Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-09T20:38:18.847Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Quality/control: international peace interventions and ‘the everyday’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2011

AUDRA MITCHELL
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Current discourses about the everyday in relation to international peace interventions focus on two main aspects. First, the perceived quality or qualities of everyday life tend to be attributed to ‘local’ organisations or actors and assessed positively. Second, the control of life (including bio-political control and governance) tends to be associated with ‘international’ actors and viewed negatively. This article challenges these key assumptions by contextualising them in social and political theories of the everyday and in two key examples: ‘affective’ peacebuilding in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and ‘threatworks’ in Northern Ireland. It also calls for an approach to the ‘everyday’ in international interventions which moves beyond local/international power dynamics and is attentive to the pluralities of power and practice that emerge in these settings.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , October 2011 , pp. 1623 - 1645
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For an incisive account of this, see Das, Veena, Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007)Google Scholar .

2 Richmond, Oliver P., ‘Eirinism and a Post-Liberal Peace’, Review of International Studies, 3 (2009), pp. 557–580CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Richmond, Oliver P. and Mitchell, Audra (eds), Hybrid Forms of Peace: from the ‘Everyday’ to Post-liberalism (Basingstoke: Palgrave, forthcoming 2011)Google Scholar .

3 See Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998[1965])CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Heller, Agnes, Everyday Life (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985)Google Scholar .

4 Mitchell, Audra, Lost in Transformation: Violent Peace and Peaceful Conflict in Northern Ireland (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

5 Galtung, Johan, Peace by Peaceful Means (London: Sage, 1996)Google Scholar .

6 See Richmond, Oliver P., and Mitchell, Audra, Hybrid Forms of Peace: From the ‘Everyday’ to Post-Liberalism (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2011)Google Scholar .

7 Audra Mitchell, ‘Radical Peace: Mainstream Peacebuilding and the (Im)possibility of Radical Critique in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus and Northern Ireland’. Under Review, forthcoming.

8 Ginty, Roger Mac, ‘Indigenous Peace-making Versus the Liberal Peace’, Cooperation and Conflict, 43 (2008), pp. 139–163CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

9 Mitchell, Audra, ‘Transforming a deeply divided society? NGOs and peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, 1970–2006’, in Hilton, Matthew, Crowson, Nicholas and McKay, James, (eds), NGOs in Contemporary Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009), pp. 242–260CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

10 Certeau, Michel De, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley, CA and London: University of California Press, 2006 [1984])Google Scholar .

11 De Certeau, Practice.

12 Heller, Everyday.

13 Heller, Everyday; Vaneigem, Raoul, Revolution of Everyday Life (London: Rebel Press, 1983)Google Scholar .

14 Lefebvre, Henri , Critique of Everyday Life, Vol. 2 (London: Verso, 2002), p. 77Google Scholar .

15 Heller, Everyday.

16 Smith, Dorothy E., The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1987)Google Scholar .

17 Heller, Everyday; Lefebvre, Critique – Vol 1.

18 Lefebvre, , Critique – Vol 1, p. 39Google Scholar .

19 Heller, Everyday.

20 Vanegeim, Revolution.

21 Taylor, Charles, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2007)Google Scholar .

22 Heller, , Everyday, p. 33Google Scholar .

23 Heller, Everyday.

24 Lefebvre, Critique – Vol. II (see fn. 37).

25 Vanegeim, Revolution.

26 Richmond, ‘Eirinism’; Richmond, Oliver P., ‘Resistance and the Post-Liberal Peace’, Millennium Journal of International Studies, 38:3 (2010), pp. 665–692CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

27 Ibid.

28 Boulding, Elise, Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000)Google Scholar .

29 Ibid., p. 1.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid., p. 103.

32 Lederach, John Paul, Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995), pp. 26–27Google Scholar .

33 Lederach, John Paul, Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Peace-Building (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 5, 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

34 Lederach, , Moral, p. 38Google Scholar .

35 Ibid., p. 56.

36 Lefebvre, Critique – Vol. I; Heller, Everyday.

37 Lefebvre, Critique – Vol I, II, III; Heller, Everyday; Vanegeim, Revolution; De Certeau, Practice.

38 De Certeau, Practice.

39 Vanegeim, Revolution; Heller, Everyday.

40 Lefebvre, Critique – Vol II.

41 Taylor, Charles, Sources of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)Google Scholar .

42 Lefebvre, Critique – Vol. I.

43 See Mitchell, Audra, ‘Peace Beyond Process’, Millennium Journal of International Studies, 38 (2010), pp. 642–666CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

44 Vanegeim, Revolution; Lefebvre, Critique – Vol. II.

45 Foucault, Michel, ‘Governmentality’, in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), pp. 87–105Google Scholar .

46 Rose, Niklas, Powers of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Dean, Mitchell, Governmentality (London: Sage, 1999)Google Scholar .

47 Foucault, ‘Governmentality’.

48 Vanegeim, Revolution; Lefebvre, Critique – Vol I.

49 Rose, Powers; Lefebvre, Critique – Vol I.

50 Lefebvre, Critique – Vol I; Heller, Everyday.

51 Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix, Anti-Oedipus (London: Continuum, 2008)Google Scholar .

52 Foucault, ‘Governmentality’.

53 See Richmond, Oliver P. and Franks, Jason, Liberal Peace Transitions (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009)Google Scholar .

54 Vanegeim, Revolution; Taylor, Secular; Taylor, Sources.

55 Taylor, Secular.

56 Taylor, Secular; Mitchell, ‘Lost’ (see fn. 69).

57 Jabri, Vivienne, War and the Transformation of Global Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

58 Jabri, War, p. 27,

59 Ibid., pp. 67–8.

60 Ibid., pp. 92–3.

61 Chandler, David, Empire in Denial:The Politics of State-Building (London: Pluto, 2006)Google Scholar .

62 Chandler, , Empire, p. 59Google Scholar .

63 Ibid., p. 97.

64 Duffield, Mark, Development, Security and Unending War: Governing the World of Peoples (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007)Google Scholar .

65 Ibid., p. 9.

66 Ibid., pp. 33–5.

67 Ibid., p. 216.

68 Galtung, , Peace, pp. 29–30Google Scholar .

69 Ibid., p. 257.

70 Galtung, Peace; Boulding, , Cultures, p. 138Google Scholar .

71 Kriesberg, Louis, Constructive Conflicts (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998)Google Scholar .

72 Lederach, John Paul, ‘Keynote Speech: From Truce to Transformation – Live Issues V’ (Belfast: Community Relations Commission, 2007)Google Scholar .

73 Lederach, John Paul, ‘Keynote Speech: Live Issues 2002’ (Belfast: Community Relations Commission, 2002)Google Scholar .

74 Boulding, , Cultures, p. 134Google Scholar .

75 Duffield, Development.

76 Taylor, , Secular, p. 569Google Scholar .

77 Miall, Hugh, Emergent Conflict and Peaceful Change (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007), p. 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

78 Curle, Adam, Making Peace (London: Tavistock, 1971)Google Scholar .

79 Bush, Robert A. Baruch and Folger, Joseph P., The Promise of Mediation: Responding to Conflict Through Empowerment (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1994), pp. 2, 235Google Scholar .

80 Vaneigem, Revolution.

81 Senghaas, Dieter, ‘The Civilisation of Conflict: Constructive Pacifism as a Guiding Notion for Conflict Transformation’, Berghof Handbook for Constructive Conflict Management (Berlin: Berghof Centre for Constructive Conflict Management, 2004), pp. 4–5Google Scholar .

82 Boulding, , Cultures, pp. 84, 134Google Scholar

83 Adelman, Howard, ‘Cultures of Violence’, in Keating, Thomas F. and Knight, Andrew W. (eds), Building Sustainable Peace (Tokyo: UN University Press, 2005) p. 308Google Scholar .

84 Lederach, , Moral, p. 49Google Scholar .

85 Patomaki, Heikki, ‘The Challenge of Critical Theories: Peace Research at the Start of the New Century’, Journal of Peace Research, 38 (2001), pp. 723–737CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

86 Galtung, , Peace, pp. 257–258Google Scholar .

87 Jabri, , Discourses, p. 162Google Scholar .

88 Lederach, , Moral, p. 54Google Scholar .

89 Lederach, , Moral, p. 59Google Scholar .

90 Boulding, Cultures.

91 Kriesberg, , ‘Constructive’, p. 4Google Scholar ; Douglas Roche, ‘Foreword’, in Keating and Knight, ‘Building’, p. xii.

92 Merlingen, Michael and Ostrauskate, Rasa, ‘Power/knowledge in International Peacebuilding; the Case of the EU Police Mission in Bosnia’, Alternatives, 30 (2005), pp. 297–323CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

93 Chandler, Empire; Bose, Sumantra, Bosnia After Dayton (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002)Google Scholar .

94 World Bank Group Assistance to Bosnia, and Herzegovina, , A Decade of Reconstruction and Development, 1995/2005, (WorldBank, 2005)Google Scholar ; UNDP, , MDG Update Report for Bosnia and Herzegovina (New York: UNDP, 2005)Google Scholar .

95 UNDP, ‘MDG’; World Bank, ‘World’.

96 Chandler, David, ‘From Dayton to Europe’, International Peacekeeping, 12 (2005), pp. 336–349CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

97 UNDP, ‘MDG’; World Bank, ‘World’.

98 European Union, ‘Western Balkans: Enhancing the European Perspective’ (Brussels: Europa Press Releases, 2008); Chandler, David, Bosnia: Faking Democracy After Dayton (London: Pluto Press, 1999)Google Scholar .

99 Chandler, , Bosnia, p. 148Google Scholar .

100 European Union Enlargement Directorate General, Ad Hoc Evaluation of the CARDS Programme (Brussels: EU, 2008), p. 48Google Scholar .

101 International Crisis Group, Ensuring Bosnia's Future: A New International Engagement Strategy (Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2007)Google Scholar .

102 European Union, ‘Western’.

103 Pupavac, Vanessa, ‘Weaving or Forging? Peace-building in Bosnia Herzegovina’, Invited Lecture at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of St. Andrews (21 May 2010)Google Scholar .

104 See Macek, Ivana, War Within: Everyday Life in Sarajevo Under Siege (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2000)Google Scholar .

105 Author's interview with Arts NGO Worker, Mostar (8 March 2010).

106 Author's interview with peacebuilding NGO Worker, Mostar (8 March 2010), emphasis added.

107 Chandler, , Bosnia, p. 148Google Scholar .

108 Pugh, Michael, ‘Transformation in the Political Economy of Bosnia Since Dayton’, International Peacekeeping, 12 (2005), pp. 448–462CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

109 Ibid., p. 450.

110 Chandler, , ‘From Dayton’, p. 341Google Scholar .

111 International Crisis Group, ‘Ensuring’, p. 19Google Scholar .

112 Kaldor, Mary, Old and New Wars (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), p. 57Google Scholar .

113 Ibid., p. 67–8.

114 European Union, ‘Western’.

115 UNDP, ‘MDG’, p. 3Google Scholar .

116 World Bank, ‘World’, p. 3Google Scholar .

117 Bose, Sumantra, ‘The Bosnian State A Decade After Dayton’, International Peacekeeping, 12 (2005), p. 333CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

118 Author's interview with former OSCE employee, Mostar (9 March 2010).

119 See European Commission External Relations Directorate General, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Country Strategy Paper 2002–2006 (Brussels: EU, 2002)Google Scholar .

120 Hardt, Michael and Negri, Antonio, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2004), p. 67Google Scholar .

121 Hardt, Michael and Negri, Antonio, Empire (Cambrdige, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 35Google Scholar .

122 Ibid., pp. 292–3.

123 Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix, Anti-Oedipus (Capitalism and Schizophrenia) (London: Continuum, 2008)Google Scholar .

124 Ibid., pp. 28–9.

125 Chandler, Empire; Richmond, Oliver P. and Franks, Jason, Liberal Peace Transitions (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009)Google Scholar .

126 Taylor, Charles, The Ethics of Authenticity (Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1991), p. 15Google Scholar .

127 Taylor, Secular.

128 Taylor, Ethics; Taylor, , Secular, p. 640Google Scholar .

129 Author's interview with UNDP Employee (6 March 2010); Author's interview with OSCE Analyst (8 March 2010); Author's interview with ICR Consultant (10 March 2010).

130 Author's interview with former OSCE employee, Mostar (9 March 2010).

131 Mitchell, Lost, chap. 2.

132 Brown, Wendy, Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006)Google Scholar .

133 Mitchell, Lost, chap. 2.

134 Mitchell, ‘Conflict’, see fn. 98.

135 See Stewart, A. T. Q, Narrow Ground: Aspects of Ulster – 1609–1969 (London: Faber and Faber, 1997)Google Scholar ; Jarman, Neil, Material Conflicts: Parades and Visual Displays in Northern Ireland (Oxford and New York: Berg, 1997)Google Scholar ; Ross, Marc Howard, Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

136 Mitchell, Lost, chaps 4, 5, 9.

137 Mitchell, Audra‘Conflict – in – Transformation: Ethics, Phenomenology and the Critique of the Liberalizing Peace’, International Peacekeeping, 17 (2009), pp. 667–684CrossRefGoogle Scholar .