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2. Statebuilding and Governance: The Conundrums of Legitimacy and Local Ownership
- Ohio University Press
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47 T W O Statebuilding and Governance The Conundrums of Legitimacy and Local Ownership d o m i n i k Z A u m S i n C e t H e e n d o F t H e C o L d WA r , S tAt e b u i L d i n G H A S i n C r e A S i n G LY come to be seen as a central strategy for establishing sustainable peace after civil conflicts.1 following the eruption of conflicts in many developing countries, where already weak state structures often crumbled under the double blow of the sudden termination of superpower patronage and the pressures of globalization, the need to strengthen the capacity of states to provide basic services such as security to the population, and to establish institutions that enjoy relatively broad popular consent, became critical. As kofi Annan suggested in 2001, during his tenure as secretary-general of the united nations (un), “the natural conflicts of society can be resolved through the exercise of state sovereignty and, generally, participatory governance.”2 the attacks of September 11, 2001, further enhanced the focus on so-called weak and failing states as sources of insecurity not only for their own populations but also for the West, because of the former’s potential association with international terrorism and organized crime. this reinforced the association between statebuilding and peacebuilding. despite the inherent link between the two concepts, and the fact that they have often been used interchangeably by donors and analysts alike, peacebuilding and statebuilding are conceptually different. boutros boutros-ghali’s Agenda for Peace defines peacebuilding as “action to identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict.”3 Statebuilding, in 48 doMiniK ZAuM contrast, encompasses efforts to build or strengthen political and administrative institutions with the aim of establishing a legitimate local political order in the eyes of relevant societal groups.4 Whereas the former focuses on preventing renewed outbreaks of violence after conflict, the latter is concerned with the character of the relationship between state and society,5 and the legitimacy of state institutions, a concern that has important implications for peacebuilding but also broader implications for development and governance that are distinct from dealing with the consequences of conflict. As Charles Call has argued, there are a range of tensions between the practices and priorities of peacebuilding and statebuilding.6 one common peacebuilding practice, for example, is the formation of powersharing agreements,7 which are used to engage potential spoilers and give them a stake in a successful peace process. Such power-sharing agreements have been particularly common in African peacebuilding processes, for example in Côte d’ivoire, the democratic republic of the Congo (drC), Sudan, and Zimbabwe.8 However, while such arrangements have often been successful in containing spoilers and preventing the renewed outbreak of conflict, they have in some cases undermined the development of state capacity and the transformation of state-society relations. this has occurred in particular where leaders of different factions use their access to the state for private gain rather than developing effective institutions to provide public goods, or when they instrumentalize the political process to block the strengthening of state institutions at the expense of parallel institutions they control. Although peacebuilding tends to emphasize the impartiality of outsiders to engage all relevant parties in a peace process, statebuilding often requires international actors to take sides and to make deeply political decisions about access to power and control of resources that are incompatible with impartiality. the strengthening of state institutions can fuel the resistance of those groups that stand to lose most from a state effectively exercising the monopoly of violence, or encourage them to use violence to capture the state—a dilemma that has characterized the failed attempts at statebuilding in Somalia, as Christopher Clapham and ken menkhaus have argued.9 Although such tensions do not suggest that statebuilding cannot make a critical contribution to building sustainable peace, they do underline the need to examine the impact of statebuilding on peace in the political, economic, and social contexts of each case. As argued in this [54.147.30.127] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:20 GMT) 49 Statebuilding and governance chapter, many of these tensions are actually inherent in statebuilding, as they reflect different aspects of the complex social construct that is the state. Although most international...