{"id":2110,"date":"2016-12-14T12:17:34","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T12:17:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/hcri\/?p=2110"},"modified":"2021-10-07T16:02:48","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T15:02:48","slug":"civil-society-and-the-liberal-peace-top-down-interventions-from-below","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/hcri\/2016\/12\/14\/civil-society-and-the-liberal-peace-top-down-interventions-from-below\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil society and the liberal peace: Top down interventions from below?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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by Dr Birte Vogel.<\/p>\n

This blog post is based on Dr Vogel’s article<\/a> published in Intervention and Statebuilding<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the past decades, peacebuilding has changed. The participation of non-state has steadily increased. This development has been promoted by, at best, mixed results of traditional peacekeeping interventions. Based on a long-term academic critique that cultural insensitivity, a disregard of traditions, norms, customs and a general blindness for the local context are responsible for the failure of international attempts to foster peace, the international donor community commenced to support the inclusion of local civil society into their peacebuilding activities. These local actors are often believed to have the relevant knowledge, networks and cultural understanding to address topics that are vital to the success of peace agreements or the reconciliation of their communities, and their engagement therefore is often seen as a panacea to address the previous interventions\u2019 shortcomings \u2013 in particular the accusation that statebuilding and peacebuilding missions are neo-colonial enterprises. But is this turn towards \u2018the local\u2019 as inclusive as international actors like to claim?<\/p>\n

From a critical perspective, international engagement with local actors has come under scrutiny, with many positing that internationals imagine them as the implementer of (Western) agendas rather than agents in their own right. I argue that international donors tend to support their orthodox top-down approaches with the help of local civil society \u2018form below\u2019 rather than encouraging the formation of local alternatives. In my recently completed research project, I investigated the impact of international support on civil society\u2019s possibilities to advocate for alternatives to the internationally led peace process in more detail.<\/p>\n

It finds that civil society support is frequently confused with the representation or inclusion of local voices. Evidence shows that international support steers civil society discourses and fosters the adoption of global agendas; thus making civil society part of a transnational governance processes rather than a counter-voice to it. The system prioritises those actors willing to operate within the boundaries of liberal peace interventions over those that are not. This, at the same time, creates an imbalance between local actors in favour of those concurring with internationally proposed solutions over other voices by equipping them with financial resources and access to political decision makers. Thus, the selected voices repeatedly do not challenge but confirm peacebuilding strategies in place, as they are deliberately selected to do so.<\/p>\n

How is civil society captured?<\/h2>\n

I want to sketch out a rudimentary typology of methods for civil society capture (CSC) deployed by international donors. Based on a systematic review of several case studies and the current literature, I sketch out five main categories used for civil society capture as summarised in the table below: financial support; stipulation for partnerships; tacit conditions; opportunity and exclusion. Those methods are obviously context-dependent, but the typology displays general tactics and patterns that – in different combinations – can be used to shape or build civil societies and their discourses. This goes beyond the peacebuilding context and is equally relevant for humanitarianism or development studies.<\/p>\n

Almost all of these methods can be used in two ways: either for positive discrimination (e.g. through the provision of funding) to support certain actors with favourable agendas, or the exclusion of actors that represent internationally undesirable positions (e.g. denial of funding requests).<\/p>\n

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Methods of local civil society capture<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t

Methods of local civil society capture<\/h2>\n

Financial support<\/h4>\n