Función que cumplen las rondas campesinas

The liberal peace has been criticised as a hegemonic project that (re-)produces power relations and seeks to discursively dominate the recipient post-war or failed state. It is a framework for relations of power between the West and the developing world in which the liberal democratic West dominates in terms of knowledge and morality over the developing world which only aspires to be lib- eral democratic like the West. This global hegemony is performed through norms, political and economic structures, culture and ideology which originate in the West but which penetrate and dominate the rest of the World (Abrahamsen 1997, 148). Peacekeeping, conflict resolution and –management are practices aimed at reproducing and enforcing this hegemony (Brigg 2008, 58, Pugh 2004, 41, Zanotti 2006). It assumes superiority and practices hegemony over the ‘Oth- er’ which it deems inferior, and which needs to be converted to adopt the liberal democratic identity and to become part of the liberal community. It has an inher- ent sense of self-superiority and intolerance of difference (Hughes 2006).

The liberal peace, and the liberal idealism on which it is founded, assume that a better (safer, more peaceful and prosperous) world can be constructed. It is founded on European knowledge systems and history which it aims to export and repeat in other parts of the world (Darby 2006a, 6, see also Mudimbe 1988) to ‘save it from itself’ (Harrison 2006). Although the liberal peace is itself a fairly recent phenomenon, it is founded on the same underlying assumptions that have defined Western intervention in the non-western world throughout most of the twentieth century. The liberal peace should be understood in its historic context of a long tradition of practices to modernise and westernise non-Western coun- tries since the colonial period. The liberal peace and its core element of democra- tisation and peace building-as-governance (Richmond 2006, 299) follow the same assumptions as modernisation policies did a few decades ago (Jahn 2007a).

Following independence in Africa, countries have been expected to reproduce a European experience of modernisation and development. Political modernisa- tion was seen as the only way forward by African political leadership of the in- dependence era, as well as by the former colonial masters that had become do- nors for development. It meant the incorporation into the western dominated po- litical and state system (Davidson 1992, Huntington 1968, Meredith 2006, 143- 45). Post-colonial regimes failed to bring political and economic modernisation to their countries and instead turned the dream of independence into economic crisis, conflict and the establishment of authoritarian regimes. Structural Adjust- ment Plans were introduced as a response, but failed and thereby further weak- ened the state and its legitimacy. It was an attempt to force Africa to adopt west- ern economic values, enforced by disciplinary measures. The historical narrative of economic development is paternalistic, arguing that (pre-modern) Africa should learn from the (modern) West and follow the economic development path that the West has already experienced, as if there exists only one modernity and one route towards it (Kapoor 2008, 25-29). After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, the Third Wave of democratisation in Africa made dic- tatorial regimes fall, making place for (nominal) democracies. It did nevertheless not result in stable liberal democracies on the continent. On the contrary, many countries found themselves either in renewed dictatorship or in civil war, or a combination of the two (Huntington 1991, Ihonvbere 1996, Young 1999).

The good governance agenda that followed expanded moralistic and paternal- istic thinking over economic development in Africa to the level of governance and politics. It is built on ideal typical or romanticised (Richmond 2009c) notions such as that of ‘state’ or ‘civil society’, and has little attention for how such con- cepts are socially embedded and given meaning (Chabal & Daloz 2006, 43). Moreover, what ‘good’ governance is, is not determined locally, but defined in the West. It thus not only implies that the West is the model, but also that the

West is the arbiter (Abrahamsen 2000, 32-36, Kapoor 2008, 29-31).The same counts for international treaties that set standards for respect for human rights. They emphasise western (cultural) notions of individual rights that are presented as universal and hegemonic (Kapoor 2008, 33-37). Such norm setting was also characteristic for colonial domination, that functioned simultaneously as authori- ty and morality by introducing a totalitarian understanding of what was right (the colonial norm, its morals, its authority) and what was not-right (anything that did not recognise the norm) (Mbembe 2001b, 26).

Postcolonial1 critique emphasises power in the practices of western interven- tion in the non-western world and the inter-dynamics between the interveners and the intervened, with a perspective that is concerned with the centrality of the pe- riphery and its agencies (Slater 2004, 20). Using Foucault’s notion of discourse and power, Said has argued that the West uses orientalism as a practice of domi- nation over the non-Western Other (Said 2003).2 He argues that the Orient has for the West been ontologically stable. It has no authority over itself because it only exists in the way the West knows it. The West thus owns the Orient and ex- ercises power over it. This western knowledge has changed only at the surface, but its ‘principle dogmas’ and ‘attitudes of cultural hostility’ have essentially always been the same (Said 2003, 3, 300, 290). Postcolonial emphasis on contin- ued patterns of domination should not be mistakenly seen as essentialising the experience of colonial domination (Bayart 2010, 6). Instead it is an emphasis on patterns of cultural domination (Jabri 2007, 159). Said has emphasised that there is much more continuity in the relations between the West and the rest of the world than can be captured by the simple parameters of the colonial era (Said 2003).

Following Said’s critique on the discursive ownership of the non-western world, Spivak speaks of the ‘epistemic violence’ of the attempt to create the ‘Other’ as the shadow of the self (1988, 280). The identity of the West as being modern requires an opposing identity of the other that is not modern. Modernisa- tion theory thus translated a historical condition into a geopolitical one, and vice versa, i.e. the historical condition of pre-modernity is being projected on, and equated with, a spatial condition of the non-West or the Global South (Fabian 1983, Ferguson 2006, 178, Slater 2004, 29-62). This raises questions about limits of accessibility to modernity for non-westerners (Ferguson 2002). Such epistemic violence has an impact on the non-Western Self. Mudimbe’s work highlights

1 _{Without taking position in the ’hyphen-debate’ about postcolonial/post-colonial (Shohat 1992), I will} use the hyphenated term (post-colonial) to refer to the historic post-independence period and the un- hyphenated term (postcolonial) to refer to postcolonial theory, studies and critique.

2 _{Although Said and Fanon (1967) are considered to be the founders of postcolonial critique, its roots} go back to resistance during the colonial era, such as for example the work of W.E.B, Dubois or Sol Plaatje and the Negritude movement of the 1940s and 1950s.

how it has affected African epistemologies and self-understanding (Fraiture 2009, Mudimbe 1973, Mudimbe 1988). It turns the West into a source of self- rectification for the non-West (Shih 2011). To emphasize this point, Chakrabarty suggests to ‘provincialise Europe’, to turn Europe into the periphery of moderni- ty (Chakrabarty 2000a). The concern is that the non-European Other, has always been and will always remain an ‘Other’, never will it become ‘part of us’. Char- krabarty points to exactly this problem inherent in the liberal assumptions that were the foundations of modernisation policies and the liberal peace.

The liberal peace continues practices of orientalism that dominate, restructure and claim authority over non-western societies (Said 2003, 3). It is an orientalist practice of power and domination, a Foucaultian regime of truth that attempts to ‘discipline’ and control the non-West (Abrahamsen 2000, Jabri 2010, 52, Zanotti 2006). Critical perspectives that emphasise the power relations captured in the liberal peace offer a counter-hegemonic discourse that can critically engage with the way in which liberal democracy has become the ‘unchallenged regulative norm in relation to which all other forms of political community are to be judged’. Postcolonial critique emphasises the normative aspects of liberal demo- cratic political modernity and enables a conceptualisation of political modernity in its own, local terms (Scott 1996, 18). Postcolonial studies as a critical ap- proach is part of a broader critique of power and hegemony, domination, inequal- ity, injustice, and bring valuable additions to the study of domination and rela- tions of inequality anywhere in the world, whether it in the global West or the global South (Moore-Gilbert 2000, 12, Quayson 2000, 11).

The essentialisation of the non-West as non-Modern and the West as modern enables and justifies a need to intervene, police and control (Slater 2004, 82-3). Dunn’s study of western conceptualisation of the Congo shows how perpetuated images of the Congo as continued ‘Heart of Darkness’ have had a profound im- pact on international policies towards the Congo and have cumulatively enabled the shaping of the Congo in its current condition (Dunn 2003). The Congo has been constructed as a savage other that needs to be civilized. The liberal peace is therefore highly interventionist and imposing. It assumes power over the non- liberal other which requires a form of temporary imperialism, a form of liberal democratic hegemony, without formal colonies (Chandler 2004, Ignatieff 2003, vii). This tension between the practice of far reaching intervention to enable the objective of self-determination and liberal freedom is a problematic contradiction within the liberal peace (Donais 2009, 16, Jahn 2007a, 90, Jahn 2007b, 222, Lidén 2011, 276). Emancipation and self-determination is to be achieved through the building of state. This means an interpretation of emancipation in terms of rights and freedoms, which ignores emancipatory claims based on needs, culture and custom (Richmond 2005, 150, Richmond 2011b, 12).

By temporarily filling the ‘sovereignty gap’, international interventions pro- vide capacities that are perceived to be missing locally and which are required for a transition to liberal market democracy (Ghani and Lockhart 2008). Such an ‘illiberal peace’ may be based on an international peace building consensus, but often lacks legitimacy locally (Richmond 2005, 175). Chopra’s (2000, 2002) work has shown that such ‘UN Kingdoms’ lack the essential local legitimacy and are highly problematic as a form of peace building. Ellis therefore argues for in- novative forms of trusteeship in which local and international actors cooperate in the reconstruction of socio-political organisation, and the recognition of indige- nous political structures as potential positive agents for reconstruction. The trus- teeship formula will tackle the immediate issues of legitimacy and governance, while the recognition of indigenous structures as agents for state building is like- ly to enhance local support for the state building project (Ellis 2005).

The liberal peace is thus not a project of peace as such, but one of disposses- sion that denies self-hood and agency in the name of assumed universally agreed and shared norms (Jabri 2010, 48, Richmond 2005, 112). The objective of self- determination is kept discursively alive through the notions of ‘local ownership’, ‘empowerment’, ‘stakeholders’ and ‘participation’ (Cornwall and Brock 2005). However, the use of such terms to legitimise practices of liberal peace building has received much criticism as merely paying lip-service to fundamental prob- lems within the liberal peace. Ownership is not about autonomy but about shift- ing responsibility for the implementation of externally designed policy solutions to local actors (Hughes and Pupavac 2005, 883). The same counts for the notion of ‘African solutions for African problems’. African solutions are expected to fall within internationally established norms (Ottaway 1999, 115). As such, it is more disempowering than empowering (Donais 2009, 7). Such terms are used to ‘sof- ten-up the rougher edges of peace building’ (MacGinty 2010b, 352). These terms are merely aspirational, and have become cliché and meaningless because of overuse (Chesterman 2007). Because of these internal contradictions, some con- sider state building as a practice of ‘organised hypocrisy’ (Egnell 2010).

The use of buzzwords like ownership and participation serve a purpose in denying the power-relation between intervention and host communities. It pre- tends that the West transfers its accountability and responsibility to domestic ac- tors, while international actors merely play a facilitative role for capacity build- ing and empowerment (Chandler 2004, 65, Chandler 2006, 8-9). Ownership is an essential part of a hegemonic project such as the liberal peace. Hegemony re- quires coercion and persuasion to construct and govern it. The notion of owner- ship is a tactic of persuasion of the hegemonic project of the liberal peace (Cornwall and Brock 2005, Slater 2004, 98, 103). Filling the ‘sovereignty gap’ is thus ‘empire in denial’, a practice which conflates the right to self-determination

with the capacity of the state in terms of good governance and which enables a highly invasive form of intervention through international organisations and in- stitutional frameworks to establish the liberal peace (Chandler 2006, 32-6).

Whereas Richmond draws attention to the silencing of local needs and wel- fare, Chandler argues that institutionalist peace building practices ignore local societal demands that constitute politics and thus depoliticise an essentially polit- ical process. The assumption is that the political process towards democracy in non-western states can be influenced and shaped by foreign intervention. But this is a radicalisation of external intervention into domestic policy making and ‘facil- itates the erosion of ties linking power and accountability domestically’ (Chandler 2006, 48-50, Chandler 2008, 339-41). Liberal peace building consen- sus thus undermines liberal peace building objectives.