ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the inner logic of the two critiques: the critique of liberal peace and that of hybrid peace. It analyses William Connolly's work on pluralism in order to frame the normative point of view from which the critique of liberal peace springs. The chapter focuses on the critical evaluation of existing interventionist policies and practices. It explores the critics' alternative proposition: an agonistic negotiation between assemblages of local and international actors is understood to produce a contextual and locally engrained hybrid peace. The chapter explains that hybrid peace has also been critically reappraised. Re-engaging with Connolly's work, it suggests that critical scholars would seem to be increasingly valuing the imperfection and insufficiency of international interventions. In conclusion, the suggestion is that if critical scholars are abandoning the aims of peacebuilding and learning to concede the inexorable crises of interventions, they are heralding a critique that loves devouring its own underpinnings, as in vorarephilic fantasies.