19 April 2019 | Tokyo, Japan
Location: Japan International Cooperation Agency, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Organizer: Global Peacebuilding Association of Japan (GPAJ)
Title: “Is Peacebuilding Dead?”
Role: Discussant / Deputy Secretary-General, GPAJ
“Is Peacebuilding Dead?”
Dr. Achim Wennmann, Researcher at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP) at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and Executive Coordinator of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, gave a presentation on the future of peacebuilding at the JICA, Global Plaza, Tokyo, Japan, on Friday the 19thof April, followed by a vivid discussion amongst the participants.
Mr. Wennmann presented his understanding and views on the age of the ‘liberal peacebuilding’, and how it will change in the future. He asserts that over the last three decades, peacebuilding practice has been dominated by a set of assumptions that set countries onto the pathway towards a ‘liberal’ peace. Yet the ‘liberal’ project to rebuild societies after armed conflict has become increasingly dysfunctional, orphaned and cashless. One of the most important supporters for ‘liberal peacebuilding’ has been the UN system, but its main stream has moved from PKO projects to stabilization and counterterrorism. Also, recently dialog consensus building and speaking progress tend to be emphasized rather than a comprehensive top down approach to peacebuilding. These changing strategic landscapes highlight that peacebuilding has reached a critical juncture.
So, what kind of peacebuilding is generated for the next decade? Mr. Wennmann listed 6 building blocks which combined construct a new era of peacebuilding. These consist of the collection of trustworthy data, collaborate analysis, progressively expanded coalitions for change, targeted interventions that address the most acute risk factors of conflict and violence, as well as sustained institutional support by an honest broker. Using these key elements, some important fundamental principles of stable states, such as peace through law, security through power, politics through participation, and order through control will be expected to be accomplished. He also mentioned youth mobilization as one of the most potent supporters in the new era of peacebuilding.
Finally, Mr. Wennmann emphasized that it is important to not just claim that the ‘liberal peacebuilding’ period is over, but, considering the changing nature of the international system, to redefine what peacebuilding will be about in the coming decades.
The first discussant, Prof. Herman Salton (Associate Professor, ICU Tokyo; Deputy Secretary-General, Global Peacebuilding Association of Japan; Deputy Director, Academic Council on the United Nations System-Tokyo Office), raised two points following Dr. Wennmann’s presentation.
First, he noted that, in the expression ‘liberal peace’, ‘liberal’ is not the only contested term. ‘Peace’ itself is subject to myriads of interpretations, and it is often unclear (including to senior UN officials) which kind of peace the organization wishes to pursue. Second, despite being an international lawyer by training, Prof. Salton cautioned that the law is not necessarily a barrier to authoritarianism, and hence cannot always guarantee peace and security to the people.For example, the so-called ‘rule of law’ is not necessarily a great guarantee against abuse when it is enacted by authoritarian regimes that happily use it to repress their people. In other words, the law and liberalism are not necessarily synonyms. These two points should be taken into consideration in the discussion about the future of peacebuilding.
The second commentator, Mr. Sakane, noted that when it comes to the question on whether “liberal peacebuilding is dead”,one has to take into consideration whether the concept of liberalism as such, which promotes free trade or the free flow of people, has lost its popular support. He points out thatthe nature of the current global system has changed from Bipolar to Unipolar, to Multi Polar/ Non Polar and is now moving towards a chaotic structure. In addition, the international community should take into consideration that both, the nature as well as the features of crises have changed from intrastate conflict to terrorism and to state-violence, criminal violence and far-right extremism, as the rising populism in Europe is a primary example of. Another point to take into consideration, is that international players are increasingly diversifying. Countries in theMiddle East do not hesitate to intervene in the process of conflict, posing new challenges to conflict resolution and eventually further complicate the process.
Second, Mr. Sakanepoints out that governments need to reconsider how they weigh the opinions of its citizens to those of experts and technocrats. So far, the lack of consideration of the opinion of experts has led European governments to implement policies that have shown not to be in the best interest of the state, such as Brexit is a primary example of. According to Mr. Sakane, a democratic system consists of people, technocrats and politicians. Under ideal conditions, people’s wishes are modified by technocratic views and works. The state representatives are expected to come up with a balanced decision after taking voices from both sides into consideration. However, if we look into the processes which resulted in Brexit, we see that the will of the people has been prioritized over the opinions of technocrats and experts, which have been underestimated under populism.
For the future of peacebuilding, it might hence be vital to reestablish the role of technocrats back to its original position. Also, the rise of populism in Europe and terror attacks in Christchurch have shown that a root-cause of current conflict is a sense of exclusion or disparity. Therefore, it is important to include marginalized people and promote social cohesion. In order to promote peace, the SDG-16 are relevant. However, the SDG’s core concept of “No one left Behind” is also very important to consider. In terms of adaptation policies, regional organizations, such as IGAD, play an important role for peacebuilding as well, as understanding the local context is key for both conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Also, confidence building between government and people is indispensable for sustaining peace. Resurgence of multilateralism or respect of mutual dependency is also crucial.
Mr. Hasegawa concluded the meeting by highlighting several points made by Dr. Achim Wennmann as well as commentators and participants. The most salient point made by many speakers was that peace was no longer achievable in an isolated area and manner as the globalization process had made inseparable the developments taking place in the international and local communities. Hasegawa then noted his views that, during the last several decades after World War II, Japan followed the prudent policy of engaging in international peace and development efforts through the United Nations, although this had sometimes been criticized as a checkbook diplomacy.
Japan should proudly state that the world would have been a more peaceful place if all other countries respected and acted through the United Nations as a universal organization with the legitimacy to carry out global cooperation for peace and development.
Mr. Nakanishi pointed out the importance of clarifying the terminology which is used to describe peacebuilding. Since terms such as ‘’liberal’’ can have a variety of meanings depending on the context, accompanying adjectives to ‘’peacebuilding’’ should be avoided altogether, and a common meaning for peacebuilding should be agreed upon by all participating parties in order to avoid misunderstandings.
END OF COMMUNIQUE
@ 2019 by Global Peacebuilding Association of Japan