Outside Agents and the Politics of Peacebuilding and Reconciliation
| Author | Francis Kofi Abiew,Tom Keating |
| Date | 01 March 2000 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200005500107 |
| Published date | 01 March 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
FRANCIS
KOFI
ABIEW
&
TOM
KEATING
Outside
agents
and
the
politics
of
peacebuilding
and
reconciliation
AT
THE
CLOSE
OF
ONE
OF
THE
MORE
INFAMOUS CENTURIES
in record-
ed
history,
we
must
also
acknowledge
one
of
its
most
violent
decades,
marked
by
two
apparently
contradictory
trends
in
international
poli-
tics.
The
first
was
a
substantial
increase
in
violent
conflict,
much
of
which took
the form
of
civil
wars
and
many
of
the victims
of
which
were
civilians.
In
1996
all
of
the
major
conflicts
in
the
world
were
civil
or
intra-state
in
nature. While
the
exact
toll
in
human
life
and
suffering
is
unknown,
estimates
put
more
than
42
million people
at
serious
risk.
This
was
not,
of
course,
as
it
was
supposed
to be.
The
end
of
the
cold
war
was
to have
introduced
an
era
of
peace
with
an
emphasis on
the
rights
and
privileges
of
human
beings.
Indeed
the
second
prominent
feature
of
international
politics
in
the
1990s
was
the
emphasis
on
indi-
Francis
Kofi
Abiew
is
an
Assistant
Professor
of
Political
Science,
University
of
Windsor
and
the
author
oJiThe
Evolution
of
the
Doctrine
and
Practice
of
Humanitarian
Intervention
(1999);
Tom
Keating
is
a
Professor
in
the
Political
Science
Department,
University
ofAlberta.
An
earlier
version
of
this
paper
was
presented
at
the
Annual
Meeting
of
the
Academic
Council
on
the
United
Nations
System,
United
Nations Headquarters,
New
York
City
16June
1999.
The
authors would like
to
thank Natasja
Treiberg,
Bill
Bewick,
and
Dennis
Westergaardjfr
their
assistance
in
the
completion
of
this
paper.
Research
for
this
paper
has
been
supported
by
a
grant
from
the
Social
Sciences
and
Humanities
Research
Council
of
Canada.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter
1999-2000
Peacebuilding
and
reconciliation
vidual
human
rights
and
human
security.
Along
with
various
declara-
tions and charters,
there
was
a
noteworthy
increase
in
the
number,
variety, scope,
and
prominence
of
interventions
for
allegedly
humani-
tarian
purposes.
Motivated,
it seems,
by
a
concern
for
human
rights
and
a
sense
of
urgency
in
the
face
of
the
scope
of
humanitarian
and
political
disasters
in
all
regions
of
the
world,
a
variety
of
individuals,
groups,
governments,
and
organizations intervened
in
the
affairs
of
other
countries
in
the hope
of
contributing
to
a
more
stable, peaceful,
and
just world.
Within
this
context
the
theory
and
practice
of
peace-
building
emerged
as
a
central
part
of
what
the
rest
of
the world
has
to
offer
to
divided
societies.
For
many
years,
the
response
of
outsiders
focused
on
the
cessation
of
hostilities and
was
drawn
from
the
United
Nations
experience
in
peacekeeping.
As
the
complexities
and
societal
repercussions
of
civil
conflicts
became
more
evident,
peacekeeping
operations took
on
a
wider
range
of
tasks,
a
phenomenon
commonly
described
as
second-
generation
peacekeeping.
Since
the
mid-1990s,
some
governments,
international
and
regional
intergovernmental
organizations
(IGOs),
and
many
non-governmental
organizations
(NGOs)
as
well,
have
adopted
an
even
more comprehensive
view
of
civil
conflict
and
identi-
fied
the
need
for
a
multifaceted
approach
that
supports
a
sustainable
peace
in
a
post-conflict
situation
to
avoid
the
recurrence
of
violent
conflict
in
the
future.
Commonly
referred to
as
peacebuilding, the
idea
was
raised
by
the
former
secretary
general
of
the
United
Nations,
Boutros
Boutros-Ghali,
in
his
1992
An
Agenda
for
Peace.
Some scholars
have
conceptualized peacebuilding
in
terms
of
a
strategic
and
responsive
framework
-
an
approach
that
is
more
com-
prehensive
than
that
offered
by
Boutros-Ghali. John
Lederach,
for
instance,
finds fault
with
Boutros-Ghali's
use
of
the
term
peacebuild-
ing
as
limited
to
postconflict
support
of
peace
agreements
and
the
rebuilding
of
torn
societies.
He
stresses
instead
the
problems
encoun-
tered
in
peacebuilding
-
that
is,
transforming
hostile
and
violent
rela-
tionships
into
a
peace
system
characterized
by
just
and
interdependent
relationships. For
him
'peacebuilding
is
more
than
postaccord
recon-
struction
...
peacebuilding
is
understood
as
a
comprehensive concept
that
encompasses, generates,
and
sustains
the
full
array
of
processes,
approaches,
and
stages
needed
to
transform
conflict toward
more
sus-
tainable,
peaceful
relationships.
The
term
thus
involves
a
wide
range
of
activities
and functions
that
both
precede
and
follow
formal
peace
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL Winter
1999-2000
81
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