ABSTRACT
The liberal internationalist paradigm posits that peace, both between and within states, is based on market democracy and that constructing democratic political structures is key to sustainable peace (Mac Ginty 2006; Paris 2004). In the post-Cold War era, the terms of a peace agreement had to meet the expectations of the Western leaders who mediated and provided the resources to implement it and multi-party competition was a key component of these expectations. As part of the transition from war to peace, the legitimacy of a new dispensation of authority through electoral validation was essential. Ottaway and others are sharply critical of this “democratic reconstruction model” that imposes democratization agendas in the unpropitious cases following civil war and state breakdown (Ottaway 2003). International practice, however, continues to look to elections as the mechanism to mark the transition and endorse the new dispensation.
