Beyond Hybridity to the Politics of Scale: International Intervention and ‘Local’ Politics

Abstract

The evident failures of international peacebuilding and statebuilding interventions (PSBIs) have recently prompted a focus on the interaction between interventions and target societies and states. Especially popular has been the 'hybridity' approach, which understands forms of peace and governance emerging through the mixing of local and international agendas and institutions. This article argues that hybridity is a highly problematic optic. Despite contrary claims, hybridity scholarship falsely dichotomizes 'local' and 'international' ideal-typical assemblages, and incorrectly presents outcomes as stemming from conflict and accommodation between them. Scholarship in political geography and state theory provides better tools for explaining PSBIs' outcomes as reflecting socio-political contestation over power and resources. We theorize PSBIs as involving a politics of scale, where different social forces promote and resist alternative scales and modes of governance, depending on their interests and agendas. Contestation between these forces, which may be located at different scales and involved in complex, tactical, multi-scalar alliances, explains the uneven outcomes of international intervention. We demonstrate this using a case study of East Timor, focusing on decentralization and land policy.

Who makes the world? Academics and (un)cancelling the future

“…Much less, however, is known on if , where , and in what manner those ‘makers’ meet and what dynamics shape these encounters (Hansen-Magnusson, 2020; Kuus, 2019). The ‘local’ as a field of engagement for IR is still very much in the making (Anderl, 2016; Hameiri and Jones, 2017). How to approach it sensitively is disputed even among critical academics (see for instance the dispute among Deitelhoff and Zimmermann, 2014; Engelkamp and Glaab, 2015; Hofius et al, 2014).…”

The Protection of Civilians and ethics of humanitarian governance: beyond intervention and resilience

“…Their agendas tend not to be the same as those behind the assistance, resulting in compromises and new transnational political constellations (see also Richmond and Mitchell, 2011; Barnett and Zürcher, 2009). In a 2017 study, Hameiri, Hughes, and Scarpello analyse this negotiation of foreign assistance as a ‘politics of scale’ concerning the level at which political problems are to be managed—from the international to the very local—with significant consequences in terms of which actors and institutions are included and excluded, empowered and marginalised (Hameiri and Jones, 2017; Hameiri et al, 2017). The ability to take advantage of international intervention has become an important source of power and privilege in conflict‐ridden developing countries, replacing the co‐opting of strategic support from the contending superpowers during the Cold War.…”

Normal Peace: A New Strategic Narrative of Intervention

“…This critical alternative to top-down liberal governance leans more towards accepting local normalcy in its cultural, social, and everyday manifestations, while considering external support as necessary to enable local peace formation and emancipation from inequality and discrimination, and to promote autonomy from external political, economic, and socio-cultural tutorship. It has to be noted that this discourse has been criticized as retaining certain elements of the more mainstream liberal interventionist paradigm, especially in its understanding of the disputed 'local' (Hameiri & Jones, 2017;Randazzo, 2017;Visoka, 2016b).…”