Failed statebuilding versus peace formation

Abstract

This article outlines the often countervailing forces and norms of state formation, statebuilding and peacebuilding according to their associated theoretical approaches. It introduces a new concept of 'peace formation', which counterbalances a reliance on internal violent or externalised institutions' agency, reform and conditionality. Without incorporating a better understanding of the multiple and often critical agencies involved in peace formation, the states emerging from statebuilding will remain as they are: failed by design. This is because they are founded on externalised systems, legitimacy and norms rather than a contextual, critical and emancipatory epistemology of peace. Engaging with the processes of peace formation may aid international actors in gaining a better understanding of the roots of a conflict, how local actors may be assisted, how violence and power-seeking may be ended or managed and how local legitimacy may emerge.

Contribuciones a la fundamentación conceptual de paz territorial

“…A la luz de la literatura internacional (Richmond, 2013), la noción de paz liberal que subyace en el discurso de Sergio Jaramillo entraña otro elemento problematizador, ya que los modelos de statebuilding han fracasado, particularmente por la falta de conexión efectiva con las poblaciones locales y la prevalencia de intereses externos a los de las comunidades afectadas por el curso de la guerra. La identificación de la paz como una gran La paz cada día es más importante para la economía colombiana, porque nos va a ayudar a construir la nueva economía.…”

Communication and Peace

“…The uses of citizens' media presented in this chapter resonate with the concept of "peace formation" -defined as processes led by local agents and strongly rooted in local conditions, local cultures, and local understandings of politics (Richmond 2013). Peace formation refers frequently to "small-scale and often low-level efforts made beneath state, often in hidden or marginal spaces" (Richmond 2013: 10) that strengthen local processes of good governance, accountability, resource redistribution, sustainable economies and peaceful interactions among different identities.…”

“…Thus, existing scholarship is very limited, often dated and, we argue here, presently insufficient to address the growing needs and complexity of current efforts within the field of activities referred to as peacebuilding -which itself has come under severe analytical criticism (e.g., MacGinty and Richmond 2013). Communication and media activities on the ground then continue to be plagued by a "lack of conceptual clarity .…”

Peace formation from below: The “mirëdita, dobar dan!” festival as an alternative to everyday nationalism

“…festival analysed below not only challenges the norm that conflict and division are the only mode of intergroup relations but also offers a platform for peace formation that allows the establishment of alternative modes of contact and relationship. Peace formation, according to Richmond (), relates to “processes where indigenous or local agents of peacebuilding … or local political or local government settings, find ways of establishing peace processes and dynamic local forms of peace …” (Richmond, , p. 383). Embedded in such processes, I argue, is the formation of new and different relationships that alter former imbalance of power relations, as in the case of Serb–Albanian relations, and allow the development of new modes of intergroup activity that challenge dominant nationalist narratives of conflict.…”

“…As such, the local turn in peacebuilding is part of a broader re‐examination of the “civic emancipatory graduation of peace,” which methodologically encompasses top‐down and bottom‐up practices and initiatives (Richmond, ). Such initiatives, framed as “peace formation” (Richmond, ), allow us to focus on local actors as agents of peacebuilding as they confront nationalism.…”