Conflict Society and Peacebuilding

Comparative Perspectives

Raffaele Marchetti, Nathalie Tocci

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000083699
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Civil society's role in conflict and peace-building is increasingly being recognized: an integral element in conflict, it can act within the conflict dynamic to fuel discord further or to entrench the status quo. Alternatively, it can bring about peaceful resolution and reconciliation. The question at hand is not whether to engage civil society in contexts of conflict, but rather how governmental actors can partner with civil society to induce conflict resolution and conflict transformation. The collection of essays in this volume attempts to explore this nexus between civil society and peace-building, especially in the context of intra-state and identity-driven conflicts, across different regions by focusing on case studies from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe.

PART I: THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS

Chapter 1
Conflict Society: Understanding the Role of Civil Society in Conflict*

* The research for this article has been supported by SHUR: Human Rights in Conflicts: The Role of Civil Society, a Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP) funded by the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission (contract number: CIT5-CT-2006-028815), www.luiss.it/shur (accessed May 12, 2011).

Raffaele Marchetti and Nathalie Tocci**

It is widely recognized in the literature on the subject that civil society plays a key role in fostering democratic governance in peaceful societies. Yet, the political significance of civil society may be far more prominent in contexts marked by conflict. Being characterized by a higher degree of politicization and a less structured institutional setting, conflict situations may generate a more intense mobilization of civil society. Here, politicization is of a qualitatively different nature, as it occurs in view of the life-or-death nature of politics. Contrary to peaceful contexts, in conflict situations, the existential nature of politics and the securitizations that follow result in different societal incentives to mobilize.¹ The cross-sectional nature of existential or securitized politics thus yields a quantitatively higher degree of public action spanning different sectors in society. The different understandings of the causes of conflict and adequate responses to them may in turn lead to the formation of civil society actors and ensuing actions that can fuel conflict, sustain the status quo or promote peace. Within this context, the aim of this article is to identify the determinants which affect the differing impacts of civil society on conflict.

¹ A ‘securitizing move’ is a speech act which depicts the ‘Other’ as an existential threat to a specific group, calling for urgent and extraordinary measures to combat this threat. See Buzan, Wæver, and De Wilde (1998: 21, 24). Analytically, securitization therefore provides a formal–discursive definition of what security is.

** The editors would like to thank Taylor & Francis Ltd (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals) for kindly granting permission to reprint in the present volume Raffaele Marchetti and Nathalie Tocci’s ‘Conflict Society: Understanding the Role of Civil Society in Conflict’, Global Change, Peace & Security 21(2): 201–17, 2009.

In order to tackle the interrelationship between civil society and conflict, this article is structured as follows: In academic literature, civil society has been normally discussed and analyzed in Western, peaceful, democratic and developed contexts. In the light of this, we begin by analyzing the implications of context on civil society, and more precisely, the implications of statehood, democracy, nationalism, development, and international presence on the nature of civil society. In the second section we introduce, more specifically, the role of civil society in conflict, and define what we rename as ‘conflict society’. The final section discusses the different factors determining the impact of civil society on conflicts. In particular, we analyze the impact of civil society’s political identities, frameworks of action and the political opportunity structures in which it operates. We conclude by mapping the analytical steps that might be followed to understand the role of civil society in conflict.

Civil Society in Context

The theoretical and empirical study of civil society — from Hobbes to Habermas, up until the recent literature on global civil society — sprung from specific historical, political and socioeconomic backgrounds. These contexts shaped both the views of the authors in question and the nature of the object of study, that is, civil society. The early philosophical debates on civil society emerged from and were grounded in Western Europe, in contexts of state formation (Hobbes, Locke, Ferguson), emerging capitalism and class struggle (Hegel and Marx), and democratization and democracy (Gramsci and Habermas). Likewise, in the 1970s and 1980s, civil society activity and literature on the subject were firmly grounded in the West, having played an active role in issues such as nuclear disarmament, environmental sustainability, as well as gender and race struggles. The more recent wave of civil society literature since the end of the Cold War is also firmly embedded in the West, couched in the wider framework of globalization and international relations studies.

The specific contexts in which this literature is embedded are often taken for granted, rarely are the implications of context on the development of civil society openly acknowledged and taken into account (Glasius, Lewis and Seckinelgin 2004; Lewis 2001). Nevertheless, a study of the role of civil society in conflict-ridden areas lying beyond Western Europe must account for the role and implications of context. Hence, the first variable in our analysis of civil society in conflict is the context within which it operates. Several core contextual questions need to be raised and brought to the fore at the outset. Can and does civil society exist in contexts of failed states, authoritarian rule, ethnic nationalism, underdevelopment, or overbearing international presence? The underlying premise of this article is that civil society can and does exist in these situations. Its nature as well as role and functions are fundamentally shaped by the specific context in question. Since civil society is both an independent agent for change (Putnam 1992) and a dependent product of existing structures (McAdam, McCarthy and Zald 1996), we are likely to encounter a wide range of civil society actors, including both ‘civil’ and ‘uncivil’ ones, carrying out a wide range of actions. More specifically, for the purposes of this article, several general contextual categories need to be briefly discussed in order to qualify and better understand the specific contexts in which civil society in conflict operates.

The first and most basic general contextual distinction is whether civil society operates in a state or non-state context, or, more widely, in a failing- or failed-state context. The early debates viewed civil society as either synonymous or inextricably intertwined with the state (e.g., Hobbes, Locke). In more recent studies, while occupying the space between the state, the family and the market, civil society is conceptualized as interacting with the state, both influencing and being influenced by it (Chazan 1992). As such, in practice, the lines separating the state from civil society remain extremely blurred and complex and are continuously being negotiated. Furthermore, many studies argue that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are often linked more to the state than to society (Ferguson 1990). The state thus inevitably shapes the nature and role of civil society. This is even more true of the post-Cold War era, where often the legally recognized state is failed or failing, while a functioning state structure remains in a legal limbo of international non-recognition. When a state does not exist, or when it is weak, fragmented or failing, the already blurred lines separating the state from civil society become even fuzzier. In such situations, civil society comes to occupy a part of the space normally filled by the functioning state. In the absence of the laws and rules that govern society, civil society organizes alternative systems of self-help and tribal justice — informal forms of governance that civil and uncivil actors alike establish and are shaped by. When states are weak or failing, on the other hand, patronage and corruption are likely to influence the nature and role of civil society. This is because civil society is induced to fill the void left by the state by providing services to the population, but by interacting with underground and illegal channels of the ‘shadow state’ (Transparency International 2005). Finally, where a recognized state exists but lacks sovereignty and independence, civil society is often disempowered and deresponsibilized by the absence of a sovereign interlocutor at the state level (Belloni 2001).

Further, even when a state exists, a second contextual condition shaping civil society in conflict is the actual nature of the state in question. Given that civil society needs to be both permitted and protected by the state, its existence, nature and role is determined by the degree of democracy, delineating the extent of its associative freedom, as well as by the existence of other basic rights and freedoms normally enshrined within democratic states. When these rights and freedoms are curtailed, civil society is likely to develop beyond legal boundaries, often aiming to subvert the state rather than interact with it, thereby problematizing further the distinction between civil and uncivil civil society actors. Even within the confines of formally democratic states, the shape of civil society is affected by the specific nature of the democracy in question. In nationalistic, albeit democratic, states, civil society is more likely to include, among others, ‘uncivil’ actors pursuing racial or xenophobic agendas (Yishai 2002). In democracies with a strong military presence and a militarized culture, civil society is often associated with the push for democratization and the civilianization of politics (Seckinelgin 2004). In democracies founded upon a strong ideological consensus (e.g., Zionism, Kemalism), civil society acts in surveillance and critique of the state within clear, albeit unspelt, ideological confines, after which the ‘socio-cultural reflex’ contracts and civil society, in unison with the state, act to counter real or perceived threats to the established ideological order (ibid.).

A third contextual condition in conflict situations is socioeconomic underdevelopment, which favours the presence of traditional over modern associational forms. Gellner (1995) argues that whereas ‘modularity’ characterizes civil society, ‘segmentalism’ marks traditional society. The modular society essentially exists in the developed world, is characterized by voluntarism and performs modern civic functions. By contrast, in a segmentalized society, often found within developing contexts, civil society is characterized by a far more prominent role of non-voluntary associations (family, tribe, ethnic or religious communities) over voluntary ones. Often the bonds, loyalties and solidarity that these associative forms engender are far stronger and more tenacious than those found in voluntary groupings. As such, while non-voluntary associations in these contexts may curtail gender and other rights in the private sphere, they also tend to be in a stronger position to carry out many of the ‘modern’ functions normally performed by civil society in developed contexts (e.g., the health and education services provided by religious charities). Excluding these groups from the analysis would entail leaving out a discussion of much of the civil society activity in developing contexts (Varshney 2001).

The nature and role of the international community constitutes the final contextual feature shaping civil society. An overall global trend is traceable, whereby states play a diminishing role as service providers, both domestically and internationally, leading to the privatization of world politics. Within this trend, a new global political opportunity structure materialized in which civil society actors have flourished both locally and transnationally (Anheier, Glasius and Kaldor 2001; Pianta and Marchetti 2007). This has meant that many of the functions in the fields of development and security previously performed by governmental actors have been reallocated to civil society. Since the 1980s, assistance for development has been increasingly channelled through NGOs (Sogge 1996). Developed states and international organizations have outsourced the implementation of aid programmes to local and international NGOs, while mediating and retaining political discretion regarding their overall direction (Chandler 2001; Fisher 1997). In a wide variety of cases, scholars have demonstrated that by promoting particular types of civil society (e.g., NGOs, also dubbed as ‘non-grassroots organizations’), the donor community weakens civil society organizations (CSOs) that have veritable ties to society and respond to local societal needs. Donors also create a dislocated new civil society, which is technical and specialized in mandate, neoliberal in outlook, urbanized and middle class in composition, and which responds to the goals of the international community rather than of the society in question (Belloni 2001; Challand 2008; Fisher 1997; Jamal 2007; Pouligny 2005; Shawa 2004). Equally, the changing international security agenda has shaped the nature and role of civil society. Since the 1990s, in view of the wave of humanitarian interventions, many peacebuilding functions have been transferred to the private sector and civil society (Abiew and Keating 2004; Brahimi Report 2000; Goodhand 2006; Richmond and Carey 2005; Terry 2003; West 2000). Liberal humanitarian and relief organizations, politically or financially co-opted organizations, and militarily-embedded organizations have thus mushroomed. Since the new millennium, the turn in global politics with the ‘War on Terror’ provided a further change in the role of (some) CSOs, through their ‘embeddedness’ and connivance with state-waged wars. Hence, while at times representing a rooted and counter-hegemonic force of resistance, CSOs have also acted as a dependent functional substitute within the neoliberal paradigm.

Conflict Society and Political Identities

Ethno-political conflicts have been defined as a struggle between groups, self-defined in ethnic terms, who articulate their respective needs and wants in mutually incompatible ways. (Pia and Diez 2007) As opposed to peace, conflict — the incompatibility of subject positions — can either not be manifested publicly at all (i.e., in conditions of latent structural violence) or it can be manifested through violence or non-violent means (political activism being an example of the latter). The source of the incompatibility is inextricably tied to the very definitions of the respective groups, that is, in an ethnic definition which is primordial, non-voluntary and exclusive in nature and which defines itself in contrast to an external ‘other’. Ethno-political conflicts are in fact characterized by a public discord either between the state on the one hand and significant parts of the society or the wider public on the other, or between different parts of the population. The discord and division are claimed on the grounds of identity defined through ethnicity, that is, a multiple concept that refers to a myth of collective ancestry. Central to this concept is the notion of ascription and the related one of affinity. Ethnic identification is thus often based on the prioritization of birth over territory. The process of public recognition that leads to the perception of ‘incompatibility of subject positions’ (i.e., identities and interests) is crucial in the dynamic of conflict.

Turning to the role...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Civil Society in Conflict and Peace: An Introduction
• PART I: THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS
• PART II: AN ANALYSIS OF INTERNATIONAL CIVIL SOCIETY IN CONFLICTS
• PART III: AN ANALYSIS OF LOCAL CIVIL SOCIETY IN CONFLICTS
• About the Editors
• Notes on Contributors
• Index