Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 March 2016
The peacebuilding and academic communities are divided over the issue of local ownership between problem-solvers who believe that local ownership can ‘save liberal peacebuilding’ and critical voices claiming that local ownership is purely a rhetorical device to hide the same dynamics of intervention used in more ‘assertive’ interventions. The article challenges these two sets of assumptions to suggest that one has to combine an analysis of the material and normative components of ownership to understand the complex ways in which societies relate to the peace that is being created. Building on the recent scholarship on ‘attachment’, we claim that different modalities of peacebuilding lead to different types of social ‘attachment’ – social-normative and social-material – to the peace being created on the part of its subjects.
1 As indicated in recent UN peace operations. See for UNAMID (Darfur): ‘UNAMID Deputy Chief visits West Darfur to meet local authorities, discuss development’, UNAMID Press Release (18 May 2014); African Union, Doc. PSC/PR/2, ‘Report of the Chairperson of the Commission on the Situation of Darfur and the Activities of the African Union – United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur’ (9 July 2014), p. 2. For MONUSCO (DRC): ‘MONUSCO sets up network for dialogue with civil society organizations in Kinshasa’, MONUSCO Featured News (12 August 2010), p. 8; Kobler, Martin, ‘Stabilizing the Democratic Republic of the Congo: MONUSCO Priorities and the Nairobi Declaration’, Chatham House, Africa Programme Summary (13 June 2014)Google Scholar. For MINUSTAH (Haiti): United Nations, UN Doc. S/RES/1927, ‘United Nations Security Council Resolution 1927’ (4 June 2010), para. 3. For UNMISS (South Sudan): United Nations, UN Doc. S/RES/1996, ‘United Nations Security Council Resolution 1996’ (8 July 2011), para. 3. The Peacebuilding Commission has also stressed the importance of ‘local ownership’. See, for example, United Nations, UN. Doc. SG/SM/10533 PBC/2, ‘Opening First Session of Peacebuilding Commission, Secretary-General Stresses Importance of National Ownership, Building Effective Public Institutions’ (26 June 2006); United Nations, UN. Doc. PBC/17, ‘Secretary General Underscores National Ownership, International Partnership in Consolidating Peace, As Peacebuilding Commission Ends First Session’ (27 June 2007).
2 An interesting point was made by LSE researchers, showing that the actual meaning of the concept of ownership differs depending on semantics. For local partners in Bosnia and Kosovo, ‘local ownership’ relates more to property rights (due to government control of companies) than to political control. Martin, Mary et al., ‘Local ownership in international peace operations – conclusions and policy recommendations’, in Mary Martin and Stefanie Moser (eds), Exiting Conflict, Owning the Peace: Local Ownership and Peacebuilding Relationships in the Cases of Bosnia and Kosovo, Study commissioned by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and LSE (4 June 2012)Google Scholar.
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