Abstract
This article argues for a reflexive perspective on the ‘local’ in peacebuilding. While it is now widely acknowledged that anything local is complex, unstable, and relational, scholars continue to make truth claims about local actors and practices. This leads to an incomplete account of peacebuilding, as it conceals the powerful effects of representation, which shape our perspective on the local. We argue that the local is both used and produced through practices of representation, and that these representations serve to define what good peacebuilding entails. We consequently suggest a perspective on perspectives, which focuses on how representations of the local relate to political agendas in peacebuilding, and which can account for the effects of choosing one mode of representation over another. Through case studies from Burundi and South Sudan, we show that representations of the local are conflictingly produced by scholars, practitioners, and government officials, telling about the true, the good, and the bad local, empowering some and disempowering other actors, institutions, and practices. These dynamics have tangible effects on peace, conflict, and (in)security.
Introduction
The ‘local’ haunts peacebuilding. 1 Whether it is invoked in debates about local ownership, civil society, ‘traditional’ institutions, hybridity, or resistance against international intervention, the local is critical to peacebuilding studies. Yet, as a concept, it produces more questions than it answers, since everything local has been, and continues to be, remade within the dynamics of global encounters. Therefore, uses of the local must take into consideration the complex and relational social realities which the term tends to conceal. In spite of these intricacies, contributions to peacebuilding studies remain riddled with insistences that the local is this or that. Located in the trajectory not only of international development discourse but colonial practices of knowledge production which shaped, or indeed brought into being, their objects of study while discovering them (Escobar, 1999; Mitchell, 1988; Mudimbe, 1988; Mohanty, 1988; Hobsbawm and Ranger, 2012), peacebuilding studies continue to struggle with discerning the local’s actual nature. The efforts are grounded in the belief that getting our understanding of the local right, and devising governmental strategies according to its true nature, could lead to better peacebuilding.
While the subdiscipline now widely acknowledges that the local is complex, unstable, and relational, scholars have by and large continued to take the local, as such, for granted: as something ‘out there’ to be discovered, understood, or empowered. Such an approach, however, sits not only uneasily with the philosophical underpinnings of critical approaches but is also in risk of producing incomplete accounts. Not only is telling the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’ local inconsistent with the commitments of critical theory, which is inherently sceptical towards authoritative truths, but such an approach has limited purchase to account for the politics behind such truth claims, as it conceals the powerful effects of choosing one representation over another.
Behind the quest for the real local, however, lies a distinct politics through which the local is used as a vehicle to make claims about what good peacebuilding entails. Invocations of the local are thus characterized through an intricate mixing of fact and value claims, and the urge to tell the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’. Taking stock of debates about the subaltern in postcolonial theory, as well as the politics of scale in human geography, we suggest reconceptualizing the local as a product of representation. Drawing on critical-reflexive methodology (Hamati-Ataya, 2013), we put the focus of analysis on how the intricate interweaving of fact and value claims about the local furthers specific political agendas, and how representations of the local shape peacebuilding outcomes.
To illustrate the worthiness of our perspective, we present two case studies of peacebuilding processes, in which representations of the local pivotally shape political dynamics. A first study, focusing on South Sudan, shows how conflicting representations of the local, either in terms of a sphere of ‘self-rule’ or of a sphere in which centrifugal dynamics and ‘tribalism’ could endanger the unity of the new state, have pivotally influenced the actions of governmental actors. A second study, of Burundi, shows how representations of the local have been instrumental in the competition between two institutions of communal governance, the Bashingantahe and the conseils collinaires, and thus have formed part of the power struggle between the old and new regime. In both cases, conflicting practices of representation, claiming to depict what the local really is and how it relates to peace and conflict, have had a considerable impact on the political dynamics of peacebuilding.
Invocations of the local in peacebuilding
A review of key contributions to peacebuilding studies published in the past ten years suggests that ‘local’ is largely used as an attribute to a referent object, such as local actors, populations, and institutions. 2 The local has also been understood as that which is at the ‘bottom’, ‘on the ground’, or works from the ‘bottom-up’, and thus largely in relation to scale. It is also attributed spatial characteristics, associated with distinctive places where actors, institutions, and practices relevant for peacebuilding are located, or in terms of a confined administrative and spatial entity, such as a province (Autesserre, 2010). While the local has in some cases been concretely associated with the lowest administrative level, most common are ontologies of peacebuilding which differentiate between local actors, practices, and institutions, on the one hand, and international actors, practices, and institutions, on the other, with the latter often associated with liberalism (Björkdahl and Höglund, 2013; Mac Ginty and Richmond, 2013; Belloni, 2012; Hellmüller, 2012; Campbell et al., 2011a; Kappler and Richmond, 2011; Lidén, 2011; Tadjbakhsh, 2011; Sabaratnam, 2011; Chandler, 2010; Mac Ginty, 2010; Paris and Sisk, 2009; Richmond, 2009; Lidén, 2009; Jarstad and Sisk, 2008; Roberts, 2008; Pouligny, 2005; Bellamy and Williams, 2004).
While after the end of the Cold War peacebuilding research was shaped by the state-centrist discourses of liberal institutionalism (Sabaratnam, 2011: 14), the subdiscipline was also characterized by a resurgent interest in local actors and institutions, such as in debates about local ownership, which subdued the local under functionalist-normative considerations, by differentiating local actors benevolent and malevolent to the pre-determined peacebuilding agendas of international actors (Chesterman, 2007; Donais, 2008; Hansen, 2008; Zaum, 2012). Many contributions have before and since then warned of simplifying, patronizing, or orientalizing depictions of much more complex realities (Pouligny, 2005: 499; Mac Ginty and Richmond, 2007: 496). However, a surprisingly reified local continues to take a central position in peacebuilding scholarship. While current contributions now usually make note of its complexity, and the epistemic power which peacebuilding discourse asserts on it, the debate has also continued to be characterized through arguments which treat the local as a pre-given, and independent of knowledge production. This is especially the case in contributions aiming to defend the local against what has become understood as specifically ‘liberal’ or ‘Western’ interests and assumptions (Chandler, 2010). These critiques discuss the local in terms of its ability to resist liberal peacebuilding, neoliberalism, or modernization (Richmond, 2012; Mac Ginty, 2010; Richmond, 2010; Lidén, 2009; Mac Ginty, 2008; Roberts, 2008; Suhrke, 2007). It is also a common and recurrent trait to associate the local with the ‘indigenous’, ‘customary’, or ‘traditional’ (Autesserre, 2010; Richmond, 2010; Roberts, 2008; Boege et al., 2009; Mac Ginty, 2010; Englebert and Tull, 2008; Mac Ginty, 2008; Suhrke, 2007; Pouligny, 2005; Chopra and Hohe, 2004). One prominent strategy to counter accusations of essentialism to be expected from such terminology has been the introduction of notions such as ‘hybridity’ (Richmond, 2010; Mac Ginty, 2010; Boege et al., 2009; Jarstad and Belloni, 2012; Belloni, 2012), or ‘friction’ (Björkdahl and Höglund, 2013), or an emphasis on the ‘non-linearity’ of peacebuilding (Chandler, 2013), and thus a turn towards less reducible concepts, suitable for a scholarship eager to stress its amicable relationship to postcolonial and critical theory.
While hybridity was intended to dissipate accusations of essentialism, the new analytical perspectives continued to conceptualize hybridity as the result of interaction between what was largely understood as two distinct spheres (Campbell et al., 2011b: 4). As the local maintained its relevance mainly in terms of its alterity or similarity to distinctly ‘liberal’ peacebuilding, the uses of hybridity reproduced an essentializing ‘ontology of Otherness’ (Sabaratnam, 2013: 267; see also Peterson, 2012: 13; Heathershaw, 2013). Debates about the local in peacebuilding thus focused on how to study what were increasingly perceived as complex and relational ontologies, through concepts that appears to be bound to essentialization. More than being interested in the local’s true nature, scholars seem to be concerned to tell the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’ local. The continuing uses of the local despite criticisms about reification suggest that scholarship maintains an interest in the local precisely because it serves as the playground to make normative claims about what right and good peacebuilding entails. The two concerns, namely, what the local is and what it should be like, have thus distinctly merged in the attempts to reshape peacebuilding.
Towards critical reflexivity in the study of the local
The debate about the local has thus moved in methodological proximity to the modernist development discourse critical scholars originally set out to criticize, which builds on the assumption that ‘the Third World and its peoples exist “out there”’, and that reality and representation are separable (Escobar, 2012: 8). What is at stake here becomes evident by taking a look at debates about scale in human geography. While conventional approaches to scale took the local (and the national, global, and so on) as ontologically given categories, this position became increasingly untenable in light of constructivist approaches (Howitt, 2003; Moore, 2008; Marston, 2000). These suggested that neat ontological oppositions between the local, on the one hand, and the global or international, on the other, should be discarded in favour of perspectives which could carve out the intricate, fluid, and relational properties of scale, while accounting for the interweaving of their epistemological and ontological dimensions (Delaney and Leitner, 1997; Marston, 2000; Howitt, 2003; Jessop et al., 2008; Moore, 2008).
Importantly, this included redefining scale as a product of representation: ‘It is always for somebody and not for everybody’ (Cox, 1998: 44). Rather than using scales as analytical frameworks to understand political realities, these contributions thus emphasized the need to explain not only how scales come into being, but their uses as tools in a ‘politics of scale’, in which scale itself is a ‘political stake’ (Cox, 1998: 43), and how different ways of scaling reality may empower some actors at the expense of others (Marston, 2000; Moore, 2008). Scales can therefore be understood as ‘ontologically real ordering devices’, as constructed ontologies with epistemic underpinnings, characterized by a duality of use and production. They are, on the one hand, used as ‘epistemological infrastructures for action, which help actors to order the world around them’, and, on the other hand, produced textually and materially, for example through the inscription of norms and interests into scales (Simons et al., 2014).
In contrast, contributions to peacebuilding have paid little attention to the dynamics through which the local is epistemologically produced. Problematically, scholars have instead attempted to locate criticality within the local, understood as independent of the international peacebuilding practices under study. To speak with Mohanty, accounting for the local seems to be understood ‘merely [as] a matter of specifying the context after the fact’ (Mohanty, 1988: 68). It is assumed that an already constituted local (the fact) can be discerned and analysed in a given context (peacebuilding) instead of considering how it is produced through the knowledge practices by which the context is characterized. A realist search for resistance which is external to, and can speak back to, power sits uneasily with accounts highlighting the perils of representation (Spivak, 1988; Jabri, 2007). Spivak’s differentiation between two different but inseparable meanings of representation is helpful here, namely Vertreten (speaking for), on the one hand, and Darstellen (speaking about), on the other (Spivak, 1988: 276). Spivak argues that one cannot speak for (in the name of) someone without simultaneously speaking about (describing) someone. Following this argument, scholars remain trapped in representation: Whichever local they refer to remains a product of speaking about and speaking for. It is the peacebuilding context itself, and its practices of knowledge production, which contribute to shape the local that scholars are looking for.
The pitfalls of current engagements with the local can also be understood from one of the central maxims of critical theory, namely that ‘theory is always for someone and for some purpose’ (Cox, 1981: 128, emphasis in original). However, if claims and theory about the local are always purposeful, then our concern should not be to produce images of the local as close as possible to the truth (see Hamati-Ataya, 2013: 676). Rather, the methodological consequence, as Cox argued, should be to become ‘more reflective upon the process of theorizing itself, and to aim at a “perspective on perspectives”’ (1981: 129). Reflexivity assumes that there is no dualism between ‘mind’ and ‘world’, and therefore ‘warrants empirical claims by relating them neither to a mind-independent world nor to a set of cultural values, but to the practices of knowledge-production themselves’ (Jackson, 2011: 157). In consequence, it does not go well with the assumption that criticality or emancipation could exist out there, and waits to be uncovered and studied by us. Instead, we must aim for criticality at the level of knowledge production: by creating knowledge which is meaningful because it is reflexive, and concerned with ‘considering the manifest political consequences of adopting one mode of representation over another’ (Campbell, 1993: 7–8; Milliken, 1999).
Current uses of the local as a concept therefore beg important questions about how its seemingly undisputed relevance in peacebuilding practices can be more thoroughly reconciled with critical theory and reflexive methodology. Importantly, scholars’ and experts’ views on the local form only one element in the politics of scale through which peacebuilding is characterized. Their representations merge with the agendas of international organizations and national governments, forming part of a larger dynamic in which representations of the local are negotiated. We therefore suggest reconceptualizing the local as a product of representation by developing a reflexive approach, which focuses on the interrelation between the production of fact and value claims about the local, on the one hand, and political agendas, on the other (Hamati-Ataya, 2013: 681). Drawing on the analytical differentiation between speaking for and speaking about, we analyse how images of the local are negotiated, or ‘coaxed-up’, in struggles over representation (Ortner, 2009: 190). This means considering how different practices of representation bring about conflicting images of the local, and how these intersect with political agendas by investing actors and their practices with power, or depriving them thereof. We therefore undertake a change in the critical engagement with the local in peacebuilding. Rather than engaging in a politics of scale by making fact and value claims about the local, we suggest an overarching perspective on the conflicting representations of the local, their relation to political agendas, and the tangible effects this has on peace, conflict, and (in)security.
In the following case studies, we explore how the local is represented in Burundi and South Sudan, and how the competing representations of the local, its actors, and institutions are entangled in the politics of peacebuilding. These processes are most visible in two interrelated areas: first, administrative and political decentralization strengthening governance in the post-conflict state and, second, the rehabilitation – and ‘modernization’ – of so-called ‘traditional’ authorities, often understood as the authentic representatives of ‘local’ populations. In both Burundi and South Sudan, these two fields of intervention have been central for defining and negotiating the political agendas through which peace should be built. In our cases, we reconstruct the practices of representation through qualitative interviews and focus group discussions with relevant actors, and the analysis of documents produced by experts and policymakers working for international organizations and the respective governments. 3 Through this combination of methods and sources, we aim to provide as broad a perspective as possible. The analysis of documents provides insight into the different representations of the local, while interviews help us to reconstruct the context of the production of these representations, as well as their effects. While we consequently renarrate a reified local, for example by illustrating its association with certain administrative entities or types of political authority, we do so in order to scrutinize the relationship between representations and peacebuilding dynamics.
We present two specific cases not in order to account for causality through a comparative method, but to convey context-dependent knowledge and discuss learning examples through which a new perspective on the local in peacebuilding can be furthered (Flyvbjerg, 2001: 84–87). The South Sudan case study demonstrates how conflicting representations of the local, associated both with local government and an ill-defined political sphere, have influenced the strategies and priorities of international organizations and the South Sudanese government. The Burundi case study discusses how representations of the local have been produced and used in struggles between two institutions of local government, competing for recognition and authority. While, in the first case, practices of representation compete to define what the local is really like, in the second case, struggles revolve around the question of who really is local.
Representing the local in South Sudan: Between ‘self-rule’ and ‘tribalism’ 4
In South Sudan, local institutions of governance have formed a central element not only in explanations for the civil war (1983–2005), but in considerations about the political arrangements through which peace in the country could be built. Decentralization, ‘self-rule’, and ‘bottom-up’ governance played a prominent role in the programme of the South Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), which since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 has governed the autonomous Southern Sudan, and since 2011 the independent Republic of South Sudan. The emphasis on local governance was not least the result of the SPLM/A’s struggle against the central government in Khartoum, the policies of which were perceived as authoritarian and leading to the south’s economic and political marginalization (see, for example, Deng, 2010). This stance resonated well with the agendas of international organizations, emphasizing the importance of local institutions of governance for the state- and peacebuilding process. The following case argues that two representations of the local were essential in defining the agendas of governmental actors in post-CPA South Sudan: the first portrayed local actors and institutions as a vehicle for peacebuilding through self-government, while the second emphasized the dangers of ‘tribalism’ and centrifugal dynamics inherent in local politics and argued that the local had to be stabilized and secured.
The local, liberation, and peace-through-‘self-rule’
The CPA had not yet been signed when Commander Daniel Awet Akot, the Chairman of the Commission for Local Government, submitted the first draft of the so-called ‘Local Government Framework’ to the Chairman of the SPLM, the late John Garang de Mabior. In an accompanying letter, Akot stressed that ‘our vision for local government is based on the SPLM’s commitment to decentralization and democracy’. South Sudan had ‘suffered under decades of centralised regimes’ but ‘the SPLM has sought to change this’ (Akot, 2004). Since August 2003, Akot had led a technical team tasked to develop policy guidelines for local government reform. This process received considerable attention and support by international organizations, which understood political decentralization and the ‘recovery’ of local governments as central to peace- and state-building. The draft provided the basis for the Local Government Act of 2009, which was the result of an intricate exercise in law-making, involving governmental officials as well as South Sudanese and international experts engaging with the Local Government Board (LGB) by international organizations (LGB staff I, 2012, int., LGB staff II, 2012, int.). 5
Founded as a socialist movement, the SPLM/A had initially declared its armed struggle as one against an ‘oppressive’ system of rule perpetuating a ‘colonial policy of divide-and-rule and the mechanics of peripheral development’ (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, 1983). However, at the end of the Cold War the movement’s political agenda increasingly drew on liberal rhetoric to adapt to changes in the global environment. The Marxist rhetoric of liberation and ‘self-rule’ transformed into a political programme which emphasized the need for a devolved political system and an ‘efficient system of civil administration’, since the population was ‘in urgent need for peace’ (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, 1994: 20). At the time of the signing of the CPA, the SPLM had adopted the canon of good governance so flawlessly that its objective, the ‘establishment of decentralised, democratic, efficient, effective, accountable […] Local Government and Civil Administration’, appeared ‘to be compatible with best international practice’, as a consultant remarked (Mullen, 2005: 3).
To assess the status of local governments across the country and elaborate on options for its reform, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) commissioned a number of studies carried out by teams of national and foreign consultants in 2004. Emphasizing the diversity of local government practices across the country, the studies raised numerous concerns, challenging an idealized representation of local institutions as vehicles which could easily build peace though devolved governance. In particular, the consultants pointed to the impact of colonialism and the British policy of indirect rule on local governments (Prah and Deng, 2005: 3), with one assessment emphasizing that the integration of traditional authority into ‘modern’ local government had since 1955 given rise to a ‘top-down political system with no genuine devolution to the grassroots’ (Leonardi et al., 2005: 9). Accounting for the persistence of authoritarian practices of rule, the report pointed out that ‘chiefs are given orders’ without being ‘fully respected or consulted’ (2005: 16). While making mention of the roles of traditional authorities as ‘peace-makers’ within their respective communities, the assessments also made note of the practices of domination in which chiefs played a central role, such as supporting the war effort through taxation, the mobilization of fighters, and the provision of security as the ‘eyes’ of the government (Leonardi et al., 2005: 9, 17; Golooba-Mutebi and Mapuor, 2005: 8; Ismael and Aiken, 2005: 9, 17).
Despite this ambiguity, a paper discussing these findings argued that if principles of ‘good governance’ would be followed, local governments could contribute to peacebuilding. The paper advocated for a ‘new condominium administration’, in which ‘the traditional strengths of the Chief are recognised’ and ‘functions are divided between the Chief and democratically elected institutions in a manner which respects a good governance model of checks and balances, participatory democracy and the rule of law’(Mullen, 2005: 22). Representing local institutions as vehicles for peace, this wishful thinking brushed over the much more ambivalent findings of the individual reports. Of course, this interpretation reasoned well with the overarching objectives defined for the UNDP’s activities, which were based on the assumption that ‘top-down and overly-centralised power has been one of the root causes of the Sudan conflict’, thus local governments should form part of Southern Sudan’s ‘democratic governance’, ‘play a key role in sustainable peace’ (UNDP, 2006), and form ‘essential building blocks of peacebuilding in post-conflict environments like South Sudan’ (UNDP, 2012).
Government officials and representatives of traditional authority were eager to mirror this representation. At a consultation workshop, the chairperson of the LGB argued that ‘people want to be empowered to rule themselves’ (Prah and Deng, 2005: 8). Through political declarations, delegates speaking on behalf of the traditional authorities echoed international discourses on good governance, as they committed themselves ‘to maintain peace, security and stability within and among [their] respective communities’, to ‘ensure that the liberation objectives and outcomes of the respective peace agreement should never be compromised’, and pledged ‘collective support to the establishment of effective systems of transparent and accountable governance’ (Recommendations and Resolutions of the Chiefs’ and Traditional Leaders’ Conference, 29 June to 12 July 2004). This resonated with the representations of government officials who argued that ‘decentralized government is ingrained in the political life of the communities of southern Sudan’ and thus ‘communities would need to be given substantial autonomy in decision-making if peace were to have any chance of success’ (Akot, 2006: 77).
The local, tribalism, and peace-through-stabilization
Soon after the CPA, however, counter-narratives emerged, which warned of the dangers of ‘tribalism’ and the centrifugal dynamics which the devolution of power within the country could have (Minister, GOSS, 2013, int.; Adviser to the President, 2013, int.). A paper produced by the Ministry of Presidential Affairs in 2009 stated that ‘the opportunities of representation and participation will be used constructively in a country […] where political behaviour of all politicians […] is largely determined by and subject to family, regional and tribal loyalties’ (Nhiem, 2009: 43). This was echoed by academic analyses which stressed that the GOSS had resorted to ‘un-monitored decentralised administration which effectively encourages localised politics that exaggerate the notion of tribalism as the main source of division’ (Schomerus and Allen, 2010: 8). Assessments made by the government and its international partners painted a similar picture. The Conflict Mitigation and Stabilization Plan for Jonglei State, for example, a region characterized by low levels of violence since the CPA, portrayed local politics as rife with friction, characterized through ‘tensions and conflict between communities […] aggravated by the prevalence of arms, disputes over land and limited access to justice and the rule of law’ (Republic of South Sudan, Jonglei State Government, 2011: 1). In this environment, ‘the inability of the state to protect its citizens drives civilians to keep arms whilst the lack of justice fuels cycles of revenge’ (Republic of South Sudan, Jonglei State Government, 2011: 2).
Given the dangers of local politics running out of control, strengthening the state would have to precede a genuine democratic process, and less emphasis on democratization seemed to be acceptable, if not reasonable, for a number of international actors. Under the objectives of ‘stabilization’ and ‘extending the state’s authority’, international organizations thus provided material support to local governments, for example through the provision of offices, communication technologies, and means of transport. USAID’s involvement with local government, for example, aimed at improving their ability to ‘deliver’ security, and to ‘monitor, manage and mitigate conflict’ (USAID, 2014: 1). At the same time, these interventions were characterized by relative neglect of the democratic objectives prioritized by the LGB and its partners, envisaging local institutions as providers of justice and security rather than the locus of democratic politics and self-determination. Traditional authorities were seen as the ‘backbone of local leadership structures’ (USAID, 2014), and while serving as ‘peacemakers’ through the provision of traditional justice, they continued to be seen as the ‘eye’ of the government and thus instrumental in providing local intelligence (Bor County Traditional Authorities, 2013; Bor County Executive, 2013). Forming part of the security apparatus at the local level, they were tasked with sharing information about possible threats with the security committees of local governments, which liaised with respective institutions at higher levels and the organized forces (Minister I, Jonglei State Government, 2013, int.).
In Jonglei State, where the menace of local politics was most palpable due to a pattern of inter-communal violence and armed rebellion, the state government aimed at containing insecurity by increasing its influence on local governments (Minister II, Jonglei State Government, 2013, int.). In 2010, an armed rebellion launched by David Yau Yau, a former general of the SPLA, increasingly drew on narratives emphasizing the marginalization of a specific ethnic group, the Murle, and requested a stronger representation at the local and state levels of government. Having two different narratives about local politics at its disposal, as well as respective strategies of rule on which it could draw, the state government prioritized top-down stabilization over political accommodation through a stronger devolution of power. While it could have agreed to increase the local population’s autonomy through the creation of additional counties in the region and increase devolution of power to local governments, the government attempted to strengthen its control over local institutions. Where local government representatives voiced concerns of the population to the state government, showing sympathy to their grievances, they risked being removed by the governor and then replaced by loyal caretakers (NGO staff from Pibor County 2013, int; local government staff, Pibor County 2013, int.). Where entire regions had partly fallen under control of the rebellion, or where ongoing small-scale violence suggested that local governments were unable or unwilling to quench resentments, the state government established ‘sub-counties’, directly controlled by caretaker committees at the state level. And where the SPLA was deployed to fight the insurrection, local governments and traditional authorities took up their old war-time functions, serving as a means to extract resources for the war effort and intimidate local populations to comply with the demands of the SPLM/A. Through policies increasingly similar to the divide-and-rule strategy of their former colonial masters, the government thus asserted control over a local level which was less and less seen as the locus of liberation and peace through self-rule but as steeped with ‘tribal’ and regional loyalties, endangering the unity of the state, and threatening peace and security.
South Sudan slumped into crisis in December 2013 after a short period of independence, which was characterized by the increasing centralization of power among members of the SPLM/A cadre loyal to President Kiir. The increasing power struggle between the latter and an intra-party opposition escalated into a civil war in December 2013. This case study has shown that in the process of state-building, international and national actors took part in negotiating conflicting representations of the local, claiming not only to depict what local actors and institutions are really like, but bringing forward idealizations of how local government should be. While various experts’ assessments of local institutions drew an ambivalent picture, pointing to their colonial heritage and their uses in authoritarian systems of rule, government officials and international organizations aiming at peacebuilding through political decentralization advanced representations which could merge international discourses on good governance with the SPLM’s rhetoric of ‘self-rule’. However, competing governmental agendas prioritized stabilization and the extension of state authority over democratization, envisaging local institutions as central to the mitigation of violence. These were based on representations that identified in local politics first and foremost a potential for the ‘tribalization’ of the country. The government’s decision to address armed resistance through the domination of local institutions, rather than through democratic mechanisms, sat uneasily with its commitment to good governance and decentralization, but was arguably more compatible with international initiatives prioritizing stabilization. These representations are not necessarily mutually exclusive. However, after South Sudan’s declaration of independence, representations of the local as the sphere of self-rule crumbled in light of aggravating political tensions in which local politics seemed to threaten the unity of the country. In spite of the limited ability to understand what the local really is like, these representations provided the ideational ground for the political dynamics through which South Sudan’s quest for peace has recently turned increasingly violent. 6
Representing the local in Burundi: Competing for recognition 7
In Burundi, the relevance of the local was of central concern for the peacebuilding endeavours of both international and domestic actors following the civil war (1993–2005) which pitted an all-Tutsi army against several Hutu rebel groups (the largest among them being the Conseil National pour la Défense de la Démocratie – Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie or CNDD-FDD). At the end of the war, one major diagnosis was that the ‘deficiency of governance’ – understood inter alia as too centralized – was at the heart of successive crises which had plagued the country since its independence (Senate of Burundi, 2010: x). Through the decentralization of basic services and political decision-making processes, a more efficient ‘service delivery’ and an increased representation of local actors and concerns in a hitherto heavily centralized political system should foster sustainable peace. Consequently, international development cooperation financed a comprehensive decentralization reform of which one notable component was the establishment of a new political institution: an elected government at the hill level, the conseils collinaires, would be tasked with development activities and conflict resolution in the case of small-scale neighbourhood conflicts on a specific hill. Analysts argued that the inefficiency of governance in the centralized state was caused by the geographical distance and lack of ‘locally specific knowledge’ of decision-makers (Expert GIZ Decentralization Programme, 2014, int.). Therefore, the conseillers had to come from the hill they administered as their vernacular knowledge was supposed to be conducive to conflict resolution and sustainable development (Expert GIZ Decentralization Programme, 2014, int.). Decentralization reform was also seen as a vehicle to foster democracy in post-conflict Burundi. The local in the form of conseils collinaires was thus understood not only in terms of its scalar and spatial position in the peacebuilding environment (at the bottom of the administrative and political hierarchy, placed on a specific hill) but loaded with normative meaning as democratic, vernacular, and close to the population. The first local elections of 2005 thus marked the emergence of a new group of local actors building their claim to authority on exactly these normative ascriptions (University Professor, 2011, int.) – a new local was born.
Competing representations: Conseils collinaires and Bashingantahe
The conseils collinaires, however, did not emerge in a vacuum. In fact the tasks accorded to the conseils were very similar to functions that the long-existing institution of Bashingantahe claimed as theirs. The meaning of the Kirundi word ‘Bashingantahe’ – ‘to bolt down the law’ (Nanive-Kaburahe, 2008: 154) – hints at the historical (self)understanding of the Bashingantahe as neutral mediators in community conflicts, as wise men and guardians of peace. In line with the trend among international actors to support peacebuilding processes through ‘localized’ justice mechanisms, the Bashingantahe received increasing attention, and a group of international organizations, Burundian NGOs, and academics started an initiative to rehabilitate the institution of Bashingantahe as a ‘local conflict resolution mechanism’ (University Professor, 2011, int.; Representative of the National Council of Bashingantahe II, 2011, int.).
In the course of this, international and Burundian practitioners and scholars, as well as the Bashingantahe themselves, advanced representations which described the Bashingantahe as an honourable local institution, drawing on notions of tradition, morality, and place. The arguments for the promotion of the Bashingantahe were twofold. First, the Bashingantahe would embody fundamental Burundian values and could therefore act as neutral arbiters. Second, due to their rootedness in their respective communities, the Bashingantahe were said to be knowledgeable about the conflicts in the neighbourhood, most importantly with regard to land conflict. Having lived on a certain hill all their lives, the Bashingantahe had supposedly followed land disputes for generations, knew about owners and demarcations and thus would best be suited to mediate in land conflicts (International Consultant, 2011, int.; Police Commissioner Planning Office, 2013, int.; Representative of the National Council of Bashingantahe III, 2013, int.).
However, the reputation of the institution was heavily damaged by the fact that the Bashingantahe had cooperated with and been co-opted by the postcolonial military regimes led by the Union pour le Progrès National (UPRONA) (Ingelaere and Kohlhagen, 2012: 43–44). Aware of this, a vast programme under the leadership of the UNDP was set up as early as 1999 with financial aid from the European Union, with the objective to identify those Bashingantahe who had been invested in what was perceived as the ‘traditional’ way (Nanive-Kaburahe, 2008: 162). The aim of the campaign was thus to find the ‘real’ Bashingantahe (Ingelaere and Kohlhagen, 2012: 45), as opposed to the ‘fake’ Bashingantahe who were introduced by the old regime, in order to rehabilitate the institution, thereby inscribing the ‘real local’ with the notion of authenticity.
With the emergence of the conseils collinaires, a struggle for authority started on many hills, revolving around the question of which of the institutions was responsible for conflict resolution (Representative of the National Council of Bashingantahe III, 2013, int.). The current ruling party, the CNDD-FDD, has engaged in representing all Bashingantahe as the long arm of the former dictatorship – or ‘informers of the state security’ (Reyntjens quoted in Ingelaere and Kohlhagen, 2012: 44). After winning the postwar elections of 2005, the CNDD-FDD consolidated power and increasingly shaped the political system according to their will and, at the end of 2014, controlled almost the entire administration. Due to the Bashingantahe’s links to the UPRONA regime, the new ruling party considered the Bashingantahe a potential threat to their own power in rural communities (Representative of the National Council of Bashingantahe III, 2013, int.; Representative of the National Council of Bashingantahe II, 2011, int.). Therefore, the CNDD-FDD put enormous effort into denying the Bashingantahe their status as traditional local authorities. Instead, the CNDD-FDD promoted the conseils collinaires as the only legitimate representative of local communities (Representative of the National Council of Bashingantahe III, 2013, int.; International Consultant, 2011, int.; Senator in the Transitional Senate (2000–05), 2011, int.). 8
This is visible in the postwar legal framework. The peace agreement of 2000 – which was not negotiated or signed by the CNDD-FDD – acknowledges the historical role of the Bashingantahe as conflict mediators. 9 Until 2005, this role was expressed in the requirement that every legal dispute be passed through the Bashingantahe before being discussed in court (Representative of the National Council of Bashingantahe II, 2011, int.). The communal law of 2005, which establishes the conseil collinaire as the legitimate representative of the community of a specific hill, still mentions the Bashingantahe, stipulating that the conseils collinaires should ‘assure – with the Bashingantahe – the arbitration, mediation and conciliation as well as the regulation of neighborhood conflicts’. 10 The (self)-representation of the Bashingantahe as legitimate local authority and representative of local communities, as well as their role in local conflict resolution and security, had thus been formalized in legal documents. However, a new law on judicial procedures of 2005 erased the mention of the Bashingantahe as auxiliary to the courts of law (Ingelaere and Kohlhagen, 2012: 46). In 2010, at a time when CNDD-FDD rule had already been firmly established, a revised communal law was introduced, with no mention of Bashingantahe whatsoever. The conseil collinaire have thereby become the only legally recognized local authority and representative of communities at the lowest scale of the administration. It has indeed become the embodiment of the local in the Burundian administrative system, to the detriment of the Bashingantahe.
Importantly, the conseils collinaires based their claim to legitimacy as the representative of the local on democratic elections. This was challenged by those favouring the Bashingantahe, who represented the conseils collinaires as henchmen of the ruling party, said to control even the most decentralized level of the administration (Representative of the National Council of Bashingantahe II, 2011, int.; Senator in the Transitional Senate (2000–05), 2011, int.; Civil Society Representative, 2011, int.). The sidelining of the Bashingantahe by the CNDD-FDD was also manifest in the everyday conduct of local politicians in many CNDD-FDD ruled communities. Bashingantahe were not invited to community meetings, nor consulted in cases of local conflicts, and were openly threatened by members of the CNDD-FDD youth wing (Representative of Bashingantahe Gitega, 2014, int.). This did not stop people from consulting the Bashingantahe in cases of minor conflicts, mainly related to land (International Consultant, 2011, int.; Senator in the Transitional Senate (2000–05), 2011, int.; stressed by all focus groups). However, people in those areas with a strong CNDD-FDD presence felt the pressure to at least inform the conseils collinaires about their conflicts (Representative of the National Council of Bashingantahe III, 2013, int.; Youth Focus Group, Bubanza, 2014).
One example of the struggle for being recognized as local within the Burundian peacebuilding context are the ‘mixed security committees’, a newly established mechanism funded by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Within broader support for decentralization and security sector reform, the GIZ funded the establishment of committees on the provincial and communal level, tasked with addressing security issues in their area. The committees were supposed to reflect ‘all relevant groups of the local population’ (Police Commissioner Planning Office, 2013, int.) – the representation of a group as both ‘local’ and ‘relevant’ thus became central to the membership in these committees. The GIZ therefore demanded the inclusion of Bashingantahe in the committees, which also included representatives of the police, the army, the judiciary and civil society (Expert GIZ Police Programme, 2013, int.). The programme has been deemed a success by the government, which decided to gradually establish mixed security committees across all provinces, and in the long run expand the programme to the level of the hills (Governor of Bubanza, 2013, int.).
In reaction, however, many individual office-holders established mixed security committees according to their own will. The CNDD-FDD governor of the province of Bubanza, for example, established a committee consisting of ‘the main security actors’ in late 2013. 11 However, he excluded the Bashingantahe from the committee, justifying this by claiming that they had ‘lost their legitimacy’ and were ‘not more than puppets of the old dictatorship’ (Governor of Bubanza, 2013, int., translation by the author). Almost all of the members of the committee were loyal to the CNDD-FDD. By means of an institution approved by an important international actor, the governor thus represented his own loyalists as local security actors, while sidelining the Bashingantahe as both irrelevant (without legitimacy) and not local (too close to a former government).
Transformation through representation
In the course of these struggles about the true and good local, the institution of the Bashingantahe has evolved and transformed, particularly in order to better position themselves vis-à-vis other national and international actors. In 2004 the hitherto rather loosely organized Bashingantahe founded a non-profit organization in order to ‘relate to the government and the international community’, for example to sign collaboration contracts with a donor (Representative of the National Council of Bashingantahe I, 2013, int., translation by the author). In fact, despite the comprehensive search for traditionally invested Bashingantahe, their recognition as local mediators by international donors, and their ability to relate to the latter, ultimately depended on their status as a registered NGO. Since their registration, the Bashingantahe have taken part in many civil society committees, effectively making use of their status as an NGO and representing themselves as the advocates of a liberal discourse of ‘gender equality’, ‘democracy’, and ‘good governance’ in order to sustain their claims to ‘local authority’ (International Consultant, 2011).
There is thus a notion of constructed local authenticity; however, the representation of an authentic local institution must then be reconciled with national and international peacebuilding discourses, in order for the local institution to be recognized as a legitimate actor. Reciprocally, understandings of what good peacebuilding entails are negotiated exactly through such dynamics. Aware of the importance accorded to a democratically elected hill government, the latest move in the struggle between the CNDD-FDD and the Bashingantahe is that the highest decision-making board of the Bashingantahe actively encouraged Bashingantahe all over the country to run for the hill elections in 2015. By bringing Bashingantahe into the conseils collinaires, the institution hoped to regain influence at the local level (Representative of the National Council of Bashingantahe I, 2013, int., translation by the author). What is more, some Bashingantahe considered democratic legitimation as a possible strategy to bolster their political position. As one representative put it, ‘the population always solicited the Bashingantahe, but, […] if we need to be elected, so that they [the government] do not ignore us anymore, we will stand for elections in the conseils collinaires’ (Representative of Bashingantahe Gitega, 2014, int., translation by the author).
In sum, the competing representations of the Bashingantahe and the conseils collinaires, in the sense of both speaking for and speaking about, brought forward by a variety of actors, have pivotally influenced local political dynamics through a politics of scale characterized through an intricate interweaving of fact and value claims about the local. The CNDD-FDD, which controlled almost the entire administrative apparatus down to the level of the hills, associated the Bashingantahe with the former UPRONA regime against which it had fought the civil war. In this context, the representation of certain groups as ‘local’ was part of a larger power play between different actors in the Burundian polity, in which the critics of each institution represented the Bashingantahe and conseils collinaires respectively as the extension of an opposing regime – either the UPRONA or the CNDD-FDD government. Moreover, both the Bashingantahe and the conseils collinaires advanced their own agenda within a general discourse on local conflict resolution and security, aiming to foster their authority through reference to both democracy and tradition, as well as their proximity to population and place. International actors strengthening one or the other side inevitably became involved in these power struggles. In this context, the question of who constitutes a real and good local institution is itself at the heart of power struggles, affecting the prospects for peace and security in the country.
Conclusion
Despite its ambiguity, the term ‘local’, which more resembles a floating signifier than a well-defined concept, continues to be used and produced in a distinct politics of scale, not only as an epistemological ordering device but as a vehicle to define what right and good peacebuilding entails. Scholars, practitioners, government officials, and politicians are in similar ways implicated in these struggles through which representations of the local are negotiated. This article has therefore suggested moving the debate away from how local actors, practices, and institutions really are, how they should be, or how they could contribute to a given peacebuilding agenda, towards a more systematic engagement with the effects that representations of the local have on peacebuilding. The case studies from Burundi and South Sudan show that representations of the local are negotiated in epistemic struggles in which actors strive to define the true, the good, and the bad local. The representations advanced underpin and further specific political and governmental practices, and invest certain actors and their practices with power while depriving others. Our case studies suggest that these practices of representation relate to political dynamics which ultimately contribute to the conditions for peace, conflict, and (in)security.
A critical analysis of the representations invites scholars to reconsider their own role in the political dynamics through which peacebuilding contexts are characterized. As we have shown, scholars are chiefly involved in representing the local, and thus advance claims about what good peacebuilding entails, both through the theoretical debates in the subdiscipline as well as through their work as consultants. The implication of knowledge production and politics is not by itself a problem, and indeed it is inevitable from a critical-reflexive point of view. The challenge, however, which arises from this insight is to engage in the politics of the local more consciously by reflecting upon it in the research process. If claims about the local are always politically embedded, this requires an approach which strives towards awareness for the conflicting processes through which representations of the local are negotiated, in order to unearth how the co-production of facts and values about the local intersects with political dynamics. This promises not only a broader, and more analytically accurate perspective, but one which more thoroughly advances a critical approach to the study of peacebuilding.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article has been presented at the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, San Francisco, 3-6 April 2013, and the Workshop in memory of Lisa Smirl, at the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Toronto, 24 March 2014. We would like to thank Deveon Curtis, Tarak Barkawi, Meera Sabaratnam, Kristoffer Lidén, Arno Simons and Jan Busse, as the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.
Funding
The empirical research for this contribution benefitted from the generous support by the Heinrich-Böll Foundation, the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust, the UAC of Nigeria Trust, the University of Cambridge Smuts Memorial Fund and St Edmund’s College Cambridge (South Sudan), as well as the German Research Foundation (Barundi).