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Beyond Liberal Peacebuilding: A Critique of Liberal Peacebuilding and

Exploring a Postmodern Post-liberal Hybrid Model of Peacebuilding

Article · August 2017

DOI: 10.17265/2328-2134/2017.08.001

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Beyond liberal peace: A philosophical critique of liberal peacebuilding and
exploring a postmodern post-liberal hybrid model pf peacebuilding

Juichiro Tanabe

Abstract
One of the pressing problems with peacebuilding research is that much of the analysis
focuses on the practical and technical challenges while paying little attention to the
philosophical assumptions of those operations. Any understanding of peacebuilding is
underpinned by philosophical frameworks as they shape and orient us towards particular
strategies for peacebuilding. This paper makes a philosophical critique of liberal
peacebuilding – the mainstream peacebuilding – and explores a postmodern post-liberal
hybrid peacebuilding. The analysis leads to neither the rejection of liberal peacebuilding
nor the exclusive reliance on locally-oriented peacebuilding. Rather, the upshot is the
need for deconstructing dualistic view of either liberal peacebuilding or locally-oriented
peacebuilding so that both external liberal actors and local actors engage in jointly
learning and mutually transformative process wherein both liberal international actors
and local actors look beyond peace constructed around their narrow and restricted
conception and framework to create the meanings of peace that can interconnect the
global and the local.

Introduction
This paper will make a philosophical critique of liberal peacebuilding and explore
a postmodern post-liberal hybrid peacebuilding. One of the problems with
contemporary peacebuilding research is that much of it has focused on the practical and
technical challenges of peacebuilding whilst paying little attention to the philosophical
assumptions of those technical operations (Paris, 2002). Truly, peace research is a
practice-oriented intellectual enterprise that aims to transform a world filled with
violence of any kind and contribute to achieving a more just and peaceful world (Rogers
and Ramsbotham, 1999).
However, any understanding of peace, conflict, and violence is underpinned by
philosophical assumptions of how we know that understanding as such. Our
philosophical frameworks shape and orient us towards particular strategies for peace
and conflict resolution. Therefore, engagement in reflection on philosophical
assumptions we normally employ in an unreflective use can offer us an opportunity to

1
make an in-depth analysis of how those committed to peacebuilding construct their
approaches to the enterprise. Philosophical analysis will help us create new ways to
look at peacebuilding and broaden our understanding of the enterprise (Thompson,
2000). This does not mean to deny liberal peacebuilding. Rather, critique of
philosophical framework of liberal peacebuilding and integrating other philosophical
assumptions into liberal peacebuilding would enrich qualitatively our view of
peacebuilding apart from liberal view of peacebuilding.
The first section introduces the basic ideas of peacebuilding. It presents the origin
of peacebuilding and its core ideas. The second section critically examines liberal
peacebuilding that has predominated the contemporary peacebuilding enterprise. Here,
approaches of liberal peacebuilding and its philosophical underpinning will be critiqued.
The third section will explore how postmodernism will contribute to post-liberal hybrid
peacebuilding. In this section, how liberal peace view and non-liberal peace views can
construct a positive relation to bring about a sustainable peace.

Introduction to peacebuilding
According to Ramsbotham et al, peacebuilding is an enterprise that undergirds the
work of peacemaking and peacekeeping by addressing structural issues and the
long-term relationships between those in conflict (2011). Peacemaking refers to moving
towards settlement of armed conflict whilst peacekeeping means the interposition of
international armed forces to physically separate the armed forces of conflictants
(Ramsbotham et al, 2011). The rise and evolution of the term peacebuilding in global
arena can be attributed to An Agenda for Peace in 1992 and The Supplement to the
Agenda for Peace in 1995, both of which were proposed by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the
sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations.
In Agenda for Peace, Boutros-Ghali proposed the concept of “post-conflict
peacebuilding” that aims to secure and consolidate peace agreements between
conflicting parties after the fighting has ended by helping conflictants to be demobilized
and assist post-conflict countries to hold multiparty election and build democratic
system (Boutros-Ghali, 1992). In Supplement to An Agenda for Peace, he extended the
operations of post-conflict peacebuilding to more comprehensive scope, entailing
humanitarian, economic and political areas apart from demobilization of combatants
and transition to participatory elections (Boutros-Ghali, 1995). Further, it was also
assumed that at the first stage of the mission of post-conflict peacebuilding, external
actors such as the UN, other international institutions, states, and NGOs take initiatives
to proceed the mission and then the responsibility would be transferred to local and

2
civilian agents after the task has shown certain progress to stabilize the post-conflict
nations (Bercovitch and Jackson, 2012).
Reflecting the complexity of the conflict dynamics, multiple causes of conflict,
and rising need for multi-faceted approach to resolving conflict in the post-Cold War era,
peacebuilding can be understood as a holistic approach that seeks to transform the
political, economic and social structures in the post-conflict nation in order to prevent a
relapse into violent conflict and to build a sustainable and peaceful society. Since
structural and institutional inequalities are one of the main causes of overt violence
among different groups, transforming the political and economic systems of a society to
overcome the structural asymmetries to achieve a lasting peace is the pillar of
peacebuilding enterprise (Fisher, 2001).

Critique of liberal peacebuilding

Overview of liberal peacebuilding

Contemporary mainstream peacebuilding is considered as liberal peacebuilding
(Newman et al, 2009) and its theoretical foundation is the liberal peace. The liberal
peace theory claims that democracy guarantees that domestic politics within states will
be peaceful and stable (Richmond, 2014). Further, in combination with free trade,
democracy ensures that states do not go to war with each other, following the
conventional law of international relations that democratic states do not fight each other
(Richmond, 2014), which leads to a relatively peaceful regional and international order.
Facing the challenge to reconstruct the failed or failing states that emerged after the end
of the Cold War, international community managed mainly by liberal states has come to
connect peace and security with market-oriented development, democracy, rule of law,
human rights, and a vigorous civil society in a modern state framework (Richmond,
2005). Based on this background, the basic approaches of liberal peacebuilding are the
promotion of democracy, market-oriented economic reforms and a range of other
institutions associated with modern states as they are believed to lead to a lasting peace
(Newman et al, 2009). The premise of these methods is democracy and free-market
economy enable people to resolve their differences peacefully, to accomplish their
aspirations and make governments accountable and responsive to people’s basic needs
(Newman, 2009).

Philosophical foundation of liberal peacebuilding

As Richmond argues, liberal peacebuilding is founded upon Western

3
Enlightenment philosophical framework (2011). According to Crotty, Enlightenment
philosophy puts a great emphasis on the power of reason, especially, the instrumental
reason to reach the absolute forms of knowledge (1998). Instrumental reason is praised
as the source of progress in knowledge and society, as well as the privileged locus of
truth and the underpinning of systematic knowledge (Best and Keller, 1991). On
Enlightenment view, it is presupposed that reality exists independently of human
subjectivity and that the aim of research is to discover the objective truth that applies
universally and explains every phenomenon systematically (Gray, 2004) and the
instrumental reason has been employed as the only authentic tool (Crotty).
Relying on instrumental reason, Enlightenment thought seeks to uncover the
intrinsic and universal structure of the physical and social worlds (Baronov, 2004). At
the center of this endeavor lies the strong premise that there can be a universal and
ahistorical matrix to which we can always appeal in judging the nature of truth and
reality (Williams, 2004). It is assumed that a common denominator can be established
for all beliefs and value systems and that accordingly the world is a unified field and can
be explained by a single system (Ermath, 1998). So-called metanarratives or grand
theories that allow us to understand the whole world in terms of all-embracing
principles are presupposed (Burr, 2003). Since the world is considered as highly
systematic and well-organized entity characterized as regularities, constancies,
uniformities and absolute principles, it is posited that the application of rationalistic
thought leads us to unearth the universal rules or structures that underlay the surface
features of the world, which enables us to produce certain overarching theories and
methods to understand and address problems facing us (Burr, 2003).
Based on universalistic thought, those who advocate liberal peacebuilding believe
its universal applicability to build a lasting peace. The general transference of the liberal
peace to any post-conflict peacebuilding has been promoted as a universal framework
(Richmond, 2009). Under the banner of ‘peace-as-governance,’ that is, the mixture of
institutional regulation and liberal freedoms, it is assumed that the achievement of stable
peace relies on the reform of comprehensive frameworks for social, economic, political
and cultural regulation and governance by external and internal actors working toward
the same universal framework envisaged by the liberal peace (Richmond, 2005). Stated
otherwise, in liberal peacebuilding, peace is assumed by academics as well as
policymakers or practitioners to be arising by transplanting western models of social,
political, and economic institutions as universal method necessary for the permanent,
liberal-economic and political governance into conflict-shattered states (Heathershaw,
2008).

4
Problems with liberal peacebuilding
Though liberal peacebuilding has enjoyed the predominant position in
contemporary peacebuilding enterprise, it has invited growing criticism. Some have
called the legitimacy and validity of liberal peacebuilding into question as it ignores
local engagement and lacks consultation with local actors (Newman et al, 2009). One of
the conspicuous hallmarks of liberal peacebuilding is the idea that lasting peace can be
built by external actors such as the United Nations, other international organizations,
Nongovernmental organizations, donor countries. This is due to that the liberal
democratic peace thesis has been firmly embedded in contemporary international
framework of peace in many states’ constitutions, international law, the UN,
International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) and International Financial
Institutions (IFIs) like World Bank (Richmond, 2014).
Accordingly, analysis of peace agreement, their negotiation, and the detailed mid-
and long-term framework of peace have come to be inseparable from discussions of
international peace interventions since most peace negotiations are not merely local but
receive extensive international input (Selby, 2013). The strong emphasis on top-down
approaches has raised concerns about the viability and sustainability of peacebuilding
and caused local critiques or even resistance to the failure to fulfill local needs
(Newman et al, 2009). The crisis of liberal peacebuilding is rooted in its standardizing,
universalistic pretentions and its concomitant failure to engage with local cultural
practices of peacemaking and conflict resolution and with the manifold insecurities of
everyday life in societies recovering from conflict (Selby, 2013).
Another critique of liberal peacebuilding along with the top-down approaches is
the romanticisation of the local, that is, the idea that local actors, cultures and practices
are inferior and an obstacle to the project of liberal and rational governance (Newman,
2009) and it has invited the charges of ethnocentrism by the Western powerful actor.
Liberal peacebuilding itself is critiqued as globally hegemonic project (Selby, 2013),
wherein post-conflict societies are brought into conformity with the international
system’s prevailing standards of domestic governance or standards that frame how
states should organize themselves internally despite the diversity and uniqueness of
each post-conflict circumstance (Paris, 2002). Rather than representing local
preferences and needs, the process of liberal peacebuilding is seen as the promotion or
imposition of an external, hegemonic agenda that seeks to integrate peripheral areas into
global norms of politics and economics, which provides powerful international actors
with self-righteousness of direct or subtle forms of interventions and colonialism
(Richmond, 2011). Liberal peacebuilding is perceived to represent the maintenance of

5
existing political and economic hierarchies at the local, national and global levels
(Richmond, 2011).
Liberal peacebuilding is a sort of linear model of peacebuilding approach.
Founded upon the belief in liberal peace as the absolute framework that underpins
universally stable peace, liberal peacebuilding has been implemented as an approach to
bring about a lasting peace across different contexts of post-conflict societies. Though
conflict is a complex and non-linear phenomenon, any form of post-conflict society
would converge into a sustainable and stable peace monolithically when democratic
governance, human right, market-economy, and centralized government system are
imported.

Exploring a postmodern post-liberal hybrid peacebuilding

Postmodernist first pillar: social construction of knowledge and culture-oriented

peacebuilding
Though it is difficult to generalize what postmodernism is, it can be
acknowledged as the strong critique of modernism. Modernism puts a great emphasis on
the power of reason, especially, the instrumental reason to discover the absolute forms
of knowledge (Crotty, 1998). Reason is believed as the source of progress in knowledge
and society, as well as the privileged locus of truth and the underpinning of systematic
knowledge (Best and Kellner, 1991). Postmodernism rejects the idea that there can be
an ultimate and eternal truth and that the world as we see it is the consequence of hidden
universal structures (Burr, 2003). The denial of the grand theories or metanarratives of
ultimate truth that explains every phenomenon in a systematic manner warrants a
rejection of any undertaking to probe for reality or truth in any ultimate sense (Spears,
1997). Ahistoric and acultural ultimate and eternal truth that can be applied universally
is dismissed.
By rejecting grand theories that are believed to explain all phenomena in a
systematic way, postmodernism stresses the co-existence of multiple realities and
varieties of situation-dependent ways of life (Burr, 2003). Each situation is different and
requires specific understanding. On a postmodern perspective, it should be
acknowledged that there are diverse worlds that are inhabited by different people, and
that those different worlds construct diverse ways of knowing, distinct sets of meaning
and various realities (Crotty, 1998). The negation of ultimate truth and the recognition
of diversity of truths or realities mean that all ways of understanding reality are
historically and culturally relative and that people in a society or culture construct their

6
own knowledge and shared ways of understanding of reality. It is through the everyday
social interactions between people that certain knowledge comes to be formed (Burr,
2003). The social world and the categories or classifications people apply to
comprehend the social world are not external to them but are constructed in and through
interactions between those who live in the social world (Bryman, 2004).
In line with the social and cultural of knowledge, the central role of language or
discourse in constructing the meaningful social world is also the essential feature of
postmodernism (Alvesson, 2002). Discourse is referred to as language-use anchored in
an institutional context, articulating structured understanding or a line of reasoning with
active and productive effects of providing meanings to the social and cultural
phenomena (Alvesson, 2002). Discourses can be understood as providing a repertoire of
resources which people use to interpret the social world since the language they use in
their daily lives constitutes the framework of the way they think, the categories and
concepts that shape the meanings of reality (Spears, 1997). The activities of naming and
symbolic representation give the first ordering impulse for the systematic construction
of our human life-worlds (Chia, 2002). The social world as conventionally understood,
that is, social systems, structures, agents, shared meanings, and a prevailing social order
are based on discourse or language with strong constructing effects (Alvesson, 2002)
From these postmodernist viewpoints, locally and culturally oriented
peacebuilding needs to be promoted. Culture is the customary way in which groups
form and understand their behavior in relation to others and to their environment (Kyrou
et al, 1999). Culture is organized around the understanding that human beings use
locally received or developed common sense to perceive, interpret and act on and in
both external and internal reality (Avruch and Black, 1991). Culture offers a grammar
for acting and interpreting the world and refers to shared practices and to commonly
held premises and presuppositions members of groups hold about the world that
involves the social structuring of both the world outside the self and the internal world
(Vayrynen, 2001).
Through socialization within their culture, individuals receive an understanding
of what world is like, employ a particular set of values and grasp the cultural meaning
of events and actions (Fry and Fry, 1997). Accordingly, meaning of conflict, cause of
conflict, meaning of peace, approaches to conflict resolution would be understood in
different ways according to each culture. In short, one of the important characters of
post-liberal peacebuilding is the recognition that peacebuilding is a cultural
phenomenon since the ways in which conflict is perceived and dealt with reflect a
culturally shared set of attitudes and beliefs (Fry and Fry, 1997): local cultural processes

7
need to be enacted as valuable methods to peacebuilding that reflects a strong concern
for social welfare and justice on local micro level. Achievement of durable and stable
peace hinges on bottom-up community initiatives and commitment to local institutions,
customs and norms to give free expression of local voices, needs and forms of politics
(Newman, 2009). It implies an engagement with the everyday to provide care and
empathy (Richmond, 2011). Peacebuilding needs to move towards an everyday notion
of peace sensitized to each local reality.

Postmodern second pillar: critique of social construction of knowledge and critique of

the exclusive reliance on local orientation for peacebuilding
While locally and culturally oriented peacebuilding is proposed based on
postmodern critique of universal knowledge and claim for social and cultural
construction of knowledge that depends upon each unique context, there is one more
dimension concerning postmodernism that we need to consider for exploring
post-liberal hybrid peacebuilding. It is a critical attitude towards socially or culturally
constructed discourses themselves.
Gergen argues that generally, discourse in the social world appears to its users as
well structured, that is, as a set of conventions, habits or ways of life that are stable,
recurring and fixed (1999). Crossley insists that the key point of discourse is the
assumption that those who participate in it are generally unconscious of the system of
conventions to which they have got accustomed and are also most unaware of the
specific consequences that their use of the discourse may bring about (2005). The
discourse prevalent in the social or cultural world tends to be take-for-granted. However,
postmodernism takes a critical attitude toward our taken-for-granted ways of
understanding the world since power relations underlie the social construction of
knowledge.
Gergen insists that since language is a critical aspect that represents power
relations in a society, it is important to critically examine the discourse of knowledge
prevalent in society (1999). Our constructions of the social world are tied up with power
relations since they have important implications for what it is acceptable for different
people to do and for who they may treat others (Burr, 2003). Social construction of
knowledge creates a particular version of reality that is generally recognized as such
(Alvesson, 2004). Consequently, description or construction of a particular view of the
social world can be understood as maintaining some fixed patterns of social action as
normative and excluding others (Burr, 2003).
It is unavoidable that socially or culturally constructed knowledge derives from

8
seeing reality from some perspective and consequently can be viewed as serving some
interests rather than others (Burr, 2003). However, the danger of this is that by
representing certain interests of a particular group over other groups, socially
constructed knowledge itself can cause an unequal inter-group relationship in society.
Discourses prevalent in the social or cultural world can be understood as being mediated
by power relations in society: through socially constructed discourses, certain groups in
society are privileged over other groups and exercise some oppressive force on
subordinate groups (Gray, 2004).
According to the critique or social or cultural construction of knowledge, it can be
understood that whilst peacebuilding should be locally oriented, at the same time,
critical eyes need to be cast upon local dynamics of certain construction of peace view
since local culture is not immune from asymmetric relations among local peoples. The
critique of cultural construction of knowledge or frames of references does not mean to
deny the idea that at the center of peacebuilding enterprise should lie the consideration
of daily needs and welfare of local people. Rather, it needs to be acknowledged that the
local cultural dynamics is much more complex than critics of liberal peacebuilding who
advocate the local approach to peacebuilding assume (Simons and Zanker, 2014).
The conceptualizations and views of peace within a local sphere are more
complex, incoherent and fragmented according to distinct local individuals and groups
(Simons and Zanker, 2014). Actors and discourses are highly contested, making it
difficult to decide on which discourse and policies are to be trusted to contribute to
peace at the local level (Simons and Zanker, 2014). An exclusive emphasis on
indigenous institutions and local ownership lead to wrong results since they are
contested arena wherein certain voices and interests of specific actors are reflected at
the expense of others’ (Newman et al, 2009). In short, while it should play the central
role, locally and culturally oriented peacebuilding is not the panacea as the local is not
free from exclusionary or oppressive power games.1

Need for deconstructing binary either liberal peacebuilding or local peacebuilding for
post-liberal hybrid peacebuilding
At the core of postmodernist post-liberal hybrid peacebuilding should lie the need
for the double critique, that is, the critique of liberal peacebuilding that pretends to be
universal or global and that of local or cultural dynamics of peacebuilding in a local
sphere since both approaches are not immune from asymmetric relations. Neither liberal
peace nor locally or culturally built peace framework can achieve a lasting peace alone.
Further, neither liberal peace nor locally oriented peace, both of which are complex and

9
multi-faceted in nature, can be fixated and essentialized. And here deconstructionism
plays the core role in transcending dualistic thinking of either liberal peace or local
peace.
Traditionally, the binary thinking has influenced Western philosophy and culture –
for instance, subject/object, appearance/reality, man/woman, universal/relative,
reason/emotion and so on – to construct discourses that have served to build an
asymmetric hierarchy of values and marginalize and devalue diversity or multiplicity of
thoughts (Best and Kellner, 1991). However, deconstructionism critiques the logic of
the ‘either-or’ dualism and fixed categorization (Lockeyer, 2004). The pinnacle of
deconstructionism is that concept or frame of reference of any kind that we try to
privilege or make hierarchy is not in the right and stable order but is dependent upon
those that are considered as inferior or under-privileged (Butler, 2002). The allegedly
opposing dichotomy has no absolute status since the alternatives it offers are neither
exclusive nor exhausted (Gutting, 1998). There is no stability in binary or dichotomy in
any mode of thought and the allegedly exclusive alternatives find themselves to be
inextricably interconnected (Gutting, 1998). The ultimate point of deconstructionism
thinking would be to liberate us from attachment to binary or dualistic thought as fixed
or immutable, knowing there can be no firm foundation for stable binary logic.
Going beyond dualistic stance calls us to transcend many strongly engrained
habits of thinking and participate in and play with opposing and contradictory thoughts
that are seen as such only from ‘either-or’ logical stance. Transcending an attachment to
a particular frame of reference does not refer to the denial of taking standpoint itself;
rather, when we are liberated from any particular view, it becomes possible to have
multiple perspectives in examining and addressing the problems facing us (Vaughan,
2002). The embodiment of transcendence and the relinquishing of all fixed perspectives
enables us to overcome our particular limited horizon of attitude and open up the
infinite network of meanings that are not tied to any specific standpoint.
Based on the deconstruction of binary thinking of either liberal peace or locally
framed peace as the absolute answer for a lasting peace, the core of postmodern
post-liberal hybrid peacebuilding is the recognition that both internal and external
commitments are indispensable: international actors, local actors and constituencies
cannot operate effectively without each other (Richmond, 2011). It is a reframing of
peacebuilding as a dialogical and pedagogical process that reconstructs the everyday
according to how its local subjects need and want to live in the broader liberal peace
context, but also in recognition of multiple everydays and mutual engagements
(Richmond, 2011). It is an organic interconnection between the international and local

10
everyday.
Post-liberal hybrid peacebuilding should be understood as an opportunity for the
promotion of empathetic relations between the international arena wherein liberal peace
frameworks have assumed the core role and the local everyday dimension of peace to
co-construct peace that gratifies the needs of local people as well as empower them to
develop new ideas and visions to address local problems. In other words, it should be a
dynamic process in which liberal international norms are reconsidered according to
different cultural contexts so that liberal peace frameworks can be modified to help the
grass-roots and the marginalized members in local political sphere to contribute to peace
formation (Richmond, 2014). Each actor from both liberal international field and local
sphere needs to look beyond peace constructed around his/her narrow and restricted
conception and framework to create the meanings of peace that can interconnect the
global and the local.
In relation to this, global transformation needs to be taken into serious
consideration. As a result of dualistic logic of either liberal global approach to peace or
local approach being deconstructed and contingent and fluid nature of liberal global
structure and local and cultural sphere being revealed, it needs to be appreciated that
global structure is part of the cause of conflict and it should be a possible reality to
transform it as it is not an immutable entity but a constructed structure with certain
value. Truly, critiquing and transforming the liberally framed global political and
economic structure is not easy. However, as long as the aim of peacebuilding enterprise
in the context of interdependent and interpenetrating relation between the global and the
local is to achieve a lasting peace, addressing global structural inequalities must be
integrated into long-term peace process (Richmond, 2016).
At the center of postmodern post-liberal hybrid peacebuilding process should be
joint learning placed. A joint learning is a joint conflict analysis to create a common
view of the main challenges toward peacebuilding (Ropers and Anuvatudom, 2014). It
is a joint action between external actors, especially those with liberal peace frameworks
and local actors, wherein both can have an opportunity to show their views and explore
jointly context-sensitive but also transformative approaches. Further, the joint learning
must be dialogical. Dialogue – for which the need emerges from the increasing
acknowledgement that our changing reality demands a new global ethic and perspective
of one another – has become one of the main methods to deepen inter-cultural or
inter-civilizational understanding (Der-lan, 2006). The main objective of dialogue is not
just to share different information, but to uncover the processes that shape us and the
struggle we are having, so that mutual respect and a sense of solidarity in the middle of

11
diversity ca be aroused (Der-lan, 2006).
Dialogue requires the openness to be challenged and transformed by encountering
others’ viewpoints and values, as well as the willingness and ability to engage in active
listening and understanding of them (Ferrer, 2002). Dialogue demands us to let
ourselves be changed in our point of view, attitude and mode of thinking by freeing
ourselves from any fixed frame of reference (Hadot, 1995). By learning to be less
embedded or reified in a perspective or frame of reference, we can develop a different
basis or relationship to our own mode of thinking process, which serves to empower us
to be open to differences, diversity, and creativity (Claxton, 2006).
Though dialogical joint learning between liberal external actors and local actors
with unique peace vision is not an easy process, the sequencing of dialogical joint
conflict analysis and exploration of peacebuilding is an important aspect for promoting
a process of trust-building interaction and shared knowledge construction (Ropers and
Anuvatudom, 2014). Joint conflict analysis and learning helps participants change
perspectives and move towards deeper levels of mutual understanding and respect
(Ropers and Anuvatudom, 2014), which paves the way for culturally-sensitive but
transformative and emancipatory peacebuilding.2

Reflective self-awareness as a method for post-liberal hybrid peacebuilding

While the deconstructive understanding of dualistic view of either liberal
international peace or local peace, the consequent their interdependent and
interpenetrating nature and need for dialogical joint learning process of peacebuilding
have been discussed, how an asymmetric relation between liberal external actors and
local actors, which has shaped liberally framed peacebuilding, can be addressed is a
crucial issue. In order to overcome the asymmetric relationship, liberal external actors
need to develop different skills and attitudes from those interventionary and
instrumental ones (Richmond, 2012). One of the important skills that need to be
developed is reflective self-awareness.
Reflective self-awareness entails the practice of stepping back from our current
frame of reference to critically examine our particular pattern of thought, values and
logics that shape our experience (Park, 2008). Human beings need a solid philosophical
framework to live a meaningful life, engage in intellectual enterprise and address social
and global problems. However, as shown in the critique of liberal peacebuilding, when
completeness or universality is claimed for certain frame of reference, it causes us to be
dogmatic, excluding other views or thoughts. Stated otherwise, even prima facie
virtuous and noble acts including peacebuilding and conflict resolution can turn into a

12
site of conflict or violence when a particular philosophical framework predominates the
enterprise, marginalizing or downplaying others. Dissemination of certain philosophical
framework as absolute or complete in the life-world becomes a constitutional power of
institutional violence in human social and global arena (Park, 2008).
The development of self-knowledge through reflective self-critique of one’s
frame of reference generates pliability and flexibility with thoughts, which breaks
through an attachment to any specific philosophical underpinning. Consequently, we
can sharpen the capacity to simultaneously hold multiple perspectives and patterns of
thought that depends on an awareness that embraces all perspectives without adhering
to a position in any form as complete to approach the reality (Hart et al, 2000). By
integrating reflective self-awareness into our intellectual and practical enterprise of
peace and raising the conscious awareness present in them to engage in constant critique
of our assumptions, the possibility of transcending particular belief system and
approaching phenomenal world from various perspectives will be a viable reality.
Self-critique of liberal international actors through reflective self-awareness does
not mean that they should dismiss their liberal values and perspectives. Rather, by
acknowledging that liberal peace and Enlightenment philosophy are only part of a
variety of peace views and philosophical underpinnings, liberal actors learn to enact a
critical and transcendental attitude that goes beyond liberal philosophical boundary and
construct complementary relations with other locally and culturally framed philosophies
in resolving conflict and building peace. When liberal actors realize and practice an
all-embracing and integrative perspective free from an extreme attachment to
self-centerdness of liberal frameworks, the authentic conditions for dialogical joint
learning will be made, wherein new knowledge for peace that has not yet emerged can
be co-created.

Meaning of peace in postmodern post-liberal hybrid peacebuilding

In liberal peacebuilding, wherein transferring liberal framework of democracy,
human rights, market-economy system has been believed to bring about resolution of
conflict, peace has been seen as closure since it is assumed that any form of
post-conflict society will achieve the same institutional and structural stability as
Western liberal states. However, as a result of pretention of liberal peace as universal
and complete criterion being deconstructed, fluidity and unstable and indetermined
nature of both liberal peace and locally oriented peace framework being revealed, and
binary view of either liberal peace or local peace being deconstructed, peace with
certain end-point or closure and monolithic nature is no longer what we strive to

13
achieve.
Then, how should we understand the meaning of peace? It should be recognized
as an open and non-closure process (Park, 2008). The intersubjectively constructed
nature of any form of peace framework and deconstructive nature of dualistic
understanding of liberal peace and local peace, which admits the impossibility and
unreality of any form of peace view to claim its absolute and complete status, refines
our sensitivity to differences and reinforces our ability to tolerate and enjoy
incompleteness of peace (Park, 2008). It also means the inexhaustibility of any kind of
peacebuilding; peace is not subject to closure. It is an infinite game in which those
participating in peacebuilding, rather than seeking to control the enterprise, contribute to
sustaining and enhancing the quality of peacebuilding by transforming their own
original approaches to peacebuilding according to changing circumstances and
combining different ideas into new ones (Hershock, 2012).
Arguably, every peacebuilding entails a variety of actors from both external and
internal spheres with distinct values, visions and goals. The awareness of
intersubjectively constructed and interdependent and interpenetrating nature of different
peace views empowers us to include a wider range of possibilities in building
theoretical perspectives and practical methods to peace. The recognition of
interdependent and interconnected relationship of different actors enables us to
transform our understanding of diversity. Touching diversity makes not mutual
impediments, but the emergence of complex and coordination-enriching
interdependence (Hershock, 2012), whereby we are empowered to qualitatively enrich
our own ideas or thoughts and explore mutual contribution to well-being.
Peace process involves continuous, relationally-expanding and
interdependent-enriching improvision (Hershock, 2012), which allows us to experience
differences or even oppositions as an opportunity to mutual insight and inspiration to
explore something new. Improvising, the ethos of which is the lived enacted activity of
being different in the world (Hershock, 2013) is the ongoing development of new views
and meanings from within things as they have come to be. Improvision is not the
abandonment of values, worldviews or norms that each actor or group brings to
peacebuilding. It is their meaningful revision and reorientation so that we can draw
inspiration from those having different or opposing ideas or norms.
At the heart of peace lies the promotion of human capacity for qualitative
differentiation and transformation that broadens the meanings of reality, which opens up
new knowledge within our world. It is an exploratory ongoing and everlasting process
that explicates or unfolds new values and meanings to achieve and sustain

14
interdependent and mutually liberating and transformative relational dynamics between
those involved in peacebuilding. Peace is not the suppression or elimination of
differences or disagreements, but rather the readiness to accord with differing situational
dynamics, responding without exclusive reliance on any fixed views and principles, in
order to amplify and accelerate relationally manifest mutual appreciation (Hershock,
2012). Encountering diversity ultimately means valuing creativity, that is, significant
innovation and relational transformation in the direction of unprecedented and yet
meaningfully enacted capacities for appreciative coordination (Hershock, 2013).
Truly, valuing diversity and participating in mutually transformative
peacebuilding activities is not an easy task. However, since nothing is absolutely
destined or fated to be, there is no warrant for us to claim any situation in which we find
ourselves to be intractable (Park, 2008). Rather, human beings and social and cultural
frame of reference are complex system that keeps incorporating the histories of their
constitutive dynamics into the continuously ongoing process of their own environment
and contextually responsive self-transformation and evolution (Hershock, 2013). As
there is no closure of meaning-making, changing our values, visions and actions is a
possible reality to embody transformative relational dynamics.

Conclusion

This paper has engaged in a philosophical analysis of postmodern post-liberal

hybrid peacebuilding. Normally, we study peace and conflict that exists before us with
certain theoretical perspectives. Though it is essential to examine conflict or violence
occurring before us and propose theories and methods to address it, making our
underlying philosophical assumptions the subject for analysis needs to be part of peace
research since they affect how we understand peace and conflict. To make a constructive
critique and transformation of our phenomenal world, we must make a critical and
constructive transformation of our ways of thinking and knowing (Said et al, 2006).
Transformation is a process that involves a sustained engagement in self-reflection on
our normally tacit philosophical framework and its change, which allows us to expand
the mode of knowing in approaching the real (Said et al, 2006)
Doubtless, it is a natural phenomenon that those engaged in intellectual enterprise
take a certain philosophical stance to construct a distinct view or discourse on the
subject of which they make an analysis. However, the discourse established on a
particular philosophical underpinning tends to be intra-paradigmatic and avoids
engagement with alternative philosophical and theoretical formulations (Jarvis, 2000).

15
This does not refer to a dismissal of taking a certain stance. However, it needs to be
acknowledged that while having a particular philosophical stance is essential to our
intellectual undertaking, it can end up restricting our scope of thought, narrowing down
our vision. Therefore, promoting inter-philosophical dialogue has a positive impact on
peace research including peacebuilding.
Exploring new philosophical views by deconstructing dualistic or dichotomous
understanding of different philosophical assumptions might be seen as utopian.
However, one of the enduring and everlasting challenge for intellectual enterprise is “to
go beyond the affirmation and reconstitution of the familiar world to recognize other
possibilities (Calhoun, 2000: 506). New perspectives, new theories and empirical
information, which are proposed by exploring new philosophical frameworks, enable us
to see and understand how things can be different from the ways they first present
themselves to us and explore how things could be different from the ways they are
(Calhoun, 2000). We must keep challenging the existing guiding assumptions and
honing our formative capacity in relation to others and the world (Alvesson, 2002). The
intellectual undertaking of knowledge creation is never a static substance but an
everlasting process that keeps renewing itself (Chia, 2002) and the research explored in
this paper should not be an exception.

Notes
1
Regarding the detailed examples of local contested and asymmetric dynamics, see
Simons and Zanker (2014).
2
Regarding the example of joint learning conflict analysis and resolution process,
Ropers and Anuvatudom (2014) will be useful.

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