The international dynamics of counter-peace
| Date | 01 March 2024 |
| Author |
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https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661231168772
European Journal of
International Relations
2024, Vol. 30(1) 126 –150
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/13540661231168772
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The international dynamics
of counter-peace
Oliver P. Richmond
The University of Manchester, UK; Dublin City University, Ireland;
Ewha Womans University, South Korea
Sandra Pogodda
The University of Manchester, UK
Gëzim Visoka
Dublin City University, Ireland
Abstract
Peace processes and international order are interdependent: while the latter provides
the normative framework for the former, peacemaking tools and their underlying
ideology also maintain international order. They indicate its viability and legitimacy partly
by meeting local claims as well as though the maintenance of geopolitical balances. In
the emerging multipolar order, the international peace architecture (IPA), dominated
by the liberal international order (LIO), is contested through counter-peace processes.
These processes contest the nature of the state, state-society relations and increasingly
international order itself. This paper investigates the tactics and strategies of regional
actors and great powers, where they engage in peace and order related activities or
interventions. Given the weakness and inconsistency of the IPA and the LIO, such
contestation leads to challenges to international order itself, often at the expense of
the claims of social movements and civil society networks.
Keywords
Counter-peace, blockages to peace, failed peacemaking, international peace
architecture, multipolar order
Corresponding author:
Oliver P. Richmond, Department of Politics, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13
9PL, UK.
Email: oliver.richmond@manchester.ac.uk
1168772EJT0010.1177/13540661231168772European Journal of International RelationsRichmond et al.
research-article2023
Original Article
Richmond et al. 127
Introduction
Localised peacemaking has implications for international order and its legitimacy, as can
be seen over the last 30 years, and in particular since 9/11. The unipolar liberal interna-
tional order after 1989 has been based on sovereignty, reshuffled power hierarchies and
economic inequality, but less so than its historical predecessors (such as imperial, colo-
nial, monarchic, totalitarian and fascist orders). Within the constraints of ideological
hegemony, the post-Soviet unipolar order allowed for a multilateral approach. However,
the liberal peace, liberal international order (LIO) and multilateralism were dominated
by Western states.
While the related and more expansive international peace architecture (IPA) that has
developed, particularly since WW2 (Richmond, 2022), had largely been limited to main-
taining the Westphalian order during the Cold War (e.g. through diplomacy, mediation,
peacekeeping), post–Cold War unipolarity allowed its interventionary toolbox to expand.
New instruments were added, such as liberal peacebuilding, statebuilding and develop-
ment, and traditional interventionary practices were enlarged (Chandler, 2010, 2017;
Paris, 2004). This created an intricate web of mutually reinforcing interventions aimed at
maintaining and expanding the LIO.
However, this architecture represented a hegemonic, Eurocentric, northern-focused,
framework (Doyle, 1983; Paris, 2004). Its inherent hypocrisy, which was rapidly identi-
fied and critiqued ‘from below’ (Pouligny, 2006), has undermined its legitimacy around
the world. It has been of limited effectiveness, and it has lacked political will (Krasner,
1999; Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Chambati, 2013; Pugh, 2004). Paradoxically, it may have
constrained development, justice and sustainability in many conflict-affected regions, as
laid out in critical scholarship and among social movements and networks engaged in
peace and war in International Relations (IR) (Vinthagen, 2015).
International order is increasingly divided between reactionary nationalism and liber-
alism (de Orellana and Michelsen, 2019), and any pretence of a normative order is under
attack via ‘extra-legal’ versions of sovereignty (Paris, 2020) in which war and violence
retain political functions and utility. These attacks represent an old story of ideological
and norm-contestation in IR driven by a rationality of state domination in domestic,
regional and imperial spheres. They ensure that progress towards justice and sustainabil-
ity beyond rationalities of power and territoriality remains obstructed. The implications
for peacemaking are substantial. Indeed, these internal inconsistencies provide a plat-
form for further, morbid dynamics to emerge.
This paper builds on previous research, which elaborated three stable patterns of
internal blockages that have been obstructing peace processes across the globe (Pogodda,
Richmond and Visoka, 2022) and in increasingly systematic ways. Drawing on the coun-
ter-revolutions literature, we have described these as ‘counter-peace’ patterns, defined as
emerging from tactical and ‘proto-systemic processes that connect spoilers across all
scales (local, regional, national, transnational), while also exploiting structural blockages
to peace and unintended consequences of peace interventions’ (Pogodda, Richmond and
Visoka, 2022). Similar to the concept of counter-revolution, ‘counter-peace’ does not
necessarily manifest itself as the opposite of peace (i.e. war), but characterises a range of
strategies that are designed to obstruct, derail and reverse peace and reform processes.
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