ABSTRACT
Complex peacebuilding operations are reasonably successful at ending violence.1 Yet they generally aspire to do more than end violence-they also intend to remove the root causes of violence and create the conditions for a positive peace. It is not enough that former combatants go to their respective corners, disarm, or recognize that a resumption of violence will generate more costs than benefits. In order for there to be a stable peace, war-torn societies must develop the institutions, intellectual tools, and civic culture that generates the expectation that individuals and groups will settle their conflicts through non-violent means. Peacebuilders seek to remove the root causes of violence and create this pacific disposition by investing these postconflict societies with various qualities, including democracy in order to reduce the tendency toward arbitrary power and give voice to all segments of society; the rule of law in order to reduce human rights violations; a market economy free from corruption in order to discourage individuals from believing that the surest path to fortune is by capturing the state; conflict management tools; and a culture of tolerance and respect. There are various explanations for why peacebuilding operations have
fallen far short of this ambitious goal of creating the good society. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that peacebuilders are expecting to achieve the impossible dream, attempting to engineer in years what took centuries for West European states and doing so under very unfavorable conditions. Peacebuilding operations confront highly difficult conditions, including a lack of local assets, high levels of destruction from the violence, continuing conflict, and minimal support from powerful donors and benefactors (Chesterman 2004; Doyle and Sambanis 2006; Orr 2004). Another explanation faults the peacebuilders, failing to realize that their goal of transplanting a liberal-democracy in war-torn soil has allowed former combatants to aggressively pursue their existing interests to the point that it rekindles the conflict. In their effort to radically transform major aspects of state, society, and economy in a matter of months, complex peacebuilding missions are subjecting these fragile societies to tremendous stress. States emerging from war do not have the necessary institutional framework or civic culture to absorb the potential pressures associated with political and market competition.
Consequently, as peacebuilders push for instant liberalization, they are sowing the seeds of conflict, encouraging rivals to wage their struggle for supremacy through markets and ballots (Paris 2004; Zakaria 2003). Shock therapy, peacebuilding-style, undermines the construction of the very institutions that are instrumental for producing a stable peace. In this chapter we offer an alternative explanation: peacebuilders have
adopted strategies that have reinforced previously existing state-society relations-weak states characterized by patrimonial politics and skewed development.2 Specifically, we develop a model of peacebuilding operations that helps explain why peacebuilders transfer only the ceremonies and symbols of the liberal-democratic state. The model, in brief, is as follows. We begin with the preferences of three key actors: peacebuilders (PBs), who want stability and liberalization; state elites (SEs) of the target country, who want to maintain their power; and subnational elites (SNEs), who want autonomy from the state and to maintain their power in the countryside. The ability of each actor to achieve its goals is dependent on the strategies and behavior of the other two. Peacebuilders need the cooperation of state and subnational elites if they are to maintain stability and implement their liberalizing programs. State elites are suspicious of peacebuilding reforms because they might usurp their power, yet they covet the resources offered by peacebuilders because they can be useful for maintaining their power; and they need local subnational elites and power brokers, who frequently gained considerable autonomy during the civil war, to acknowledge their rule. Subnational elites seek the resources provided by international actors to maintain their standing and autonomy, yet fear peacebuilding programs that might undermine their power at the local level and increase the state’s control over the periphery. Because peacebuilders, state elites, and subnational elites are in a situation
of strategic interaction, where their ability to achieve their goals is dependent on the strategies of others, they will strategize and alter their policies depending on (what they believe) others (will) do.3 Peacebuilders will have to adjust their policies and adapt their strategies to take into account their dependence on state elites, adjustments and adaptations that are likely to incorporate their preference for arrangements that safeguard their fundamental interests. State elites will have to acknowledge the legitimacy of peacebuilding reforms if they are to receive the stream of international resources. Their strategic interactions will shape the peacebuilding agenda and hence
the outcome of the peacebuilding process. For heuristic purposes, we argue that the logic of their strategic interactions-the game-can lead to one of four possible outcomes: cooperative peacebuilding: local elites accept and fully cooperate with the peacebuilding program; compromised peacebuilding: local elites and peacebuilders negotiate a peacebuilding program that reflects the desire of peacebuilders for stability and the legitimacy of peacebuilding and the desire of local elites to ensure that reforms do not threaten their power base; captured peacebuilding: state and local elites are able to redirect
the distribution of assistance so that it is fully consistent with their interests; or conflictive peacebuilding: the threat or use of coercive tools by either international or domestic actors to achieve their objectives. We argue that compromised peacebuilding is the most likely outcome
because of the nature of the parties’ preferences and constraints and because once they arrive at this result they have little incentive to defect. Compromised peacebuilding, with its allocation of roles and responsibilities to each of the parties, represents something of an implicit or tacit contract-a peacebuilder’s contract. Peacebuilders recognize the interest, power and authority of local elites, although this may not be compatible with the objective of building a good peace. State elites acknowledge the legitimacy of the reforms proposed by peacebuilders, but are intent to minimize the possible risks to their fundamental interests. Peacebuilders and local elites pursue their collective interest in stability and symbolic peacebuilding, creating the appearance (and opening up the possibility) of change while leaving largely intact existing state-society relations.4
