Agonistic peace and confronting the past: An analysis of a failed peace process and the role of narratives

Abstract

<jats:p> This study analyzes how peace processes in socio-political environments that do not support ‘confronting the past’ (CTP) initiatives are affected by the exclusion and delegitimization of alternative narratives different from dominant ones concerning the nature and history of ethnic conflicts, focusing on Turkey’s failed peace process as a case study. It pays specific attention to the resistance against acknowledging alternatives to dominant narratives by considering the role played by bystanders and antagonistic citizens, who are not directly part of the conflict but nonetheless support it by remaining passive or directly/indirectly supporting dominant narratives. Driven by agonistic peace theory, the article shows how failing to turn these groups into agonistic citizens through some form of agonistic CTP initiative and allowing a space for alternative narratives can result in the fragility of efforts towards a transition to peace. </jats:p>

Introduction

“…In this paradigm, conflicts are accepted as healthy signs of all societies, while post-war power constellations may be contested by non-violent means, and there is space for conflict to transform from antagonism and enmity to agonism and adversity (see e.g. Shinko 2008;Aggestam et al 2015;Björkdahl and Mannergren Selimovic 2016;Rumelili and Çelik 2017;Klem 2018;Strömbom 2020;Çelik 2021;Rumelili and Strömbom 2022;Strömbom et al 2022). 3 Here, other peace concepts operate differently, where everyday peace is mainly seen as hyperlocalized, even if it can scale out (Mac Ginty 2021: 14, 25-50), whereas Millar has developed a framework for trans-scalar peace for analyzing peace across analytical levels, but its threshold for being classified as peace is higher than that of the relational framework (Millar 2021).…”