war and strife;
and building bonds of peaceful mutual benefit among nations formerly
at war’ as well as addressing ‘the deepest causes of conflict: economic
despair, social injustice, and political oppression’ (Boutros-Ghali 1992).
Peacebuilding would also encompass such activities as ‘disarming the
previously warring parties and the restoration of order, the custody and
possible destruction of weapons, repatriating refugees, advisory and train-
ing support for security personnel, monitoring elections, advancing efforts
to protect human rights, reforming or strengthening governmental insti-
tutions, and promoting formal and informal processes of political partici-
pation’ (Boutros-Ghali 1992). The concept peacebuilding has often been
associated with the multidimensional UN peace support operations in the
early to mid-1990s in countries including Mozambique, Somalia, Angola,
El Salvador, Cambodia, Namibia, the former Yugoslavia and Haiti.
In his Agenda for Development, Boutros-Ghali stresses the importance of
economic and social development as means to promoting lasting peace. In
the Supplement to an Agenda for Peace, Boutros-Ghali defines the essential
goal of peacebuilding as ‘the creation of structures for the institutionaliza-
tion of peace’ (Boutros-Ghali 1995). In this report, he asserts that addres-
sing the root causes of conflict is crucial for building lasting peace.
Peacebuilding would mean not only the elimination of armed conflict but
also addressing its root causes in order to promote the resolution of disputes
without resorting to violence. Boutros-Ghali saw a link between democracy,
development and peace since ‘democracy provides the long-term basis for
managing competing ethnic, religious, and cultural interests in a way that
minimizes the risk of violent conflict’ (1995).
However, with time, new challenges and complex realities on the
ground led to new understandings and development of the concept of
peacebuilding within the UN, academia, leading states, non-governmental
and bilateral organizations. As Call and Cousens rightly point out:
This was driven partly by growing awareness of the complexity of post-

conflict transitions and the multiple, simultaneous needs of post-conflict
societies, and partly by bureaucratic imperatives as more and more interna-

tional agency, parts of the UN system, and nongovernmental organizations
began to incorporate ‘peacebuilding’ into their roles and missions. (2008: 3)
The concept of peacebuilding became more expansive, thus rendering

it incoherent. Conflict prevention, conflict management and post-con-
flict reconstruction, among others, became part of the peacebuilding
agenda.
Kofi Annan who succeeded Boutros-Ghali as the UN Secretary-General
emphasized the need to promote democracy, development and human
security as conflict prevention measures. In addition, he noted the need to
strengthen democratic governance (Annan 1998). Annan (1998: 14)
identified the following as key components for promoting lasting peace:
‘good governance, respect for human rights and the rule of law, promot-
ing transparency and accountability in public administration, enhancing
administrative capacity and strengthening democratic governance’. He
also pointed out that other important activities included organizing elec-
tions and drafting constitutions. However, citing the case of Angola,
Annan (2001) noted the inadequacies of elections by themselves in resol-
ving conflicts, since elections can produce powerful incentives for political
or ethnic entrepreneurs to engage in conflict.
In 2000, the UN Secretary-General’s Millennium Report, We the
Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century (hereafter, We
the Peoples), based on the concerns of an upsurge in violent intrastate wars
in the 1990s that had claimed more than five million lives, proposed a
‘people-centred’ approach: ‘we must put people at the center of every-
thing we do. No calling is more noble and no responsibility greater, than
that of enabling men, women and children, in cities and villages around
the world, to make their lives better’ (Annan 2000: 7). The report further
noted that in the wake of brutal civil wars ‘a more human-centred
approach’ to security was emerging and unlike the security approach of
the Cold War era that was state-centered emphasizing the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of states, this new approach embraced ‘the protection
of communities and individuals from internal violence’ (Annan 2000: 43).
In addition, the report stated the need to develop conflict prevention
strategies that not only address the symptoms of violent conflicts but
also their sources. In this case, peacebuilding would mean activities
aimed at addressing the root causes of the conflict, not just ending overt
violence.
Following the UN Secretary-General’s Millennium Report, We the

Peoples, in August 2000, the Report of the Panel on UN Peace Operations
(the Brahimi report) used the term ‘peacebuilding’ to mean ‘activities
undertaken on the far side of the conflict to reassemble the foundations
of peace and provide the tools for building on those foundations some-
thing that is more than just the absence of war’ (Brahimi 2000: 3). The
report conceptualizes peacebuilding as not just ending armed conflict but
also as aimed at seeking to address its underlying causes. The report
further provides a wide range of peacebuilding activities designed to help
avoid a return to violent conflict, the promotion of peaceful co-existence
and non-violent means of resolving conflicts.
As the UN increasingly became involved in post-conflict peace support
operations, its operations began to display severe shortcomings including
the failure to stabilize societies emerging from violent conflict avoiding a
relapse into conflict which scholars such as Paris (2004) attributed to the
rapid introduction of political and economic liberalization in the absence of
strong, legitimate and effective state institutions. Moreover, the world faced
serious threats to international peace and security. In his address to the UN
General Assembly, Kofi Annan, in September 2003, called for a radical
reform at the UN and urged it to confront all these threats and challenges
including new forms of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. He further pointed out that the UN ‘must be fully engaged in
the struggle for development and poverty eradication, starting with the
achievement of the Millennium Development Goals; in the common strug-
gle to protect our common environment; and in the struggle for human
rights, democracy and good governance’ (Annan 2003). Furthermore,
he noted that he intended to establish a high-level panel of eminent
personalities – the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change –
to which he would assign four tasks: (1) ‘to examine the current challenges of
peace and security’; (2) ‘to consider the contribution which collective action
can make in addressing these challenges’; (3) ‘to review the functioning of
the major organs of the United Nations and the relationship between them’;
and (4) ‘to recommend ways of strengthening the United Nations, through
reform of its institutions and processes’ (Annan 2003). This panel would
focus primarily on threats related to peace and security, and it was established
in November 2003. In its December 2004 report, A More Secure World: Our
Shared responsibility, the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and
Change recommended the creation of two new bodies: (1) a United
Nations Peacebuilding Commission (UNPBC) to support countries in
their transition from war to peace, and help prevent states from collapsing
and assist states avoid a relapse into conflict; and (2) a Peacebuilding Support
Office to act as a secretariat of the UNPBC. Thus, it was proposed that the
UNPBC would focus on the prevention of conflict, and post-war recovery as
well as deal with the challenges of coordinating international peacebuilding
efforts. In this regard, the High Level Panel called on international financial
institutions, regional and sub-regional organizations, and the principal
donor countries to participate in the UNPBC’s deliberations, thus support-
ing its peacebuilding efforts.
In his report, In Larger Freedom: Toward Development, Security and
Human Rights for All (2005), the UN Secretary-General supported the
panel’s proposal to create a UNPBC. At the September 2005 UN World
Summit in New York, heads of state and government agreed to create the
UNPBC, and two bodies that would back it – a Peacebuilding Support
Office and a Peacebuilding Fund. Paragraph 97 of the 2005 World
Summit Outcome document states the following:
Emphasizing the need for a coordinated, coherent and integrated approach

to post-conflict peacebuilding and reconciliation with a view to achieving
sustainable peace, recognizing the need for a dedicated institutional
mechanism to address the special needs of countries emerging from conflict
toward recovery, reintegration and reconstruction and to assist them in
laying the foundation for sustainable development, and recognizing the
vital role of the United Nations in that regard, we decide to establish a
Peacebuilding Commission as an intergovernmental advisory body. (UN
General Assembly 2005)
The UN General Assembly resolution 60/80 and the Security Council

resolution 1645 (2005) of 20 December 2005 established the PBC, which
was mandated to bring together all the relevant actors to gather resources
to support states in their early recovery after conflict as well as provide
advice on integrated strategies to support peacebuilding efforts.
Furthermore, it would focus attention on reconstruction and institution-
building efforts crucial for recovery from conflict as well as support the
development of comprehensive strategies so as to lay the foundation for
sustainable development. There are six countries that are currently on the
PBC agenda – all of them are African countries: Sierra Leone, Burundi, the
Central African Republic, Guinea, Liberia and Guinea-Bissau. In these
countries, the PBC has largely engaged in peacebuilding efforts that
promote liberal market democracies, and has closely worked with neo-
liberal institutions such as the World Bank.
In the UN policy documents and the work of the PBC discussed above,
peacebuilding has come to mean a number of things: strengthening the
rule of law, enhancing development, promoting justice, building democ-
racies, ending overt violence, reconciliation and stability, among others,
aimed at strengthening and solidifying peace in order to avoid a relapse
into conflict. Despite the expansion and modification of the concept of
peacebuilding in these policy documents as well as an upsurge in peace-
building activities since the early 1990s, the concept of peacebuilding has
remained elusive and contested, among academics and policymakers.
While there have been disagreements on the role of external actors in
post-conflict societies, there tends to be a consensus on their significance
in supporting peacebuilding activities in such societies.
PEACEBUILDING DEBATES
Questions have been raised regarding the roles and responsibilities of
external actors in peacebuilding operations who often determine or have
significant influence on the final outcome of the peacebuilding process –
whether they should act as mere facilitators of peacebuilding processes or
use more intrusive approaches if this helps promote lasting peace or end
overt violence. While some scholars have put emphasis on minimalist
peacebuilding approaches aimed at ending overt violence, others have
argued for maximalist approaches that aim at addressing root causes of
conflict and structural violence, such as social injustice and poverty
(Newman 2009a). The narrow approach is security-oriented since it
emphasizes the prevention of a return to violent conflict with the aim of
promoting stability and order subordinating other values such as justice,
development, emancipation and empowerment to the preservation of
internal security, whereas, the maximalist approach is social-oriented
since it places emphasis on addressing underlying causes of conflict (see
Call 2008b). Many scholars and practitioners tend to advocate a narrow
definition of peacebuilding which states that its main objective should be
that of maintaining a ceasefire since for them it is more realistic and quite
feasible (Newman 2009a). For these proponents, peacebuilding should be
considered a success when a ceasefire is achieved and does not collapse.
Yet, a focus on maintaining a ceasefire may help in avoiding overt violence,
but does not address underlying causes of conflict with a likelihood of a
return to conflict if grievances or problems that led to the conflict in the

first place are not addressed. Those who advocate a broader approach to
peacebuilding argue that it is crucial to take into consideration a wide
range of peacebuilding initiatives, if peace is going to make sense to host
societies.
The broader approach includes various benchmarks including democ-
racy, respect for human rights, rule of law, eradicating poverty, social
justice, welfare, non-violent action, reconciliation, development, eliminat-
ing corruption and good governance. However, such an approach is said
to be ambitious even for the more developed societies that are considered
peaceful. Furthermore, it is criticized for being ‘too inclusive to be useful’,
although it helps us show the complex and integrated nature of peace-
building (Call 2008b: 6). In regard to measuring peacebuilding outcomes,
Call (2008b) contends that the broad approach to international peace-
building fails to distinguish between dismal failures such as Rwanda and
Angola and limited successes such as Mozambique and El Salvador where
peace has been consolidated, but the underlying causes of the armed
conflict have not been addressed. He thus proposes a standard of success
which
strikes a middle ground that includes the lack of recurrence of warfare as well
as some sustained, national mechanism for the resolution of conflict –
signified by participatory politics. Participatory politics does not equate to
liberal democracy, but refers to mechanisms for aggrieved social groups to
feel that they have both a voice and a stake in the national political system.
This standard is difficult to measure but excludes stable, authoritarian, and
clearly illegitimate governments. (Call 2008b: 6–7)
In this regard, questions whether there has been a return to violent

conflict or not and whether minimal political institutions that can help
resolve conflict in a non-violent way with citizens engaged in participatory
politics have been established are crucial in measuring success. Such an
approach does not emphasize the underlying causes of conflict including
horizontal inequalities, social injustice and unemployment, which Call
considers as ‘risk factors that shape outcomes, but not themselves indica-
tors of peacebuilding success or failure’ (2008a: 174). This standard does
not escape from the criticism that it is inadequate since participation in
politics will only be meaningful to most, if not all, poor people when their
basic needs are met. This explains why in much of Africa many people are
not keen on participating in politics and tend to be concerned about their

everyday survival. For such people peacebuilding is a success, if it meets
their everyday needs.
This book uses a broader definition of peacebuilding which does not
limit peacebuilding to activities aimed at preventing a return to conflict
but also includes social justice, welfare provision, reconciliation, equity
and humanistic agendas for peace rather than technocratic institutional
state-centric agendas for peace. Such an understanding of peacebuilding is
useful in dealing with the challenges that marginalized populations in
Africa have been experiencing since colonial rule. At the same time, this
does not imply that political participation and a prevention of a return to
conflict are not relevant and important but that these can still be dealt
within the above understanding of peacebuilding. Furthermore, the book
focuses on post-conflict peacebuilding, that is, peacebuilding activities that
are conducted after the end of a civil war or a violent conflict in a given
society so as to redress the causes of the conflict or to come up with
structures that help avert future violent conflicts.
INTERNATIONAL POST-CONFLICT STATEBUILDING INTERVENTIONS

Countries that are emerging or that have recently emerged from periods of
violent intrastate conflict face numerous challenges including reforming
the security sector, judiciaries, laws and constitutions, (re)building gov-
ernance institutions and the infrastructure destroyed during the war,
return of refugees and the internally displaced, transitional justice issues
and building a viable civil society and the economy. Furthermore, the
political situation in post-conflict states and societies is extremely volatile.
After the civil war, the previously warring internal parties continue to live
together in the same country and there is a risk of return to conflict, if one
party feels its needs have not been adequately met. One of the significant
findings of scholarly research is that it is more likely that countries that
have experienced intrastate conflict and violence will experience it in the
future. Rwanda, Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Sierra
Leone, East Timor, Sri Linka, Liberia and South Sudan are some of the
examples of countries that have experienced recurring intrastate conflict,
in which violence broke out repeatedly over time. For instance, in 2013,
South Sudan returned to conflict barely three years after gaining indepen-
dence from Sudan. On 9 January 2005, a comprehensive peace agreement
was signed between the Islamic government of the Republic of the Sudan
and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Sudan People’s Liberation

Army (SPLM/A). This was a historic moment for a country that had
experienced civil war for over two decades. The comprehensive peace
agreement (CPA) ended Sudan’s long and bloody civil war that started
in 1983, setting the stage for South Sudan’s independence and the estab-
lishment of sustainable peace in the country. On 9 July 2011, South Sudan
voted for independence from Sudan through a referendum, marking a
crucial stage in the implementation of the CPA. However, barely three
years after Sudan gained independence, a political power struggle within
the SPLM involving South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and former Vice
President Riek Machar led to an outbreak of violence on the 16th of
December 2013, which had serious economic, social and political con-
sequences for the majority of South Sudan population. The resulting
conflict sparked ethnic violence between the Dinka and Neur in which
tit-for-tat atrocities have been committed. In January 2016, the United
Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
reported that humanitarian needs existed across South Sudan due to
various and interlocking threats, including intercommunal violence and
the armed violence, climatic shock, disease and economic crisis. More than
2.3 million people were reported to have fled their homes since the
conflict started – an estimated 1.6 million people were said to be internally
displaced, an estimated 644,900 people had sought refuge in neighboring
countries, 3.9 million people (approximately a third of the population)
had become severely food insecure (OCHA 2016). Furthermore, since the
start of the conflict, tens of thousands of people have been killed and the
conflict has further weakened South Sudan’s fragile state institutions.
Under pressure from the UN, the USA and other powers, the warring
parties, signed a fragile peace agreement on 17 August 2015, which called
for a transitional government of national unity. Despite this, violent con-
flict continued in some parts of the country. In February 2016, President
Kiir re-appointed Machar as his vice president, who two months later he
swore as South Sudanese vice president ahead of the formation of the
transitional government of national unity.
In the case of Liberia, the Liberian civil war was among the first deadly
conflicts that erupted in West Africa in the immediate aftermath of the
Cold War. In December 1989, Charles Taylor and his National Patriotic
Front of Liberia (NPFL) invaded Liberia from Côte d’Ivoire. Taylor
wanted to remove the government of President Samuel Doe from power
which he accused of tribalism, corruption, fraud and the use of brutality
against opposition parties. Brutality, violence, mass killings, tribalism,

rampant destruction of property and gross human rights violations char-
acterized the conflict. Many civilians were displaced with hundreds of
thousands fleeing to neighboring countries of Sierra Leone, Cote
d’Ivoire and Guinea. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring
Sierra Leone in 1991. In the seven years of the Liberian conflict, the
West African sub-regional organization, the Economic Community of
West Africa’s (ECOWAS) mediation efforts led to the signing of 16
peace and ceasefire agreements. However, all but the Abuja II Accord of
August 1996 failed since the warring parties negotiated in bad faith. The
Abuja II Accord led to general elections in 1997 which saw Taylor being
elected president of the country, thus achieving an apparent peace in
Liberia. In response to this, the sub-regional organization’s peacekeeping
force, the Economic Community of West African States Military Observer
Group (ECOMOG) ended its mission in the country. The peace did not
last long as in April 1999 a second civil war broke out when a rebel group,
Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), with the
support of Guinea, emerged in the north of the country seeking to remove
the regime of Taylor accusing it of being despotic and corrupt. A durable
and sustainable peace could not be established in Liberia. As Paris (2004)
observes, the durability of peace appears to be secure in situations such as
Namibia where external parties instigated and sustained the war and with-
drew from the country when the war came to an end. When external
parties withdrew from Namibia, according to Paris, ‘there was little
“demand” for continued fighting’ (2004: 135).
With a number of post-war situations relapsing into conflict within the
first five years of signing of a peace agreement, the late 1990s saw inter-
national interventions in many states and societies emerging from war and
violent conflict emphasizing the creation of effective and legitimate central
political institutions and the strengthening or reforming of existing ones –
what has become known as statebuilding. Lakhdar Brahimi, the former
Special Adviser of the Secretary-General of the UN, has argued that
statebuilding in post-conflict situations involves transforming such states,
‘not restoring them as they were’ (2007: 5). Statebuilding has become an
important tool to manage conflict and promote development in fragile
states emerging from violent conflict. Indeed, the state, its capacity and
institutions have increasingly been put at the center of international post-
conflict interventions. Brahimi is of the view that statebuilding is ‘the
central objective of any peace operation’ (2007: 4). For him, in the
absence of ‘functioning and self-sustaining government systems, peace and

development will be, at best, short-lived, and the disengagement of the
international community will take place in less than ideal conditions’
(Brahimi 2007: 2). For analysts such as Paris and Sisk (2009), for durable
peace to be achieved, it is crucial to bring statebuilding into peacebuilding
and consider statebuilding a sub-component of peacebuilding, which is
premised on the recognition that the existence of legitimate, strong,
effective and autonomous institutions of governance is crucial to achieving
security and development in states emerging from civil conflict. In the late
1990s, a growing recognition that ‘quick fix’ approaches to peacebuilding
could not create conditions for lasting peace led to a shift in international
peacebuilding policy as international actors increasingly began to empha-
size building the capacity of post-war states.
Moreover, the 9/11, 2001 terrorist attacks (which were linked to
Afghanistan) on the USA led to international concerns about weak states
as transnational terrorism was linked to state ‘fragility’, ‘failed’ and ‘weak’
statehood. The 2002 US National Security Strategy (US NSS) focused on
failed states: ‘America is now threatened less by conquering states than we
are by failing ones’ (White House 2002). The National Security Strategy
further declared: ‘The events of September 11, 2001 taught us that weak
states, like Afghanistan, can pose as great a danger to our national interests
as strong states’ (White House 2002). The case of Afghanistan led to the
realization among the international community that weak states were a
serious threat not only to development and the well-being of their citizens
but also to international peace and security. There was an urgent need to
deal with weak statehood. As such, it is not surprising that weak, failed and
fragile states have moved from the fringe of international security concerns
to being placed higher on the international agenda.
International peacebuilding programs have increasingly emphasized
governance and the reconstruction of the state. A number of scholars
and international organizations have also noted the significance of the
state, power, functions and its institutions in dealing with failed, ‘fragile’
and weak statehood (Paris 2004; Paris and Sisk 2009; Fukuyama 2004;
OECD 2007). Leading commentators such as Fukuyama have argued that
statebuilding is one of the most crucial issues for the global community
since ‘weak or failed states are the source of many of the world’s serious
problems’, including terrorism and poverty (2004: 1). Weak or failed
states are viewed not only as threats to domestic and global stability
but also as impediments to development and a threat to the security and
well-being of their own populations. Some of the weak states have lost
their monopoly over the use of violence to warlords, militia groups and
terrorists.2 Recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have shown
that the seemingly strong states such as Syria, Iraq and Libya are capable of
failing in situations of violent internal conflict. In all the three states
various armed groups (including external non-state actors) are competing
and fighting for the control of the state. As states are consumed by internal
violence, they cease providing basic services and security, especially human
security to their citizens. Such states cannot control their territories and
are characterized by a lack of respect for the rule of law, human rights
abuses, weak institutions, destroyed infrastructure, political instability,
humanitarian emergencies, criminal gangs, arms and drug trafficking and
a loss of domestic legitimacy (Fukuyama 2004; Rotberg 2004) with
extreme and stubborn forms of poverty persisting in such countries
(Collier 2007).
In response to the challenges posed by fragile and weak states, interna-
tional organizations such as the UN and its agencies including UNDP
have established programs and initiatives to create functioning and legit-
imate state institutions thought to be essential for achieving durable peace.
Post-9/11 saw UN-led peacebuilding missions being deployed for longer
periods in situations such as Sierra Leone and Liberia as long-term com-
mitment was essential in dealing with the challenges that these post-war
situations experienced. In 2008 the UNDP launched the ‘Statebuilding
for Peace’ project to empower ‘national and local actors to develop and
implement strategies that address fragilities and enhance responsiveness
and resilience of states for sustainable peace’ (UNDP 2009a: 5).The
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in
its Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and
Situations considers a focus on statebuilding as the main objective in
enhancing state stability and order (2007). The World Bank’s World
Development Report 2011 states its central message as ‘strengthening
legitimate institutions and governance to provide citizen security, justice
and jobs is crucial to breaking cycles of violence’ (2011: 2).
Moreover, since early 2013, the EU has been using State Building
Contracts (SBCs) to provide budget support to conflict affected states as
well as fragile states. It has signed SBCs with African countries including
South Sudan, Mauritania, Liberia and Mali. In South Sudan, the SBC was
never implemented since the country relapsed into internal conflict in 2013.
In May 2015, the EU signed a SBC contract worth €50.8 million with the
government of Liberia to support justice and security services in the context

of future withdrawal of the United Nations Mission in Liberia and its
decentralization program, as well as to support its health services after the
Ebola crisis. Furthermore, in July 2015, the EU Commission approved the
disbursement of €29.2 million of direct budget support aimed at helping
Liberia with its recovery programs. As the EU Commission states:
The Action entitled ‘State Building Contract Liberia’ is a budget support

operation and aims at improving economic governance, financial capability
of government to ensure macroeconomic stability, especially in 2015 in the
context of the Ebola crisis and improve efficiency and accountability in the
provision of vital state functions and services notably in the area of justice
and security. (2015: 2)
In the case of Mali, on 15 May 2013, an international donor conference –

‘Together for a New Mali’ – to support the development of Mali in the
period 2013–2014 was held at the European Commission headquarters in
Brussels which was co-chaired by France and the European Union. Mali
faced a crisis of social and economic development, and security. In March
2012, a violent conflict erupted in the north of the country pitting the
Malian army against several rebel groups fighting for more autonomy or
independence for the north. In addition, a military coup in March 2012
resulted in a constitutional crisis and a divided military in the country. In
April 2012, under international pressure, the junta handed back political
power to civilian interim government. Upon the request of the Mali
government, in January 2013, France intervened militarily and with the
support of the African-led International Support Mission in Mali
(AFISMA) forces, Malian army and some Western countries ended the
rebellion in the north. The conflict had been put higher on international
political agenda, and the ‘Together for a New Mali’ conference was one of
the international efforts at finding a long-term solution to Mali’s security,
economic and development crisis. At the conference, 56 multilateral and
bilateral organizations pledged €3.285 billion in aid to Mali with the EU
pledging €1.35 billion. In May 2013, the government of Mali and the EU
signed an SBC worth €225 million to help Mali to implement the road
map for transition and its 2013–2014 Plan for the Sustainable Recovery, as
well as supporting the country’s efforts to reduce poverty, strengthen
governance and promote sustainable and inclusive growth. Furthermore,
the budget support for Mali would enable the Malian state to ensure the
provision of basic services (water and health) to citizens and restore the
rule of law for the entire population. The specific objectives of the SBC for
Mali are to:
1. increase the government’s financial capacity to strengthen macro-

economic stability and its capacity for development action;
2. improve governance, in particular the management of public
finances, including budget monitoring and transparency;
3. support the Malian government through the process of transition
and national reconciliation;
4. support the government’s efforts to carry out its basic functions
across the whole country, in particular to provide basic services
(water and health) and relaunch the economy through job creation
(EU Commission 2013).
While the EU and other international agencies and leading states that
promote statebuilding have viewed statebuilding as the surest means to
bring out of turmoil states such as Mali, like most war-torn societies, the
impact of external statebuilding and assistance on Mali is uncertain.
APPROACHES TO STATEBUILDING
There are two different approaches to the state: the institutional approach3
and the ‘legitimacy’ approach (Call 2008b; Lemay-Hebert 2009). An
institutional approach to statebuilding focuses on building effective state
institutions in post-conflict environments as a remedy for the ‘weirdness’
or ‘abnormality’ found in weak and failed states that is absent in strong
states. This approach largely draws from the Weberian notion of statehood
which views a state as a political entity that has monopoly over the
legitimate use of violence. Since the institutional approach places emphasis
on building the capacity of state institutions, it tends to ignore customary
institutions (Call 2008b). In addition to service delivery, another impor-
tant element of the state, according to the institutional approach, is the
state’s capacity to institutionalize its diverse organizations. Call (2008b: 8)
defines institutionalization as ‘the process by which a cluster of activities
acquires a persistent set of rules that constrain activity, shape expectations,
and prescribe roles for actors’. Institutionalization is believed to enhance
the durability of the state and its institutions, and even the death of a
leader would not result in the collapse of the state. However, Call (2008b)
has criticized the predominant approaches to peacebuilding for ignoring

institutionalization of state agencies since, for him, these agencies are
usually not functioning well and can be an impediment to the peace-
building process. Instead, international actors often end up devising
their strategies around influential leaders. However, this approach is inade-
quate and can have negative outcomes in relation to building durable
institutions.
The ‘legitimacy’ approach finds the institutional approach’s focus on
institutions insufficient, thus argues for the need to also focus on ‘socio-
political cohesion and the legitimacy central authorities can generate’
(Lemay-Hebert 2009: 22). As such, issues of legitimacy are considered of
paramount importance when building states. This also relates to issues of
nation-building, that is, issues relating to socio-political cohesion and how
external actors shape conditions under which social integration is enhanced in
post-conflict states.4 However, this idea of external actors being involved in
building ‘nations’ contradicts the empirical and theoretical understandings of
the nature of a nation and nation-formation (Newman 2009a). As Newman
has argued, the ‘idea of international nation-building seems a contradiction in
terms, and nation-building as peacebuilding seems like a historical aberration’
since historically, nation-building was an outcome of widespread violence
(2009a: 30). As such, an emphasis on state legitimacy makes sense since the
state needs to be acceptable to its citizens for them to be able to rally behind
its authority, thus enhancing stability and order in it. Nation-building should
evolve organically and not imposed from outside. Cramer (2006) has argued
that ‘civil war is not a stupid thing’, that is, civil wars can also have progressive
consequences including nation- and statebuilding.
Literature on state formation in Africa and Europe shows that the process
of state formation in pre-colonial Africa has been quite different to that of
Europe. In Europe, state formation and consolidation resulted in fixed
boundaries and governments that had overall political authority over their
territories with war playing a significant role in the maintenance or expan-
sion of territory (Herbst 1990; Huntington 1968; Thomson 2000; Tilly
1975). As Tilly (1975: 42) argues, ‘War made the state, and the state made
war’, and together they produced nationalism. Similarly, Huntington
(1968: 123) puts it: ‘War was the great stimulus to state building’ and
this arose as a result of two things: the need for security and an interest in
expansion. War-making and empire building were crucial mechanisms for
state formation in Europe. The literature on state formation in Europe
shows that three of the positive outcomes of war on state consolidation in
Europe are: efficiency in revenue collection, an improvement in the leaders’

administrative capabilities and the growth of nationalism (Herbst 1990).
In terms of conceptual viability, statebuilding is more conceptually
viable than nation-building given its focus on meanings that are more
objective such as the (re)building of government institutions and the
provision of positive political goods (Newman 2009a), such as health,
law and order, education and security. The assumption behind statebuild-
ing as peacebuilding is that once strong and legitimate state institutions
are built, then societies emerging from violent civil war are freed from the
troubles of weak statehood. It is assumed that this will enable positive
political goods necessary for promoting internal order and stability as well
as international peace and security.5
DOES ONE SIZE FIT ALL?

It is crucial to note that state formation and consolidation in the West took
several centuries according to the socio-political, economic and historical
circumstances of the region. In the past two decades, states and institu-
tions that the international actors have been establishing in post-conflict
environments resemble liberal Western states, an approach that largely
overlooks local contextual matters. Western states are based on liberal
values – support for individual liberties, a free market economy, a state
with limited power, a viable civil society and a separation of state and
church, among others – and such values are not universal, thus not
acceptable to all contexts as legitimate. It is not surprising that some critics
have viewed the statebuilding aspect of peacebuilding as ‘a thinly disguised
attempt to modernise and thus “civilise” dysfunctional “third world”
countries that are incapable of developing viable indigenous forms of
cohesion’ (Newman 2009a: 30).
The success story of Asian developmental states such as Korea and
Singapore, which pursued authoritarian developmentalism, has raised ques-
tions about whether other forms of statebuilding, for instance, strong or
authoritarian states, are not, in the long run, more successful in establishing
welfare, security, stability and wealth for the citizens (Goetze and Guzina
2008). Moreover, peacebuilding is focused more on what peace means
qualitatively and it does not have to be necessarily connected to the state.
How it has been connected to the state is through liberal peacebuilding
which has emphasized building liberal states. In this sense, contemporary
statebuilding in post-conflict societies is a positivist instrumentalist Western
Westphalian project which focuses on building states in order to build

peace. It is no surprise that international statebuilding in post-conflict
societies is fraught with tensions and contradictions (Paris and Sisk 2009).
PEACEBUILDING AS LIBERAL PEACE

Contemporary post-conflict peacebuilding operations assume a different
approach to managing conflicts, and international order and stability,
which according to Newman, Paris and Richmond (2009) is perhaps a
reflection that a liberal post-Westphalian world order is being constructed.
This can be viewed as a challenge to the Westphalian notions of the
sovereignty of states as understood in the conceptualization of ‘sover-
eignty as responsibility’ (International Commission on Intervention and
State Sovereignty 2001; Deng et al. 1996). International peacebuilders’
emphasis on creating liberal market democracies in states emerging from
violent conflict has led a number of scholars to conclude that in the post-
Cold War era international peacebuilding reflects a liberal agenda (Paris
2004; Duffield 2001; Richmond 2005; Mac Ginty 2006; Richmond and
Franks 2009; Joshi et al. 2014). The dominant form of contemporary
peacebuilding that places emphasis on promoting liberal values, such as
the protection of individual rights, rule of law, a free market economy,
democracy as well as building a liberal state in war-torn societies, is called
liberal peacebuilding. The theoretical foundation for liberal peacebuilding
is the liberal peace. Liberal peacebuilding has sometimes been confused
with statebuilding; however, the two are different. Moreover, liberal
peacebuilding and peacebuilding are not the same, though sometimes
the two concepts have been used interchangeably. Liberal peacebuilding
focuses on building a liberal state, democratization, a free market econ-
omy, individual rights and the rule of law, whereas peacebuilding places
emphasis on issues such as social justice, welfare provision, tradition,
custom, culture, the grassroots, reconciliation, equity and humanistic
agendas for peace rather technocratic institutional state-centric agendas
for peace.
LIBERAL PEACE AND DEMOCRATIC PEACE THESIS

Nearly everyone yearns or supports peace with many commentators
‘invoking and prescribing peace’ and yet, as Richmond contends, peace
has ‘rarely been addressed in detail as a concept’ with its theorization
‘normally hidden away in debates about responding to war and conflict’

(2005: 2; also see Mac Ginty 2006; Gregor 1996).6 While war is described
as real, peace is described as an ideal, ‘a chimera, receding over the horizon
just as we get closer’ (Gregor 1996: x). Hence, more attention has been
given to war and ‘negative peace’ in IR that understands peace as absence
of overt violence within or between states as opposed to positive peace,
which is present where structural forms of violence, such as poverty and
social injustice, have been eliminated (Galtung 1969, 1985). Negative
peace is the kind of peace which the ‘law and order-oriented’ person
envisages and it ‘leads to stability thinking’ (Schmid 1968: 223). As
Galtung (1967) rightly points out, peace research that is defined solely
in terms of negative peace has a danger that it will ‘easily be research into
the conditions of maintaining power, freezing the status quo, of manip-
ulating the underdog so that he does not take up arms against the topdog’
(cited in Schmid 1968: 223). Galtung further states that such concept of
peace will be in ‘the interest of the status quo-powers at the national or
international levels, and may equally be a conservative force in politics’
(cited in Schmid 1968: 223). Moreover, those who advocate negative
peace tend to emphasize states, and their institutions and functions, as
well as want to maintain the status quo as a means to maintain order and
stability in post-conflict environments. This renders much of the popula-
tion invisible as well as overlooks the important role and agency of the
grassroots in the construction and sustainability of peace.
Consequently, this tends to promote the interests and needs of the
most powerful and not those of the marginalized, the poor or the less
powerful. This results in a failure to come up with strategies that also seek
to empathize with the less powerful, reduce the inequities in power that
can lead to structural violence or violent conflict, bring culture, custom,
tradition and make considerations of the everyday needs of most of the
population in war-shattered states in the peace debate. For those inter-
ested in multiple conceptualizations of peace and emancipatory forms of
peace questions such as who owns the peace, who creates it, who are the
winners and whose interests are being served become pertinent. The
dominant form of peace – the liberal peace – that international actors
construct in post-conflict environments is a result of a limited conceptua-
lization of peace as absence of overt violence.
The liberal peace framework is understood in relation to the democratic
peace thesis – the liberal idea that democracies do not (or rarely) engage in
war against each other. The democratic peace thesis attempts to answer
questions about how to avert war and to establish peaceful relations

between states. Liberal states such as the USA tend to use it in their
international relations. A significant body of literature in IR has focused
on the implications of democracy and markets on interstate relations. This
literature has examined whether democratic states are more peaceful in
their foreign relations and have attempted to provide the theoretical and
empirical explanation for this. Proponents of the democratic peace thesis
have concluded that democratic states rarely fight against each other, that
such states tend to be more open to international trade than illiberal ones
creating interdependencies that preclude the outbreak of war between
them – in this case, peace is expressed via trade since liberal states that
are economically interdependent tend to relate with each other peacefully
(Doyle 1986; Oneal et al. 1996). Doyle (1986: 1152) asserts that, liberal
states have formed a ‘separate peace’, but are also war-prone or aggressive
toward non-liberal states and ‘have also discovered liberal reasons for
aggression’. Proponents of the democratic peace thesis argue that global
peace and security can be achieved only when states are liberal democra-
cies. However, there is a risk that the democratic peace argument may
create an incentive for violence or coercion to promote democracy in non-
liberal states, and it also tends to downplay subjective issues such as culture
and identity and its acceptance of neoliberalism (Richmond 2008).
LIBERALISM
International organizations, powerful states and international financial orga-
nizations have used the liberal rhetoric to justify international peace support
operations, and peacebuilding and statebuilding programs in societies emer-
ging from civil war. It is thus crucial to briefly discuss the notion of liberal-
ism bearing in mind that there is no consensus on the exact meaning of the
concept. A number of scholars have provided an understanding of the
concept based on themes that frequently recur in orthodox discussions of
the concept. These themes, as Mac Ginty states, include
the recognition of the individual as the basis of society; notions of tolerance

and equality of opportunity; the promotion of freedoms that are believed to
be universal; a belief in the reformability of individuals and institutions; the
rationality of individuals and collectives, and the defence of property and
freedom of markets. (Mac Ginty 2012: 170, 2011: 26; also see; Doyle 1986:
115; Joshi et al. 2014)
Other scholars have offered a broad definition of liberalism. For instance,

Friedman, Oskanian and Pardo note that in its broadest sense, liberalism
can be understood as ‘Western paradigm of thought that posits the self-
interested individual as the normative standard of political and economic
activity [ . . . ]’ (2013: 1). Liberals (in various ways) place high value on
individual rights and freedoms including the right to private property,
freedom of association, sexual choice and speech, and freedom of religious
belief and practice. As Waldon points out,
Liberals are committed to a conception of freedom and of respect for the

capacities and the agency of individual men and women, and that these
commitments generate a requirement that all aspects of the social should
either be made acceptable or be capable of being acceptable to every last
individual. (1987: 128)
In contrast, Dworkin (2002: 128) has argued that liberals are committed
fundamentally to a particular conception of equality that supposes that
‘government must act to make the lives of those it governs better lives, and
it must show equal concern for the life of each’. Here we see two conflict-
ing views about liberalism, one emphasizing a certain conception of
equality, and the other liberty. As such, it is difficult to define liberalism
via its concepts (Williams 2009).
Although liberalism has been primarily a product of Western historical
experiences, its proponents assume that it is suitable in any context. This
argument for the universality of liberalism and the legitimacy that the
democratic peace theory has given to liberal democracy has led Western
policymakers to export liberal democracy to illiberal states using the
rhetoric of emancipating ‘those “vanquished” by illiberal regimes’
(Williams 2006: 1) so as to enable them to join the liberal international
order of democratic states. The ‘vanquished’ in the context of interna-
tional peacebuilding are those people who live in societies emerging from
violent internal conflicts experiencing what Mitt Romney, the Republican
presidential nominee for the US 2012 presidential elections, called during
his presidential campaign ‘unspeakable darkness’. Drawing on the demo-
cratic peace thesis, Romney pointed out that in order to ‘save’ the world
from such ‘unspeakable darkness’, the USA needed to return to its ‘demo-
cratic ideals because a free world is a more peaceful world’.
Williams (2006: 2) contends that ‘liberal thinkers and latterly states
have increasingly come to believe that they can bring about an “end” to
war by spreading of liberal ideas and practices to those countries that do

not yet recognize them as a blue print for thought and action in interna-
tional and domestic politics’. As noted earlier, civil wars have been largely
attributed to illiberal regimes, weak states and state failure and as such,
international peace operations in post-conflict situations have emphasized
the creation of domestic and political orders with liberal characteristics
aimed at eliminating sources of war and political instability. This is done in
order to prevent the re-occurrence of violent conflict within these states,
thus ensuring that conditions for durable domestic peace are created and
also that such states do not pose a threat to international peace and
security. As such, international peacebuilding initiatives which focus on
spreading political and economic liberalism have been legitimized through
the application of the democratic peace thesis.
The agents of the state, the state and the building of its institutions are
central to liberal peacebuilding. This is because liberal internationalists
require the state and state elites as main means to introduce the idea of the
liberal peace in societies emerging from violent conflict. Proponents of the
liberal peace model have exported it wholesale from the West to societies
emerging from internal violent conflict with the expectation that such
societies would accept it as it is. Drawing on David Williams and Tom
Young’s conceptualization of liberalism as a ‘project’ in Africa, this book
argues that the liberal peace should be understood as a project in post-war
societies such as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Mozambique.
LIBERALISM AS A PROJECT
Drawing on Margaret Canovan’s (1990) argument that liberalism is ‘a
project to be realized’, Williams and Young have argued that the broad
reform project of Western states and development agencies aimed at
reforming most African states can be conceived as a liberal project. In
this sense, liberalism is not just a body of theorizing but also a political
project of social transformation (Williams and Young 2012; Williams
2009, 2010; Young 2002, 2003) – a project of transforming troubled
African societies into ‘liberal’ societies. This liberal project reflects liberal
ways of thinking about the state and its relationship with society and
economy. As has been mentioned, liberalism places high value on auton-
omous individuals and such individuals are capable of making rational
decisions that are not a threat to others, at the same time, their decisions
can still allow them to pursue their own interests in an efficient manner.
Liberalism’s deepest desires, as Young notes, ‘require that all societies

really consist of free reasoning individuals engaging in projects the value of
which only they can judge. Once these individuals are “liberated” from
“oppression” all that remains is to ensure that they cooperate to mutual
advantage’ (2002: 176, emphasis not mine). The state and civil society are
regarded as crucial institutions for achieving this purpose.
CIVIL SOCIETY
Civil society is a widely used and discussed concept within contemporary
social science and policy circles. Despite this, no precise definition of the
concept exists. It is generally understood as a sphere of voluntary
(uncoerced) action around shared values, interests and purposes
(Pouligny 2005). As Williams and Young (2012: 8) write, the traditional
liberal story offers three crucial elements of civil society: (1) it is an
example of liberal commitments to equality and freedom and in this
arena individuals have the freedom to pursue their own interests in free
association with others; (2) as an arena for criticism, open and free debate,
it acts as a check and balance on the power of the state. Given the state’s
(and its agents) ability to undermine freedom, it is crucial that it is limited
and hold to account, civil society does play this role; (3) it is an arena for
the cultivation of particular attitudes and personal virtues such as civic
engagement, accountability, tolerance, self-reliance and cooperation, cru-
cial for sustaining liberal social life. Williams and Young, further assert:
These understandings shape the familiar liberal account of the relations

between state, society and individual in which individuals are free to pursue
their economic and political aspirations and enabled to cultivate the virtues
that make the society work, as well as ensure that the state, while carry-out
necessary public functions, does not become oppressive or its agents cor-
rupt. (2012: 8)
However, there are tensions and contradictions in liberal concepts of civil

society. These tensions and contradictions cluster around three interrelated
areas (Williams 2010). The first set of ambiguities relate to the tension that
exists between civil society as an arena of private interests and as representa-
tive and protector of public interests. Civil society is regarded as an arena of
private interests in the sense that groups, networks, organizations, associa-
tions and so on seek to advance their common interests which can be
economic, social or political. These civil society groups employ various

strategies including protests and campaigning using the public sphere to
advance their own interests. Civil society is also depicted as a defender of the
public interest via criticism of the state, and open and free debate (Williams
2010). This appears that it would require civil society actors to prioritize the
common good and public interests of the larger polity over their particular
personal interests.
The second set of ambiguities relate to the question of groups which
constitute civil society. Questions have been raised whether groups that are
based on affective ties, for instance, religious, ethnic, tribal and cultural
groups, which do not necessarily promote liberal values, should be consid-
ered as part of civil society (Williams 2009). Richmond (2011b: 28) has
argued that in the context of post-conflict states, civil society has been
externalized and has depended much on international donors’ rather inade-
quate support, in practice, it has ‘often become and engineered artifice that
floats above and substitute for the “local” and for the context’. International
donors have tended to marginalize or exclude local groups based on affective
ties such as ethnic development associations whose organizational forms
mirror local customary and cultural practices. In this sense, international
donors have encouraged and supported the development of modern non-
affective groups considered to be essential for promoting public interests and
for holding the state and its agents to account. Western donors have tended
to pay some attention to indigenous organizations only when this suits their
liberal agendas or is conducive to the process of building a liberal state and
society. As Williams and Young write:
The commitment to ‘civil society’ is genuine but is hedged around by other

commitments, to certain kinds of market arrangements or individual rights
for example, which suggest that what is being advocated or defended is a
particular kind of associational life relating in particular kinds of ways to the
state. It also suggest that ‘civil society’ is itself at least in part a constructed
realm as certain kinds of associational life are to be reworked or even
eliminated, and other forms encouraged. (2012: 9)
The third issue relates to the question of the exact kinds of public interest
that civil society should shape or influence: to what extent can civil society
be relied upon to support a liberal order or to what extent should liberals
seek other guarantees, for instance, the state, that lie outside of the domain
of civil society? (Williams 2010; Williams and Young 2012). These
dilemmas are evidence of the concept of liberalism as a project of social

transformation (Williams 2010). Leading Western states including the USA
and the UK and development agencies such as World Bank and the IMF
which have sought to mold state institutions and social relations in Africa in
the image of the liberal West via the liberal project have reproduced these
tensions inherent in liberal thought.
THE STATE
Liberals fear that the state can abuse the power it possesses. That is, there are
fears and concerns, for example, that state power can be used for repression,
inhibiting individuals’ freedom to pursue their own interests. Yet, as
Williams (2010) contends, in almost all liberal thought, the state continues
to be the primary vehicle for achieving liberal goals and practices. Within the
Western liberal theory, the state is considered as both weak and strong.
Some liberal theorists have tended to link liberalism with neutrality. For
such theorists, the principle of neutrality is said to be a central element of
liberal political theory that provides an understanding of liberalism as well as
distinguish it from other political theories (Alexander and Schwarzschild
1987). A neutral state is conceived of as weak. In this sense, the state is
envisaged as ‘purely an enabler, little more than a neutral mechanism
providing the security to allow free, equal individuals to pursue their life
projects unhindered by others’ (Young 2003: 3). Since in a society indivi-
duals hold varying conceptions of the good and as a ‘neutral mechanism’,
the state (and its laws) must not limit the freedom of individuals in ways that
favor one particular notion of the good.
As such, a strong state is conceived of as a potential threat to
individual rights and freedoms. Threats to individual freedoms are
said to be twofold: (1) there is the possibility that state agents may
abuse institutions of the state and the stronger the state, the higher the
likelihood of abuse; and (2) the state may attempt to advance a certain
kind of social order without the consent of citizens, which might
represent some values that undermine individuals’ rights and freedoms
(Young 2003; Williams 2010). It is argued that such threats can be
countered by establishing some measure of restraint on the state’s
exercise of power and a limit to its scope. This happens via institutional
strategies viewed as mechanisms to establish limits on arbitrary state
power, thus mitigating the fears of abuse of state power and ensuring
that the state does not undermine individual freedoms. Historically,
within the liberal tradition, this has taken the form of ‘a universal legal
code to which state officials are also subject, and [ . . . ] a complex of
institutions now generally referred to as liberal democracy and compris-
ing universal suffrage, political parties, rights of political participation
and so on’ (Young 2003: 3). At the same time, liberals have argued for
a strong state which is not captured by social forces. Such a strong state
ought to a certain extent be detached from social interests as well as
not overcome by them. It must be a capable state, that is, it must be in
a position to impose and maintain a certain kind of domestic order – a
liberal democratic order – ensuring that it inculcates certain kind of
values and depositions in people. This requires a strong, responsive and
effective state that is capable of establishing and defending liberal
values, institutions and policies (Young 2003: 3–4).
As Williams (2010) and Young (2003: 4) argue, these tensions and
contradictions regarding the state – ‘accountable but captured, autono-
mous but not oppressive, neutral but interventionist’ – cannot be resolved
on a purely theoretical level, rather, ‘they can only be made sense of as a
project, a project the nature of which is sharply illuminated by the debate
about Africa because liberal capitalism is not yet hegemonic there and the
processes by which such hegemony is constructed cannot be easily
obscured as in the West’ (also see Taylor 2007). Western states and
development agencies have reproduced these ambiguities in their peace-
building and development projects in Africa. Williams and Young’s work is
crucial in helping us understand international peacebuilding as a ‘liberal
peace project’ of social transformation in post-conflict situations. The
liberal peace project is aimed at transforming fragile post-conflict states
into peaceful and stable liberal entities (as will be shown in this book, in
the context of Sierra Leone) via a set of policies and programs that
promote the rule of law, democratization, individual human rights, good
governance, fighting corruption, market-based economic reform, devel-
opment, a vibrant civil society, and a stable and secure liberal state. The
two main goals of these initiatives are to prevent a return to conflict and
the creation of conditions for building sustainable peace in the country.
It is crucial to point out that the view that international peacebuilding is
liberal peace-oriented is controversial. More recently, some studies have ques-
tioned whether international peacebuilding interventions are essentially liberal
or liberal peace-oriented (see for example, Zaum 2012; Selby 2013). The
notion of liberal peacebuilding has been portrayed as ‘a fallacy and a myth’
(Selby 2013: 58), and that it must therefore be abandoned as the ‘breadth of
the concept and the wide variety of interventions that it encompasses suggest
that it does not offer a useful analytical lens for understanding contemporary
peacebuilding efforts’ (Zaum 2012: 130). Selby contends that ‘states, strategy
and geopolitics continue, as ever, to be crucial determinants of [contemporary
peace] processes; and that the influence of liberalism, and the degree of global
consensus over the liberal peace, are significantly overstated within liberal
peacebuilding discourse’ (Selby 2013: 65). Joshi et al. (2014) have rejected
arguments that the notion of liberal peacebuilding does not really exist. Their
study uses data from the Kroc Institute’s Peace Accord Matrix (PAM) project7
to show that liberal peace actually exists, at least in relation to the inclusion of
liberal goals of good governance, human rights, security sector reform, rule of
law and democracy in peace accords. This book concurs with the argument
that liberal peacebuilding (in its various forms) actually exists.
CONCLUSION
The 1990s witnessed the rise of violent intrastate conflicts in many parts of
Africa and other parts of the developing world, which coincided with the end
of the Cold War. This saw an increasing change in both the norms and practice
of international response to civil wars, involving both state and non-state
actors. During this period, the issue of ‘state collapse’ and ‘state failure’
became an issue of international concern, witnessing an ideological turn in
relation to the UN peace operations. Moreover, this period witnessed the
emergence of an international consensus that failed or collapsed states and
non-state actors posed a serious threat to international peace and security
more than aggressive powerful states. This resulted in the argument that
building effective and legitimate liberal states would deal with such a threat
as well as promote self-sustaining peace in war-torn societies. In each of the
war-torn societies, international peacebuilding actors introduced post-conflict
peacebuilding initiatives based on the liberal peace tenets with little attention
being paid on the local context, and such peacebuilding processes have
produced mixed outcomes, thus generating an interesting debate within the
academy and policies circles.
NOTES
1. Even when Boutrous-Ghali wrote his Agenda for Peace in 1992, it was not
really clear what peacebuilding was. This is reflected, for instance, in the
development of UN policy documents on peacebuilding such as An Agenda
for Peace (1992), An Agenda for Development (1994), the Supplement to an

Agenda for Peace (1995), An Agenda for Democratization (1995) and the
Millennium Development goals among others. In 2005, peace became
institutionalized with the creation of the United Nations Peacebuilding
Commission (UNPBC). One of the aims of the commission is to coordinate
peacebuilding activities among key actors. What is important to note, is that
peacebuilding became clear when it became connected with the state.
2. The 7/7, 2005 terrorist attack in London, UK, is evidence that terrorists
can emerge from more stable states since the attackers were British citizens.
3. Proponents of this approach include Fukuyama (2004), Rotberg (2004) and
Paris (2004).
4. Social integration occurs when distinct groups are incorporated into a
common society with the creation of an overarching supranational identity
by means of standardizing and unifying the various cultures and identities
(Kostic 2008).
5. For instance, Fukuyama (2004) has argued that weak states tend to be
aggressive against their neighbors.
6. In The Transformation of Peace (2005) and Peace in International Relations
(2008a), Richmond attempts to fill this gap in IR and provides a discussion
of how peace has been discussed in IR literature.
7. The PAM project compares and contrasts more than 51 elements that have
featured in comprehensive peace agreements signed since 1989 and their
implementation.

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CHAPTER 3

© The Author(s) 2017 39

putting more emphasis on statebuilding. These attacks had been attribu-

Yet, such an understanding of post-conﬂict makes it hard to provide a

end, either through a peace agreement or a military victory, as in Sierra

This was driven partly by growing awareness of the complexity of post-

societies, and partly by bureaucratic imperatives as more and more interna-

The concept of peacebuilding became more expansive, thus rendering

Following the UN Secretary-General’s Millennium Report, We the

Emphasizing the need for a coordinated, coherent and integrated approach

The UN General Assembly resolution 60/80 and the Security Council

return to conﬂict if grievances or problems that led to the conﬂict in the

In this regard, questions whether there has been a return to violent

not keen on participating in politics and tend to be concerned about their

INTERNATIONAL POST-CONFLICT STATEBUILDING INTERVENTIONS

and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Sudan People’s Liberation

against opposition parties. Brutality, violence, mass killings, tribalism,

absence of ‘functioning and self-sustaining government systems, peace and

government of Liberia to support justice and security services in the context

The Action entitled ‘State Building Contract Liberia’ is a budget support

In the case of Mali, on 15 May 2013, an international donor conference –

1. increase the government’s ﬁnancial capacity to strengthen macro-

has criticized the predominant approaches to peacebuilding for ignoring

Europe are: efﬁciency in revenue collection, an improvement in the leaders’

DOES ONE SIZE FIT ALL?

Westphalian project which focuses on building states in order to build

PEACEBUILDING AS LIBERAL PEACE

LIBERAL PEACE AND DEMOCRATIC PEACE THESIS

‘normally hidden away in debates about responding to war and conﬂict’

questions about how to avert war and to establish peaceful relations

the recognition of the individual as the basis of society; notions of tolerance

Other scholars have offered a broad deﬁnition of liberalism. For instance,

Liberals are committed to a conception of freedom and of respect for the

war by spreading of liberal ideas and practices to those countries that do

Liberalism’s deepest desires, as Young notes, ‘require that all societies

These understandings shape the familiar liberal account of the relations

However, there are tensions and contradictions in liberal concepts of civil

economic, social or political. These civil society groups employ various

The commitment to ‘civil society’ is genuine but is hedged around by other

dilemmas are evidence of the concept of liberalism as a project of social

for Peace (1992), An Agenda for Development (1994), the Supplement to an

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