Local Peacebuilding and Legitimacy: Interactions between National and Local Levels [1 ed.] 1138224146, 9781138224148

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Local Peacebuilding and Legitimacy

This volume searches for pragmatic answers to the problems that continue to beset peacebuilding efforts at all levels of society, with a singular focus on the role of legitimacy. Many peacebuilding efforts are hampered by their inability to gain the support of those they are trying to help at the local level, or those at regional, national, or international levels, whose support is necessary either for success at the local level or to translate local successes to wider arenas. There is no one agreed-upon reason for the difficulty in translating peacebuilding from one arena of action to another, but among those elements that have been studied, one that appears understudied or assumed to be unimportant, is the role of legitimacy. Many questions can be asked about legitimacy as a concept, and this volume addresses these questions through multiple case studies which examine legitimacy at local, regional, national, and international levels as well as looking at how legitimacy at one level either translates or fails to translate at other levels in order to correlate the level of legitimacy with the success or failure of peacebuilding projects and programs. The value of this work lies both in the breadth of the cases and the singular focus on the role of legitimacy in peacebuilding. By focusing on this concept, this volume represents an attempt to build beyond the critical peacebuilding approach of deconstructing the liberal peacebuilding paradigm to a search for pragmatic answers to the problems that continue to plague peacebuilding efforts at all levels of society. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, conflict resolution, development studies, security studies, and international relations. Landon E. Hancock is an Associate Professor in the School of Peace and Conflict Studies at Kent State University, USA. Christopher Mitchell is Professor Emeritus of Conflict Analysis and Resolution and a Fellow of the Center for Peacemaking Practice at George Mason University, Virginia USA.

Routledge Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution Series Editors: Tom Woodhouse and Oliver Ramsbotham University of Bradford

Peacebuilding and Post-War Transitions Assessing the impact of external-domestic interactions Lisa Groß Resolving Structural Conflicts How violent systems can be transformed Richard E. Rubenstein African Peace Militaries War, Peace and Democratic Governance Edited by David J. Francis Peace Leadership The Quest for Connectedness Edited by Stan Amaladas and Sean Byrne Legitimacy in Peacebuilding Rethinking Civil Society Involvement in Peace Negotiations Franzisca Zanker Re-Envisioning Conflict Resolution Vision, Action and Evaluation in Creative Conflict Engagement Jay Rothman Universities and Conflict The role of higher education in peacebuilding and resistance Edited by Juliet Millican Local Peacebuilding and Legitimacy Interactions between National and Local Levels Edited by Landon E. Hancock and Christopher Mitchell For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com

Local Peacebuilding and Legitimacy Interactions between National and Local Levels

Edited by Landon E. Hancock and Christopher Mitchell

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 selection and editorial matter, Landon E. Hancock and Christopher Mitchell; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Landon E. Hancock and Christopher Mitchell to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-22414-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-40318-2 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

For our friend and colleague GINNY BOUVIER [1959–2017], who guided many of us through the complexities of conflicts in Colombia.

Contents

ContentsContents

List of tablesix List of figuresx Notes on contributorsxi   1 By what right? competing sources of legitimacy in intractable conflicts

1

CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL

  2 Legitimate agents of peacebuilding: deliberative governance in zones of peace

20

LANDON E. HANCOCK

  3 Between shadow citizenship and civil resistance: shifting local orders in a Colombian war-torn community

43

ANNETTE IDLER, CÉCILE MOULY, AND MARÍA BELÉN GARRIDO

  4 Civilian noncooperation as a source of legitimacy: innovative youth reactions in the face of local violence

63

JUAN MASULLO

  5 External peacebuilders and the search for legitimacy: the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy in Kashmir

84

RAJIT H. DAS

  6 Legitimacy, international accompaniment, and land reform in Colombia

102

CATHERINE AMMEN AND CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL

  7 Harnessing legitimacy through networks: civilian-led, closed virtual communities as a new type of zone of peace LAURA VILLANUEVA

121

viii  Contents   8 Targets of violence, zones of peace: the child and school as post-conflict spaces

141

PATRICIA A. MAULDEN

  9 Peace as a tool of war: non-state armed actors and humanitarian agreements

161

SWETA SEN

10 Twisted legitimacy? leadership, representation, and status in traditional and fragile societies

180

JACQUELINE WILSON

11 Hybrid sources of legitimacy: peacebuilding and statebuilding in Somaliland

200

MARY HOPE SCHWOEBEL

12 Legitimacy, peace, and peacebuilding

222

LANDON E. HANCOCK AND CHRISTOPHER MITCHELL

Index

237

Tables

List of tablesList of tables

1.1 Syria: diverse sources of legitimacy 7.1 CVC ZoP characteristics 8.1 Legitimacy and rationalizers

12 125 156

Figures

List of figuresList of figures

  2.1   4.1 11.1 11.2 11.3

Deliberative peacebuilding The municipality of San Carlos Main clan families of Somaliland and Puntland Main Isaaq clans and sub-clans Somaliland and Puntland

27 67 205 206 212

Notes on contributors

Notes on contributorsNotes on contributors

Catherine Ammen is a practitioner and trained facilitator with expertise in peace education and community conflict in both the United States and Latin America. She holds a master’s degree from the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University and has studied and worked internationally in Colombia, Brazil, and Israel/Palestine. As a volunteer with Community Action for Justice in the Americas (CAJA), she provided international accompaniment for labor unions in Colombia during 2005. Committed to programs that facilitate people-to-people interactions, she currently works with the Boys and Girls Clubs, teaching fitness and nutrition programs and integrating her passion for sports and community building. Rajit Das is a peace-builder, evaluator, and change-maker who has been involved with the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy for over three years, working in a variety of capacities. He received his M.S. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution, with a graduate certificate in Prevention, Reconstruction & Stabilization Contexts, from George Mason University in 2017. Previously he had attained an M.A. in International Relations from St. Mary’s University and a B.A. in Political Science from George Washington University. He has published in the Journal of International Relations and Affairs Group and has presented papers on issues related to India at conferences in the United States and abroad. Maria Belén Garrido is a lecturer at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador. Her main expertise is in peace and conflict studies. She has taught undergraduate courses and facilitated practitioner trainings on issues related to peace. While working as a researcher at FLACSO, her publications have focused on various peace and conflict related issues, including a number of articles on civil resistance in the context of armed conflict. In addition, she has carried out several trainings on peace journalism, non-violent communication, and mediation, negotiation, and conflict resolution. Landon E. Hancock is an Associate Professor at Kent State University’s newly inaugurated School of Peace and Conflict Studies, where he researches issues related to identity and agency in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. He is the editor of Narratives of Identity in Social Movements, Conflict and Change

xii  Notes on contributors and co-editor [with Christopher Mitchell] of Zones of Peace [Kumarian Press, 2007] and Local Peacebuilding and National Peace [Continuum, 2012]. His articles have appeared in numerous journals, including Peacebuilding, National Identities, Ethnopolitics, Peace & Change and Conflict Resolution Quarterly. From 2012 to 2016, he served as Chair of ISA’s Peace Studies section, where he facilitated its growth from the organization’s 5th- to its 3rd-largest section. Annette Idler is the Director of Studies at the Oxford “Changing Character of War” Programme and a Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College and at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. She holds a Doctorate from the Department of International Development and St Antony’s College, Oxford. Her research interests lie at the interface of conflict, security and transnational organized crime, as well as in peacebuilding and governance, and the role of non-state, violent groups in these dynamics. Her latest book, based on extensive fieldwork in the war torn and crisis-affected borderlands of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela will be published shortly by Oxford University Press. Her work has appeared in many journals, including Stability, Perspectives on Terrorism and the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development. Juan Masullo is a Research Fellow at the “Order, Conflict and Violence” Program at Yale University and a Ph.D. candidate at the European University Institute. His work deals with civilian agency and civilian decision-making in the context of civil war, focusing on civilians’ organized responses to violence, their potential for self-protection during war, and their legacies for postconflict reconstruction and peacebuilding. His work has been published, or is forthcoming, in Mobilization, Terrorism and Political Violence, in the Global Policy Journal, and by Amsterdam University Press and the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict [monograph]. He has contributed op-ed pieces to The Monkey Cage and OpenDemocracy. Patricia A. Maulden is an Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution and Director of the Dialogue and Difference Project at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University. She researches generational and gendered dynamics of conflict and peace, social militarization and demilitarization processes, and peacebuilding practices in relation to equity and social justice. She has investigated the post-conflict paradox of engaging in war while creating peace, the trajectories of post-conflict knowledge, and the psychic dilemmas of research and practice. Her most recent publications include “Rituals of Gendered Violence; School Girl Kidnapping in Nigeria” in Routledge Handbook on Peacebuilding Roger Mac Ginty [ed.] (Routledge; 2014); “The Post-Conflict Paradox; Engaging War, Building Peace” in Peacebuilding Memory and Reconciliation; Bridging Top-down and Bottom-up Approaches. Bruno Charbonneau & Genevieve Parent [eds.] (Routledge, 2012); and “Fighting Young; Sierra Leone and Liberia” in Women Waging War and Peace Sandra Cheldelin & Maneshka Eliatamby [eds.] (Continuum, 2011).

Notes on contributors xiii Christopher Mitchell is Emeritus Professor of Conflict Research at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University. He has written extensively about a number of key issues in the conflict and peacebuilding field, including the nature of asymmetric conflict, de-escalation and conciliatory gestures, facilitation and problem-solving processes, and local peace communities in the midst of civil wars. He and his colleague, Jannie Botes, have directed the “Parents of the Field” Project, conducting interviews with over 40 pioneers in the conflict and peace field, which are now available for viewing on S-CAR’s website. His most recent book is a survey and analysis of the current state of the conflict field, The Nature of Intractable Conflict, [2012] which has been published both in English [London; Macmillan] and Spanish [Barcelona; Edicions Bellaterra.] Cécile Mouly is a Research Professor specializing in peace and conflict studies at FLACSO, Ecuador, as well as being a practitioner in the field. She holds a Ph.D. in International Studies from Cambridge University and currently teaches post-graduate courses on peace and conflict as well as facilitating trainings on related subjects. Dr. Mouly’s publications focus on the role of civil society in peacebuilding and on civil resistance in the context of armed conflicts. Mary Hope Schwoebel is an Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Nova Southeastern University in Florida. She holds a Ph.D. from the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University and a Masters degree in International Development from the University of California, Davis. Most recently she spent five years at the Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding at the U.S. Institute for Peace, where she designed and conducted training in over a dozen countries, both overseas and in Washington D.C.; designed and facilitated dialogue initiatives in wartorn societies, with a focus on Muslim majority countries; and authored policyoriented publications. She is the author of a wide range of publications, most recently two book chapters, “The Intersection of Public and Private Spheres for Pashtun Woment in Politics” in Women, Political Struggles and Gender Equality in South Asia Margaret Alston [ed.] (Palgrave Macmillan; 2014) and “Twenty Years of Somali Fashion; Human Security and Women’s Clothing” in Staying Fab in Insecure Times, Andreas Behnke & Linda Bishai [eds.] (Routledge; 2016). Sweta Sen is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at Kent State University and in 2016 was awarded the prestigious Senesh Fellowship by the International Peace Research Foundation. Prior to beginning her graduate studies, she worked with an anti-humanitarian trafficking project administered by the E.U. through the Group Development Association of France in India. During her tenure there, she was actively involved in the restoration, rehabilitation, and reintegration of trafficking survivors into mainstream society. Ms. Sen’s dissertation explores why some non-state armed groups voluntarily comply with international humanitarian norms and subsequently

xiv  Notes on contributors contribute significantly to the protection of civilians in situations of conflict. Through her research, she hopes to expand our understanding on non-state actors and their socio-political relations as well as of constructive conflict management in regions where state authority is absent or completely unable to foster stability. Thus, she plans to explore an alternative to mainstream understanding of “peacebuilding”, which still equates strong states to sustainable peace and, consequently, is impervious to the realities of irregular wars and sub-state networks. Laura Villanueva is the Executive Director of the Center for Peacemaking Practice at George Mason University. She is a peace-builder with over 11 years of project management, development, and practice in the field. Her practical experience began at the Peace Research Center [Gernika Gogoratuz] in the Basque Country, and she went on to join a Japanese NGO that has developed a unique, people-to-people harmony-building process co-located in Japan and the Middle East. Ms. Villanueva has also worked and practiced in other regions of Europe, utilizing culture as a key entry point for peacebuilding work. She has co-founded a women’s NGO in Mexico, and two years ago she became a consultant peacebuilding advisor to Tejiendo Territorio para la Paz [Tejipaz], a municipality located in Granada, Colombia. In 2015, she became a doctoral candidate in the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. Jacqueline Wilson has been a peacebuilding practitioner and trainer in over 25 countries. During her more than a decade’s work with the U.S. Institute of Peace, she has focused on customary conflict resolution practices among local communities and in 2014 published the results of some of this work in the Institute’s PeaceWorks issue on local peace processes in the Sudan and Southern Sudan, which examines local peace conferences and peace agreements in these countries. Her doctoral dissertation, Blood Money in Sudan and Beyond: Restorative Justice or Face-Saving Measure?, examines the mechanism of “blood money” intended to stop cycles of retaliatory violence. Jacqueline Wilson has also worked on electoral violence prevention in Kenya, Sudan, and Nigeria and been an election observer in Sudan and Kenya. A retired military officer, Wilson lives in Saudi Arabia and Kenya.

1 By what right?

Christopher MitchellBy what right?

Competing sources of legitimacy in intractable conflicts Christopher Mitchell

In some ways, intractable intra-state conflicts are partly competitions for legitimacy between socio-political adversaries – the incumbents (the state and its agencies) and the insurgents, (guerrillas, protestors, secessionists, non-violent activists, millenarian movements). The same competitive quest for legitimacy also confronts local peacebuilders – local actors such as grassroots communities seeking to opt out of the violence, as well as regional, national, and international organizations trying to achieve some form of peace. They may bring in humanitarian aid, offer protective accompaniment to civil society groups, provide peacekeeping forces (military or otherwise), or attempt to act as intermediaries (McCandless et al., 2015). All parties face the question of what basis they have to carry out their work, whether that involves waging war, keeping the peace, providing “security” for someone, giving voice to a threatened minority, leading a movement for religious freedom (or dominance), claiming a territory as a homeland. The list is endless, but the dilemma remains the same. By what right? This is hardly a trivial question. The whole point about legitimacy is that it theoretically confers upon some entity the right to demand from someone else respect, support, and obedience for its activities. In environments of protracted and intractable conflicts, legitimacies compete. There are, thus, a wide variety of differing bases upon which legitimacy can be claimed by the directly conflicting parties as well as by others affected by that conflict. One problem in trying to understand conflictual situations from this viewpoint is the ambiguity surrounding legitimacy. In most political situations, one talks glibly about the legitimacy of particular actors or institutions in a protracted conflict. On other occasions, the idea is applied to “legitimate” (or “illegitimate”) strategies or processes, such as local or national peacebuilding (cf. Ramsbotham and Wennman, 2014). The danger is that the idea of legitimacy might become another concept that has so many meanings as to be analytically useless. This is compounded by the bewildering profusion of definitions in the literature. A recent study by Ramsbotham and Wennman (2014) talks about local and domestic legitimacy, organic grounded legitimacy, process and performance legitimacy, international legitimacy, constitutional legitimacy, and the legitimacy of fundamental grievances. The argument that the term is “context specific” is well supported

2  Christopher Mitchell throughout relevant work but there must, surely, also be a central core of meaning, somewhere, that holds these various legitimacies together. This introduction discusses various meanings of the term legitimacy as well as ideas about its sources, bases and extent. I attempt to come up with a practical definition of the term for use in the studies that follow. Apart from helping to clarify this central idea, I  also focus on the issue of competing legitimacies in situations of protracted, intra-state conflicts, including competing claims to legitimacy from the rival parties in the conflict but also with regard to claims to legitimacy advanced by those seeking to contribute to local or national peace (see McCandless, 2014).

The nature of legitimacy: sources, recipients, and bases The difficulty with finding a way into some generally useful concept of legitimacy is that, by convention, the concept has usually been associated largely with state authority and with the law. Traditional definitions immediately seem to entangle one in questions of “legality” and what is legal according to some accepted standard or other. A widely used definition is in: “accordance with law or with established legal forms and requirements” {Ehrlich, 1980 #278, 378}. This is hardly helpful in situations of intractable conflict, where one party (the insurgents) is challenging the whole basis on which previous “laws” have been made – frequently by the other party (the incumbents or the state). Only slightly more helpful is a second definition: “conforming to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards,” which at once raises the question of who is doing the recognizing and the accepting {Schaar, 1981 #279, 20}. The problem becomes more complex when one thinks of the various similes commonly used for a party, process or policy that is “legitimate”. In such cases, the party is “authorized to . . .”, “has the right to .  . .” “is entitled to . . .”, or does something that is “sanctioned” or “warranted.” Again, one has to ask who – or what – is conferring that right, providing the authority, or approving the action. This is hardly surprising, given that much of the discussion has taken place within the framework of analyzing the legitimacy of the state and the basis upon which incumbents can command the peaceful conformity of the country’s citizens to its laws and institutions. This discussion partly masks the fact that it frequently conflates two different ideas by using the term “the sources of legitimacy” rather loosely to mean both those entities conferring the right to act and be obeyed, but also the grounds on which that right is granted. This creates confusion between those granting legitimacy and the basis upon which that grant is made. One can see this distinction clearly in Max Weber’s work on legitimacy written over a century ago, where he suggested that there were three distinct bases for a state’s “legitimate” authority: 1 2 3

Rational legitimacy; Traditional legitimacy; Charismatic legitimacy.

By what right?  3 All three of these have been used to justify a relationship of authorized and approved leadership on the one hand and approval and obedience on the other, which was held to be the basis for a state’s long-term survival. This essential idea of a contractual basis between two groups of people is echoed in Kevin Clements’s recent definition of legitimacy, taking the idea beyond the framework of “state” legitimacy in a more general – and useful – direction: the formal and informal social and political contracts that govern relationships between the state and citizens, or between traditional or charismatic leaders and their followers. (2014, 13) Clements’ mention of “leaders and their followers” to some extent frees the concept from its “state and citizens” framework. It focuses attention on the central idea of a relationship between two entities, which does not have to mean a government and a political community. Looked at from this angle, an expanded version of legitimacy seems connected with someone’s approval and support. If a local community, – religious, ethnic, indigenous or simply geographical – regards another party as legitimate – whether this be the government or other organization – then it will support that entity, at least passively. From another angle, if a local peacebuilding community itself is regarded as legitimate, there must be some clear source of recognition and support from someone, somewhere – be it local and internal or external and regional, national, or international. One implication of this is that legitimacy should be viewed as a two-way street and is a conferred characteristic that involves at least two entities – the one conferring recognition, approval and support and the other receiving those notional “goods” and – presumably – providing something in return. There thus has to be an entity – a source – which confers the legitimacy and recipient on which the legitimacy is conferred – and which thus enjoys resultant benefits. A second implication is that there is always a need to follow up questions about who is conferring legitimacy on whom – and to what degree – with queries about the basis upon which such a relationship develops. Does it depend upon charisma, tradition, performance, divine sanction, or what? The third implication is that, in situations of protracted conflict, it is quite possible for rival parties, incumbents and insurgents, to enjoy legitimacy from different sources – for example, the urban population generally supports the incumbents, while rural and indigenous communities generally support the insurgents. Empirical evidence from such examples also suggests that levels of legitimacy can change over time, as degrees of support or approval from one source regarding one recipient can increase or diminish – or even disappear – as conflicting parties, over time, lose legitimacy in the eyes of a particular section of the population.1

Incumbent legitimacy: the state and state agencies Given the intellectual and practical dominance of the nation-state model of political organization, it seems reasonable to start by examining the basis for the

4  Christopher Mitchell legitimacy of the state itself and its linkage with the (more variable) legitimacy of state authorities – incumbents. After that, we will consider alternative sources of legitimacy for other recipients, either insurgents in arms or peacebuilders, local, regional, or international. Theories of state legitimacy How and why does the normative belief that the state itself should be obeyed actually arise, and what can bring about an erosion of that belief at a local or even a national level? Very roughly, there seem to be two broad theoretical approaches that seek to account for incumbents’ legitimacy – for the origins of the obligation that states and their governments expect from their citizens. The first might be termed the organic theory of the state which starts with the assumption that, in some almost mystical sense, the state represents “us” – the nation – and we are bound to the state and are part of it. It follows that the state can demand almost anything from us (loyalty, service, obedience, sacrifice) including even our lives. This conclusion arises from the idea that true freedom and happiness only arises for individuals when they are fulfilling their “proper” function within the state, in much the same way as the lungs are an essential part of the human organism with a specific function. This Orwellian view of the state can be seen most clearly in 1984, but it has a long history, as far back as some of the works of Plato and Aristotle. Nineteenthcentury philosophers tended to push the concept in the direction of “reality” and the idea that the legitimacy of the state existed independently from its members. Membership implied that they conferred legitimacy on the entity of which they were a part. The extreme example of such a view of the legitimate state can be seen in Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, and contemporary North Korea. The second and possibly more familiar approach is a contractual approach to the issue of state legitimacy, in which an implied contract between the state and its citizens exists. The state supplies certain things while the citizens supply loyalty, obedience, and service, thus legitimizing the state itself. If the contract is not fulfilled by the state, then the contract is clearly broken and “natural rights” permit disobedience, a transfer of loyalty, and, hence, a decline of legitimacy. As argued by Hobbes himself: The obligation of the subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long and no longer than the power lasts by which he is able to protect them. For the right men have by nature to protect themselves when none else can protect them can by no covenant be relinquished. (2012, Part 2 Chapter 21) Nowadays, it is hard to argue for the organic view of the state, given the number of cases where the state and the nation fail to coincide. Most modern states are multi-national, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-lingual. In

By what right?  5 what sense, for example, does the Sri Lankan state “represent” the Tamil minority? What loyalty – and legitimacy – can the indigenous Maya confer on the Peruvian state, or a Sunni majority feel towards a Syrian state dominated by an Alawite elite? Thus, we are left to focus on contract theories and to enquire about cases where the state fails to fulfill its side of the contract – even to the point of failing to safeguard citizen lives. Surely, in such circumstances, the state and the ruling incumbents must lose at least some legitimacy – but who do they lose it to – and how? A further implication of this “loss of legitimacy” problem must surely be that legitimacy needs to be viewed not as an either/or phenomenon. As Idler, Mouly, and Garrido argue in Chapter 3, legitimacy “cannot be reduced to a binary, such as ‘internal’ and ‘external’ legitimacy, because of intra-community variation.” Rather, the concept must be treated as something involving degrees, increasing or decreasing, depending upon circumstances.2 In other words, apart from being conferred, legitimacy is revealed as quantifiable. Hence, it appears acceptable to talk about degrees of legitimacy, however hard it might be to measure at any moment and in any practical sense. We return in later chapters to the question of how and to whom the state, incumbents, and others lose legitimacy and to the issue of governments, organizations, and communities achieving zero legitimacy after discussing another conundrum. This involves the whole issue of alternative sources, recipients, and bases of legitimacy, and how it can be possibly for one party to a conflict to have low legitimacy in the case of one source but a high level in the case of another. Incumbent legitimacy: internal versus external sources One problem of dealing with questions about the source of the state’s legitimacy is that, in many cases, one can observe the state and its ruling incumbents losing a great deal of their legitimacy within the confines of national boundaries – whole regions might be in popular revolt against the central government – and yet still managing to retain legitimacy as far as many outsiders from the surrounding, international community are concerned. In the contemporary case of the Syrian state, for example, state authorities seem to have completely lost legitimacy in the north and east of the country and among the Sunni majority community living there, but are still regarded as legitimate in the Alawite inhabited regions. As far as the international community is concerned some members have long regarded the Assad regime as totally lacking in legitimacy while others, such as Russia and Iran, continue to regard that regime as the legitimate government of the Syrian state. The armed opposition – from the Free Syrian Army to ISIS – are thus illegitimate rebels. Clearly, legitimacy is in the eye of the beholder. This is merely one of countless examples; it leads to an initial conclusion that there is an important distinction between two sources of legitimacy – that which is conferred internally within the socio-political entity itself, and that conferred externally from outsiders.

6  Christopher Mitchell As far as states and incumbents are concerned, their legitimacy is at least partly based on their recognition, acceptance and approval from other, states. This then confers on them a whole series of “rights” denied to other entities – ethnic communities, political organizations, brotherhoods, religious congregations, secessionist movements. These rights enable states – legitimately – to make agreements, police boundaries, establish military forces, become members of the UN and the IMF, or send teams to compete in the Olympics or the World Cup. This leads to the conclusion that “the state” (if not the incumbent government) is “legitimate” if it is accepted as a member of “the international community” of other states – although that still leaves open the question of the grounds for this happening.3 The source of a state’s external legitimacy mainly arises, in this case, from other states. If this is not forthcoming, then even the strongest local movement seeking legitimacy as a recognized, independent state will fail, a situation which forms the background to Chapter 11 on Somaliland by Mary Hope Schwoebel and Chapter 5 on the Kashmir conflict by Rajit Das. This discussion of the sources that can confer (or withhold) some degree of legitimacy on one particular recipient – in this case the state – leads to the conclusion that both ends of the relationship can vary.4 In other words, the source of the conferred – or withheld – legitimacy can vary, as can the recipient on which the legitimacy is conferred (a person, an organization, an institution, a community, a process). Incumbent governments can lose legitimacy very rapidly, especially in situations of protracted and violent conflicts and often find it very difficult to regain. Losing incumbent legitimacy In most examples of protracted and intractable conflicts, at least as far as some internal communities are concerned, governing incumbents have completely lost all legitimacy, even though the same communities may continue to regard the state itself as basically worthy of support. In other situations, even the state itself, irrespective of who governs it well or badly, is hardly regarded as legitimate. We must recall that in many situations of protracted conflict, for some people, the state never actually had any legitimacy. For indigenous peoples living in the remote peripheries of many countries, neither the state nor the insurgents did anything to represent them as a community. Both failed to provide any goods, either material or intellectual. Hence, any resultant conflict has seemed nothing to do with them. For some communities, the state has been fundamentally illegitimate to start with, as with the generations of Irish nationalists resisting British colonial rule over their country, or the Hereros struggling against German rule in South West Africa in the early 20th century. In still other cases, both the state and the incumbents may have originally possessed some level of legitimacy in the eyes of most of the population, but in many regions, its presence may have been minimal, so that no tangible benefits that might have maintained levels of approval and support were obvious to local communities. If the only state presence consists of the national police, tax collectors or agents arranging forced labor, the level

By what right? 7 of state legitimacy is unlikely to be high. If the state is unable to provide even the minimum service of protection, safety and security to local communities then legitimacy is likely to be non-existent. Chapter 3 by Idler, Mouly, and Garrido and Chapter 4 by Juan Masullo provide examples of local communities in peripheral regions of Colombia which have experienced something like these conditions. Theoretically, we are back to a situation in which the social contract no longer works, as one side is unable to fulfill its basic obligation by providing physical security. In reality, the situation is more complicated as “the state” is not a unitary actor. Hence, local people usually perceive the state through various – often very different – agencies that impact their lives. In protracted and intractable conflicts, many state agencies have failed to minimally fulfill their accepted basic functions of providing security. Frequently, state security agencies increase insecurity by turning on a section of the population and targeting them as insurgent supporters. The situation can become even more complicated when the national authorities seek to recruit local people to help fulfill the state’s security functions themselves by trying to raise local militias or defense forces.5 On the other hand, it does not seem impossible for other state agencies to retain a level of limited legitimacy, given that they continue to supply those “goods” which are regarded as properly the function of state agencies – education, medical services, fire prevention, infrastructure maintenance. When these continue to be provided, these agencies retain their legitimacy and can obtain obedience within the sphere related to their services. Some agencies of the state can thus retain a certain level of legitimacy in the eyes of local communities and these could be: • • •

Central government institutions acting regionally or locally – school services, medical and veterinary services, land registration offices, civil courts. Regional or local officials, such as mayors, regional governors, functional agencies, leaders of local political parties, church officials. Quasi-state actors who provide valued services in the name of the state (nonstate organizations or quangos, such as local branches of the Red Cross) and thus often retain a high level of circumscribed legitimacy in their own field of activity.

These are examples of a transfer of legitimacy from the central government – from state incumbents – to local bodies that might better represent the expectations and aspirations of local communities. Alternatively, legitimacy can be transferred from state agencies to organizations that undertake tasks and functions of which local communities approve. These can include local civil society organizations as examined by Landon Hancock in Chapter 2, religious institutions, ethnic brotherhoods, women’s or youth organizations, ad hoc grassroots councils, or international organizations of various types.6 Empirically, in many protracted intra-state conflicts, it can be very difficult to distinguish between state and non-state agencies, especially at regional or local levels. Furthermore, employing the label “civil society organizations” for the latter category

8  Christopher Mitchell is not much help. Returning to the early stages of the long drawn out civil war in Colombia, one comes across the example of the Communal Action Committees, (JACs) originally organized throughout the country by the National Front Government in order to involve grassroots communities in local development projects – building schools and clinics, low cost housing, water supply systems – without allowing them political power to rival formal, municipal authorities (Leech, 2011, 41–43). At this early stage of their history, the JACs were clearly carrying out incumbent strategies, although local projects may have arisen from grassroots aspirations, hence legitimizing the JACs. Equally clearly, they were not formally part of the central government structure. The same ambiguity arises in the case of government organized local watch committees, militias, or defense organizations. Returning to the issue of how incumbents and other state entities maintain or lose legitimacy, a key transfer process obviously involves anti-government organizations, whether using violence, civil disobedience, informal protests or what, in Chapter 4, Juan Masullo refers to as “oblique non-cooperation”. It seems likely that internal (and even external) legitimacy might come to be conferred on rival, non-state actors – rebels, secessionists, underground oppositions, governments in exile – especially those NSAs that operate on a set of principles that conform to local values and aspirations. This changes our focus to the potential legitimacy of a variety of oppositional non-state actors – unarmed as well as armed, non-violent as well as violent – and the likely sources from which their legitimacy might arise – quite apart from the ineptitude of incumbent governments.

Bases for the legitimacy of insurgent groups Whoever is claiming legitimacy from someone else, a central dilemma remains about the basis for that claim, although sometimes the claim alone is enough. As we noted at the very start of this chapter, those seeking legitimacy to carry out certain tasks or for having their decisions obeyed by others have to deal with the question: By what right do you require us to do what you desire? One answer, of course, arises from what we could term the “Rufio’s Scabbard” argument, but the sword usually manages to extract obedience only as long as the obey-er is within reach of the sword.7 This is certainly the case for state incumbents but it is equally true for insurgents claiming to inherit the state’s right to conformity from citizens or from “shadow” citizens (Idler et al., 2015). For armed insurgents, as well as for a whole range of other non-state institutions vying for some level of legitimacy, there seem to be two basic ways (apart from the threat of the sword) through which non-state actors normally claim legitimacy: 1

A functional or pragmatic base, derived from another’s unwillingness or inability to carry out what it is its recognized duty and the need for a substitute. 2 An ideological base, derived from some positive characteristic or shared quality which confers both the obligation and the right on someone or some institutions other than those of the state.

By what right? 9 The basis of pragmatic legitimacy The basic argument that underpins this assumption of legitimacy is initially a simple one. The incumbent authorities have failed to provide what is required by tradition, promise (written or spoken), obligation, agreement, law, or custom, and “we” have thus, by assuming this task, acquired the legitimacy to carry it out and hence to demand obedience and conformity This is illustrated in cases where traditional legal institutions in peripheral areas of many countries re-acquire local legitimacy in place of Western-style legal systems (courts, judges, formal legal representatives) because the latter have failed to deliver what local people regard as justice in any satisfactory manner.8 The most obvious contemporary example of this process is where the state loses a great deal of its accustomed legitimacy. It seems clearly to be the case that in the clear majority of examples of protracted, intractable conflicts, at least as far as some internal communities are concerned, the state has completely lost all its legitimacy. In the case of Syria, President Assad’s regime has lost legitimacy throughout most of the country and in the eyes of almost all Syria’s constituent communities, save for Assad’s own Alawites. Syrian political incumbents have thus resorted to the Rufio’s Scabbard strategy for retaining control of disputed areas of the country, while trying to maintain the minimal level of external legitimacy needed to stay in power. While there are many examples of non-state armed actors substituting for formal government agencies and deriving at least some degree of legitimacy from practical actions, it is also clearly the case that most insurgent actors claim legitimacy based on some ideological basis or other. It is seldom thought sufficient to argue for a high level of legitimacy – and hence support – merely because “we” are doing something that ought to be done by the state. It is true, as far as insurgent organizations are concerned, that many attempt to create or enhance their own legitimacy by arguing that the incumbents have completely lost their own legitimacy through some version of “state failure”. Equally, however, others often try to increase their legitimacy by what might be termed a “legitimacy from the past” process, claiming inheritance from some entity which existed in a highly regarded – legitimate – form at some, possibly mythical, time in the past. Thus, ISIL claims legitimacy based on notional connections to the Baghdad Caliphate, the PIRA claimed its legitimacy partly on the grounds that it was the current embodiment of historic and heroic national resistance to British colonial rule, and Serbs fighting in Kosovo in the 1990s claimed that their legitimacy arose – at least partially – from their forefathers who fought there against the Turks in the 14th century. Insurgents in a protracted intra-state conflict often claim that they and their struggle are legitimate because they represent justifiable aspirations of their religion, community, or nation that are currently being unjustifiably denied. Veronique Dudouet (2014, 92) makes a somewhat similar argument when she writes that many armed groups “proclaim themselves the rightful representatives of an oppressed community and often employ a vocabulary to legitimize their use of

10  Christopher Mitchell force as ‘defensive,’ ‘protective’ or supporting ‘resistance’ or ‘liberation.’ ” These claims are based on national self-determination, the prime example of a widely accepted principle. Alternative bases, as Dudouet (2014, 91) points out, involve principles from international humanitarian law or human rights norms. In this second case, legitimacy is often claimed – and sometimes gained – by arguing that the insurgent organization – and its actions – are wholly in conformity with some principle which is recognized globally and which insurgents have been trying to have recognized by their adversaries. In the case of the LTTE, the legitimacy of their struggle derived from the principle of national self-determination, while their incumbent adversaries relied upon the rival principles of territorial integrity and majority rule. In South Africa, the ANC fought apartheid based on a norm of citizen equality and also on the principle of majority rule. The ANC represented the aspirations of the disenfranchised black majority and this incontestable fact gave the organization its legitimacy in the eyes of South Africa’s majority, if not of most of the white minority. In sum, one can see that legitimacy assigned to armed insurgent groups can arise from a variety of very different bases: • • •

Substituting service lacking because of state incapacity (Functionality). Historical identities and connections (Identity). Principles or norms that are widely recognized and accepted (Ideology).

Whatever the basis of the support and approval claimed by an insurgent organization, another complicating factor arises from our previous argument that there many different sources from whence legitimacy may – or may not – arise. The state may lose a great deal of support amid the struggle but that does not necessarily mean that this support gets transferred to the insurgents. Some groups in the war-torn society may transfer their approval and obedience from incumbents to insurgents, but others may not. As we have already argued in the case of Syria, some communities may continue to confer legitimacy on the existing regime, others onto the Syrian state but not the present government, while still others transfer their sense of legitimacy and loyalty wholly to opposing armed groups and still others follow a “plague on both your houses” strategy, withdrawing approval and support from absolutely everyone. The complexities of this struggle for legitimacy can be illustrated by considering insurgent organizations that are the subject of later chapters. At this point we can glance at another non-state armed group – the insurgent movement the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) – and suggest a variety of sources for legitimacy that have played a part in the intra-state struggle for power in this case of Colombia. The FARC provides an interesting case study of the often limited opportunities for achieving legitimacy, especially international legitimacy, offered to insurgent organizations. More particularly, the case also shows how formal peacemaking opportunities can be largely dependent on the degree of legitimacy granted to the insurgents by the incumbent government of the state. As Sophie Haspelagh’s (2013) interesting study makes clear, between 1998 and 2002, the Colombian Government led by Andreas Pastrana afforded a

By what right? 11 great deal of “working” legitimacy to the insurgent organization, treating it as at least a legitimate representative of deprived and marginalized communities within the geographical peripheries of the country, as an organization with a set of legitimate if contested goals, and as a potential negotiating partner in the joint search for a solution to the complex and protracted conflicts within Colombia. The successor Government of Alvaro Uribe changed this completely, denying that the FARC were anything but a set of bandits and drug marketing criminals, and arguing that the only possible strategy was their defeat and ultimate surrender – even denying that there was anything resembling a “conflict” within Colombia, merely extensive “banditry”. After major efforts, the Colombian Government even managed to have the FARC placed on the various lists of “terrorist” organizations, especially those put together by the US and the European Union, compiled as a response to the Al Qaeda attacks on the US in September 2001. The success of this removal of even limited legitimacy resulted in a related withdrawal of external legitimacy, as other governments followed the lead from Bogota and withdrew any level of previous legitimacy for FARC, characterizing the insurgents as wholly illegitimate “terrorists”. Within a “legitimacy framework”, the FARC had moved in just over a year from a position of having some degree of legitimacy as a political player, recognized as such by the international community, to being simply a (wholly illegitimate) terrorist organization engaged in crime and drug smuggling. The central implication of the above discussion has to be that one must make clear which of the possible sources of legitimacy one means when asking how legitimate any party directly involved in a conflict might be: Legitimate in whose eyes?9 Possible answers range – as we have seen – from members of “the international community” (or some parts of it) to the adversaries themselves and to the groups and grassroots communities making up “public opinion”, the citizenry or “the street”. To summarize thus far: Our argument has arrived at the point where we have distinguished between three major types of recipients likely to enjoy differing degrees of legitimacy over time – the state, the ruling incumbents, and the challenging insurgents. We have also reviewed three important sources that can confer different levels of legitimacy: 1 2 3

the domestic political community at large, or some significant part thereof (domestic legitimacy) the adversary’s adversary (adversary legitimacy), and the international community of states and state organizations (external/international legitimacy.10

We have also distinguished various bases for the possession of recognizable levels of legitimacy being conferred. 1 Functional – because of the successful performance of tasks and services which are expected or the taking over of these tasks following the failure of those normally deemed responsible for such performance.

12  Christopher Mitchell 2 3

Ideological – because of the organization’s espousal of particular values, principles, or ideological positions based up recognizable norms shared by the source. Historical and emotional identification – because there are strong emotional bonds between the organization/institution/entity and the source conferring the sense of legitimacy. “They are us and this identity demands that we support and approve of them and their actions.”11

The legitimacy of non-state actors, peacebuilders, and others Building on ideas discussed earlier, we need to include at least two further categories of actors that commonly seek some form of legitimacy in situations of violent, intractable conflicts: non-state actors who are not aligned in the violent struggle but who seek a certain level of – perhaps local – peace; and outsiders who become involved in the struggle, either as partisan supporters or as organizations seeking to mitigate some of the effects of the protracted violence. Using such a framework to classify relevant actors in protracted conflicts, our final question inevitably presents itself as to how non-state, non-violent actors, such as local, regional, unofficial peacemakers and peacebuilders, or external actors, such as protective accompaniers, come to be deemed to be “legitimate”, by whom, and on what grounds? Empirically, it seems clearly to be the case that neither incumbent nor insurgent officials are very willing to grant any degree of legitimacy to non-partisan, domestic actors trying to make or maintain any form of neutrality, non-violence and peace, however limited or temporary. In the eyes of both combatant parties, efforts to remain neutral are totally illegitimate and to be discouraged or undermined. In Colombia between 2002 and 2010, efforts by local leaders to create local peace were stigmatized by the central government and viewed as undermining state strategies. Efforts by local communities to have all combatants, including state security forces obey the rules of International Table 1.1  Syria: diverse sources of legitimacy  

Recipient

 

Syrian State

 

Legitimate

Illegitimate

Legitimate

Illegitimate

Internal Sources       External Sources      

Alawites Sunnis Free Syrian Army N.C.S.R.O Existing State Governments   IGOs (UN etc.)

Kurds ISIL Jabhal al nusra   PPK      

Alawites Ba’athists     Russia Iran    

Sunnis Free Syrian Army ISIL etc.   US Saudi Arabia EU Turkey

Assad Regime

By what right?  13 Humanitarian Law were viewed as illegitimate and one-sided efforts to aid the enemy. Even when a new set of incumbents under President Santos came to power in Bogota in 2010, it remained difficult to argue that grassroots approval of, and support for local or regional peacebuilding efforts conferred any degree of national level legitimacy on these initiatives, either from incumbent or insurgent sources. Local legitimacy from national or international sources Paradoxically, for local peacebuiders, one major source of legitimacy for their efforts can arise internationally and strong support for their efforts to create local peace and development can come from sympathetic outsiders. This form of legitimacy can arise from the fact that local, grassroots peacebuilding organizations: •

•

•

Are seen as part of an “organic” entity that includes outside groups, communities, and organizations that – because of some strong and shared religious, ethnic, or historical identity – see themselves as part of the local community under threat from the violence and destruction of the conflict. Diasporas can feel such a powerful sense of identity with their fellows facing displacement and violence “back home” that questions about legitimacy simply do not arise. Approval, support, and action, in the form of resources, relief supplies, visits, publicity, and agitation, will result and these will often extend as far as local efforts to maintain peace. Similarly, religious relief organizations will feel that it is quite legitimate to aid, support, and fund co-religionist groups working for peace and security in a war-torn society. Many local peacebuilding organizations that have active women’s leadership are natural recipients of support from international women’s organizations. Identity parallels are crucial in this regard. Appear to represent values and ideologies that are shared by outside governments and international organizations and thus, being intellectually linked to outside members of this value network, are legitimate and deserving of support. Much of the sense of legitimacy surrounding many of the local peace communities in Colombia came from their espousal of a form of direct democracy that made them attractive and legitimate to political leaders from European social democratic governments, such as those of Sweden, Switzerland, and Holland. Peace communities are axiomatically legitimate in the eyes of IGOs and INGOs devoted to the promotion of peace and justice. Local organizations seeking to increase security and safety for local people are seen as legitimate objects of support from protective accompaniment organizations such as Christian Peace Teams or Peace Brigades International. Local aims, objectives, and ideologies can result in the conferring of legitimacy from outsiders. Seem to be fulfilling activities that, in more peaceful times, are the responsibility of the state and the government but which, because of the existence of the protracted conflict, are not being fulfilled for local communities so have

14  Christopher Mitchell to be carried out by them. In many cases, local peacebuilding organizations have taken over development tasks; local governance processes; education and youth development; and local law and order issues, such as alcohol abuse and domestic violence. This last, functional or pragmatic basis for the external, international legitimacy for local peace communities may not, of course, work to the same effect with agencies of the state nor with the insurgents striving to take over the state apparatus. In the latter case, insurgents often attempt to set up an alternative governance network in regions that they have been able to take over, attempting to gain at least functional legitimacy from the local population through the provision of an alternative health, education, and governance network.12 In regions where control is in dispute, insurgents are often willing to support local peacebuilding communities and their activities as an indirect means of undermining government legitimacy in the region. For the incumbents, any type of legitimacy conferred on local communities and their leaders, whether in pursuit of peace, democracy or development, is usually viewed as usurping the legitimacy of the government and its elected representatives (Mitchell and Rojas, 2012). As such, these activities are discouraged, if not banned outright. Incumbent reaction is particularly fierce when actual negotiation with local insurgents on the conditions for ending violence, even temporarily, is undertaken. This reaction helps to explain government policies to prevent any international legitimacy being conferred on local communities, often insisting that outside resources are channeled through central government agencies and directed to organizations and communities that are not in the business of usurping government functions or supporting the insurgents. Local legitimacy from local sources It is reasonable to assume that local peacebuilders start with the advantage that they are, indeed, local. They are, at least in the eyes of the local community, “one of us”; unless, of course, the local community is significantly divided along lines of ideology, ethnicity, religion, or class. This argument breaks down if one starts to think about “local” as including organizations that are likely to support grassroots peacebuilding efforts that are, themselves, more widely based than grassroots peace communities but can and do offer a great deal of support and approval – legitimacy – to the latter. Again, to take a Colombian example, organizations such as REDEPAZ, REDPRODEPAZ, or JUSTAPAZ can confer a great deal of legitimacy on grassroots Colombian peace communities, while themselves operating on a regional or national level. If we simply concentrate on the level of legitimacy conferred (or withheld) by grassroots constituents, the question still arises about the bases of such legitimacy. On what grounds do the leaders of local peacebuilding communities request and receive support and approval from their potential followers, apart from the fact

By what right?  15 that the peacebuilders themselves are emotionally identified as part of the local community and organically as members of that entity? As detailed above, there appear to be two further bases for local legitimacy beyond the argument based on peacebuilders’ identity with the community. These two – ideological and pragmatic – have been discussed by Sofia Sabrow (2017) as alternative versions of what she terms “empirical” legitimacy. In the first of these – ideological legitimacy – there is an identity of interests and aspirations between the leading peacebuilders and the grassroots community they seek to lead. Legitimacy is conferred by the latter on the former because they are seen to be striving for certain shared core values, whereas other leaders aim for something else, not necessarily shared by the threatened community. The competition for legitimacy, thus, becomes transferred to the local level and the situation frequently arises in which the grassroots community can become split along ideological lines or around the pragmatic issue of who is likely to be able to deliver what many of the community want. From 1998–2006 in Colombia, one can find numerous examples of local communities transferring approval, support, and legitimacy from one set of official decision makers (the alcalde and local officials) to unofficial, popular leaders. The latter were trying to establish a peace community and negotiate some arrangement with the local insurgents while facing opposition from not just the regional or national government but also from the traditional leadership of the departamento and their supporters. In such struggles over local legitimacy, the outcome was frequently decided according to the third criterion which we discussed above. Which of the competing sub-communities could base its claim for legitimacy on its success in carrying out the tasks of governance normally fulfilled by the state through the official hierarchy of local leadership? In situations where the violent struggle had interrupted one side’s ability to fulfill the social contract, even to the point where it was unable to supply reliable safety and security for the local community, were peace community leaders able to supply this much desired good? Given the normal circumstances of a continuing violent and protracted conflict, this seems unlikely, but what is likely is that competition can develop between rival local leaderships about who can fulfill, at least partially, some of the essential functions of “the state” and thus either retain or lose legitimacy from the local community. The key question becomes whether the peace community and its leaders can fulfill key functions of the state, such as:   1 Keeping the peace (which can involve negotiating with insurgents).   2 Providing security (from deliberate violence, direct threats, damage to property, etc.).   3 Maintaining safety (making people safe from the unintended results of combat).   4 Dealing with local crime.   5 Providing an appropriate means of settling disputes.   6 Controlling disease and providing basic health care.

16  Christopher Mitchell   7   8   9 10

Safeguarding property. Providing appropriate education. Assisting in economic development. Protecting the environment.

If local peace communities can manage to fulfil a majority of these functions on a local level, it seems appropriate to expect that the level of pragmatic legitimacy conferred on this organization will be relatively high, compared with the representatives of the state – the incumbents – or the insurgents. Such peacebuilders will derive legitimacy from at least two and possibly three bases – the pragmatic or functional, the representational/emotional/identity, and the ideological. Add to this the possibility of international legitimacy being transferred from an international court, an outside government, or a regional development agency working with local leaders, and such a local peace community will have acquired a high level of legitimacy from these sources. This may even lead to a similar level being conferred by the national leaders or by the leadership of the insurgents.

Conclusion Having undertaken this survey of the nature and usages of the term legitimacy in situations of protracted, intra-state conflict, what – in general – can we say about commonalities derived from such a wide variety of meanings that have been assigned to the term and the various ways in which it has been conventionally deployed? Firstly, the term implies that at least two entities are involved in legitimacy as a relationship. One confers (or withholds) the quality of legitimacy on the other, so that a source and a recipient are always involved. The conferring of legitimacy on the recipient enables that entity to require approval and support for its behavior and some conformity with its requirements from the source. The degree of legitimacy involved in the relationship can vary over time, and, if the source begins by conferring a high degree of legitimacy on the recipient, this can always diminish or increase over time, depending both on the actions of the recipient and possibly changing evaluations by the source. Secondly, the basis for the relationship can vary depending upon circumstances and the environment within which the relationship exists. We have identified three basic types of legitimacy that seem relevant in situations of protracted conflict; 1 2 3

Identity-based legitimacy, arising from the affinity of the source and the recipient which produces a sense of identity as a basis for a feeling of “affinity” or “representativeness”. Ideologically based legitimacy, arising from a sense of shared values and aspirations. Pragmatically or functionally based legitimacy, arising from a sense that the terms of some – often notional – contractual relationship have been fulfilled by the recipient.

By what right? 17 Thirdly, our discussion of the way in which incumbents, insurgents and others can gain or lose legitimacy in any protracted struggle has more than hinted at the fact that there are clearly differing degrees of legitimacy that some sources can confer on, or withhold from recipients, ranging from an outright sense of illegitimacy to lukewarm levels of support and approval to a very high degree of support and, hence, legitimacy. Combining these three aspects of (frequently changing) legitimacy relationships we can conclude with a simple framework for starting to think about levels of legitimacy in the real world of protracted intra-state conflicts and the entities acting in the world: • • •

Sources: international, national, or local. Bases: identity based, ideological, or pragmatic. Degrees: negative, zero, low, or high.

Lastly, although we have not discussed this directly, the whole idea of a competition for legitimacy in cases of intractable conflict implies that it is quite normal in such situations to confront the conundrum of contested legitimacy. This is quite unlike “classical” cases where legitimacy is unambiguously focused on the state and its government. In situations of protracted conflict, legitimacy is usually divided or fragmented among competing recipients, political incumbents being merely one among several aspirants. Fragmented legitimacy can thus result in some of those involved in the conflict being regarded as wholly legitimate by some sources, while others confer legitimacy on completely different individuals or organizations. It is obvious that no simple framework can hope to deal with all the differences and nuances that arise from “a legitimacy approach”. Some, however, may serve as a basis on which insights might be drawn regarding the legitimacy enjoyed by some groups, organizations, and communities involved in a protracted intra-state conflict. They can at least remind us that some of those involved in protracted conflicts can enjoy high levels of legitimacy from some sources but almost complete illegitimacy from others. Lastly, they can be used as a reminder about the dynamics of legitimacy and that the loss of legitimacy from even one source can have profound and dangerous consequences for the fortunes of the group, institution, or community engaged in the conflict.

Notes 1 In situations of protracted, intra-state conflict, lost legitimacy is usually seen most obviously in cases where the incumbents have lost approval, support and any sense of obligation in the eyes of at least some of the general population, or where the opposition – the armed insurgents – appear to be gaining legitimacy, at least relative to their adversaries. 2 It might be helpful to envisage a continuum of legitimacy/illegitimacy along which various parties/actors can be placed according to the level of legitimacy they enjoy from various sources.

18  Christopher Mitchell 3 Historically, some socio-political entities have succeeded as new members of this “community” – Bangladesh or Eritrea, for example, but consider the situation of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus or of Tamil Elam. 4 Another implication is that the level of legitimacy granted by one group to another can also vary over time – a government enjoys a very high degree of legitimacy might thus diminish markedly as a result of inept domestic performance or external blunders. 5 For instance, President Uribe’s strategy of “Democratic Security” in Colombia - and other similar forces in places such as the Philippines or Peru (cf. Mitchell and Rojas 2012). 6 Transfer of legitimacy can involve other institutions or groups – for example, respected religious organizations conferring legitimacy on local peace communities, such as Las Mercedes. 7 During a dramatic confrontation in Bernard Shaw’s play, Caesar and Cleopatra, an Eyptian official asks by what right Caesar is issuing instructions to Cleopatra’s court. Caesar replies that “the right” is in his lieutenant – Rufio’s – scabbard – and that he may not be able to keep it there much longer. 8 Although one should also note that such traditional courts and processes have actually acquired once more the positive rights and obligations that they used to have before central governments tried to replace them (Chopra 2009). 9 Such a question becomes even more important when one is asking it about “criminal” organizations that have become key actors – or important spoilers – in protracted conflicts. Ignoring the many cases where incumbents try to label adversaries as criminals or terrorists, in other situations, many groups and institutions are clearly law breakers and thus highly illegitimate in the eyes of the international community, the national government, and the public – drug producers and traders in Colombia and Mexico, the Commorra in Italy, youth gangs in El Salvador and Barbados, and Robin Hood and his merry men in 13th-century England. 10 Also, there must exist a level of internal legitimacy involving the members of the institution in question – the governing regime or its rival, the guerrilla organization. In thinking about this, it might be helpful to divide the organization’s supporters into four basic categories: Activists, who undertake actual operations; Supporters, who provide logistical back-up – shelter, supplies, intelligence, communications; Sympathizers, who look favorably on the organization and who provide occasional help and will not aid the incumbents; and Bystanders or Onlookers, who remain indifferent or neutral, decline to take sides or offer any assistance to anyone involved in the conflict. The level of legitimacy for any NSAG can theoretically be gauged according to the proportions of the population in each category. 11 It is relatively easy to see how this framework can be applied to rival parties struggling in an intra-state, protracted conflict, each striving to deny any form of legitimacy to the other. In the case of adversary legitimacy, in the protracted and increasingly violent conflict in Sri Lanka between 1973 and 2009, it was clearly the case that the incumbent government in Colombo and LTTE insurgents axiomatically tried to deny any form of legitimacy to one another. In the case of internal legitimacy, this was often denied and demonstrated by break away groupings from within both entities – extreme Sinhala nationalists of the JVP in the case of the Colombo government and different rivals to the LTTE among the Tamil community, such as the TULF. 12 It is also the case that another incumbent function that insurgents try to take over is often the rather more unpopular one of collecting taxes to finance their operations, armed and unarmed. The nature of such “revolutionary taxes” has taken a variety of forms, In Burundi, the Hutu based CNDD-FDD required people in the refugee camps in Tanzania to contribute cattle or a kilo of maize or beans per family from the food supplied by international donors. The insurgents also increased the organization’s income via the ransoming of vehicles taken along the country’s trunk roads.

By what right? 19

Works cited Chopra, T., 2009. When Peacebuilding Contradicts Statebuilding: Notes from the Arid Lands of Kenya. International Peacekeeping, 16, 531–545. Clements, K.P., 2014. What Is Legitimacy and Why Does It Matter for Peace? In A. Ramsbotham & A. Wennman (eds.) Legitimacy and Peace Processes: From Coercion to Consent. London: Conciliation Resources, 13–16. Dudouet, V., (ed.) 2014. Civil Resistance and Conflict Transformation: Transitions From Armed to Nonviolent Struggle. Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge. Ehrlich, Eugene, 1980. Oxford American dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press. Haspeslagh, S., 2013. “Listing Terrorists”: The Impact of Proscription on Third-Party Efforts to Engage Armed Groups in Peace Processes – A Practitioner’s Perspective. Critical Studies on Terrorism, 6, 189–208. Hobbes, T., 2012. Leviathan, 1st ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Idler, A., Garrido, M.B.  & Mouly, C., 2015. Peace Territories in Colombia: Comparing Civil Resistance in Two War-Torn Communities. Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 10, 1–15. Leech, G.M., 2011. The FARC: The Longest Insurgency. Halifax, London, New York, Fernwood: Zed Books Ltd; Distributed in the USA exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan. McCandless, E., 2014. Non-State Actors and Competing Sources of Legitimacy in Conflict-Affected Settings [online]. Alliance for Peacebuilding. Available from: http:// buildingpeaceforum.com/2014/09/non-state-actors-and-competing-sources-of-legitimacyin-conflict-affected-settings/ [Accessed 15 November 2015]. McCandless, E., Abitbol, E. & Donais, T., 2015. Vertical Integration: A Dynamic Practice Promoting Transformative Peacebuilding. Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 10, 1–9. Mitchell, C.R. & Rojas, C., 2012. Against the Stream: Colombian Zones of Peace Under Democratic Security. In C.R. Mitchell & L.E. Hancock (eds.) Local Peacebuilding and National Peace: Interaction Between Grassroots and Elite Processes. London: New York: Continuum, 39–67. Ramsbotham, A.  & Wennman, A., (eds.) 2014. Legitimacy and Peace Processes: From Coercion to Consent. London: Conciliation Resources. Sabrow, S., 2017. Local Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Peace Operations by the UN, Regional Organizations and Individual States – A Case Study of the Mali Conflict. International Peacekeeping, 24, 159–186. Schaar, John H., 1981. Legitimacy in the Modern State. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

2 Legitimate agents of peacebuilding Landon E. HancockLegitimate agents of peacebuilding

Deliberative governance in zones of peace Landon E. Hancock Failures of the liberal peace For more than 20 years, peacebuilding has been bifurcated into the dominant liberal peacebuilding paradigm and various communitarian approaches. The former focuses on norms of good governance while that latter stresses local traditions and culture (Donais, 2012, 5). Of the two versions, it is the liberal one that has dominated peacebuilding practice, despite the many criticisms aimed at it. At the heart of liberal peacebuilding is the issue of local ownership, and whether different kinds to local ownership contribute to the legitimacy of any particular peacebuilding effort. Many who criticize liberal peacebuilding lament the disconnect between the international and the local, arguing that either internationals are wrongheaded to pursue top-down policies that require local acquiescence or that locals need to find ways other than resistance to exert their agency (cf. Mac Ginty, 2010; Richmond, 2010; Donais, 2012). Elsewhere, I have examined local ownership as local agency and have argued that agency is a basic human need that must be satisfied in order to meet the psychosocial needs of human beings and their communities (Hancock, 2017). Here, I am exploring how agency is generated by some models of peacebuilding practice, and whether this agency translates into perceptions of legitimacy by both the communities affected by peacebuilding projects and by external agencies such as states, funders, and international organizations. I argue that peacebuilding models characterized by the tenets of deliberative democracy will generate high levels of local agency and legitimacy. In the end, these models will be more successful than those characterized by divisions between those who design peacebuilding efforts and their supposed beneficiaries. To test this proposition, I have constructed a model to examine peacebuilding governance and will apply that model to what is currently known about governance of various Zones of Peace (ZoPs) in three locations: Colombia, the Philippines, and El Salvador. I begin by exploring notions of local ownership and local agency to clearly define the terms. Then I address the literature on deliberative democracy, procedural justice and accountability to build my model of deliberative governance. Following this, I examine several ZoPs to ascertain the extent to which elements of governance have contributed to local agency and legitimacy.

Legitimate agents of peacebuilding 21

Local ownership: problem or panacea? Local ownership has become one of the latest buzzwords in the peacebuilding lexicon. Research conducted by Donais (2012, 2015b), Hansen and Wiharta (2007), Jarstad and Olsson (2012), Lee and Özerdem (2015), Nathan (2007), Reich (2006), Richmond (2012), and von Billerbeck (2015) all point to the salience of the term and the need to more fully understand and clearly define what we mean by it. I argue that because its definition is somewhat slippery, representing everything from a turn-key operation to full control over design and implementation, ownership might better be replaced with agency. Definitions of local ownership When thinking about the definition of local ownership it is useful to break it apart. Local has been focused on either local elites and the national government or civil society organizations (CSOs) at the community level. The problems described with delegating ownership to the former include potential problems of corruption, a lack of capacity or an over-focus on state-building over the welfare of the people (cf. Reich, 2006; Papagianni, 2008; Mac Ginty, 2011; Richmond, 2011; Donais, 2012; Mackenzie-Smith, 2015). One critique comes from Özerdem and Lee (2015, 5), who note that “[p]olitical elites and community leaders tend to utilise local ownership . . . to protect their own interests” rather than looking out for the interest of their communities. Problems associated with CSOs range from the same over-application of the liberal peace that national elites may suffer from to complaints that such an overfocus creates parallel service provision and governance structures that undercut the legitimacy of the state and its capability to fill those roles (cf. Reich, 2006; Papagianni, 2008; Mac Ginty, 2011; Donais, 2012; Özerdem and Lee, 2015). Mac Ginty (2008) warns against romanticizing local peacemaking, arguing that they can reify local power structures, reinforce the dynamics that led to the conflict itself, and perpetuate the isolation of low-power groups who have often been left out of traditional decision-making structures. Turning to ownership, we find that it has been viewed as either maximalist or minimalist from the perspective of the international community. In the maximalist approach, the international community is essentially reduced to providing resources, with little control or oversight into how well or how poorly those resources are used. The minimalist approach more closely resembles the current state of the liberal peace, wherein locals are expected to accept and implement internationally designed initiatives, owning them only to the extent that they voluntarily carry them out (Donais, 2012, 4). What many of these definitions of local ownership fail to discuss is the role of power in determining what ownership means, who has it, and how freely it may be exercised. In one of the more cogent analyses of the concept, Richmond (2012) notes that the current international conception of local ownership is really better defined as local participation. He shows us that actual ownership requires

22  Landon E. Hancock the ability of locals to be able to choose the institutional formats that they will use to govern themselves. By promoting western ideals – which are often seen as universal – international peacebuilders necessarily limit local choice in forms, institutions, and cultural practices, thus undermining local ownership. Ownership vs. agency: charting the difference If it seems that local ownership is more of a buzzword than a useful concept for peacebuilding, then perhaps it is time to jettison the idea of ownership and focus on agency instead. Agency has a much clearer connection to the idea of power, most particularly with its sociological definition as “the power of actors to operate independently of the determining constraints of social structure” (Jary and Jary, 1991, 9). This stems from Giddens’s idea that “the notion of human action logically implies that of power” in that action can only take place “when an agent has the capability . . . to potentially influence their course” of action (1978, 219). Agency is much more tied to the notion of having the power to act and set goals that is at least partially independent of constraining factors, such as funders’ wishes or the constraints of the international peacebuilding community. Elsewhere, I  argue that agency represents a basic human need and thus is something that individuals will struggle to obtain and exercise (Hancock, 2017). Human beings have sets of needs that fall under two broad categories, physical/ physiological and psychosocial, or those having to do with the well-being of our bodies and those having to do with our psychological well-being and connection to others. Contrary to Maslow’s (1962) original pyramid of needs, many now admit that psychosocial needs can be more important than physical or physiological needs. Given that most liberal peacebuilding efforts are geared towards creating institutions to provide services that meet physical needs, one could argue that liberal peacebuilding efforts, with their minimalist interpretations of local ownership deny the agency of local populations. When viewed through the lens of basic needs theory, which argues that needs cannot be denied without a struggle, it is unsurprising that hybrid outcomes would be the norm and not the exception. The logical outcome of this argument is that because local agency is seen as a need rather than as merely an ethical or pragmatic good, peacebuilding efforts that wish to engender more than partial success need to approach local ownership as a more maximalist rather than minimalist proposition. This does not obviate the necessity of addressing criticisms aimed at maximalist approaches to local ownership detailed above. In order to allow the maximalist models of local ownership necessary to engender local agency, different forms of governance need to be developed or found. These forms need to be able to address locals’ needs for agency while ensuring that resources are not lost to corruption and that the problems that led to the conflict in the first place are not replicated through a blind insistence that local traditions need to be followed. They need to be based on principles that require local agency, encourage transparency in decision-making and the accountability of those making the decisions to both funders and the

Legitimate agents of peacebuilding  23 constituents who are supposed to benefit from the peacebuilding process. To address this, we next explore the role that deliberation can play in promoting positive peacebuilding.

Questions of deliberative governance One of the things that characterizes conflict resolution as a field is the discovery of common problems, processes, and connections between different parts of the discipline. In order to help address the problems associated with fomenting local agency, we turn to public conflict resolution, a field that has its roots in democratic processes and community activism and has been responsible for a number of practical advances in encouraging public participation in community problem solving. These practices include the birth to the United States’ alternative dispute resolution (ADR) movement, which sought to empower community members to resolve their own disputes and provide resources to build community capacity and development (Laue and Cormick, 1978; Hedeen, 2004). They also include the incorporation of public deliberation processes into governmental regulatory processes, which began by requiring public comment periods and escalated with federal ADR acts focusing on negotiated rulemaking and administrative dispute resolution in 1990 (Dukes, 1996, 16). These two movements come together in what Leighninger calls democratic governance, a movement in US politics that has resulted in several practices that tend to engender local agency. We will examine these practices and follow up with an exploration of the theoretical understandings of procedural justice and accountability to show how and why democratic governance works. The culminating section will model how I believe that the tenets of democratic governance can be used in peacebuilding to engender both local agency and accountability, leading to productive peacebuilding programs that can meet the needs of local communities while addressing the concerns of the international community and northern funders. Practices of democratic governance Leighninger defines democratic governance as “the art of governing communities in participatory, deliberative, and collaborative ways” and argues that the most successful uses of democratic governance involve the application of four principles: 1 2 3

Recruiting people through local community contacts to reach a critical mass of participants Involving participants in a variety of small and large group meetings to facilitate informed, deliberative dialog and then move to amplifying shared conclusions and moving to action Giving participants the opportunity to compare values and experiences and to consider a range of views and policy options

24  Landon E. Hancock 4 Effecting agreed-upon changes through a variety of means and creating opportunities for participants to actively engage with some or all of these activities (Leighninger, 2006, 3). The desire for a critical mass comes from the need to make sufficient progress on the problems at hand. With social problems in the US like racism, a lack of public volunteerism, or a lack of trust between citizens and the government, “large numbers of people”, including “many different kinds of people”, needed to participate in the discussions (Leighninger, 2006, 4). This not only makes sure that all voices are heard, but also generates support for planned actions and tends to dissipate opposition, since everyone has the opportunity to have their voices heard. The need for different kinds of meetings reflected the fact that some kinds of analyses and idea-generation sessions are more functional when engaged in by smaller numbers of individuals, while recognizing that any decisions that flowed from these discussions needed to have the input and approval of the larger group. Processes like study circles, sustained dialogues, and world cafés are all designed to facilitate the integration of small-group discussions with larger reflective decision-making bodies, to generate maximum input from the affected community, and to result in the highest level of support possible for potential solutions (Saunders, 1999; Scully and McCoy, 2005; Carson, 2011). Many domestic issues have all been addressed through these kinds of public processes involving both small and large groups. However, there is currently little evidence that these kinds of practices have been used in the realm of peacebuilding. This type of organized participation not only allows the people involved to share their differing experiences and values with each other, but it provides a non-threatening venue within which the participants can propose, discuss and vet different solutions to the problems at hand. Leighninger (2006, 9) notes that democratic governance is a new approach addressing an old need, indicating that “if you want to mobilize citizens, you have to make them feel that they are part of something larger than themselves” that they “needed to know that their smallgroup discussion would be . . . part of a community capable of solving its own problems.” Current analyses of public participation and democratic governance have tended to focus largely on its practice, with only passing reference to the theoretical underpinnings to tell us why these kinds of processes are necessary or what makes them work. The closest that some have come to this is in the early works by Laue and his colleagues, which has tended to focus on the ethics involved in community conflict resolution. One thing that Laue noted is the need to understand that community disputes are about power relations and that ethical interventions need to address the imbalance of power that often leads to the initiation of these kinds of conflicts. In addressing power, Laue and Cormick (1978, 218) argue that human beings are, among other things, “decision-making creatures who seek meaning,” and that intervention processes should honor this basic nature and treat the individuals involved as “ends in themselves” rather than as means to some other end.

Legitimate agents of peacebuilding  25 Procedural justice and accountability Research in procedural justice shows that people are often more concerned with their perceptions of treatment than with achieving specific outcomes; at times being willing to accept less preferred outcomes if they feel that the process for reaching those outcomes has been fair (Tyler, 2000). Procedural justice ties into elements of agency as well. Thibaut and Walker (1975) note that procedural justice is characterized by the extent to which individuals feel that they have an impact over legal processes – especially noting the extent to which they are free to present evidence or tell their stories. Tom Tyler argues that there are four elements of procedural justice that can be measured: the neutrality of the forum, the trustworthiness of the authorities, being treated with dignity and respect, and the opportunity for participation or voice (Tyler, 2000). Neutrality of the forum represents the extent to which those in charge act with honesty, impartiality, and objectivity. Trustworthiness of the authorities measures whether those in charge are “benevolent and caring” and try to do what is right and fair (Tyler, 2000, 122). Treatment with dignity and respect measures the extent to which community members feel that they are socially recognized and acknowledged while opportunity for voice measures the extent to which community members feel that they are allowed to participate “by presenting their suggestions about what they feel should be done” (Tyler, 2000, 121). Another important element of democratic governance is accountability, which has deep roots in the fields of peacebuilding and development. Overall, there appear to be three main kinds of accountability. The first is accountability up, or the accountability of peacebuilders and development specialists to the international community, or more accurately, to their funders. There are widespread complaints that this kind of accountability tends to distance peacebuilders from those who are supposed to benefit from their work and contributes to the perception that international peacebuilding is often more about the international community’s goals than the needs of local populations (Caplan, 2005; Paffenholz, 2010; Richmond, 2011; Donais, 2015b). Accountability down is used when local communities or constituents hold governmental or other institutional leaders accountable for the performance of their projects. In Western democracies, elections and public reports are held to be the most visible form of accountability down. In peacebuilding and development, some argue that communal accountability mechanisms are highly functional, having “proved successful in countering corruption”, with “a good track record in postwar countries” (Galtung and Tisné, 2009, 102). Accountability down is seen as an antidote to the problems associated with both accountability-up-only mechanisms as well as a good way to address corrupt practices. Galtung and Tisné (2009, 103) argue that accountability down structures enable “the local population to act as accountability agents for more than just the projects they are directly responsible for implementing,” noting that communities “may hold to account any institution that plays a role in the allocation and impact of public resources at the local level.”

26  Landon E. Hancock A more hybrid form of accountability is known as horizontal or mutual accountability. Here, the accountability-down mechanisms are often less formal, largely listening mechanisms that allow both institutional leaders and international funders to hear directly from affected communities as to the successes and failures of individual projects (Pinnington, 2014, 80). Accountability and agency are related in the sense that when locals have the wherewithal to hold their institutions and leaders accountable, they appear to have an increased sense of agency and are more willing to exercise it. In Guinea, agency was an important factor in the success of a USAID-funded project designed to address issue of local government legitimacy by nurturing “the emergence of a mutual accountability system”, with individuals choosing to act upon the opportunities for agency created by the project, often becoming catalysts for collective action (Arandel et al., 2015, 999). Accountability and procedural justice combine to help determine the legitimacy of institutional structures. It is worth noting that the first two measurements of procedural justice speak to issues of accountability of institutions or community leaders towards members of the community. Neutrality of the forum and trustworthiness of the authorities can both be measured in terms of accountability. In addition, the fourth tenet of procedural justice, having the opportunity for voice, correlates with the need for agency and the ability of community members to press for, and receive, accountability from institutions and leaders. Being treated with dignity and respect by institutions and leaders may not directly correlate to either accountability or agency, but one could easily argue that without such treatment, the legitimacy of any peacebuilding project would be difficult to create. Overall, we have a set of overlapping concepts in procedural justice, accountability, agency, and legitimacy that can help determine the success or failure of individual peacebuilding projects or programs. The question of how they all might fit together and where we might find programs that meet these criteria is what the next section begins addressing. Deliberative governance in the peacebuilding context At the core of this chapter is my argument that some form of deliberative governance is necessary for increased local agency in peacebuilding efforts while addressing international concerns regarding corruption and inefficient practices. As a first take on this, I have constructed a framework to tie together all the disparate elements that we have hitherto discussed. The model is designed to show their relationships to one another without hampering the very agency that it hopes to engender. I believe that the tenets of this model are already in use in several different places, and under many different guises, within the ZoP movement. The top of the model begins with some form of public participation as a core tenet. This participation needs to be embedded within a structure that represents or reflects local cultural traditions in the sense of familiarity, but may differ to increase participation for groups – such as women or minorities – that may not have been included in the past. The local structure should represent some form

Legitimate agents of peacebuilding 27

Figure 2.1  Deliberative peacebuilding

of deliberative governance, though the actual form will vary from case to case. Two key elements of this deliberative governance that they must embody are some form of accountability down – or mutual accountability – and that public participation processes should be characterized by the four tenets of procedural justice. Primary must be the opportunity for voice for all members of the recipient or participant community. Members of the community must also feel that they are treated with dignity and respect, that they have trust in those in positions of responsibility (functional accountability down will help with this), and that the governance forum will be neutral in the sense of not favoring any one segment of the community over another. These elements combine to make up the deliberative

28  Landon E. Hancock governance structure, which constitutes the satisfier for the basic need for local agency. When a peacebuilding project satisfies the need for agency, then it will be legitimate in the eyes of locals and potentially in the eyes of outsiders like national governments, funders, or other peacebuilding agencies. The final bit of the argument is that legitimate peacebuilding projects or programs will be more likely to be productive and successful by those involved in them and possibly by their funders.

Articulating the model: the ZoP experience This model is an attempt to understand the nature of a phenomenon that I believe holds potential for the practice of peacebuilding. ZoPs were first established in order to create islands of sanctuary in the midst of civil conflict (Mitchell, 2007). The first modern incarnation came out of the People Power movement that ousted Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986, leading to the establishment of the Zone of Peace Freedom and Neutrality in Naga City in 1998 (Avruch and Jose, 2007, 51, 53). From there they have spread to a number of places, most notably in Colombia (Rojas, 2007; Mitchell and Rojas, 2012; Rodriguez, 2012) and El Salvador (Chupp, 2003; Hancock, 2007), but variations have also been implemented in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Sudan, Peru, and Northern Ireland. ZoPs exhibit a wide degree of variation in terms of governance, structure and activities. However, successful ZoPs have several characteristics in common. The first is bottom-up ownership and control. Top-down ZoPs have largely been unable to achieve any of their goals. By contrast bottom-up ZoPs have fared better – though some of those have collapsed as well (Hancock and Iyer, 2007). A second characteristic is the wide scope of activities usually undertaken by successful ZoPs. While most ZoPs were created to address violence, they rapidly began to implement a wide variety of programs to address other concerns, including corruption, youth concerns, economic development, educational deficits, and domestic violence. Deliberative governance Deliberative governance describes how the various elements of public participation, procedural justice and accountability come together in a ZoP or other peacebuilding program. It encompasses the idea that when all three elements are present and at least somewhat institutionalized, then practices of deliberation are present, and those who participate and benefit from these programs perceive themselves to be active and empowered. Public participation Meaningful public participation is at the root of productive peacebuilding and provides much of the driving force for enabling deliberative governance. Each of the three regions where ZoPs have been created exhibit high levels of public

Legitimate agents of peacebuilding 29 participation in their successful peacebuilding processes. In Colombia, many of the successful ZoPs were created out of popular frustration with the violence and, most especially, to address political corruption. As pointed out by Alther (2006, 285), the creation of the first Colombian ZoP in Mogotes was driven largely by a guerrilla incursion, but many also felt that the incursion was in response to the fact that the political structure of the town “was controlled by a self-interested elite, prone to corruption.” One of the clear directives for the Constituent Assembly created in response to this crisis was to increase public participation in the political process (Delgado, 2004, 24). According to Monsenor Serna, then Bishop of Socorro and San Gil, and a founding member of REDEPAZ:1 The population was divided into 18 local assemblies based on the ecclesiastical groups in different zones of the town and surrounding countryside that formed the municipality. These local assemblies then elected 180 delegates to form a Municipal Constituent Assembly. The large number of delegates ensured the inclusion of a diverse array of political sympathies and interest groups, including members of trade unions, non-governmental organizations, business leaders and local officials. Approximately two-thirds of the delegates were women, with young people actively encouraged to participate in the politics of their town through involvement in “young peacebuilder” initiatives . . . the experience has offered local people a chance to participate in a peaceful process of political change and succeeded in involving young people, the future of the community, in the peacebuilding project. (Serna, 2002, 75) Many other Colombian ZoPs were similarly founded upon a base of increased public participation in decision-making, including the Municipal Constituent Assembly of Tarso – modeled on that of Mogotes – San Francisco de Assisi, Samaniego, Toribio, and San Jose de Apartado, among others (Delgado, 2004; Rojas, 2005; Rojas, 2007). However as Idler and her colleagues note, when leadership was not diffuse and participation not widespread, as was the case in Las Mercedes, then the population effectively remained divided and were open to coercion by armed actors, who assassinated several of the zone’s leaders and frightened the rest into silence (Idler et al., 2015, 6). Peace zones in the Philippines have similarly relied upon high levels of public participation for their inception and survival. Garcia notes that a ZoP “requires that the community commit itself to sustaining” itself “through their own self-reliant, community-based implementing structures” (Garcia, 1997, 221). Iyer concurs, noting that in Mindano, “it was the people’s organizations that were responsible for the maintenance” of peace zones (Iyer, 2004, 34). Filipino zones “established local mechanisms of conflict regulation based on . . . an inclusive approach where all community members could participate and contribute” (Neumann, 2010, 187). The Local Zone of Peace (LZP) in El Salvador describes itself as being “committed to democratic decision making and local participation” with a bottom-up governance structure where each member community has an assembly that elects

30  Landon E. Hancock a representative to La Coordinadora, which oversees the culture of peace program and the activities of the Mangrove Association, the NGO that runs many of the Zone’s peacebuilding and development programs (Chupp, 2003, 98–99). Membership in the LZP includes former members of the Salvadoran armed forces as well as former FMLN guerillas, women, Catholics, and evangelical Protestants, with members directly participating in the design and implementation of peacebuilding projects (FSSCA, 2001, 6). Public participation is formalized through the continued use of dialog and reflection circles to assist them in organizing to meet challenges due to poverty, hunger and violence (Hancock, 2007, 109). “The Circles provide a space where many people, for the first time, are breaking a centuries-old culture of silence. They discuss local concerns and organize to implement solutions that they create” (FSSCA, 2003, 9). What we can see here is that although the models of public participation have differed in each of these examples, successful ZoPs have worked hard to ensure avenues for active public participation and many of them have built structures to ensure that many sectors of society have access to decision-makers or decisionmaking themselves. Procedural justice For brevity’s sake, this section will examine whether any or all elements of procedural justice were present in any of our cases rather than exploring each element in turn. In Colombia, we can see that there are a number of indications that elements of procedural justice were present and active. As Serna notes, in Mogotes: The Assembly has also begun to change the culture of local politics. The large number of delegates to the AMC – which now stands at 230 – has substantially broadened political participation in and responsibility for local affairs. Extensive consultations in the local assemblies formed the basis for an integrated plan for development, peacebuilding and democratic governance that reflects the wishes of the population beyond the assembly. When the first manager’s term expired in 2001, all candidates wishing to stand for election had to accept the plan for the municipality as the basis for their work. During the election campaign, assembly members accompanied all candidates to the constituencies, encouraging them to listen to the requests of the people rather than deliver lengthy speeches. (Serna, 2002, 76) These changes to the local political culture reflect an increase in the opportunity for voice as well as an increased sense of being treated with respect and, perhaps, an increased trustworthiness in the authorities. Pledges to abide by the Assembly’s municipal plan as well as willingness to listen rather than speak may have also contributed to a sense that the Assembly would treat all parties equally, but this could also have been attributed to the wide variety of constituencies represented in the Assembly.

Legitimate agents of peacebuilding  31 Tarso’s Municipal Constituent Assembly likewise satisfies many of the elements of procedural justice, with wide participation in its formation, and broad opportunity for voice by members of the community with its structure of several thematic working groups and a seven-member elected council that oversees these groups and convenes plenary sessions to discuss issues with the community (Delgado, 2004, 25). Likewise, the ZoPs of Samaniego and San Jose de Apartado operate with wide communal participation, collective leadership, and a series of smaller groups tasked with addressing specific issues, but reporting back to the whole for major decisions (Idler et al., 2015; Jiménez, 2015). In Mindanao, Iyer reports that many of their ZoPs appear to have a great deal of trust in their local authorities. These communities have set up rules regarding proper conduct in the zone and have created mechanisms to address violations and suspected violations. Several of these communities had members who were Muslim, Christian, and indigenous Lumads. These ZoPs referred intra-communal conflicts to traditional councils of elders while asking Barangay – communal – officials to address inter-communal conflicts (Iyer, 2004, 21, 37). This sign of trustworthiness of the authorities and recognition that Bangaray institutions could be trusted to be neutral in regards to conflicts between communities did not mean that members of these communities had no opportunity for voice. Neumann notes that “from the very beginning” of negotiations to establish ZoPs across Mindanao, “communication was dialogue-based, trying to include as many stakeholders as possible” in order to establish a “web of trust” among community members, their representatives and representatives of all of the armed actors (Neumann, 2010, 188). She further explains that participatory mechanisms have changed local elections into consultative rather than competitive processes. This means that the process starts at the grassroots level with community members collecting names of interested individuals, asking them to produce programs for review. Those programs are put in the community hall for public display . . . council members visit all families to ask which of the candidates they would vote for. In a community council meeting, they then agree . . . which candidate should run for office and ask all the others to withdraw their application. For the final election only, one of the candidates runs . . . So far, this process has been astonishingly consociational, producing one Muslim and one Christian leader in a predominantly Muslim area, without any violent escalations. (Neumann, 2010, 189) The ability to shift political patterns was facilitated by educational processes that empowered minority groups and less educated members of the community to be able to express themselves and to participate more meaningfully, increasing their sense of voice. Neumann notes that these processes did not replace elite-oriented patterns of communication, but they did enable ordinary citizens to speak out more effectively and participate more fully (Neumann, 2010, 189).

32  Landon E. Hancock In El Salvador, elements of procedural justice were visible from the very start of the Local Zone. In its declaration, the governance of the LZP committed, among other things, to “not make decisions or agreements about projects or programs without the approval of the community” in order to ensure that those who are supposed to benefit have the opportunity to pass judgements before such programs are instituted (Hayes, 1998). This focus on opportunity for voice is not the only sign of procedural justice from the LZP. Chupp notes that the first executive director of La Coordinadora, Aristides Valencia, was a former member of the FMLN, but that instead of using his former position to demand results, he saw himself “as a facilitator of democratic process” and “frequently sought the participation of the communities in decision-making” (Chupp, 2003, 113). This kind of democratic participation was formalized in the Dialog and Reflection Circles – known as CIRDES – that were focused on mutual discovery and inviting participants to share their views rather than on top-down sharing of knowledge by the LZP’s leadership (Chupp, 2003, 113). Accountability In Colombia, the issue of accountability was most often described as taking back sovereignty. In Mogotes, the people expressed “a commitment to the recovery and expression of the sovereign power of the people in order to root out corruption” based on a notion of popular sovereignty guaranteed by the Colombian Constitution (Serna, 2002, 75). As Serna notes, accountability was an important part of the work of the Constituent Assembly, noting that it had: strengthened accountability through changes to local electoral law and increased reporting requirements. It introduced new regulations obliging the manager to present his work for evaluation by the Assembly every twelve months. Permission to continue in office for the full three-year term is granted subject to a positive evaluation of the work undertaken during each year. The manager is also required to report to the AMC every three months, which then delivers a public report on its activities. (Serna, 2002, 76) One of the main reasons for establishing ZoPs in Colombia, other than to reduce violence, was the sense among these communities that “real ‘democracy’ involving having them control their own lives and not leaving this in the hands either of local elites or radical outsiders” was necessary in order to address both their abandonment by the central government and to wrest civic control from corrupt elites or one of the armed actors (Mitchell, 2004, 5). In Colombia, those ZoPs with the highest levels of public participation also seemed to have the most developed systems of accountability. It appears that there were fewer mechanisms for accountability downward in the Philippines than in our other cases. It is difficult to know exactly why this might be the case but part of it might have to do with some of the cultural differences

Legitimate agents of peacebuilding  33 between the three religious and ethnic communities. It is far more likely that the Moro and Lumad communities are more comfortable with traditional communal structures centered on communal elders than with the more democratic kinds of structures that one envisions as a part of accountability structures reporting to locals. As Hancock and d’Estrée (Hancock and d’Estrée, 2011) found, one can trace different conceptions of procedural justice back to folk traditions about the accepted manner of interaction between elites and constituents. However, this lack of clear findings may say more about the dearth of data than about the presence of absence of clear accountability mechanisms. In El Salvador, La Coordinadora’s democratic structure enshrines the idea of accountability into the grassroots orientation of governance. This is most strongly felt in the use of dialog circles to address local issues and the LZP’s commitment to empowerment since its inception. The LZP’s declaration of principles states that it “commits itself to contribute its experience and resources to the education and empowerment of the members of other communities with the goal of having these communities educate and empower other members of others communities in order to create new Zones of Peace in other parts of our republic and even in other countries in Central America” (Hayes, 1998). In Lopez-Reyes’ original call for the creation of ZoPs in El Salvador, accountability mechanisms are central. In addition to having the population contribute to the declaration of the zone and to being educated about its activities, Lopez-Reyes calls for public evaluation processes that must be shared widely, noting that a ZoP only becomes institutionalized “when the people are able to sustain their empowerment” and when that empowerment is respected by the agencies supporting the zone (Lopez-Reyes, 1997). Deliberation in governance When combined and institutionalized, I believe that these three elements of public participation, procedural justice and communal accountability result in mechanisms and processes of deliberative governance. Additional evidence of such can be found in each of the cases examined. The examples from Colombia are as varied as the wide number of ZoPs that have been created there. For instance, in San Jose de Apartado the community elects an Internal Council that serves as the community’s public face and manager of its communal resources. Finn (2014, 157) notes that “regular structures, of elections, public communication, and communal work provide the structure and strength of the Community on a day-to-day basis, and also provide the basis for the strategies used in times of emergency.” In addition to the Internal Council, San Jose created work groups – both men’s and women’s – and committees to address issues such as health and education (Delgado, 2004, 26). In Mogotes, the Constituent Assembly instituted several changes to the nature of democracy. They created a new political and ethical code of conduct, changing the mayor’s title to manager to “indicate that the purpose of the role was to ensure the implementation of the people’s wishes” (Serna, 2002,

34  Landon E. Hancock 76). In line with practices of deliberative democracy elsewhere, the Assembly attempts to make decisions by consensus, only using majority voting when this is not possible (Serna, 2002, 75). The Assembly worked through six commissions, one for oversight, and others focused on human rights, education, health, development, and “truth” in order to “deal with some of the practical internal problems that gave rise to the establishment of the ZoP in the first place” (Mitchell, 2004, 10). In the Philippines, ZoPs attempted to institute elements of deliberation into their structures, with Sagada forming a Municipal Peace Committee, “composed of recognized leaders in the community, coming from different political orientations representing different sectors” (Lee and Conaco, 1994, 19–20). In addition, Sagada incorporated traditional clan councils – dap-ays – to facilitate communal consensus. The Bituan Zone of Life assigned committees to “monitor and report on activities within the peace zone” (Lee and Conaco, 1994, 26). Like other ZoP governance and reporting groups, committee membership was broad to ensure that every local constituency was represented. Many of the Mindano ZoPs of the second wave established consensus-building or consultative processes to address communal needs and reduce tensions that might arise from competitive politics (Neumann, 2010, 189). El Salvador’s LZP has established several democratic processes to ensure participation and deliberation on important issues. Even with the creation of its separate NGO, the Mangrove Association, its “[m]ission and program direction were set by the peasant representatives, not the NGO board of directors” (Chupp, 2003, 99). Given the LZP’s essential focus on self-sufficiency the group insisted that all decision-making power rest with the community, even when hiring experts (Hancock, 2007). Some of these structures are more formalized and others less so; however, all represent the combination of public participation, procedural justice, and communal accountability, thus encompassing elements of deliberation and consultation in governance, providing the basis for substantial and real local agency and leading to the perception that their efforts legitimately serve their communities. Local agency The governance model used by most, if not all, of these ZoPs is one that results in a great deal of local agency. Whatever term it is described by, the combination of widespread public participation, procedural justice, and communally-oriented accountability results in a high level of agency for the local community in pursuing their peacebuilding efforts. Serna’s examination of Mogotes confirms this, noting that: As people have become accustomed to discussing their problems openly, incidents of violence have decreased considerably. Furthermore, the experience has offered local people a chance to participate in a peaceful process

Legitimate agents of peacebuilding  35 of political change and succeeded in involving young people, the future of the community, in the peacebuilding project. These experiences have underpinned the efforts to build a community of peace. (Serna, 2002, 76) Rojas (2007, 86) concurs, noting that by creating a ZoP, community members “feel empowered about themselves and the direction of their community,” with some communities not having felt this kind of power for decades or more. This sense of empowerment was widespread amongst ZoPs members in Colombia and was directly linked to the establishment of new forms of governance that allowed previously disempowered groups to fully participate in local decision-making. Mitchell’s report to USIP explicitly indicates that: Prominent among the things highlighted by many of our respondents was the importance of the new institutions’ capacity for creating a sense of “empowerment” within sections of a particular community that had previously felt unheard and neglected, so that enthusiasm for the new body was directly proportional to the level of participation on local decision making that was initially made available. (Mitchell, 2004, 10–11) Peace zones in the Philippines likewise provided a great deal of opportunity for local agency, with one of the earliest examinations of them noting that their two main benefits were economic improvement and political empowerment (Lee and Conaco, 1994, 30). Relationships with local NGOs mirror those of the LZP in El Salvador, with those NGOs realizing that they can “never take decisions for the community” but “only facilitate and empower them to come together and control their own lives” (Iyer, 2004, 39). The cornerstone of the Salvadoran LZP was its focus on self-sufficiency and participatory democracy. Whenever a potential new source of funding appeared, the first question asked was: who would control decisions – the communities or the funder – and how the funds would support self-sufficiency. At times they decided to alter a proposal in order to avoid entering into a relationship that would promote dependency. They also made a commitment to hire few professional staff, relying instead on the peasants themselves to carry out the work. (Chupp, 2003, 113) At several points in the founding documents of La Coordinadora and the LZP, references are made to the empowerment of community members, their full participation in decision-making and the commitment of leading organizations to both work for the benefit of the community – as defined by the community – and to refrain from making major decisions without communal approval (Hayes, 1998).

36  Landon E. Hancock Overall, it is Lee and Conaco’s early examination that captures the essence of local agency best when they note that ZoPs represent: the establishment of political zones which may formally still belong to the “State” but in practice are governed by the initiatives of the people. This offers a model for other people’s organizations, but only if such organizations are associated with social change. They must realize their own sense of power and control over their own destiny. (Lee and Conaco, 1994, 33) Legitimacy For a peacebuilding project or program to be successful, it has to be viewed as legitimate, most especially by those who are supposed to benefit from its actions. Much may be said about the nature and definition of legitimacy, ranging from the formalist-legal conceptions that argue it is derived from duly constituted legal rules conferring authority on rulers to the idea of legitimacy as derived from social contracts between the ruler and ruled and models of legal-rational legitimacy that posit a division between “values-based” legitimacy and “behavioral legitimacy” or actual compliance with rules and laws (Lake, 2009; Levi et al., 2009). We come across a more thoughtful treatment in Leighninger’s work on deliberative democracy. He notes that legitimacy need not reside in an institutional setting, but can exist as a part of a contractual idea that we’re all in this together. In this sense, legitimacy refers to the sense in which a person or a program is recognized as working in the interests of all in the community, rather than in some more narrow or selfish manner (Leighninger, 2006, 30). One can see this as a form of transactional legitimacy, derived from expanding notions of citizenship from mere voting into meaningful public participation that is valued and has an impact on both policy generation and its implementation. The model of deliberative governance draws from this broader vision of legitimacy and is informed by public policy practices in the United States and elsewhere (cf. Dukes, 1996; Creighton, 2005; Gastil and Levine, 2005; Leighninger, 2006). Some in the field of peacebuilding concur, with Donais noting that: A growing body of evidence suggests that civil society, as the repository of much of the local knowledge and resources noted previously, plays a crucial role in peacebuilding through legitimising processes and projects, mediating among state, society, and international community, communicating local-level perspectives and priorities to decision-makers, and implementing concrete peacebuilding and development programmes. (Donais, 2015a, 47) Mac Ginty (2015, 840), in his call for internationals to work with local partners, argues that, among other things, local partners can provide “legitimacy” and that

Legitimate agents of peacebuilding  37 “[l]ocal partnership and ownership are seen as the key to sustaining peace and achieving legitimacy.” Our cases have shown that the ZoPs achieved legitimacy at the outset, although some of the ZoPs in Colombia subsequently collapsed through either internal division or external pressure (cf. Mitchell and Rojas, 2012; Idler et al., 2015). The close intertwining of public participation, procedural justice and communal accountability that makes up deliberative governance resulted in both a sense of agency and the sense from the community that the institutions created by these movements were legitimately exercising power in their names. In addition, in some cases, external groups viewed these entities as legitimate interlocutors and were willing to confer official recognition upon them. In the Philippines, external legitimacy was first conferred during the Ramos presidency, when some ZoPs were designated as Special Development Areas (SDAs) and were thus eligible for increased governmental funding (Lee and Conaco, 1994). However, as noted by Avruch and Jose (2007), this ended up creating some problems for those ZoPs that were lacking in internal cohesion – and perhaps in more fully developed forms of deliberative governance – as various constituencies began to contest over how to use these new resources. El Salvador’s LZP has managed to parlay its local legitimacy into international legitimacy in the form of multiple lines of funding. This was channeled through its own funding arm, originally known as the Fund for Self-Sufficiency in Central America (FSSCA) and now known as Eco-Viva. FSSCA helped to raise funds for the LZP and La Coordinadora from multiple US-based sources and additionally helped to arrange for yearly trips of volunteers to assist with specific projects (Hancock, 2007). Overall, while we can see that successful ZoPs generate a good deal of internal legitimacy and can, at times, generate external legitimacy from international agencies, generating external legitimacy from state actors has been more difficult. State-derived legitimacy has always been an issue in Colombia. The conflict between the Colombian state and ZoPs in that country stemmed in large part from the fact that ZoPs in war zones tend to practice what is known as “active neutrality”, asserting that they would not assist either insurgents or forces of the state (Mitchell and Hancock, 2007). As Mitchell and Rojas (2012, 45) report, a part of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s “democratic security” program was not only to break the guerilla forces, but to bring all of Colombia’s territory back under state control, arguing that ZoPs were, in fact, supporting the guerillas. However, it appears that these issues may be limited to those ZoPs operating in active conflict zones as opposed to those operating in post-conflict peacebuilding environments. Even in the former, there are instances of ZoPs being able to successfully negotiate with armed actors on both sides to ensure their neutrality and to gain external legitimacy for their efforts. Therefore, while we can see that internal legitimacy is a natural product of the ZoPs model of deliberative governance, external legitimacy can be affected by other factors. However, in postconflict arenas, one of the more persuasive elements for ZoPs in gaining external legitimacy from international agencies, funders and even governmental agencies,

38  Landon E. Hancock stems from their ability to harness the power and agency of their communities and successfully implement peacebuilding projects.

Conclusion As we conclude, there are still many questions to be answered, but there are also a number of lessons that can be learned. One of the first is that the need for agency by local populations is real and that satisfying that need through deliberative governance structures can increase the possibility of peacebuilding success. This model shows how internal – and sometimes external – legitimacy is built upon a foundation of deliberative governance; one that includes important theoretical – and practical – elements of participation, voice, respect, trust, and accountability and one that is embedded within the structures and practices of the local peacebuilding organization. This foundation of deliberative governance satisfies the need for local agency – not just ownership in the sense of following another’s plan, but agency in the sense of communal responsibility for identifying problems, formulating solutions and implementing those solutions to reap the benefits. It is this foundation that leads directly to internal legitimacy, and it is the successes based on that legitimacy that can lead to external legitimacy – particularly in a post-conflict peacebuilding environment. These results are preliminary and the model developed here only takes us part of the way towards understanding the importance of deliberative governance. More questions need to be asked about the deliberative processes used and more exploration of where and how they have worked – as well as where and how they have failed – need to take place. A second nexus that needs exploration is the relationship between this model of deliberative governance and problems of corruption in peacebuilding efforts. One of the most frequent arguments in favor of international control of peacebuilding efforts is the perception – and often the reality – of corruption that exists in many of these locales. Narratives of corruption and “traditional” practices of excluding women or minorities tend to reassert what is often seen as a paternalistic relationship between the Global North and South. And as much as we should take to heart Mac Ginty’s (2008) admonition not to romanticize the local, we should be aware that corruption is not the only reason behind hybrid outcomes to peacebuilding. Much like Galtung and Tisné’s (2009) social accountability systems, we find that in ZoPs with deliberative governance, the structures put into place in order to assure meaningful participation are often used to ensure that resources are used to benefit the community, rather than line the pockets of the powerful or unscrupulous. This relationship between deliberative governance and anti-corruption efforts should be more fully explored to ascertain whether or not these models might be able to assuage the concerns of international funders and allow for both local agency and accountability both downwards to the community and upwards to funders or international partners. Overall, this research represents a new direction for peacebuilding theory and practice, taking us along new paths and combining what we already know about

Legitimate agents of peacebuilding  39 peacebuilding efforts with other realms, such as deliberative democracy and organizing, to help understand what has been working, and why it has often worked so well, to expand our knowledge and improve peacebuilding practice and the lives of those communities that are even now attempting to build new futures.

Note 1   For more on REDEPAZ, see Hancock and Iyer (2007) and Rojas (2007).

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3 Between shadow citizenship and civil resistance* Annette Idler et al.Shadow citizenship and civil resistance

Shifting local orders in a Colombian war-torn community Annette Idler, Cécile Mouly, and María Belén Garrido Introduction This chapter explores how various forms of local order have shaped everyday life in Las Mercedes, a rural community in Eastern Colombia. During some of the most brutal years of the Colombian armed conflict in that region, an extended period of violent clashes in which both paramilitaries and guerrillas tried to gain territorial control was followed by “shadow citizenship” with guerrilla rule. In 2005, the community of the village established a so-called “peace territory” in which state and non-state armed actors as well as civilians were asked to abide by a certain set of rules of behavior. Two years later, in 2007, the community fell back into “shadow citizenship”. It was only around 2013 when, through revived efforts of civil resistance, a new form of peace territory emerged. Two non-state actors, the Church and the Organization of American States (OAS), were key in the changes related to the guerrillas’ empirical legitimacy, and hence in moving from shadow citizenship to a peace territory. We argue that the activities of these non-state actors contributed to a shift in perceptions among community members of the order imposed by the guerrillas through illicit coercion. This was conducive to a decline in the extent to which community members perceived the guerrillas as legitimate authority and to the establishment of a nonviolent and more consensual order based on the priorities set by inhabitants themselves. However, we contend, in situations of armed conflict as in Colombia, such a peace territory is easily susceptible to falling back into shadow citizenship or oppression if the state does not fulfill adequate governance functions, especially the provision of security and protection of civilians, making the guerrilla-provided order a better option. This failure makes it easy for violent non-state groups to win back empirical legitimacy, even if the source of it is illicit coercion. The data collection for this chapter is based on fieldwork conducted in the capital of Colombia, Bogotá, in February  2014, in Cúcuta (capital of the Eastern department of Norte de Santander), and Las Mercedes in October 2014 and January 2016. We conducted semi-structured interviews with local government officials, community members, representatives of the Church, of international organizations and of non-governmental organizations, and ex-combatants. Additionally, we reviewed policy documents and secondary literature.

44  Annette Idler et al. Our argument is developed as follows. First, we briefly discuss the concepts of legitimacy, shadow citizenship, and civil resistance. Second, we analyze how, by means of civil resistance against state and non-state armed actors, the community of Las Mercedes moved from a situation of shadow citizenship to establishing a peace territory only to move back to shadow citizenship two years later. Third, we examine the roles of the Church and the OAS in this process by exploring how local inhabitants’ perceptions of these actors, their motives, and their contribution to the development and protection of the community mattered for the shifting of local orders.

Legitimacy, shadow citizenship, and civil resistance Analyzing the shifting orders in Las Mercedes requires shedding light on the relationship between legitimacy and civil resistance in the context of Colombia’s protracted, internal armed conflict. As Mitchell states in the opening chapter of this book, legitimacy is a “two-way street”. It varies according to the evolving relationship between its recipient and provider. This relational nature is not to be considered in a vacuum. It can be shaped by third parties, for example, if they influence the perceptions of those who grant legitimacy, or the actions of the recipients of it. While civil resistance can undermine the legitimacy of an actor, the influence of a third party can do so as well. The very loss of legitimacy then may trigger civil resistance against the former recipient of it. Legitimacy Aware of the complexity of the concept of legitimacy, in this chapter we focus on the empirical dimension of legitimacy because we explore the community’s perceptions of who is a legitimate authority to set rules of behavior, to enforce compliance and to represent local inhabitants’ interests among other functions. Accordingly, legitimacy is based on perceptions. It is “a belief of subjects” (Barker, 1990, 25), or, as Andrew Hurrell (2005, 29) put it when referring to the descriptive meaning of legitimacy, “the willingness of individuals to accept and follow the rules of a particular order.” Empirical legitimacy is derived from a combination of various elements, including people’s perceptions of an actor’s motives and performance, for example, in exercising governance functions such as the provision of security. The latter can take precedence over the former, which may explain why a community facing significant threats will likely grant more legitimacy to the actor who is able to protect it against such threats, irrespective of how much or how little the community identifies with this actor and its motives (Sabrow, 2017). Another angle on the concept of legitimacy is a focus on its normative dimension, viewing legitimacy as “the right to rule, understood to mean both that institutional agents are morally justified in making rules and attempting to secure compliance with them and that people subject to those rules have moral, content-independent reasons to follow them and/or to not interfere with others’ compliance with them” (Buchanan and Keohane, 2006, 411). In both the normative and the empirical

Shadow citizenship and civil resistance  45 meaning, legitimacy is not solely based on self-interested pragmatic choices, but consists of several dimensions because “it is precisely the extent to which legitimacy represents an aggregate social quality (especially one attaching to a political order) that makes it valuable” (Hurrell, 2005, 17). The empirical conceptualization of legitimacy is a useful analytical lens for examining changing local orders in contexts of armed conflict and the role of civil resistance in these changes because it allows exploring these dynamics in relation to two aspects: actors and scale. First, not only state actors but also non-state actors can be perceived to be legitimate providers of order. Max Weber (1992) answers the question of when and why men obey the state with what he calls three inner justifications, or legitimations (traditional, charismatic, and legal domination), as well as external means, including material reward and social honor. Applying his reasoning to a context where the state has never been present or, if present, not in a satisfactory manner that would permit it to base its authority on any of these legitimations, a non-state actor may step in and become the perceived legitimate provider of order. This actor’s authority then is based on any, or a combination, of these justifications by the local community. In places where generations have lived in war, under the rule of violent non-state actors, people have learned to live with violence as an organizing principle in their everyday lives. Their expectations that an order-providing actor will be non-violent is small. Since the absence of violence may be considered as something almost unattainable, this legitimate provider may therefore well be a violent non-state actor. Second, referring to international order, Hurrell notes that it is problematic to differentiate between empirical and normative legitimacy. While this an important point, in the case of local social orders such as the one we discuss in this chapter however, emphasizing the empirical component highlights the divergence between normative frameworks tied to the law, embodied in existing legal frameworks advocated at the national and international level at the one hand, and de facto experiences of order at the local level. The perceptions of communities or individuals, rather than legal frameworks, inform local orders and the emergence of civil resistance. The empirical conceptualization thus enables us to examine how legitimacy is relevant to the relationship between civilians and non-state actors at the local level, with the civilian population as the provider of legitimacy and non-state actors as recipients in this specific “two-way street”. In wars and other fragile settings, legitimacy matters not only to the state, but also to violent non-state groups such as guerrillas or paramilitary groups. In order to control territory and achieve politically or economically motivated goals, such groups rely on the support of the local population, at least in situations where power through violence alone is too costly (Mampilly, 2011, 52–54; Idler and Forest, 2015). Hall and Biersteker (2002, 216) refer to such control that is more than crude power as “illicit authority”: The claim to authority of private illicit actors in the international system rests upon their capacity to provide public goods and their private control of the means of violence that competes with, or supersedes, the capacity of public

46  Annette Idler et al. authority. The social recognition of illicit authority is also essential to its emergence as private authority, not simply its possession of power. Illicit authority is based on empirical legitimacy. We can find similar concepts in the civil war literature on order and governance, for example “rebel governance” (Arjona, 2010; Mampilly, 2011; Arjona et al., 2015). These concepts focus mostly on one end of the “two-way street”, the recipient of legitimacy. Shadow citizenship To understand the shifting of local orders in Las Mercedes, we draw on the concept of “shadow citizenship” (Idler, 2014b). Different from concepts such as illicit authority that starts from a state-centric approach by highlighting illegality, or rebel governance in which the focus is on the violent non-state group, “shadow citizenship” draws attention to the agency of civilians, whose actions can shape this relationship as well – at least to a certain degree. “Shadow citizenship” emerges when the illicit authority is based on a mutually reinforcing relationship between violent non-state groups and a community: In areas where the state-society relationship is dysfunctional, [. . .] “shadow citizenship” may arise. It is based on a relationship in which violent nonstate groups provide public goods and services and define the rules of appropriate behaviour while citizens accept these rules and socially recognise the illicit authority. Providing governance enhances the violent non-state groups’ empirical legitimacy (Hall and Biersteker 2002, 216), that is, it is conducive to the Lockean consent of the governed. Shadow citizenship can thus be described as a cluster of illegal institutionalised organisational structures that guide behaviour in illicitly controlled territory. (Idler, 2014a, 83) Contrary to illicit authority, from a shadow citizenship perspective, civilians are not just considered in reference to the object of authority, but also in their own right. After all, citizenship is based on social fabric and interpersonal trust among citizens. Anthropological approaches to the state-society relationship more broadly, not only in war contexts, have focused on the citizen side as well, for example “insurgent citizenship”, “alternative citizenship” (Oomen, 2004; Holston, 2008), or O’Donnell’s (1993) “low-intensity citizenship”. In the latter case, the state’s capacities in providing governance functions are deficient, but people can be empowered “in terms consistent with democratic legality” to transform this into “full, democratic, and liberal citizenship” (O’Donnell, 1993, 1361). Shadow citizenship differs from these concepts because the recipient of legitimacy is not the state, but a violent non-state group. It constitutes some sort of social contract between these two parties, only that the violent non-state group steps into the position normally held by the state (Idler, 2014b).

Shadow citizenship and civil resistance 47 In civil wars, the governance functions provided by violent non-state groups often rely upon coercion as a means to achieve compliance. So-called shadow citizen security arises from a relatively consensual relationship between the violent non-state groups and the community, in which the community complies with illicitly imposed rules and receives security and justice (Idler, 2014b). In such cases, the communities’ physical security is scarcely undermined, provided they comply with the rules. Non-compliance is punished by threats, physical harm and killings – hence, shadow citizen security. Shadow citizen security indicates that in the respective territory the group’s control over the means of violence, a defining feature of Weberian statehood, supersedes the state’s capacity. Even though in situations of shadow citizen security physical violence is rare, if violence occurs and is sufficiently non-arbitrary, civilians typically perceive it to be a legitimate means of coercion. A case in point is non-compliance with the rules imposed by the violent non-state group (Idler, 2014b). Civil resistance In situations of a mutually reinforcing state-society relationship, the government is the recipient of legitimacy. According to Ted Gurr (1970), when a government’s legitimacy declines, people are more likely to rebel. Yet rebellion, or resistance, can also lead to the decline of the ruler’s legitimacy. One such kind of resistance is civil resistance, a common feature of political affairs across the globe at least since Gandhi. Adam Roberts (2011, 2) defines it broadly in the following way: Civil resistance is a type of political action that relies on the use of nonviolent methods. It is largely synonymous with certain other terms, including “non-violent action,” “non-violent resistance,” and “people power.” It involves a range of widespread and sustained activities that challenge a particular power, force, policy, or regime – hence the term “resistance.” The adjective “civil” in this context denotes that which pertains to a citizen or society, implying that a movement’s goals are “civil” in the sense of being widely shared in a society; and it denotes that the action concerned is nonmilitary or non-violent in character. These actions matter for empirical legitimacy because they challenge the status quo. As Roberts (2011, 3) further notes: Civil resistance operates through several mechanisms of change [. . .] They can involve pressure and coercion – by increasing the costs to the adversary of pursuing particular policies, weakening the adversary’s capacity to pursue a particular policy, or even undermining completely the adversary’s sources of legitimacy and power, whether domestic or international. In their definition of civil resistance, Erica Chenoweth and Kathleen Cunningham (2013, 271) give examples of concrete methods that are relevant in situations

48  Annette Idler et al. of armed conflict. Accordingly, civil resistance consists in “the application of unarmed civilian power using nonviolent methods such as protests, strikes, boycotts and demonstrations, without using or threatening physical harm against the opponent” (Chenoweth and Cunningham, 2013, 271). It involves the use of extra-institutional means that can range from methods of persuasion and protest to methods of noncooperation and even methods of intervention and vary in their degree of contention (Sharp, 2010). Shadow citizenship constitutes an “ideal-type” scenario in which violent nonstate groups are perceived to be legitimate by the entire community. Just as state legitimacy may decline, the empirical legitimacy of violent non-state groups may crumble, in which case shadow citizenship is no longer feasible. Civil resistance not only takes place against state regimes, undermining the legitimacy of governments, but also in the context of armed conflict against state and non-state actors (Hallward et al., 2017; Idler et al., 2015; Kaplan, 2013; Mouly et al., 2016). In a situation of shadow citizenship, the group’s empirical legitimacy and, therewith, shadow citizenship, perishes if most members of the community decide to engage in civil resistance against this violent non-state group and the state. One such form of civil resistance against both state and non-state armed actors is the establishment of zones of peace, or peace territories. Peace territories are territories in which the civilian population establishes certain rules for civilians and all armed actors who operate there in order to reduce the negative effects of armed violence (Hancock and Mitchell, 2007; Idler et al., 2015, 182). This matters for one crucial element on which the empirical legitimacy of both types of armed actors is based: coercion. In the case of non-state armed actors, the concept of a peace territory questions the use of coercion to establish order locally. In the case of the state, it can be seen as a plea by the community towards it to remain within the limits of its monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force rather than to expose the community to arbitrary violence. In the following section, we analyze how civil resistance in the form of the establishment of a peace territory influenced the type of local order in the Colombian village of Las Mercedes in the war-torn Department of Norte de Santander. We discuss whether and how the community’s perceptions of a legitimate provider of order were shaped by the aspirations and activities of two non-state actors that supported the community, the Church and the OAS. These activities included supporting the community’s endeavor to establish their own rules of peaceful coexistence, essential for limiting violence against civilians. However, in the absence of a state that would fulfill the governance functions hitherto provided by the guerrillas, including the provision of security, two years later, some community members made the pragmatic choice to follow the guerrillas’ rules since they perceived them as a more effective means of protection again. At least in the eyes of some of the community members, the guerrillas were considered the legitimate authority. This evolution impeded the continuation of the peace territory and instead led to the re-establishment of shadow citizenship.

Shadow citizenship and civil resistance 49

Between shadow citizenship and civil resistance in Las Mercedes From shadow citizenship to civil resistance Deficient state presence enables the emergence of shadow citizenship. Discussing violent non-state groups and how they fit the contemporary security landscape, Keith Krause (2012, 12) highlights one of the core claims of the so-called new wars literature: the “fragmentation of the legitimacy and political authority of states as important contextual factors for the emergence of new armed groups and their resilience vis-à-vis weak Southern states.” While this holds true in many crisis-ridden parts of the world, in others, such as the one we discuss below, the state has not properly held political authority and legitimacy in the first place, making it easy for violent non-state groups to fill this void. In Colombia, deficient state presence has characterized many regions, and certainly the territory where the village of Las Mercedes is situated, in the municipality of Sardinata, Department of Norte de Santander. The guerrillas controlled most of the area of Las Mercedes throughout the 1990s. In 1998, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), together with the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and Popular Liberation Army (EPL), attacked the police station and took twenty policemen hostage (El Tiempo, 1998). This attack led to the destruction of much of the station and impeded permanent police presence in Las Mercedes for almost ten years. As the dominant actors in the region, the guerrillas established shadow citizenship (Idler, 2014b). They assumed governance functions including conflict resolution and justice mechanisms, established rules of appropriate behavior and, in return, were socially recognized by the local population. The FARC’s perceived legitimacy rested on their long-standing presence (as opposed to state absence), as in the Weberian “traditional justification”; on its ability to fulfil state functions including the establishment of rules to establish order, as in the Weberian “legal justification” (Weber, 1992); and upon its ideological discourse (Idler and Forest, 2015, 11). Not every community member perceived the FARC to be legitimate, and the level of acceptance and social support varied during different time periods. Yet, in broad terms, shadow citizenship persisted. In communities where the territorial control of one violent non-state group is challenged by others, sporadic violence can undermine shadow citizenship. The paramilitary incursions into the region, which intensified in the early 2000s and only ended with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia’s demobilization in the region between 2004 and 2006, destabilized the situation of shadow citizenship in Las Mercedes. Furthermore, the state forces intervened in the region. Hence, the FARC no longer exerted control. Exposed to clashes among all armed actors, in 2005 the community of Las Mercedes established itself as a peace territory by adopting a declaration of peaceful coexistence, with the support of the OAS and the Church (Las Mercedes, 2005). According to the declaration, armed actors were allowed to transit through the community, but without affecting the civilian population (see point 5 of the declaration).

50  Annette Idler et al. The community also requested armed actors to refrain from hurting and displacing people, and from forcing community members to collaborate. The community committed to no longer side with any warring party and establish a development plan to address the needs of the local population (Las Mercedes, 2005). These forms of noncooperation are less visible than actions such as mass protests, demonstrations, and strikes. But they are effective in undermining the power bases of opponents, while minimizing risks to people’s lives. The declaration was not imposed unilaterally, but negotiated with the various actors in question.1 The rules established through the declaration of peaceful coexistence created a new equilibrium: neither state nor non-state armed actors possessed the monopoly of the use of force in this territory. In this sense, coercion as one of the sources of legitimacy of the Weberian state became irrelevant. The community re-negotiated the terms of legitimacy: some sort of “shared authority” emerged instead, based on a mutually reinforcing relationship between the community on one side, and state as well as non-state groups operating in complementary governance on the other side (cf. Idler and Forest, 2015). While community members spoke to armed actors before issuing the declaration, by declaring themselves as a peace territory they affirmed their responsibility for defining rules of behavior in their territory. From civil resistance to shadow citizenship In 2007, this equilibrium broke down. Two community members were killed and another one left the country because of threats. Regardless of why and by whom they were killed, the killings constituted the end of the declared “peaceful coexistence” (Idler et al., 2015). This was not a punishment for breaching an established law or the implementation of a prior warning. It was a breach of the rules of nonviolence to be respected by everyone in the territory. It constituted arbitrary violence rather than the (empirically) legitimate version of coercion that both state and non-state armed actors may hold in other circumstances. The incident produced dissension among the community, thwarting any collective action necessary to maintain the effectiveness of the peace territory as a form of local civil resistance against both state and non-state armed actors. In addition to internal divides over who was to blame for the killings and the varying reactions of community members in their aftermath, “pervasive fear thwarted participation, ultimately leading to the end of the peace territory. After the killings of the leaders, people did not stand up against armed actors for fear of retaliation. Fear can have a paralyzing effect, even more when threats are implemented or acts of violence occur without previous threats thereof” (Idler et al., 2015). Soon after the killings of the community members, the FARC re-established a situation of shadow citizenship. Even though right-wing groups persisted in the territory, the FARC became the preponderant group in Las Mercedes again and were able to forge relatively stable long-term arrangements with these and other groups including ELN and EPL, who used it as a transit zone.2 Shadow citizenship under the FARC at that time was based on the community’s social recognition of them as illicit, yet legitimately perceived, authority. They re-gained both

Shadow citizenship and civil resistance  51 territorial and social control and defined the rules of behavior. For example, people agreed with the guerrillas’ prohibition of alcohol consumption during working days since this lowered the likelihood of disputes. Similarly, when the guerrillas asked the farmers in 2014 to switch production from coca to the cultivation of ten other products in order to become self-sustaining, they followed these rules, even though attempts by other actors, including the state, to encourage them to switch production had been futile.3 Comparing the FARC’s with the state’s empirical legitimacy reveals a striking paradox in two ways. First, on the one hand, the FARC replaced the state as legitimate authority. On the other hand, their legitimacy was undermined by the very actions they undertook against the state. This is illustrated by the disputes related to the police station, located in Las Mercedes town center, as one of the very few features of state presence. The police station was a military target of the FARC and hence attacked consistently. The community suffered under these attacks. Worried about potential attacks at night, those who resided near the station left their houses in the late afternoon to stay in other parts of the village.4 Instead of being relocated outside the village to minimize civilian “collateral damage”, following the 1998 ousting of the police, the police relocated to the center of the village. The community rejected the FARC’s attacks against the police, which produced this tense situation in the first place. The second element of this paradoxical situation concerns the community members’ disapproval of the police’s reluctance to relocate. The state, represented by the police, sought the protection by the community rather than exerting its function as “protector” of society: the location amidst civilians arguably reduced the intensity of the FARC’s attacks. The state authorities’ modus operandi turns the “social contract upside down”, the Weberian state “in reverse”: not only did the state fail to protect its citizens; it used its citizens as human shields for protection. The fact that the community was used to protect the police rather than vice versa undermined the state’s legitimacy as provider of security. Simultaneously, the attacks demonstrated the FARC’s military superiority, confirming their monopoly on the use of force and hence, at least in theory, their capacity to protect those who obey their rules. The variation in the acceptance of the respective actor’s monopoly on the use of force among the local population is reflected in the community’s activities. While the population discontinued efforts such as the declaration of peaceful coexistence to curtail the excesses of violent non-state actors, it continued to engage in legal actions against the police to seek its relocation. After years of struggling, in June 2013 the community won a case in the national court which ruled that the police station ought to be relocated (Colprensa, 2016).5 The one-sidedness of their actions alienated them further from the state – at least from the state officials’ point of view: for many local and national government officials, the fact that the community’s actions against the state were supposedly more antagonistic than their actions against the guerrillas was a reason to stigmatize the community as FARC collaborators.6 This interpretation however ignores the fact that the lines between obedience out of fear and consent out of respect are thin (Idler, 2014b).

52  Annette Idler et al. Such a decision is often the result of pragmatism and constitutes a survival strategy rather than an ideological choice. Based on perceptions, it also varies among community members as we discuss in the next section. This, we contend, can fuel internal divides, making effective civil resistance more difficult to implement. The extent to which the FARC were perceived as a legitimate authority, or as an illegitimate ruler, varied across individuals. FARC’s empirical legitimacy was partly based on coercion because it allowed them to maintain order, and civilians respected their illicit authority. Yet they also used these means to pursue ends that were perceived to go beyond maintaining order and providing security. This is similar to the state’s use of coercion. Charles Tilly (2003, 132) for example notes that governments use coercive means “to seize other people’s assets, settle scores with old enemies, extract sexual services, collect protection fees, purvey government resources, or sell confiscated property.” In this case, the question of how to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate force arises as well. The fine line between shadow citizen security maintained through an illicit, yet legitimately perceived monopoly on the use of force, and arbitrary violence matters when exploring how actors other than the FARC, the state, and the community are factored in. When coercion is the only available option to bring about order, community members are likely to socially recognize the provider of order and accept it, regardless of whether physical force is employed legally or illegally. Yet when nonviolent means are available to ensure security, the legitimacy of the (non-democratic) use of coercion can be called into question. Likewise, when the guerrillas were perceived to abuse their monopoly on the use of force like Tilly’s example above, they met the community’s disapproval. In 2010 for example, seven policemen were killed, leading to protests against armed actions (El Tiempo, 2010). In this case, coercion was not perceived as a means of establishing order, but as a form of aggression against the state.

Supporting the community: third parties as catalysts of peace In Las Mercedes, the questioning of the guerrillas’ illicit authority was catalyzed by the presence of two other non-state actors: the Church and an international organization. Shortly after beginning its work in the department of Norte de Santander, the OAS Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia (MAPP-OAS) supported the peace territory initiative. One founder of the initiative recalled the arrival of OAS staffers and mentioned the significant help that they had received from the mission. In particular, he expressed gratitude to the OAS for having enhanced the visibility of the community, “even at the international level” – an important endeavor given its historic marginalization.7 In 2008, the OAS produced a video that was widely disseminated (OAS, 2008). This resulted in the scaling up of the initiative through the establishment of a peace territory, and in financial support.8 Yet following the assassination of the two community members, the MAPP-OAS reduced its support and ceased to visit Las Mercedes for some time, meeting with community leaders in Cúcuta instead.9 During that time, the OAS maintained a relationship with the community, but was unable to support it in the same way as it had done earlier.

Shadow citizenship and civil resistance  53 The community requested the accompaniment of the OAS and the Church in 2012 in retaking the peace territory initiative albeit in a different form, with a focus on socioeconomic development, deemed less antagonistic to the guerrillas.10 This came at the time of the beginning of the Colombian government’s peace talks with the FARC, a factor that may have had an effect on the community’s decision (Idler et al., 2015, 11). Yet it also was a consequence of the continued collaboration of community members with insurgents and the resulting stigmatization of the community.11 According to one local leader, illegal armed groups forced us to do things that we should not have done, such as lending our cars to take them to other places. They forced us, [. . .] they assassinated our people. They were charging taxes. This led the community to get organized [. . .]. We want [. . .] to resume efforts towards progress with the support of nongovernmental organizations that are with us, [. . .] that accompany us.12 The work of the Church and the OAS were conducive to shifting the local order in Las Mercedes from shadow citizenship to an order in which the community could ask armed actors to respect the community’s, rather than the armed actors’, rules to limit violence in its territory. This was possible because these institutions themselves were largely perceived to be legitimate actors by the community, not least because they shared the same aspiration: peace, or at least the reduction of violence. Three aspects of their activities are particularly relevant for their contribution towards shifting orders: first, that they promoted the community’s agency; second, that they served as intermediaries or facilitators between the community and armed actors; and third, that they promoted the state’s empirical legitimacy. Yet as we argue, ultimately the state must do its part as well in order to ensure the sustainability of peace in a territory if it is to be governed by the state, or else the efforts by non-state actors are insufficient. The community’s identification with the Church and the OAS and their motives The Church and OAS offered moral and technical support to develop the community according to local people’s priorities rather than the ones imposed by the guerrillas. Also, in the eyes of some at least, they coincided with the community’s preference to use nonviolent means and enjoyed international recognition. Their contributions to protecting civilians, and to reducing the community’s stigmatization were conducive to their acceptance among the local population. Both institutions were largely well respected and socially recognized by the population, which facilitated their role of catalysts of the peace territory and of questioning shadow citizenship. Across the world, and in Latin America in particular, the Church enjoys “traditional legitimation”, in Weberian terms. Especially in Colombia’s rural regions, the Church is the institution which guides people’s everyday lives and actively opposes or negotiates with armed actors.13 In Las Mercedes, the Church has been

54  Annette Idler et al. the most respected institution. According to a human rights defender, “the only one [actor] that has supported the communities in taking a stance towards the armed conflict is the Catholic Church; they are the only ones that have provided some accompaniment to the communities and their leaders when this happens [when the community refuses to be involved in the armed conflict by armed actors on all sides]”.14 Priests, in particular, enjoyed the community’s respect. According to one community member, “what the father says, we do it”.15 The Church accompanied the community of Las Mercedes in its efforts to build peace, with local clerics taking risks to do so.16 They supported the declaration of peaceful existence and other communiqués in which the community requested not to be involved in the war and opposed forced recruitment by violent non-state groups.17 The MAPP-OAS was deployed to Colombia in 2004. As of 2014, its mandate consisted of supporting various areas of the peace process, including (i) disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, (ii) security, (iii) transitional justice, (iv) peacebuilding and reconciliation, and (v) implementation of the peace agreements (OAS, 2014). Even though the OAS lacked the support that the Church had as long-standing respected local institution, its more-than-a-decade deployment throughout Colombia also meant that people had become accustomed to it, and many respected and valued its presence. A civil society representative explained that people from Las Mercedes, above all, wanted peace and security: “people want to live peacefully; they want to be far away from all these conflicts. They do not want to go to bed with planes flying above them and without knowing whether they live, whether they will be alive the next day.”18 They turned to the Church and the OAS because they considered their accompaniment to be beneficial to working towards reducing violence in their territory. While the guerrillas used violent coercion to bring order and shadow citizen security to Las Mercedes, both the Church and the OAS offered an alternative path towards order and citizen security: peace and development through nonviolent means. This was perhaps the main way in which they encouraged the community’s decision to act again, after the breakdown of the previous peace initiative. The killings of policemen and the attacks against the police station may not have led the community to act, yet the consolidation of the supportive activities of these third parties was conducive to a change in people’s attitude. That is, while the guerrillas’ use of violent coercion was accepted as legitimate on earlier occasions, for example as punishment for noncompliance of their rules, at least by part of the community, the activities of the OAS and the Church contributed to a shift in the perceptions of what is legitimate use of force and what is illegitimate violence. Certainly, both institutions also faced difficulties. The Church’s accompaniment suffered from frequent changes in the appointment of local priests for safety reasons. According to one source, in Las Mercedes, priests lasted around three to five years before being replaced by others.19 The OAS’s accompaniment was challenged by the fact that, after 2006, it was undertaken from the departmental capital with only sporadic field visits.20 Furthermore, while the Church could draw on its traditional authority and role in the community, the OAS, when starting its

Shadow citizenship and civil resistance  55 work in Las Mercedes, came in as a “newcomer” and an “outsider”. Nevertheless, overall, both actors were largely perceived to be legitimate supporters of the local community. Enhancing the community’s agency Drawing on the population’s social recognition, both the Church and the OAS engaged in activities that empowered local inhabitants by strengthening them as agents in their own rights. As discussed earlier, shadow citizenship presupposes that citizens have a say in the relationship with violent non-state groups – there is some scope for people to negotiate rules of behavior, but this scope is limited and can vary, depending on the non-state armed actors in charge. Empowerment of communities facilitates collective action (Sen, 2001). It allows them to have more say in the “rules of the game”. This was the case with the rules that were attached to the peace territory: through collective action, at least among some of the community members, they were able to negotiate certain rules with the armed actors. Hence, by assisting the community in strengthening their agency, the Church and the OAS also facilitated the shifting of orders from shadow citizenship to one where the community had more influence on local rules of behavior. The contribution of the Church and the OAS to the community’s empowerment was manifest in several ways. These actors supported a participatory process in which community members identified their needs and drafted their own development plan. They trained the community so that they could own the process and continue to work on its implementation when it no longer received external support.21 The plan reflected the community’s aspirations for peace and development and their rejection of violence and state abandonment (Las Mercedes, 2015). The Church, in particular, was seen as working for the community, promoting the socio-economic development of Las Mercedes and fomenting unity.22 The inhabitants of Las Mercedes generally saw the Church as enabling them to have their voice heard. Respect for people’s agency was a key factor that explained the community’s appreciation of the role of the Church. The latter also disseminated information about the peace process with FARC in order to empower Las Mercedes and nearby communities and work towards implementing the 2016 peace agreement from the bottom up.23 Moreover, the Church established “mediating committees” (comités conciliadores) to promote the peaceful transformation of local conflict in Las Mercedes (Las Mercedes, 2015, 43). While promoting peace, the Church nevertheless tried to avoid sensitive issues related to the armed conflict and, particularly, the control exerted by violent non-state groups.24 The community’s agency was also strengthened by the reduction of stigmatization. While the state and many outside actors considered Las Mercedes a “no-go zone” and stigmatized its population as guerrilla collaborators, the Church was present continuously in the village. What is more, according to various interviewees the Church actively contributed to reducing the stigmatization of the local population.25 For instance, when various community leaders were detained illegally in 2012, the Church assisted the community in their struggle to free them.

56  Annette Idler et al. Similarly, the OAS mission’s offer of support and its understanding of the peace territory initiative legitimized it in the eyes of the community, not least because it helped improve their image from a village of guerrilla collaborators to one of farmers with their own view on the community’s socio-economic development and other questions of governance.26 While many locals argued that external actors supported their peace efforts, thus enhancing the locals’ agency, some contended that the peace territory never had endogenous leadership.27 Critiques of outside interventions often highlight the externally imposed nature of projects and programs, and the lack of local ownership. This is an additional factor that could explain the initiative’s discontinuation after the death of two community members when the OAS reduced its support to the community, yet we did not find much evidence that would support such an explanation.28 The Church and OAS as intermediaries Another aspect that facilitated the shifting of orders to the benefit of Las Mercedes community was the Church’s and the OAS’s role as intermediaries. Both benefitted from the Colombian state’s and the guerrillas’ acceptance – at least in broad terms. This acceptance allowed them, for example, to serve as a communication channel for the community. The Church fulfilled a key role of mediation with state and non-state armed actors because clerics were respected as valid interlocutors.29 For instance, the priest protested the police’s order to maintain the main square in the dark at night to avoid attacks. He convinced the guerrillas and the police to have the main square lit again in the early evening so that people could celebrate the village’s yearly September feast again there.30 Likewise, despite considering civilians’ attempts to negotiate with insurgent groups locally as unlawful, the Colombian state respected pastoral dialogues, even during former President Álvaro Uribe’s hardline administration (García-Durán and Sarmiento, 2015). The Constitutional Court endorsed such dialogues too.31 As a result, it was less risky for people to negotiate with the guerrillas within the framework of pastoral dialogues, and the community was able to obtain some of their demands through this channel.32 As in the case of the Church, the community’s endorsement of the OAS also stemmed from the latter’s recognition by the state and the guerrillas. The state requested the OAS mission in the first place and was generally supportive of its work, expanding its mandate over time. Similarly, the guerrillas largely permitted the activities of international organizations in Las Mercedes.33 Contributing to the state’s perceived legitimacy By helping to legitimize the state, the Church and the OAS further contributed to questioning the FARC’s empirical legitimacy. The Church and the OAS served as a bridge between local communities and various state institutions, including local and central authorities, enabling people from Las Mercedes to engage directly with them.34 Locals credited both organizations with helping them attract the

Shadow citizenship and civil resistance  57 attention of state institutions, after years of neglect. For instance, the OAS facilitated the support of the Ombudsman’s Office (Defensoría del Pueblo) to assist the community in seeking the relocation of the police station to reduce threats to civilians when guerrillas attacked the police. The OAS also contributed to the state authorities’ signing of a document to seek the socioeconomic development of the community by peaceful means at the end of 2007 (OAS, 2008).35 According to a community leader, the Church and the international organizations present in their territory were also perceived to be effective dissemination channels to let the local and national authorities know about their intentions of establishing a peace territory.36 It can be difficult to distinguish between activities through which the two institutions replaced state functions and those which enhanced the state’s legitimacy, allowing it to assume these functions itself. In fact, one can – or perhaps should – lead to the other. In an ideal “citizenship” situation, the state should assume the provision of security as a key governance function as part of its role in a mutually reinforcing relationship with the community. In many armed conflicts, however, third parties assist the state in protecting the local population. In the case of Las Mercedes, the Church and the OAS provided protection for example by helping civilians flee when their safety and security were at risk. Yet without having the legitimate monopoly of force as the state has, such a protection role remains reactive rather than proactive if armed activities by violent non-state actors persist. To some extent, it is based on the “goodwill” of non-state armed actors to refrain from activities against third parties and against the civilians that the third parties aim to protect. Tracing the evolution of the situation over the following years reveals the fragility of such a protection balance in which, at least temporarily, violent non-state actors gained the upper hand. The protective role of the nonviolent, non-state actors eroded around 2007/2008 and was still limited as of 2016. As an interviewee mentioned, “when international organizations were there and meetings were held, there was no problem. However, people felt the pressure [from the guerrillas] and this is why few organizational processes emerged or lasted long, because you cannot work without the authorization of the armed group [guerrillas].”37 At the end of 2014, when a meeting was convened with villagers to discuss the local development plan of Las Mercedes, people reportedly received threats from armed groups advising them to stay away.38 Since many failed to attend the meeting, armed actors demonstrated that they still had the upper hand, and that the presence of the OAS and the Church could do little to prevent them from fulfilling some of their objectives through coercion. Third parties can leverage the community’s position vis-à-vis violent non-state groups and state actors by supporting them in consolidating collective action, thanks to the protection role and other governance functions that they assume. This can help increase the state’s empirical legitimacy if state authorities respond with increased institutional presence. Yet such protection needs to be transferred back to the state at some point, or at least shared with it, if the state is to be perceived the legitimate governor of a territory in the long run.

58  Annette Idler et al.

Conclusions The concept of empirical legitimacy helps explain the evolving relations between a community and non-state actors in the context of an internal armed conflict. The empirical legitimacy of such actors at the grassroots depends on how the community perceives them, their motives, and their ability to exert governance functions, including the provision of security, and the means by which they exert these functions. In the context of pervasive violence affecting Las Mercedes, the ability of a non-state actor to provide security, or shadow citizen security, to civilians took precedence over the community’s perception of the actor’s motives. The insurgents were allegedly the only ones able to provide a supposedly protective function in Las Mercedes, even if it included protection from a risk to a great extent induced by themselves. This allowed them to establish, and later re-establish, shadow citizenship. The Church and the OAS supported the peace territory’s efforts and thus were perceived to offer an alternative path to fulfil the community’s basic need of protection. What the state never achieved due to its limited presence became a viable option which, in turn, questioned the guerrillas’ legitimacy, at least while the rules of the peace territory were respected. In the case of Las Mercedes, the guerrillas’ coercion became a reason for rejection when it was perceived to be applied arbitrarily rather than consistently. When the state, through the police, indirectly resorted to coercion in order to reassert the state’s supposed monopoly of force by not relocating the police station, it increased the dilemma for the community regarding whose rules to follow. In such cases, civilians face the challenge of maintaining a peace territory, as multiple actors want to be perceived as legitimate governors. Pragmatically, the inhabitants of Las Mercedes may have preferred to live under shadow citizenship rather than to resist against it, as long as such a behavior reduced the threats to their safety and security. Yet when an alternative option was perceived to be viable, as became the case with the support of the Church and the OAS, they opted for taking collective action to work towards a situation in which order was achieved through nonviolent means and in which they had a say on how governance functions are fulfilled. Our case study confirms that legitimacy is a complex concept, but a valuable one when analyzing the shifting of local orders in war settings. Legitimacy is not a zero-sum game. For instance, the legitimacy of one non-state actor also depends on that of other non-state actors’ (negative) legitimacy, and a provider of legitimacy may take into account the perceptions of other providers of legitimacy. Further, it cannot be reduced to a binary such as “internal” and “external” legitimacy because of intra-community variation. “Internal” is not that homogenous because different people in the same community have differing perceptions of the same actor, guided by fear or respect for example. These binary categories do not reflect the many nuances that exist on the ground, often shaped by prior experiences and attitudes vis-à-vis the respective actors. After all, we have to ask: legitimate in whose eyes? In this case study, while some community members may have shared the Church’s and the OAS’s aspirations, others may have found

Shadow citizenship and civil resistance  59 that “peace” is more easily achievable under the FARC. As discussed above, a few people considered that the peace territory initiative was not truly endogenous. Regardless of whether such a view is ill-founded, perceptions matter: variations in the perceived legitimacy of various actors are relevant for peacebuilding efforts. They can fuel internal divides and disagreement, as was the case in Las Mercedes. However, they can also be used to leverage change in such situations, for example by identifying individual leaders who can help shift the perceived legitimacy of those who provide governance functions in the “right” direction. Finally, the case study also offers a sobering insight: while external actors helped change people’s attitudes and the guerrillas’ willingness to make concessions, the local and national authorities’ positions remained largely a constant. If local order is to move from shadow citizenship to peace territory and then fully state-oriented citizenship, governments need to change as well by assuming governance functions. The rejection of guerrilla rule was unsustainable because the authorities did not fill the vacuum that was left behind: neither did they resume the legitimate monopoly of the use of force to protect the population, nor did they fulfil people’s other basic needs. The Church and the OAS supported the community in striving for order through development and peace rather than rules of behavior based on violence and punishment. Yet this needs to be followed by a state that protects civilians. Empirical legitimacy is important for local orders not only during armed conflict, but also during transitions from war to peace: if a guerrilla group leaves a territory in the context of demobilization, the state must assume its protection responsibilities. Otherwise civilians are either left vulnerable to attacks, or another non-state armed actor may establish shadow citizenship. This has become evident in the context of the implementation of the 2016 peace accord with the FARC, an example of shifting orders at the national level. The FARC’s demobilization and people’s efforts to promote peace and development in the territories erstwhile controlled by the FARC clashed with realities of continued state absence, making it easy for new illicit authorities to fill the voids left behind by the guerrillas. For peace to endure, it is therefore not enough that illicit actors leave: they need to be substituted by a legitimate state that ensures the protection and wellbeing of its citizens.

Notes * The authors are grateful to FLACSO Quito for the generous support to the research. They further wish to thank the interviewees in Colombia who provided invaluable insights and also extend their gratitude to Landon Hancock and Christopher Mitchell, as well as Ian Madison for comments on earlier versions of the draft. 1 Interviews with local inhabitants, 2014 and 2016. All citations from interviews were translated by the authors. For an in-depth analysis of the factors that explain the emergence and outcomes of the peace territory initiative, see Mouly and Garrido (2018). 2 See Idler (2014b). 3 Interviews with civil society representatives, 2014 and 2016. 4 Various interviews, 2014. 5 This decision had not yet been implemented as of mid-2016, however.

60  Annette Idler et al. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Various interviews, 2014. Interview with local leader, 2016. Interview with local leader, 2016. Interviews with external actors, 2014 and 2016. Interviews with external actors, 2014. Various interviews, 2014 and 2016. Interview with local leader, 2016. Note that this has not always been the case. The Church has, for example, also been complicit with the activities of the paramilitaries (Tate 2015). Interview with human rights defender, 2014. Interview with displaced person from Las Mercedes, 2014. Interviews with external actors, 2014. Interview with civil society representative, 2014, and external actor, 2016. Interview with external actor, 2016. Interview with civil society representative, 2014. Interview with civil society representative, 2014. Interview with external actor, 2014. Interview with external actor, 2014. Interviews with external actors, local youth, and civil servant, 2014 and 2016. Interview with external actor, 2014. Interviews with external actors, 2016. interview with external actor, 2016. Interviews with human rights defenders and internally displaced persons, 2014. Interview with civil society representative, 2014. Interviews with various actors, 2014. Interviews with local leaders and civil society representative, 2014. See also La Opinión (2013). Interview with civil society representative, 2016. Interview with external actor, 2014. Interview with civil society representative, 2014. Interviews with local leader and external actors, 2016. Interview with external actor, 2016. Interview with local leader, 2016. Interview with civil society representative, 2014. Conversations with residents of Las Mercedes, 2014.

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Shadow citizenship and civil resistance 61 El Tiempo, 2010. Marchas simultáneas contra el terrorismo en varios municipios nortesantandereanos. El Tiempo, June 30. García-Durán, M. & Sarmiento, F., 2015. Demining in Micoahumado: From Civil Resistance to Local Negotiation With the ELN. In S. Haspeslagh  & Z. Yousuf (eds.) En Local Engagement With Armed Groups: In the Midst of Violence. London: Conciliation Resources, 21–26. Gurr, T.R., 1970. Why Men Rebel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hall, R. & Biersteker, T.J., 2002. Private Authority as Global Governance. In R. Hall & T.J. Biersteker (eds.) The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 203–222. Hallward, M., Masullo, J. & Mouly, C., 2017. Civil Resistance in Armed Conflict: Leveraging Nonviolent Action to Navigate War, Oppose Violence and Confront Oppression. Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 12, 1–9. Hancock, L.E. & Mitchell, C.R., (eds.) 2007. Zones of Peace. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Holston, J., 2008. Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hurrell, A., 2005. Legitimacy and the Use of Force: Can the Circle Be Squared? Review of International Studies, 31, 15–32. Idler, A., 2014a. Arrangements of Convenience: Violent Non-State Actor Relationships and Citizen Security in the Shared Borderlands of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Oxford: University of Oxford. Idler, A., 2014b. Espacios Invisibilizados: Actores Violentos No-estatales y “Ciudadanía de Sombra” en las Zonas Fronterizas de Colombia. Estudios Indiana. Idler, A.  & Forest, J.J.F., 2015. Behavioral Patterns among (Violent) Non-State Actors: A Study of Complementary Governance. Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 4. Idler, A., Garrido, M.B.  & Mouly, C., 2015. Peace Territories In Colombia: Comparing Civil Resistance In Two War-Torn Communities. Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 10, 1–15. Kaplan, O., 2013. Protecting Civilians in Civil War The Institution of the ATCC in Colombia. Journal of Peace Research, 50, 351–367. Krause, K., 2012. Armed Groups and Contemporary Conflicts: Challenging the Weberian State. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge. La Opinión, 2013. En Las Mercedes se vive con el Credo en la boca. La Opinión, November 12. Las Mercedes, 2005. Declaration of Peaceful Coexistence [Declaración de Convivencia Pacífica] adopted by the community of Las Mercedes, Sardinata, Norte de Santander on 19 December. Las Mercedes Colombia. Las Mercedes, 2015. Community Plan: Village of Las Mercedes [Plan comunitario: corregimiento Las Mercedes]. Las Mercedes Colombia. Mampilly, Z.C., 2011. Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life During War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Mouly C. & Garrido, M.B., 2018. No a la guerra: resistencia civil en dos comunidades periféricas de Colombia. Desafíos, 30(1), 245–277. Mouly, C., Garrido, M.B. & Idler, A., 2016. How Peace Takes Shape Locally: The Experience of Civil Resistance in Samaniego, Colombia. Peace and Change, 41, 129–166. O’Donnell, G., 1993. On the State, Democratization and Some Conceptual Problems: A Latin American View With Glances at Some Postcommunist Countries. World Development, 21, 1355–1369.

62  Annette Idler et al. OAS, 2008. Iniciativas Comunitarias: Cúcuta. Video-recording, Organization of American States. OAS, 2014. Quinto protocol o Adicional al Convenio Entre La República de Colombia y La Secretaría General de la Organización de Estados Americanos Para el acompanamiento al Proceso de Paz en Colombia, Firmado el 23 de Enero de 2004. Bogota, Colombia: Organization of American States. Oomen, B., 2004. Vigilantism or Alternative Citizenship? The Rise of Mapogo a Mathamaga. African Studies, 63, 153–171. Roberts, A., 2011. Introduction. In A. Roberts & T. Garton Ash (eds.) Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-Violent Action From Gandhi to the Present, Pbk ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sabrow, S., 2017. Local Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Peace Operations by the UN, Regional Organizations and Individual States – A Case Study of the Mali Conflict. International Peacekeeping, 24, 159–186. Sen, A., 2001. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sharp, G., 2010. From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation, 4th U.S. ed. East Boston, MA: Albert Einstein Institution. Tate, W., 2015. Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats: U.S. Policymaking in Colombia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Tilly, C., 2003. The Politics of Collective Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weber, M., 1992. Politik als Beruf. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun.

4 Civilian noncooperation as a source of legitimacy Juan MasulloNoncooperation as a source of legitimacy

Innovative youth reactions in the face of local violence Juan Masullo Introduction How communities respond to violence constitute some of the most transcendental decisions civilians make during war. These decisions leave enduring legacies with which communities will live with in the aftermath of war (Nordstrom, 1997). These legacies, in turn, pose opportunities and challenges for post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding. However, as one of the most comprehensive reviews of the scholarly work on war’s causes and consequences concluded few years ago, “[t]he social and institutional legacies of conflict are arguably the most important but least understood of all war impacts” (Blattman and Miguel, 2010, 42). In the 2008 Annual Review of Political Science, Wood (2008) outlined a research agenda on both the social processes of civil war and their social legacies. She examined four different wars – Peru, El Salvador, Sri Lanka, and Sierra Leone – and identified key areas that merited special attention: political mobilization, military socialization, polarization of social identities, militarization of local authority, transformation of gender roles, and the fragmentation of the local political economy. In the last decade, her work has stimulated a series of studies that show how war transform societies in ways that endure well after the end of the conflict (e.g., Bateson, 2013; Lazarev, 2017; Vargas 2017). In parallel, there is a growing body of research on the effects of exposure to violence on pro-social behavior (for a review, see Bauer et al., 2016). While our understanding of the social legacies of war has undoubtedly improved, scant attention has been given to the way wartime social transformations affect the prospects of building peace, especially at the local level. In this chapter, I build on the intuition that “the potential for civilians to build peace will be in large part determined by their choices in war” (Barter, 2014, 13). I  explore the links between one of these choices – the decision to collectively and nonviolently refuse to cooperate with armed groups, what I  term civilian noncooperation – and grassroots peacebuilding. I trace the connections between the decision of a group of youths to refuse to collaborate with armed groups in the Colombian municipality of San Carlos, and the subsequent peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction work that residents have advanced since violence subsided. In exploring this link, I take the analytical lenses of what social

64  Juan Masullo movement scholars have called “overlapping memberships” (Rosenthal et al., 1997) and focus on community leadership as a source of legitimacy. This chapter contends that legitimacy for peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction can be created from within the community and during wartime. Moreover, it shows the grounds on which local community leaders can come to be deemed as legitimate “peacebuilders” beyond the baseline identification that stems from the mere fact of “being local”. The data informing this chapter come from 52 original interviews, memory exercises, and field observations from summer 2015. Informants were residents of San Carlos, mostly of the municipal center and immediate rural hamlets – where the noncooperation campaign emerged. This includes those who never left the municipality during the most intense period of violence (known as “resisters”), as well as those who left and returned when violence subsided; participants and nonparticipants in the noncooperation campaign; past and present community leaders; state officials; and demobilized combatants. In addition, I analyzed local and regional newspapers – including a private local archive; reports from 24 workshops on the topic of forced disappearance; and several logbooks containing residents’ memories of war experiences. The chapter is structured as follows. In the next section, I briefly present the concept of civilian noncooperation, focusing on the ideal type that best characterizes the San Carlos experience, Oblique Noncooperation. In the third section, I  outline the trajectory of war in San Carlos to give the reader an idea of the context in which noncooperation emerged and the work that had to be done to reconstruct the community and build local peace. In the fourth section, I introduce the campaign of civilian noncooperation I focus on, the experience of the Youth Project of Peace (Jóvenes Proyecto de Paz – Joppaz). In the fifth section, I trace the links between this campaign and the subsequent grassroots peacebuilding work that has taken place (and is still ongoing) in San Carlos since violence subsided. Finally, in the conclusion, I turn back to the central issue of this volume, legitimacy, and explicitly apply the framework proposed in Chapter 1 to answer the question of how, from what sources and on which bases, legitimacy was created in the case under analysis.

Civilian Noncooperation Following Kalyvas’s (2003, 481) observation that civilians “cannot be treated as passive, manipulated, or invisible actors”, the most recent literature on civil war micro-dynamics has underscored civilian agency and the local realities in which actors live and make choices. However, most of this work has focused on how civilian support contributes to armed groups’ survival, to the advancement of their organizational ends, to the production of violence, or, more generally, to revolutionary success. The opposite of cooperation has received noticeably less attention.1 Elsewhere, I have offered a detailed conceptualization of civilian noncooperation, locating it within a menu of civilian responses proposed by Arjona (2010,

Noncooperation as a source of legitimacy  65 2016) and defining it as a set of behaviors by which civilians refuse to collaborate with each and every armed group present in their territory, including state and non-state armed forces.2 In doing so, I built on a long tradition of political thought that dates back to Mahatma Gandhi, as well as on the seminal work on Zones of Peace (see, e.g., Mitchell and Nan, 1997, Hancock and Mitchell, 2007, Mitchell and Hancock, 2012).3 Moreover, based on an original database of over 40 campaigns of noncooperation identified in the Colombian war, as well as campaigns in 18 different countries that have experienced armed conflict, I proposed a typology of four forms of noncooperation that exhibit varying levels of confrontation to armed groups: oblique, pacted, unilateral, and armed (see Masullo 2017a).4 The campaign that I explore in this chapter is an instance of oblique noncooperation, the less confrontational form in my typology. In this type of noncooperation civilians refuse to cooperate with armed groups in a coordinated and sustained manner, but they do so in an indirect, disguised way. Disguised in the sense of advancing noncooperation through activities that are not openly and directly related to war and that do not imply direct manifestations of defiance. However, without publicly declaring noncooperation and/or overtly opposing armed groups, civilians do refuse to cooperate with armed groups and with the rules imposed, implicitly or explicitly, by them. Although this form of noncooperation implies coordination and organization, many times it remains carefully circumspect and institutionally invisible. Given these characteristics, it constitutes a ‘hard case’ for the study of the legacies of noncooperation: If we are to identify concrete links between noncooperation and grassroots peacebuilding, this should be easier in campaigns that rely on more complex community governance structures and that might even involve the development of local institutions, such as the Peace Communities referred to in Chapters 1 and 6 in this volume.

Trajectories of War in San Carlos The municipality of San Carlos is in northwestern Colombia in the Department of Antioquia, about 120 kilometers from Medellín. It is one of the 23 municipalities comprising the Eastern Antioquia region (EA), infamous for the high levels of war-related violence experienced during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and famous for the successful reconstruction and peacebuilding work advanced upon the demobilization of the paramilitaries in 2005. Following huge infrastructural investments, such as the construction of Medellín’s airport, the Bogotá – Medellín highway, and a comprehensive hydroelectric network, EA experienced dramatic transformations in the 1970s. These projects, in particular the construction of dams and reservoirs, implied fast population growth and large money inflows, with deep social, economic and environmental impacts. An area traditionally based on peasant agriculture had to quickly adjust to the fast pace of industrial expansion. Relative to other regions, the armed conflict arrived late to EA. Only in the late 1970s, when rebel groups decided to conquer areas that were more integrated into the political and economic life of the country, did the region became of the interest of the insurgents. Moreover, it

66  Juan Masullo was only in the late 1990s that the region observed sustained conflict activity and became an area of confrontation between armed factions. During the 1970s, a strong regional movement, the Civil Movement, emerged. By the time the rebels were establishing their presence in EA, this movement was stigmatized as being aligned with the insurgencies, leading to serious repression. Over time, this generated high discontent among the population and a growing perception that non-violent forms of collective action were of little effect and/or too risky. The growing discontent among the population made the ground fertile for rebel expansion and strengthening in the region (Gonzáles, 2011, 11). The National Liberation Army (ELN) founded two powerful fronts and made the rural areas of San Carlos, as well as the Bogotá – Medellín highway, their main zones of influence. During these initial years, the ELN exhibited restraint in their handling of civilians and even sought to protect them from state and paramilitary repression. They harnessed wide support among the local population, attracting to their ranks activists of the Civic Movement resented by how repression was preventing peaceful protest in the region. To expand their influence from the Magdalena Medio and Urabá regions in the late 1970s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) also arrived in EA. Closely linked to the business of coca cultivation, they installed a base of operations in the neighboring municipality of San Rafael, entered San Carlos and settled in the hamlet of San Miguel (See Map. 1). As with the ELN, during its initial years the FARC’s presence did not jeopardize normal life and even accompanied and promoted civilian initiatives (Observatorio, 2007, 130). For many years, the FARC and ELN coexisted in the region and, as with the first time the insurgents took over (toma) the municipal center of San Carlos in December 1990, they carried out several joint operations. Reflecting how freely and comfortably they moved in the municipality, descriptions of this toma note that they entered “without even shooting one bullet”.5 In fact, this is the only one of the several tomas of San Carlos municipal center that most of the people I spoke to recall as not violent. However, from the 1990s onwards, the FARC began to openly fight the ELN. The confrontation between these two groups, according to various testimonies, exposed civilians for the first time to civil war related violence. As conversations with a former ELN insurgent of the area revealed, the gradual defeat of their organization led several members to desert and join paramilitary groups, feeding cycles of denunciations that led to an increase in violence against the civilian population.6 Paramilitary organizations, such as the Peasant Self-defense Groups of Magdalena Medio (ACMM) and the Death to Kidnappers (MAS), were known in San Carlos since the 1980s, as they had made some violent incursions into the municipality in search of members of the Civil Movement. However, it was not until the late 1990s that the paramilitaries “broke through” and established permanent presence. They came with the clear and explicit aim of challenging the FARC and ensuring control of the main corridors connecting the EA with Medellín (Romero, 2003, 131). They entered San Carlos through the village of El Jordán. The Peasant

Figure 4.1  The municipality of San Carlos

68  Juan Masullo Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá (ACCU) stormed into San Carlos in March 1998 with a massacre that remained in the memory of every resident I spoke to. With time, the paramilitaries managed to have permanent presence in all 23 municipalities of EA and establish several centers of operations, including perhaps the main one in the village of El Jordán (see Map 4.1).7 Three different blocks operated in the area, one after the other: the Bloque Metro, the Bloque Héroes de Granada, and the Bloque Cacique Nutibara. Although shifts from one block to the other involved some infighting, it did not diminish the control they achieved of large portions of San Carlos and the region. They were the dominant armed actor until late 2003, when they began to demobilize under the framework of President Uribe’s (2002–2010) Justicia y Paz Law.8 The rise of the paramilitaries coincided with the intensification of the Army’s presence in the region. Military operations and clashes with the rebels became increasingly more frequent in San Carlos. With the financial support of the main utility company in Antioquia, the Army established four bases in the region and, in 2002, under the framework of Uribe’s “Democratic Security Policy”, launched an offensive to recover territory. The arrival of the paramilitaries, the increased presence of the Army, and the confrontation that followed, resulted in a sharp increase in violent activity and violence against civilians in San Carlos.9 In response, most of San Carlos’ residents fled the municipality. According to the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation (CNRR), 20,000 of 25,480 people fled between 1985 and 2010, many of them migrating to the slums of Antioquia’s capital.10 Around 50 out of San Carlos’ 76 hamlets were partially or totally abandoned (Grupo de Memoria Histórica, 2011, 29). Of those few who stayed, most had to resettle in the municipal center. While a few joined the ranks of armed groups or collaborated with them in some way, most tried to find ways to cope with war and remain as uninvolved as possible. Others, however, undertook collective action to refuse to cooperate with armed factions, avoid recruitment, and counter the negative effects of violence on their communities precisely when violence and displacement peaked.

Civilian responses to war in San Carlos EA experienced several collective responses to war violence throughout the 1990s. The repertoire of collective action was wide, including demonstrations at central squares, days and marches of silence, and public white flag-raising, among others (Restrepo, 2011, 143). Most of these actions were regional in scope, some counting on the participation of all 23 municipalities and even leading to the creation of regional actors, such as the Provincial Assembly and the Provincial Peace Council (García and Aramburu, 2011, 137).11 Although war and its daily effects were the foci of action of many of these collective responses, they hardly qualify as noncooperation campaigns. Rather than sustained efforts, many constituted one-off manifestations of dissent. Rather than a refusal to cooperate with armed groups, many were expressions of what Uribe de Hincapié (2006, 72–74) calls a “pacifist discourse”, and the targets,

Noncooperation as a source of legitimacy 69 rather than armed groups themselves, many times were “unknown, undefined or abstract” (Garcia-Duran, 2005, 49).12 Moreover, as time passed, many of these initiatives evolved into more institutionalized processes with broader and more abstract aims, such as promoting regional development, democracy and citizenship, abandoning the focus on war, and blurring out their grassroots origins (García and Aramburu, 2011, 145). As a former Mayor of San Carlos put it in an interview, many of these initiatives “became a bureaucratic thing more than something about action.”13 While these multi-actor, regional-level campaigns have captured the attention of most of the studies examining civilian coordinated responses to war in the region (García and Aramburu, 2011; Restrepo, 2011), more localized responses rarely feature in these studies.14 When the local features in these regional accounts, it is usually as part of analyses of what McAdam et al. (2001) call “upward scaleshifts”: moves from local to regional, national or/and transnational contention. However, as fieldwork revealed, residents of San Carlos came up with concrete and visible ways to collectively refuse to collaborate with armed groups. I learned, for example, of a group of school teachers who refused to stop doing their job even if doing so was implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) ordered by armed groups. They understood not only that others could follow suit if they stayed, but also that they could reinvent their role as teachers to provide accompaniment and psychosocial assistance to kids and their families. Another visible example is that of a theater and music group that used cultural activities to fight against social disintegration and, particularly, youth recruitment. Their aim was to keep youths “away from war” and use culture (theater and music) as a vehicle for voicing dissent.15 The focus of this chapter is a third noticeable example I learned of in the field: a group of high school students who launched a campaign of street evening activities in the municipal center to convene neighbors to play board games and share communal potlucks. By doing so, they challenged a duskto-dawn curfew implicitly placed by armed groups, and, by working mostly with high school students, they fought against recruitment. Youth Project of Peace: Joppaz Jaider is a promising social and political leader of San Carlos in his 30’s. In the late 1990s, he was a high school student in the municipal center of San Carlos. He was not involved in politics, but participated in activities organized by the Pastoral Social of the Catholic Church. He recalls well the day when one of his classmates broke the silence and asked them whether they wanted to do something to counter the war that was being waged in town. By that time, historically present rebel groups and the arriving paramilitaries were fighting for control of the municipal center. Young people were constantly approached by each side to join their ranks. School was used as a recruitment pool. Some of Jaider’s classmates had already joined armed factions (mostly the paramilitaries) and patrolled the town’s streets at night and did intelligence work at school. Aware of this, Jaider and some of his classmates decided to meet after school hours in a quieter place. They set

70  Juan Masullo up an appointment in the library of the Casa de la Cultura. Not many classmates showed up that day, only six, including Jaider and his then girlfriend. That meeting gave birth to Youth Project of Peace (Joppaz). Joppaz never had an organizational structure, internal regulation, or statutes. According to its founders, it was the first youth social group created amid the conflict. Young people, and the population at large, had few spaces to interact with each other. Because of war, existing social groups froze and people avoided public gatherings. Camila, then actively involved in Joppaz and today a pivotal social and political leader of San Carlos, notes that “people became estranged from each other. The idea was ‘I stay in my house and try to be as least as possible with others, so that if someone gets in trouble then the thing won’t be with me too.’ ”16 As in other warzones, people retreated from social interaction and lived isolated from their families and neighbors, weakening many traditional forms of mutual aid and jeopardizing the community’s social fabric. Distrust was widespread, and ties were seriously eroded. Jaider and his colleagues asked the Pastoral Social for support and expressed their disagreement with the actions of the armed groups. “We want to carry out some actions, we want to mobilize people,” they ventured.17 From then onwards, with the support of the Parish, Joppaz launched a campaign to counter armed groups’ attempts to isolate and subjugate the population. They began to organize street social activities every evening, such as bingo games or potlucks, to create spaces for residents to interact again. They wanted to defy the implicit dusk-todawn curfew that armed groups had placed in town. Because of gunfire, firecrackers and bombings, people feared to be outside home after 6pm. “All shops closed and no one stayed out. Everybody run and hid,” remembers Camila.18 Even the elders who used to meet and chat in the central park after the afternoon mass went straight to their houses and sometimes had to walk with their hands up so they were not attacked, Esteban recalls.19 As one participant of these activities, and another pivotal social and political leader in the municipality today, put it, the curfew “was an order, nobody could go out to the streets. Whoever goes out was a military objective. Of whom? Of whichever armed groups was in the streets.”20 However, the people behind Joppaz understood that the functioning of this order fundamentally relied on the acquiescence of residents. Therefore, without making any reference to the conflict whatsoever, they convened people to play card games, dominos, bingo and make chocolatadas (i.e., preparing hot chocolate in huge pots for everybody to drink). The first activities were organized in the Calle de los Bomberos (“street of the firefighters”), one block away from the central square. Organizers drew chess and parcheesi boards on top of their night tables and took them out to the streets for people to play. For the potlucks, one person would bring the pot, others would contribute the panela and chocolate, and each would bring his or her mug to drink from. With time, these activities spread to almost every neighborhood. Jaider recalls: We began to visit other areas, streets and entire neighborhoods to integrate the community. We had nothing else than the will of doing something and

Noncooperation as a source of legitimacy 71 mobilizing people. We arrived to one street and invited those living there: “let’s go out, let’s do something together, let’s play bingo, let’s chat, let’s share some time together. Let’s put a song and listen to music.”21 Each afternoon, around 5 or 6pm, the night tables were set out in the street. Some evenings they played until 10 or 11pm, and, every now and then, around 7pm, they stopped the games and prayed together. Although Joppaz was a small group, the population at large welcomed the campaign and several took part in it. Initially, only residents of the street where the activity was organized would join. As time passed, people began to go to other streets. From a start of eight or ten that showed up at first, numbers rose to 50, according to Pedro, a volunteer firefighter who joined the campaign on the first evening.22 The street activities became routine as people got used to them. If, for some reason, there was no activity one night, people would ask what happened the next morning and stress that these activities were “the only thing we have here.”23 According to some interviewees, the campaign went on for about three to four years. Armed actors were aware of the campaign. Jaider remembers that more than once they followed them to some neighborhoods. Sometimes it was the guerrillas, others the paramilitaries, the latter more often than the former. “They were alert for whatever we were doing. They attended some of the activities and listened to whatever we said with special attention.”24 However, they never tried to interrupt the games or the prayers, let alone to attack participants. When asked why they thought that armed groups respected these activities, interviewees stressed that they were “just playing”, that “playing cards did not hurt anyone”, and described the activities as “innocent” and “naive”. Doing something that apparently had nothing to do with the dynamics of the armed conflict was vital for the campaign, as they were not seen as a threat. As Camila put it, “Because we were together around one concrete activity, they never did something to us. This was not the case when, for example, two or three people were seen standing together at a corner of a street chitchatting. These people were usually shot dead or threatened because ‘they might have seen something they were not supposed to see.’ ”25 In fact, the demobilized paramilitaries I spoke to did not remember Joppaz’s activities as an act of defiance, even if they were aware that residents were violating some implicit rules imposed by war.26 This does not mean that the “street activities” were free of risks. Participants recall that in several occasions, while playing, they heard gunfire nearby and had to hide. On some occasions, they even had to sleep over in the houses of those who lived on the street were the activity was taking place. The “innocent” nature of the campaign neither meant that it was not an expression of refusal to cooperate, let alone that its organizers and participants were not aware of the challenge it implied. Camila, for example, described the campaign as “civil disobedience”: “We said: ‘we need to disobey! Cooperate with the bad guys? No! They are the bad guys and they take action. We are the good guys and do nothing? No! We need to do something!’ ”27 However, the concrete meaning of taking part of these activities varied across participants. For Pedro, for example, the street activities

72  Juan Masullo were “an escape from war” and a “way of letting go”. He remembers how important these spaces were for him and his firefighter colleagues: “when we came back from picking up a dead body or carrying out a task that stressed us badly, that was our escape.”28 According to the organizers, the campaign was carefully thought of as a response to war. At a basic level, they aimed at creating spaces where people could find some distraction from the routine that war had imposed. However, beyond this basic level, the goals of Joppaz can be summed up in three central ones.29 1

2

3

Counter social isolation and estrangement. The campaign aimed at reactivating social interaction between residents to counter armed groups’ inroads into the community, combat distrust, and preserve the community’s social fabric. As Jaider put it, “we forgot who was living next door. We were forgetting that there were children living in the town, that there were friends.”30 Prevent residents, mainly young men, from being recruited. The campaign aimed at preventing recruitment by getting young people busy and stimulating reflection about the individual and social costs of joining armed groups. In some cases, organizers tried to identify and approach specific kids they knew or thought had already considered joining an armed group and made an extra effort to get them involved. In their own words, they were “stealing people from war”. Assist the displaced and prevent further forced migration. The campaign aimed at raising awareness of the arriving rural population and facilitating their settlement and integration in the municipal center to prevent further displacement. Sharing activities together was also a way to recognize the neighbors who were arriving from the rural areas.31

Some residents never took part in these activities and, thus, do not consider them as central in the way they navigated through that period of war. Fernanda, who was around 15 years old at the time of the Joppaz campaign, explicitly noted that she did not remember participating in them and, consequently, that they were unimportant for her to cope with war.32 However, as with Pedro the firefighter, many people I spoke to recalled them as an important, if not the most important, vehicle to navigating the war. Perhaps Joppaz could not do much to directly reduce the levels of violence and protect people from getting killed, as it is the case for other campaigns of noncooperation in Colombia (Kaplan, 2013). However, organizers understood that fear and the lack of interaction among residents were destabilizing social relations by instilling distrust among neighbors, friends and relatives. By bringing people back together, they hoped to make their community less vulnerable to the effects of violence and war. Moreover, participants began to use these spaces to remember the victims, reflect upon what was going on, spread a message of nonviolence, and dissuade residents from cooperating with or joining the armed groups. For example, in some occasions, residents draw maps of the town on the streets and placed candles in certain areas in memory of deceased relatives and friends.

Noncooperation as a source of legitimacy  73 These performances evolved naturally and some became regular practices over time. This included providing psychosocial accompaniment to people who had lost relatives and organizing emergency responses, such as helping firefighters look for disappeared people or pick up the bodies of those who were killed. Although with no ethnic component to it, Joppaz is a vivid illustration of Varshney’s (2001) argument on the link between civil engagement and peace: spaces created through everyday forms of engagement that promote interaction and communication help people organize in times of tensions and can function as a feedback loop that can strengthen people’s belief in the possibility and benefits of undertaking peaceful collective action to face violence. From oblique noncooperation to grassroots peacebuilding There are different ways to tap into the legacies of the Joppaz campaign on subsequent efforts to build peace at the local level. Here I focus on one, what social movement scholars call “overlapping memberships” (Rosenthal et al., 1997). I underscore that the leadership forged by the Joppaz campaign played a central role in the post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding work done in San Carlos after the demobilization of the paramilitaries. The Joppaz campaign emerged from a social context in which the unfortunate fate of the Civic Movement in the 1980s not only shaped negative perceptions about the efficacy of collective action, but also had left the municipality with virtually no leaders ready to engage in new forms of collective action (Masullo, 2017b). As the National Center for Historical Memory put it, “All those civic groups that were formed were extinguished because all leaders had to leave to preserve their lives. Same for some city councilmen” (Grupo de Memoria Histórica, 2011). Rather than relying on existing leadership from previous experiences of collective action, Joppaz grew up from a group of motivated high school students who emerged from the campaign as a new generation of community leaders. Jaider described the initial organizers of Joppaz as a “group of youth that were very good at convening others” but that were seen by the community as “just students”. Accounts of how the campaign emerged underscored their lack of organizational skills and how they had to learn on the job. Jaider noted that there were not many spaces in the municipality for youths to learn leadership, especially when the war got more intense.33 Leadership and organization skills were developed through the campaign. Camila states that the evening activities institutionalized a sort of “youth movement for peace”, developing empathy and solidarity among the organizers and giving them visibility among the community and even outside of it. In fact, some of them were afterwards invited by national NGOs and even the Governor of Antioquia to participate in different peace efforts, doing advocacy work, and receiving training in non-violence and reconciliation. Jaider, for example, continued to advance his effort to fight recruitment with UNICEF in a project called Nuestra Opción es la Vida. These was precisely the kind of leadership that was leveraged in subsequent efforts of grassroots peacebuilding.

74  Juan Masullo When I first arrived in San Carlos in 2015, I found an active civil society working on several areas related to post-conflict reconstruction and local peacebuilding. Some were involved in nongovernmental initiatives, others ran joint ventures between local authorities and NGOs, and others even held posts in the local council. As many were supporting the different political campaigns for the municipality’s Mayor, I first thought that the vibrant social and political activity I was witnessing was explained by the upcoming local elections. However, I  quickly came to realize that many of the projects and initiatives they were involved in had been in place for several months or even years and had little to do with the political juncture. Moreover, I  learned that the work they were advancing alongside the community stemmed from the work they had undertaken when violence was the most intense. I was surprised to see that a large subset of the people that were behind the many activities that made San Carlos seem a “local peace laboratory”, as a community leader refers today to the municipality,34 had roles in the civilian noncooperation campaign I came to study. In what follows, I focus on three specific areas of San Carlos grassroots peacebuilding efforts and trace the links between them and the Joppaz noncooperation campaign. These areas are: searching for disappeared persons, coordinating the return of displaced populations, and working towards community reconciliation. I build on Ehrlich’s rich grounded doctoral work in which she shows convincingly that grassroots peacebuilding in San Carlos initially unfolded informally, on a small scale and led by ordinary people.35 My understanding of post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding not only shifts the focus from international to domestic politics, but further emphasizes on “the local”. In doing so, I  follow Autesserre (2010, 2014) and Ehrlich (2016) observations that it is at this level, in everyday practices and policies, that a large chunk of peacebuilding work is commonly played out. Locating disappeared persons According to estimates by the Center of Accompaniment for Reconciliation (CARE) in San Carlos, between 72 and 80 graves of disappeared persons have been located and exhumed in the municipality since the paramilitaries disbanded.36 Although those still missing heavily outnumber those who have been found, these numbers are not trivial.37 Exhuming a grave is not a task that civilians can do by themselves. Specialized authorities need to take an active role. However, the expert unit of the Attorney General’s Office only intervenes when there is good evidence that a body has been located (Ehrlich, 2016). Thus, there is a good deal of “shoe-leather work” that comes before the exhumation itself: identifying concrete places and collecting credible evidence that bodies are there. In San Carlos, this task has been undertaken by its residents, mainly by mothers who have lost their children. Among these mothers, one name stands out, Pastora Mira, who has largely led this effort, and today is a very well-known social and political leader in the

Noncooperation as a source of legitimacy  75 municipality, serving both as the head of CARE and as a councilwoman. During the war, she supported the work of the volunteer firefighters in picking up the killed and injured. In supporting them, she realized that her vocation was that of helping victims. Consequently, she became involved (along with the few firefighters that did not leave the municipality) in the board games and chocolatadas evening activities. Her own night table was the first one to be used in the noncooperation campaign, and it was on her street were people convened for the first evenings. During the war, Pastora lost her brother and two of her children. In 2006, she was determined to find out what happened to her daughter and to locate her body. To encourage other mothers to do the same, she built on the leadership and legitimacy she had developed within the community through campaigns such as Joppaz. They got organized and, with machetes, began their search in the dense rural areas of San Carlos. As they needed local knowledge to locate the bodies, they reached out to the community for support. They knew that there were people in San Carlos who could have information needed to identify the whereabouts of those who had disappeared. Besides asking people in their own hamlets and villages, they distributed 1,000 maps throughout the entire municipality so others could anonymously identify potential locations. They collectively built a “cartography of violence” in San Carlos, which served as the compass of their search.38 Working with the community was anything but easy. The traumatic experiences they had lived through were still fresh, and many residents were still distrustful and feared being questioned about what they knew. Leveraging the legitimacy Pastora had from community work during wartime, including participation in Joppaz’s activities, they managed to harness the support of many residents, including demobilized fighters.39 The evidence reveal that this campaign was very successful. It took them more than two years, but by Pastora’s own count, they manage to locate at least 17 bodies before finding that of her own daughter.40 The return of the displaced San Carlos stands out not only as an infamous case of mass displacement, but also as exemplary experience of orchestrating the return of displaced people to their homes. In 2004, before the completion of paramilitary demobilization, several displaced people began returning to the municipality. This continued throughout subsequent years and increased in magnitude as the paramilitaries fully disbanded. Between 2006 and 2008 alone, around 5,000 people returned to San Carlos (Ferris, 2008, 9). By 2010, this figure grew to around 9,000, and in December 2012 the Victims Unit of Medellín spoke of more than 10,000.41 By the summer of 2015, when I was conducting fieldwork, the figure was close to 15,000.42 As one press article noted, “Despite the fear they experienced there [in San Carlos], more than half of the town decided to return to their lands.”43 Conditions for the first returnees were quite challenging. Most rural houses were severely damaged and covered in weeds. The trails to them had almost

76  Juan Masullo disappeared, and there were landmines planted in several rural hamlets. The fast pace and unexpectedly large numbers of returnees caught the local government by surprise. There was no plan to receive this population, let alone enough financial resources to properly care for them. In 2007, Juan Alberto García Duque, thenMayor of San Carlos, declared a state of emergency and asked for support.44 Again, as with the search of the disappeared, the community took on the task of helping organize the returnees.45 Some residents of the municipal center, especially those who had never left, had an idea of how to deal with displaced population. As mentioned before, during the late 1990s and early 2000s, many people from the rural hamlets migrated to San Carlos municipal center. While assisting the displaced was not part of the original objectives of Joppaz, it was a need that emerged during the campaign and that they were able to address, thanks to the social interaction and solidarity that the campaign had forged. Building on this experience, the organizers and participants of Joppaz helped to settle the arriving returnees. Many returnees preferred not to settle in the rural hamlets given the poor conditions. Once again, large groups of people arrived in the municipal center. According to the registry of the Mayor’s Office, around 1,400 people came to the town of San Carlos in 2007 alone.46 As they did in the face of escalating violence in the 1990s, Jaider and other residents kept records of the arrivals and temporarily hosted returnees in their houses. As the number of returnees rose, they built on the recognition and legitimacy they enjoyed within the community to harness the support and participation of many municipal residents. At the same time, they worked with the community to improve trails and repair houses, so people could eventually return to their rural hamlets. An illustrative example of this effort was a convite convened in 2006, in which about 400 residents rebuilt the unpaved road connecting the municipal center and several rural areas all the way to the neighboring municipality of San Luis (Ehrlich, 2016, 71).47 Apart from these grassroots responses to immediate needs, local leaders, including Jaider, embarked on the task of designing and implementing a longer-term strategy to deal with returnees. They joined local authorities to lobby for financial and administrative support from regional actors. In a process that Ehrlich (2016, Chapter 3) carefully traced, these grassroots efforts scaled up until the return to San Carlos became a national issue. The returnee process yielded unprecedented results. First, it developed a stronger legal framework to deal with displacement and returnees, particularly Law 1190 of 2008 that authorized city mayors to transfer local resources to municipalities to guarantee the rights of returnees. Second, building on this law, the process forged coalitions, such as the “Medellín – San Carlos Alliance”, which ran a comprehensive pilot program, initially organizing the return of 300 families. By 2012, this alliance had facilitated the return of 2,000 families and an additional 138 individuals.48 Even in these more institutionalized programs, involving the participation of several public agencies, San Carlos Mayor’s Office decided that community leaders from each neighborhood and hamlet would oversee the implementation of the programs and would be the direct supervisors of the returnees.49

Noncooperation as a source of legitimacy 77 Again, it was leadership that emerged from organized responses to war, including several neighbors that engaged actively in the street activities campaign, the ones who supported the Mayor in this process. Reconciliation The last dimension in which I underscore the links between Joppaz’s noncooperation campaign and local efforts to build peace in San Carlos, is the crucial area of reconciliation. Here, the overlapping membership, beyond concrete leaders, took an institutional form: CARE. Building on a proposal made by local leaders, some of which emerged from collective responses to war, CARE was created in August 2006 with the mission of identifying, assisting and repairing victims of conflict in San Carlos, reconstructing historical memory, and working towards the reconciliation of the community.50 Many veterans of Joppaz, including Pastora Mira, have continued their work with victims through CARE. Following paramilitary demobilization, about 40 ex-combatants opted to stay and live in the municipality. This implied, in practice, that victims and perpetrators where going to share the same physical space and encounter each other on a regular basis. This made it clear that to build peace in San Carlos, a social transformation process based on reconciliation was needed. From 2006, Pastora and other community leaders have worked on this task through CARE. Among the many activities they have conducted, one campaign that stands out was the 2008 “Reconciliation Tables”. Almost everyone I spoke with in San Carlos remembers these Tables, and some refer to them as transformational in terms of reconciliation. CARE convened a public dialogue with residents, including victims and perpetrators. Participants first established a timeline of the most significant events that took place in the municipality and then picked roles (e.g., guerrilla member, paramilitary, the Church, victim) to recreate what happened, establishing who did what to whom and why. These roles changed throughout the exercise, so everybody had to stand in someone else’s shoes.51 According to Jaider, this was the only way to understand why people did what they did and to develop some empathy for the other.52 When I asked community leaders if they saw a connection between the street activities in the early 2000s and the reconciliation work they were now doing at CARE, most agreed that this was the case. When probed to provide concrete examples of how the street activities could be related to work of CARE, Jimena underscored two elements. First, in line with the argument proposed here, she stressed the continuity in terms of actors, noting that “it is always the same people.” Second, going beyond my argument, but shedding light on other dimensions in which we can identify legacies of noncooperation, she highlighted the centrality of the use of the public space.53 “Taking to the streets”, as Joppaz did back in the 1990s, became central in the repertoire of peace action of San Carlos. Many CARE activities, such as the “Reconciliation Tables” and the memory workshops, had been organized in the town’s central park. Moreover, residents have also taken to the streets for symbolic performances that they link to their

78  Juan Masullo reconciliation and reparation work, such as candlelight vigils or silent marches for victims. Moreover, a “Memory Garden” that was first organized at CARE is now in the heart of San Carlos’ central park.

Conclusion This chapter provided a first, preliminary examination of the potential social legacies of civilian noncooperation during war for local post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding work. Through the lenses of “overlapping memberships”, I proposed the existence of a link between a campaign of noncooperation in the municipality of San Carlos during wartime and the outstanding work that this community has done in terms of grassroots peacebuilding in the aftermath of the war. There is the intuition that civil wars create or reinforce cleavages that instill distrust among communities. In contrast, the experience of San Carlos shows that some of war’s social processes can create room for the emergence of new actors with the potential to undertake reconciliation and reconstruction work at the community level. This is not to say that civilian noncooperation during war only offers opportunities for peacebuilding in the aftermath of war. There are also important potential obstacles to peacebuilding stemming from noncooperation experiences (Masullo, 2015, Chapter 7). However, rather than discussing them here, I would like to conclude by addressing more explicitly one of the questions at the heart of this volume: How local non-state actors, acting as unofficial peacebuilders, come to be deemed as legitimate, by whom and on what grounds. Very much in line with the spirt of this volume, Lake (2016, Chapter 1) recently argued that a central challenge that post-war countries have is to create a state that is regarded by the people as legitimate in the sense of enjoying a collective acceptance of its “right to rule”. Although I fully agree with this claim, in this chapter I depart from a state-centric view of legitimacy and suggest that the source of legitimacy can be highly localized, with the “right to do peacebuilding work” coming from within the community. This view is consistent with the understanding of legitimacy as a relational concept proposed in this volume (Chapter 1). Residents of San Carlos emerged as community leaders by organizing noncooperation during war to respond to the challenges imposed by violence. Fellow residents, most of them participants in these activities, recognized them as leaders and granted them the “right” to take the lead on reconstruction and peacebuilding work. Moreover, as in all three areas of peacebuilding outlined above, not only did the community at large accept and allow these new leaders to work, but they actively supported them. Thus, we can see that San Carlos is an example of a case where the primary sources of peacebuilding legitimacy were local and internal. It seems clear that the bases for this legitimacy came from the local community and stemmed from these local leaders’ performance both during the conflict phase as well as afterwards. While it might seem obvious that a group of community leaders are conferred with the legitimacy to do peacebuilding work by their own community, and that they have a clear comparative advantage relative to other

Noncooperation as a source of legitimacy 79 actors coming from outside the community, the basis of this legitimacy went well beyond “being one of us” and relied heavily on performance. Many of these leaders emerged by organizing and/or being active in community-level responses to war. As Jaider put it, before the Joppaz campaign they were “just students”. Their acceptance and support for their post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding work by the community at large would not have developed if not for the functions they performed during war. Moreover, in terms of domains, this was not necessarily “generalized legitimacy”: These people emerged as leaders, the case of Pastora being perhaps the most evident, by supporting victims and doing work that was fully related to the armed conflict. Thus, they were conferred a special legitimacy to do work particularly related to the work they did during war as organizers of the noncooperation campaign, such as supporting victims and preserving the social fabric of the community. Although this is a story of local sources of legitimacy, as Ehrlich (2016) argues and details in her study, these efforts of localized grassroots peacebuilding were scaled up to the regional and national level. The work done by the residents of San Carlos, led by leadership that emerged from organized responses to war, became an example for the entire country and a guide for the national legal framework that was to evolve. In fact, the Victims Law drew on the lessons of the “Medellín – San Carlos Alliance” pilot and national-level return programs, such as Familias en su Tierra, replicated many strategies put in practice in San Carlos (Ehrlich, 2016, 83–88). In this way, and despite some attempts to coopt the process, regional and national actors have legitimized the work done by these unofficial local peacebuilders. The clearest stamp of this legitimization was perhaps the decision to award the people of San Carlos with the 2011 National Peace Price.54 San Carlos can thus serve as rich scenario to explore in more detail the complexities behind the relationship between local and national peace, a crucial question opened by the editors of this volume some years ago (Mitchell and Hancock, 2012).

Acknowledgments I am immensely grateful to all the residents of San Carlos who shared their experiences with me for their time, trust and hospitality. I also thank Casey Ehrlich and staff at the Alcaldía de Medellín, Museo Casa de la Memoria, and Corporación Región for enormously facilitating my fieldwork in Oriente Antioqueño. Finally, I thank the editors of this volume for comments on an earlier draft of this chapter and for giving me the great opportunity to take part in this volume.

Notes 1 Three recent noticeable exceptions are Arjona (2016), Kaplan (2017) and Masullo (2017b). 2 To my best knowledge, Arjona (2010) was the first to introduce the term noncooperation in the context of civil war studies. See also Arjona (2017). 3 Apart from the work on Zones of Peace, scholars in the field of International Relations and Peace Studies have recently explored several crucial dimensions of instances of

80  Juan Masullo civil resistance in the context of armed conflict, richly informing my work on noncooperation. See the collective work by Idler et al. (2015). 4 Elsewhere (Masullo, 2017b), I propose a theory of the emergence of noncooperation campaigns and the variations in the forms they take. 5 El Colombiano, 27.12.90. 6 Conversation with demobilized member of the ELN, author’s field notes, August 2015. 7 The other bases were in San José (La Ceja), La Danta (Sonsón), El Prodigio (San Luis), and Cristales (San Roque). 8 The Bloque Cacique Nutibara, the last one to be in control in San Carlos, was the first Bloque to join the demobilization of the paramilitaries in December 2003. This contributed to an early (relative to other areas of the country) pacification of San Carlos. 9 For the trajectories of war in San Carlos, including event data on violent events and violence against civilians, and how these are related to the emergence of civilian noncooperation, see Masullo (2017b, Chapter 7). 10 “La asombrosa historia del retorno a San Carlos.” La Silla Vacia 06.02.2011 Available online: [http://lasillavacia.com/historia/la-asombrosa-historia-del-retorno-san-carlos- 21498] 11 Some of these actions became “best practices” offered by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as for how to face the challenges imposed by war Undp, 2003. El conflcito, callejón con salida. Informe Nacional de Desarrollo Humano para Colombia. Bogotá: UNDP. 12 To be sure, there are some exceptions, such as the campaign of “humanitarian reapproachments” advanced by Mayors to negotiate “sanctuaries” with ELN rebels in the early 2000s. This resembles what I term pacted noncooperation. 13 Interview ID 92, May  2015. To protect the identity of my interviewees and ensure anonimity I do not use proper names and when names are used all are pseudonyms. 14 Ehrlich’s (2016) hamlet-level research on the determinants of grassroots peacebuilding in San Carlos and two neighboring municipalities, Granada and San Luis, constitutes a noteworthy exception. 15 The powerful play Asfalto (Asphalt) put together by a group of six youth that resisted displacement is perhaps the most visible outcome of the efforts of this group. Fragments of the play are shown in the equally powerful documentary film “Aquí me quedé” (Here I stayed) by Foronda and Echavarria, that narrates the stories of several individuals who stayed in San Carlos. The documentary is available online: https:// vimeo.com/103910123 16 Interview ID 77, August 2015. 17 Interview ID 79, August 2015. 18 Interview ID 77, August 2015. 19 Group Interview ID 84, September 2015. 20 Interview with Pastora Mira in documentary “Memorias del Éxodo en la Guerra” conducted by the National Center for Historical Memory (CNMH), Available online: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbfemV7_UbU 21 Interview ID 79, August 2015. 22 Interview ID 82, September 2015. 23 Interview ID 77, August 2015. 24 Interview ID 79, August 2015. 25 Interview ID 77, August 2015. 26 Conversation with a group of demobilized paramilitaries. Author’s field notes, September 2015. 27 Interview ID 77, August 2015. 28 Interview ID 82, September 2015. 29 Although in some accounts, organizers presented each of these as objectives the campaign had from the onset, a more nuanced analysis of the data suggests that the first two were initial goals and the third emerged from needs that were identified on the go. In any case, together, they reveal how Joppaz campaign constitutes an instance of

Noncooperation as a source of legitimacy 81 noncooperation with armed groups that aimed at protecting civilians from violence and its negative effects. 30 Interview ID 79, August 2015. 31 In this regard, for example, Jaider recalls their role in coordinating the arrival of a massive group of people coming from three neighboring rural hamlets escaping from a massacre in January 2003. 32 Group Interview ID 84, September 2015. 33 Interview ID. 79, August 2015. 34 Conversation with Pastora Mira, September 2015. 35 Ehrlich (2016) also puts forth a causal argument: In areas where one armed group has consolidated control for a long period (compared to highly contested), residents are readier to organize around grassroots peacebuilding. I  engage in this discussion by introducing in the causal process the collective roles civilians came to play during war and the collective identities that emerged from these roles. 36 Visit to CARE, August 2015. Author’s field notes. 37 By January  2014, CARE estimated that at least 200 missing persons remain disappeared Ehrlich, C., 2016. Grassroots Peace: Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Rural Colombia. Ph.D Dissertation. University of Wisconsin-Madison. 38 “Queremos que se sepa lo que nos pasó” Revista Semana, 10.09.2010. Available online: www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/queremos-sepa-paso/122132-3 39 Conversation with Pastora Mira, September 2015. Interview ID. 77, August 2015. 40 Conversation with Pastora Mira, September 2015. Interview ID. 77, August 2015. The exact number of located bodies varies in different sources. In my interviews I heard anything between 14 and 20; Ehrlich (2016) reports 16; and Revista Semana mentions 17. 41 “Comisión International de Derechos Humanos destacó los procesos de retorno a San Carlos.” Noticias Oriente Antioqueño, 11.12.2012 Available online: https://noticiaso rienteantioqueno.wordpress.com/tag/retorno-a-san-carlos/ 42 Unofficial figures provided by local authorities during my visit to San Carlos in the summer 2015 ranged between 14.000 and 16.000. The figure provided in the Reconciliation, Reintegration and Territorial Development International Summit organized by the Colombian Agency for Reintegration (ACR) in early 2015 was 14,300. “San Carlos, territorio de paz en medio del conflicto”, Revista Semana, 22.04.2015. Available online: www. semana.com/nacion/articulo/san-carlos-renace-tras-10-anos-de-conflicto/424970-3 43 “Adiós a la guerra.” Revista Semana, 19.11.2011 Available online: www.semana.com/ nacion/articulo/adios-guerra/249600-3 44 San Carlos Mayor’s Office. Decree 057. July 2007 45 Note that it was also local leadership who, from 2008 onwards, was behind a campaign to promote the return of the displaced population. To bring people back, even if it was for a weekend, community leaders couple the traditional Fiestas del Agua with the Fiestas del Retorno. Nestor, a community leader from El Jordán, stressed that this was a great strategy to show the most hesitant that violence had in fact subsided in San Carlos, stimulating many that came only to visit to return for good short after.  Conversation with Nestor. Author’s field notes, September 2015. See also: “Adiós a la guerra.” Revista Semana, 19.11.2011 Available online: www.semana.com/nacion/ articulo/adios-guerra/249600-3 46 San Carlos Mayor’s Office. Decree 057. July 2007 47 A convite is a common community activity in rural Colombia in which people engage in voluntary mutual workdays to address public/collective needs. 48 “Comisión International de Derechos Humanos destacó los procesos de retorno a San Carlos.” Noticias Oriente Antioqueño, 11.12.2012 Available online: https://noticiaso rienteantioqueno.wordpress.com/tag/retorno-a-san-carlos/ 49 “Las Claves de San Carlos.” Reconciliación Colombia, 06.10.2015 Available online: http://reconciliacioncolombia.com/web/historia/2440/las-claves-de-san-carlos 50 Agreement # 15. 19.08.2006. Municipality of San Carlos, Antioquia.

82  Juan Masullo 51 Ehrlich (2016, 94) presents a detailed treatment of these Tables in which she includes a description by Pastora of the methodology used in them. This vignette builds both on her treatment as well as on my own conversations with Pastora and others who participated in the Tables. 52 Conversation with Jaider. Author’s field notes, September 2015. 53 Conversation with Jimena. Author’s field notes, September 2015. 54 “Premio Nacional de Paz para San Carlos” El Colombiano, 21.11.2017. Available online: www.elcolombiano.com/historico/premio_nacional_de_paz_para_san_carlosNYEC_159163

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Noncooperation as a source of legitimacy  83 Kaplan, O., 2013. Protecting Civilians in Civil War: The Institution of the ATCC in Colombia. Journal of Peace Research, 50, 351–367. Kaplan, O., 2017. Resist War. How Communities Protect Themselves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lake, D.A., 2016. The Statebuilder’s Dilemma: On the Limits of Foreign Intervention, 1st ed. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press. Lazarev, E., 2017. Laws in Conflict: Legacies of War and Legal Pluralism in Chechnya. Paper presented at the Order, Conflict and Violence Seminar, Yale University, February 20, 2017. Masullo, J., 2015. The Power of Staying Put: Nonviolent Resistance Against Armed Groups in Colombia. Washington, DC: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. Masullo, J., 2017a. Refusing to Cooperate with Armed Groups. Civilian Agency, Noncooperation and Selfprotection in Civil War. Paper presented at the Order, Conflict and Violence Seminar, Yale University. January 30, 2017. Masullo, J., 2017b. A Theory of Civilian Noncooperation with Armed Groups. Civilian Agency and Self-protection in the Colombian Civil War. Ph.D Dissertation. European University Institute. McAdam, D., Tarrow, S.G. & Tilly, C., 2001. Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mitchell, C.R. & Hancock, L.E., (eds.) 2012. Local Peacebuilding and National Peace: Interaction Between Grassroots and Elite Processes. London, New York: Continuum. Mitchell, C.R. & Nan, S.A., 1997. Local Peace Zones as Institutionalized Conflict. Peace Review, 9, 159. Nordstrom, C., 1997. A Different Kind of War Story. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Observatorio, 2007. Taller de análisis de reconciliación del Oriente Antioqueño. Rionegro: Observatorio de Paz y Reconciliación del Oriente Antioqueño. Restrepo, G.I., 2011. El Oriente Antioqueño: movilización social a pesar de la violencia. In R. Peñaranda (ed.) Contra viento y marea: acciones colectivas de alto riesgo en las zonas rurales colombianas 1985–2005. Bogotá: La Carreta Editores, 127–147. Romero, M., 2003. Paramilitares y Autodefensas, 1982–2003. Bogotá: Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Relaciones Internacionales. Rosenthal, N., Mcdonald, D., Ethier, M., Fingrutd, M. & Karant, R., 1997. Structural Tensions in The Nineteenth Century Women’s Movement. Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 2, 21–46. Undp, 2003. El conflcito, callejón con salida: Informe Nacional de Desarrollo Humano para Colombia. Bogotá: UNDP. Uribe De Hincapié, M.T., 2006. Notas preliminares sobre resistencias de la sociedad civil en un contexto de guerras y transacciones. Estudios Politicos, 29, 63–78. Vargas, A.R., 2017. Political Order in the Aftermath of Civil War: Wartime Rule and Local Governance in Rural Colombia. Paper presented at the Order, Conflict and Violence Seminar, Yale University. May 1, 2017. Varshney, A., 2001. Ethnic Conflict and Civil Society: India and Beyond. World Politics, 53, 362–398. Wood, E.J., 2008. The Social Processes of Civil War: The Wartime Transformation of Social Networks. Annual Review of Political Science, 1, 539–561.

5 External peacebuilders and the search for legitimacy Rajit H. DasExternal peacebuilders and legitimacy

The Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy in Kashmir Rajit H. Das Introduction: the conflict over Kashmir It has been 70 years since the Kashmir conflict began, following India’s and Pakistan’s independence. The conflict is considered by many to be the unfinished business of the Partition (Scroll Staff, 2015). During the Partition, Hindu and Muslim communities rioted against one another, spreading distrust between the two communities. This resulted in the largest mass human migration recorded in history as Hindus and Muslims made the treacherous journey into the newly established countries (Wolpert, 2006). The lack of a resolution has resulted in both countries going to war three times over this disputed territory. Often, conflict escalates, and the cycle of violence is renewed, as it did recently: stones were thrown at security forces because of the killing of the militant, Burhan Wani. The protesters, mainly disenfranchised young men, violently protested his death, sparking off indiscriminate firing by paramilitary/security forces (Jameel, 2016). The region is tense, and as of 2016, 1,000 people have been injured and over 80 killed in the conflict (Razdan, 2016). The immediate goal of the Kashmiri state government has been to stabilize the situation by stopping the violence. However, there is no resolution to the overall conflict because of the failure of the state and central government to create the necessary conditions for dialogue between all the stakeholders in the conflict. At the heart of this issue lies the question of “legitimacy”. Mitchell’s introduction argues that there is a need for a clear definition of the term that can be uniformly applied to a variety of different situation, as the “legitimacy” afforded both stakeholders and interveners is equally important for understanding. In the Kashmir conflict, however, the question arises of whether the legitimacy of the stakeholders might be more important than that of the interveners. The chapter presents various ways in which legitimacy can be achieved from the perspectives of the stakeholders and interveners, the former being the governments involved and the local separatist organizations, and the latter represented by the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy (IMTD), the only peacebuilding organization with recent access to the conflict. Various aspects of legitimacy will be presented in this chapter, beginning with the failure of Track I peacebuilding in the light of conflicting “legitimate claims”

External peacebuilders and legitimacy  85 by both India and Pakistan. Next, I  deal with how the idea of legitimacy first developed in the sub-continent and was then affected by processes leading to independence. Following this, I discuss different conceptual approaches to legitimacy, especially that supporting the status quo in Kashmir. Next, I discuss the outsider framing of IMTD’s intervention in Kashmir, with some comparisons from the parallel IMTD project in Cyprus. Lastly, conclusions will be drawn about connections between stakeholder and outsider legitimacy. This chapter will thus present an interpretation of “legitimacy” and how it could have been used in the peacebuilding strategy adopted by IMTD. It will conclude by making the case that “outsider” legitimacy, as it applies to the Kashmir conflict, is only achieved if a dialogue process is inclusive, built on trust and driven by the community, so that the latter’s legitimacy becomes at least partly transferred to the outside peacebuilder.

The failure of track I: governmental positions on the conflict Indian Governments have argued that all of Kashmir (including Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) is an integral part of India. In this view, the plebiscite demanded by the Pakistani Government cannot occur for two reasons. Firstly, Pakistan will not agree to the withdrawal of its troops (Hajari, 2015). Secondly, as a direct consequence of the 1947–1948 war, an Instrument of Accession was signed by the prince of Jammu and Kashmir, resulting in Kashmir’s inclusion in the Union of India (Keay, 2000), in order to receive Indian military support to fight off “militants” infiltrating the region from Federal Administered Tribal Areas at the time of independence (Hajari, 2015). A key factor hindering the resolution of this conflict is that India does not welcome the involvement of third-party interveners, either governments or NGOs, to help to resolve this dispute, which, it argues, is a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan. This stems from a provision of the Simla Accords, signed between India and Pakistan in 1965 (Kux, 2006). The provision presents an almost insuperable barrier to any peacemaking or peacebuilding initiative by outsiders seeking resolution of the conflict. A final barrier is the fact that Kashmir represents the only majority Muslim state in all of India and having Jammu and Kashmir as part of India is and would be evidence of India’s survival as a secular republic (Wiseman, 2002; Keay, 2014). Pakistan’ view is that it was originally created as an Islamic Republic, and needs Kashmir, representing the “K” in Pakistan, to symbolically unify all of the Muslim majority provinces of the former British Raj (Kandaswamy, 2014). Pakistanis argue for the right to self-determination for the people of the region and intend to create the model nation “Azad Jammu and Kashmir” based on this right. India does not consider Azad Jammu and Kashmir or its leaders to be legitimate at all. Therefore, the Indian Government refuses to deal with Pakistan until its government ends support for continuing cross border acts that India labels as “terrorist” in nature. This conflict is seen as a proxy war that has been simmering since the Partition, leading to the Kashmiri insurgency of 1989 and, more recently, resulting

86  Rajit H. Das in violence within India itself by groups that have benefitted from Pakistani state sponsorship (Joshi, 2014). The current situation and the related mind-sets on both sides offer little hope of a solution through traditional diplomacy and small hope of outsiders being able to help.

Seeds of legitimacy The British Raj successfully governed India through the use of policies based on the principle of “suzerainty” and a strategy of “divide-and-rule” that undermined effective opposition. The concept of suzerainty as described by William Shepheard at the end of the 19th century was “a term applied to certain international relations between two sovereign states, whereby one whilst retaining a more less limited sovereignty, acknowledges the supremacy of the other” (1899, 432). In the Indian context, this concept was given substance through the Interpretation Act of 1889. According to this policy, the power the British crown had within India was greater than the power of all the rajahs and nawabs combined. This principle gave these local rulers some legitimacy under the Raj, which later proved to be somewhat disadvantageous to them. Over time, their concerns were largely ignored by the British, as British policy did not allow for their interference in matters of a communal nature. This is best conveyed in a quote in Shashi Tharoor’s An Era of Darkness, an expose of problems that were found in India during the British Raj. He states that: “Part of the argument for the benevolence of British colonialism is that the British were, beyond a point, largely non-intrusive rulers with no desire to interfere in the local affairs of Indian populations, who believed that India’s traditions and customs, ‘however abhorrent’ and ‘primitive’ they might be’, must be respected” (2016, 212). By the early 20th century, the Congress Party also came to view “suzerainty” as justifying British policies intended to “divide and rule” India forever (Ludden, 2014, 208). Suzerainty was the basic principle that helped the British Raj to implement their divide-and-rule policies very effectively. “Divide and rule” was utilized by the British to establish and control their imperial subjects throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, “artfully manipulating, emphasizing and exploiting local divergences, whether tribal, sectional, ethnic or economic, and playing off one group or state against the other” (Klieman, 1979, 423). This could be seen during the first half of the 20th century, as the infighting between the Congress Party and the Muslim League, instigated by the British, which eventually resulted in the separate creation of India and Pakistan. At the beginning of the 20th century, the British were steadfastly opposed to the independence of India. Winston Churchill, for example, always believed that India could not survive as an independent nation, and preferred that it become a fully-fledged “Dominion” within the British Empire. However, in the end, even Churchill accepted Indian independence when he recognized the economic toll that maintaining the British Raj would take on the British exchequer, given the devastation, both material and financial, that Britain had suffered during World War II (Mukerjee, 2010).

External peacebuilders and legitimacy 87 Understanding this background is essential to understanding how these two British policies resulted in the dispersion of legitimacy and how different interpretations of legitimacy finally led to the division of India and Pakistan. Imposed “colonial” legitimacy during the Raj On the eve of India’s independence, two forms of legitimacy, political and religious, worked collectively to break the British Raj into two separate states – India and Pakistan. Historically, the two forms had always been present on the subcontinent but had tended to reinforce one another. For example, Islamic penetration found its most powerful political expressions in the north, in so called Mogul India, where Muslim, Sikh, Jain, and Buddhist rulers sought sanction from their own religious followers, although they governed largely Hindu populations.1 Buultjens provides the perfect overview of what happened with the arrival of the British after 1789. The early Hindu experience established a legitimacy linked between religion and the state. Later, non-Hindu faiths adopted similar practices. British colonialism displaced local religions as political legitimizers of the state and replaced them with Anglicanized Christianity. Indian religions then became legitimizers of the anti-colonial freedom movements. (1986, 93) It is true that “Indian Christianity” had existed since the 1st century AD, but it was not an important political force, contained a small number adherents, and was Indianized in nature (Buultjens, 1986, 97). With the arrival of the British, this situation drastically changed. Unlike other religions that had seeped into India from the outside, Anglican Christianity represented the belief system of the colonizer. However, the British were less successful in evoking a mass response in India, and Christianity was not integrated into Indian culture (Buultjens, 1986, 97). Nevertheless, Christianity became a major legitimizing instrument for British rule. The role of the Indian religions, especially Hinduism and Islam – the two major Indian faiths that had survived as politically legitimizing narratives – underwent a dramatic change once Christianity had displaced them as legitimizers of political authority. During this time, both Hindu and Muslim rulers owed their continued existence to British authority, through the operation of the suzerainty doctrine. Over time, opposition to the British brought all faiths and communities together, but Hinduism and Islam suffered an effective “dis-establishment” because they were deemed subordinate religions by the British (Buultjens, 1986, 98). Any political role was denied to them, and efforts to achieve official status were regarded with deep suspicion by the British. The British had maintained divide-and-rule policies that created religious tensions between the two communities. In fact, during this time, when these communities conflicted with one another and requested the British to intervene, British rulers replied that they could not do anything about the conflict because it was religious in nature. Eventually, Hinduism and

88  Rajit H. Das Islam became repositories for nationalism, but they could also be seen as repositories for oppositional nationalism (Buultjens, 1986, 98). From religious to political legitimacy: the birth of India and Pakistan The “Father of Pakistan”, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, was relentless in his belief that Muslims needed separate political representation to safeguard their interests as a numerical minority amid a Hindu majority population. The Congress Party rejected this claim and also the Muslim League’s definition of the problem (Ludden, 2014, 210). However, in the 1940s, the Muslim League’s campaign to become the sole and legitimate representative of Indian Muslims received inadvertent help from the Congress Party. When the British entered World War II, it was the Muslim League that showed strong support for the war, whereas the Congress Party ministers went as far as resigning to show their opposition to Britain’s unilateral declaration of war. In 1942, when the Congress Party initiated its “Quit India” campaign to drive out the British, the League was encouraged by the Government to concentrate its attention on winning byelections and gaining official support for a separate Pakistan. After World War II, the League was thus in a much stronger position than before (Ludden, 2014, 213). In contrast to the Muslim League’s single-identity focus, the Congress Party had prominent supporters from all national groups, including Muslims. It sought to make its government a bastion of Indian unity and national strength. Using its multicultural base to claim legitimacy in representing the whole Indian “nation”, the Congress stood firm against Jinnah’s claim to legitimately represent all of India’s Muslims. Pakistan would represent one territorial part of a federal constitutional scheme, which the League was proposing to secure maximum Muslim control over regions in which Muslims were a numerical majority. Such a scheme would give Indian Muslims constitutionally secure territorial power in regions with a Muslim majority, in a national political system in which Hindus would inevitably form a large majority in the Congress Party and the government. The League appeared to Congress to be a threat to Indian unity, and Congress attempted to label it as a divisive communal party of special interests that sought to hobble, if not dismember the nation. The Indian National Congress, led by Nehru and Gandhi, vehemently opposed separate communal electorates based on religious categories (Ludden, 2014, 213–214). By the end of the Second World War, the goal of the Muslim League had become to win elections in Bengal and in the Punjab, key Muslim majority provinces, with large populations and considerable wealth (Milam, 2009, 18). Its campaign was largely successful, based on the results of 1946’s provincial elections, which sealed the deal for the Partition. Muslims who lived in villages in the Punjab, where they were a minority, voted in favor of the Muslim League. However, if it had not been for the Muslims of Eastern Bengal (later East Pakistan), the state of Pakistan would not have been eventually created, because their numbers exceeded even those of the Muslims in what was to become West Pakistan (Milam, 2009).

External peacebuilders and legitimacy 89 According to Tahir Hasnain Naqvi, the Partition of 1947, “initiated the era of decolonization but mired the independence of India and Pakistan in the ether of communal genocide and mass displacement” (cited in Narayanan, 2010, 170). On August 15, 1947, the independent states of India and Pakistan were born at the bargaining table, where agreements to transfer imperial power to national governments were signed. At the same time, massive dislocations and rioting occurred in cities, towns, and villages, where people fought for both property and revenge (Ludden, 2014, 214). More than ten million Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim refugees fled from their homes to regions of relative safety. Estimates of the number of lives lost vary between 200,000 and the more realistic total of one million (Wolpert, 2006, 1). The partition of India and Pakistan produced new geographical boundaries, along with a new sense of belonging or alienation (Ludden, 2014, 214). The sense of alienation can be attributed to the hatred between the communities. The speed with which the British put together a weak governance structure for India and Pakistan carried with it many consequences. In general, the process created new rifts, distorted the political meaning of traditional identities, and allocated power in a way that made it difficult to create a single vision of national unity (Snyder, 2005, 58). Moreover, rallying popular support by invoking threats from rival nations or ethnic groups was an attractive expedient for hard-pressed leaders who desperately needed to shore up their own or their party’s legitimacy (Snyder, 2005, 60–61). This was the strategy that Jinnah resorted to on the eve of the Partition, as he aggressively pushed for the creation of the Pakistani state. In the absence of strong state institutions to knit together the nation, leaders must always struggle for legitimacy in an ill-defined, contested political arena (Snyder, 2005, 61). As far as Congress was concerned this was the dilemma which confronted even Gandhi himself. Gandhi’s own power and influence was under debate and declining. According to some, he carried secular credentials that contradicted the views and values of the Hindu right, at whose hands he was eventually assassinated. Gandhi lost much of his leadership legitimacy at this time, as not all Hindus wished for the secular united republic that he ardently supported (Keay, 2014).

Kashmir and the conflict over legitimacy The question of the role of legitimacy underlies the conflict over Kashmir and has done so from 1947. As Mitchell’s introduction points out, there is usually a “competition of legitimacies” involved in most intractable conflicts, both for state and non-state stakeholders. Moreover, there is also an element that binds the rival legitimacies together. In the case of Kashmir, the crucial element revolved around the identities of the key stakeholders involved. Examining the position of Kashmiri separatists, we can see that some members hold Pakistani allegiance, a position that delegitimizes these groups in the eyes of most Indians. Under the BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) -led Government of Prime Minister Modi, India is now making attempts to deal

90  Rajit H. Das with Kashmiri separatists. However, Modi’s Government strongly believes that Pakistan is “fueling the fire” indirectly, through moral, financial, and military support (Bhalla, 2016). With each successive Government, views of the separatists change, further complicating efforts to resolve the conflict, with some recognizing the separatists’ stakeholder legitimacy and others not. The Hurriyat Conference, for example, claims legitimacy based on their representation of the section of the Kashmiri population who are the victims of structural violence unleashed by the Indian state against Kashmir’s independence. They argue that they were legitimized by the people of Kashmir, who support Kashmiri independence. This seems to be an example of legitimacy arising from the cause that a particular group supports in a historically-based identity conflict. The Hurriyat Conference is essentially considered to be the political wing of separatist groups that were formed out of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front that fought in the insurgency against India in 1989–1990 (Wolpert, 2010). Alternatively, the Conference’s position can be viewed from the perspective of negative and positive legitimacy, outlined by Mitchell. The negative legitimacy accruing to the Hurriyat Conference stems from the failure of the Indian state to provide adequate rule, exemplified by the mishandling of protest movements, the disproportionate use of force on protestors, and the sanctioning of the Armed Forces Special Forces Act (Chowdhary, 2014). On the one hand, the Hurriyat Conference has gained positive legitimacy in the eyes of many sections of Kashmiri society and by some members of the state government. They are seen as “legitimate” because of how they represent the grievances of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to the state and national government. On the other hand, the legitimacy of the Conference could be interpreted as based on Pakistan recognition of the Hurriyat Conference as a legitimate group and its efforts to create dialogue with the group to irritate the Indian Government. In New Delhi, they choose to recognize or shun the group, depending on which government is in power. The BJP government is firm in the way it handles the Hurriyat. The BJP national government brought leaders from New Delhi to Srinagar, to have an all-party meeting in order to discuss the pressing issues that resulted in the instability seen in the Kashmir valley (Anon, 2016). The Hurriyat was invited to the all-party meeting and they boycotted it. As a consequence, the BJP refused to allow them a seat at the table in the dialogue for peace (Anon, 2016). However, under the Congress Party led government, with former Prime Minister Singh, in 2005, Singh spoke directly in New Delhi with the leaders of the Hurriyat Conference, letting them know that if there was a reduction in violence across the LoC, then India would reduce the number of troops in the valley (Sood, 2005). This emphasizes the fact, once again, that the legitimacy of any group can be viewed as high by one outsider, but non-existent by another. Groups can be legitimized differentially by various stakeholders in a conflict prone region. In the case of Kashmir, the present regional government in power is considered legitimate by most people living in the cities, but support for militant separatists is found outside the cities. In Kashmir, militant support comes from the villages in those valleys, where the majority vote for regional parties such as the PDP or National

External peacebuilders and legitimacy 91 Conference. North Kashmir includes the city of Jammu, where the majority of inhabitants are Kashmiri Pandits, housed in IDP camps, who fled the insurgency in 1989–1990 (Sharma, 2016). The majority of Kashmir’s BJP votes come from this Pandit population in Jammu (TNN, 2014). Yet, the BJP claims that Muslims voted for them on the basis of successful development programs and campaign promises, and clearly not because of religion, given that the BJP is considered a “Hindu” party (Press Trust of India, 2014).2 There is a claim by some that the BJP-PDP incumbent government has lost its legitimacy, a process that can often occur in situations of sporadic violence. Government attempts to handle the protests soon after the death of Burhan Wani made some citizens of the state question how effective the state and central government was at dealing with violence. The current PDP-BJP-led government in Kashmir has allowed many mistakes to occur. Some people claim that there was a lack of strategy or response by the central and state governments. At the core, the current need is for dialogue, but the question that remains is who or which stakeholders – entities, organizations, or individuals – should be involved in any dialogue. Key stakeholders who could be included are insurgent groups, ISI-military,3 and People’s Democratic Party/National Conference, and Paramilitary/Security Forces (CRPF/Kashmiri Police). The first category are the insurgent groups that are fighting against India. Pakistan use of these groups as part of its security and foreign policy is a function of its obsession with India, which it perceives as an existential threat. Furthermore, “large amounts of economic and military aid have not induced Pakistan to end covert support for the  .  .  . myriad India focused terrorist groups, most notably Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad, which Pakistan describes as ‘freedom fighters’ ” (Haqqani and Curtis, 2017, 8). The Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), is one militant group among the ISI-trained militants sent across the line of control. Its leader is Hafiz M. Sayeed, who attacked Indians and the Kashmiri collaborators in Srinagar (Wolpert, 2010, 67). The second group that needs to be considered for participation in the track II dialogue is the ISI-Pakistan army nexus. The ISI-Military nexus stems from the collaboration of these two entities against India. They have aided insurgent groups like the LeT and the Jaish-e-Mohommad (JeM). Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president from 2008 to 2013, claimed in many press interviews that the Pakistani Army and ISI had for a number of years been breeding terrorist groups such as LeT – that they had been playing a double game, appearing to fight terror while actually sponsoring it – and that terrorism might destroy Pakistan (Riedel, 2013, 12). There is more evidence to support India’s claim that Pakistan sponsors terrorism, notably the behavior of the ISI and the Army in their proxy war against India. Their goals include unifying Kashmir with Pakistan and spreading both Islam and their own ideology throughout the region (Byman, 2015, 165). All the leading Kashmiri militant groups fighting New Delhi had bases in Pakistan. LeT was headquartered in Muridke, which is near the city of Lahore in Pakistan; and JeM were based in Muzaffarabad on Pakistan’s side of the Kashmir border. This allowed these groups to “recruit, train, plan, proselytize, and enjoy a respite from

92  Rajit H. Das Indian counterinsurgency efforts” (Byman, 2015, 168). The ISI also helped militants cross the fortified and patrolled the line of control from base camps in Pakistan. In Pakistan, the military acts as a facilitator, helping supply militants in route to Kashmir. At times, the Pakistani military would provide covering fire to distract Indian troops, helping the militants cross the border (Byman, 2015, 170). Pakistani intelligence then provided weapons, sophisticated equipment, and at times training. The Pakistani Army offered them food and a place to rest as they infiltrated Kashmir, among many other forms of assistance. Perhaps because there is broad bureaucratic and political support for the Kashmir cause, no government in Islamabad can moderate its support (Byman, 2015, 171). Over time, Pakistani intelligence and the military came to dominate Kashmir policy and at times undermined the negotiations undertaken by civilian governments to resolve the conflict over Pakistan. Similarly, many Islamist groups are highly committed to Kashmir and oppose various government attempts to play down support or rein in militants in the face of international pressure or Indian threats (Byman, 2015, 172). During the 1980’s and 1990’s, there was a close relationship between the military and various Islamic militant groups and jihadis. As the relationship grew closer, mutual trust was established, to the point that in the 1990’s, some officers used militants to carry out limited operations along the line of control (BennettJones, 2009, 267). From the very start of the Kashmiri uprising, insurgency was encouraged by the ISI, making common cause with many of the militant groups that fought in Kashmir, and also forging deep links between the ISI and militant organizations active in India itself (Bennett-Jones, 2009, 246). Violent attacks occur on two fronts: in Kashmir and within the Indian heartlands. The third group consists of the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (NC). These two regional Kashmiri parties, at times, must form coalition governments to make sure that the party that leads the national government will listen to their concerns. This is similar to the situation with the PDP-BJP alliance at India’s national level. The fourth group is the Paramilitary/Security Forces (CRPF/Kashmiri Police) of Kashmir. These security forces are seen as anti-Kashmiri and are often targeted by protesters who see them as pro-security and pro-state (Jameel, 2016). Apart from these organized stakeholders, the following communities should have representative stakeholders present in any dialogue, people who could legitimately represent their community’s views and interests: 1

2

Kashmiri Muslims: This group of people belongs to a Sufi-syncretic strand of Islam and forms the overwhelming majority of the population of Jammu and Kashmir. They have grievances against the security forces, who they argue are responsible for human rights violations. The securitization of the state has restricted this community’s rights, and they have suffered greatly from violence (Das, 2014). Kashmiri Pandits: This is the ethnic minority population most affected by the present-day conflict. There are only pockets of Kashmiri Pandits living in Jammu. The vast majority of Kashmiri Pandits resettled after the 1990

External peacebuilders and legitimacy  93 Kashmiri insurgency, either in IDP camps throughout India or in New Delhi (Saraf, 2015). Their main wish is to go back to their homes. Because of the governments’ failed promises, the Kashmiri Pandit community has become even more vocal. Some members have formed two groups: Roots in Kashmir and Panun Kashmir. Panun Kashmir has asked for the resettlement of all Kashmiri Pandits in a homogenous area operating as an independent entity within India’s territory, with no “special” status given to it. They feel alienated from the state, and feel that their voices are not being heard by the PDP. They feel that the BJP government is not doing enough to address their needs and that the state only courts them at election times, otherwise ignoring their demands. Kashmiri Pandits feel that they need to go back to their land in a dignified way, in a secure environment and on their own terms (Press Trust of India, 2014). This list excludes the one group that has been thoroughly discussed above, the Hurriyat Conference. This is a group that should be considered before all the other stakeholders. If the consensus of this critical group is gained, dialogue would be seen as legitimate. Each of these organizations and communities clearly appear to have enough stakeholder legitimacy – at least in someone’s eyes – to be involved in any peacebuilding process that could lead towards a solution. This could be called “legitimacy through representation”, conferred by each organization’s community members. However, can a similar statement be made about any outside peacebuilding organization that seeks to have a role in the Kashmir situation? If stakeholders can achieve legitimacy as representatives of religious, ethnic, or linguistic communities, or as representatives of political movements, how can peacebuilders achieve legitimacy as recognized third-party mediators, able to become involved quite legitimately in intractable conflicts?

The IMTD and the legitimacy of outsider intervention In the Kashmir conflict, perceptions of stakeholder legitimacy depend on where one sits. For the Indian Government, apart from its organs’ agents in Indiancontrolled Kashmir, the only other legitimate stakeholder is the Government of Pakistan. For the Pakistani Government, on the other hand, there are a range of other legitimate stakeholders, ranging from the PDP to the entire Muslim community in Kashmir. For India, the Kashmir issue is merely a problem for the Union and, therefore a problem that involves only the two Governments. Other governments and outside NGOs are, therefore, banned from peace-making or even peacebuilding activities within Indian controlled parts of Kashmir and, hence, from peacebuilding activities that involve both parts of the divided country. Outsiders are not to be invited in. In recent years, one of the rare exceptions to this prohibition has been the peacebuilding work of the IMTD, and it is to this initiative that we now turn, asking

94  Rajit H. Das in what way did this small NGO manage to achieve the legitimacy necessary to undertake even modest peacebuilding work in Kashmir? Multi-track diplomacy IMTD was created in 1992 by retired US Ambassador John McDonald and Dr. Louise Diamond. Originally, they envisioned a new approach to peacebuilding that worked on a “system-based” method. The failures of official diplomacy were too apparent, and the principle underlying “Multi-Track Diplomacy” was that before any formal intervention strategy is envisioned, the people that are directly party to the conflict should be brought together to talk. Through this process, they would able to address grievances and convey their narratives. This would help to create an environment of empathy, and people would recognize their similarities rather than their differences. IMTD would not get involved for the short term but rather for a minimum of five years, so that the institution could determine how effective they might be. Finally, before anything occurred, IMTD would need to be invited and under no circumstances would an initiative be taken without the permission of parties closely and directly involved in the conflict (Diamond and McDonald, 1996). Multi-track diplomacy has been conceptualized as a systemic way of viewing the process of peacemaking – by looking at the web of interconnected parts (activities, individuals, institutions, and communities) that can operate together, for a common goal (Diamond and McDonald, 1996, 1). These “tracks” operate as a web of personal relationships that extend across time and space, across age, gender, and national boundaries. It is conceptually and theoretically important to apply the methodology based on these ideas to create an environment for peace to be, finally, achieved at the official level. The IMTD system is versatile enough to work on issues of conflict between nations or identity groups, and thus IMTD has a framework that can be used effectively to carry out Track II dialogues in many varied situations. (Diamond and McDonald, 1996, 20). The term “Track II” or second track diplomacy was coined by former diplomat Joseph Montville in 1982 to describe the various methods of unofficial diplomacy that take place outside the formal governmental system. At this level, diplomacy deals with the interaction between nongovernmental, informal, and unofficial contacts and with activities between private citizens or non-state actors. Later, in the 1980s, it was realized that citizens could engage in such processes and “make a difference” (Diamond and McDonald, 1996, 1–2). The need at that time was to tackle the challenges of interactions between Track I and Track II diplomacy. Diamond and McDonald had originally worked with the two-track system as a conceptual and practical framework for starting to understand the complex system of practical peacemaking and peacebuilding activities. Track II was later expanded to a total of nine tracks: Track 1, government or peacemaking through diplomacy; Track 2, nongovernmental/professional or peacemaking through conflict resolution; Track 3, business or peacemaking through commerce;

External peacebuilders and legitimacy  95 Track 4, private citizens or peacemaking through personal involvement; Track 5, research, training, and education, or peacemaking through learning; Track 6, activism or peacemaking through advocacy; Track 7, religion or peacemaking through faith in action; Track 8, funding or peacemaking through provision of resources; and Track 9, communication and the media, or peacemaking through information (Diamond and McDonald, 1996, 4–5). The program in Kashmir was implemented by Dr. Eilleen Borris, who conducted Conflict Transformation Workshops bringing together Kashmiris to discuss their common problem and to be trained in conflict resolution. I also compare the work in Kashmir with another of IMTD’s initiatives, namely the intervention carried out in Cyprus by Dr. Louise Diamond. Legitimate entry in Kashmir Unlike many other peacebuilding organizations working in the region, IMTD was clearly invited into Kashmir specifically to carry out work in conflict resolution. In 1995, Ambassador McDonald was approached by two retired generals, Lt. General Gurinder Singh of India and Lt. General Nishat Ahmad of Pakistan, who spoke with the Ambassador about their hopes for IMTD becoming involved in the region (IMTD, ND). From this beginning, IMTD’s Kashmir Peacebuilding Program became active in the region, with the program lasting from 1995 to 2006.4 Ambassador McDonald responded positively to the request of the two officers and became involved in a long-term peacebuilding program for Kashmir. Ambassador McDonald and IMTD’s Director of Training, Dr. Eileen Borris, agreed to conduct a series of workshops, which eventually took place in Nepal and then in the Maldives, where Kashmiris from either side of the LoC came together to meet face to face and speak about their plight. Participants were invited based on recommendations from a designated Advisory Committee that referred potential participants to IMTD. This Advisory Committee consisted of elite members of civil society who were very familiar with the conflict. The committee of 11 people consisted of heads and staff members of think-tanks, employees from humanitarian organizations, presidents of colleges, the CEO of a company, and various lawyers (IMTD, 2004). With regard to the selectivity and inclusivity of participants for the peacebuilding workshops, IMTD carefully evaluated potential participants and attempted to create gender balance and diversity based on religion, economic class, and profession (IMTD, 2006). The workshops were designed to bring parties to the conflict to a neutral place to address their grievances and come to a consensus about creating a path towards resolving the conflict and, ultimately, generating peace and goodwill. IMTD conducted these dialogues, known as Conflict Transformation Workshops, on two separate occasions in 2004 and 2006. During August 16–20, 2004, one such workshop was conducted at the Dhulikel Lodge Resort in Kathmandu, Nepal. McDonald and Borris designed the workshop so that the participants had a safe

96  Rajit H. Das environment where they felt comfortable and able to express themselves openly. The main the goal was to “sustain the process of inter-communal dialogue and strategic planning rooted in community needs” (IMTD, 2004). The workshop brought together 20 participants and revealed a need for citizen empowerment that could be addressed in future through the strengthening of communication of local and international lines of division. The second intra-Kashmiri dialogue was conducted by IMTD, with funding support from the United States Institute for Peace, from March 13 to 17, 2006, in Male, Maldives, bringing together 25 participants from the both sides of the LoC (IMTD, 2006). The focus was on “human rights, justice, ideas of demilitarization, self-governance, joint management, and finally different models of conflict resolution” (Akhtar, 2012, 53). According to IMTD’s Kashmir Conflict Transformation final report, the workshop resulted in “. . . the breaking of barriers of communication and the forging of relationships between parties to the conflict . . .” (IMTD, 2006, 1). Both dialogue workshops shared one noteworthy attribute, they were both highly inclusive. The 2004 workshop participants were grassroots and mid-level leaders (IMTD, 2004). In the 2006 workshop, the participants came from civil society, in particular from Kashmir, India, Pakistan and even from the diaspora in the United States (Akhtar, 2012, 53). IMTD chose the participants to reflect the various tracks of diplomacy found in civil society. Hence, to some degree, the legitimacy of the outside peacebuilders was based on the representative legitimacy of the stakeholders present at the workshop and by the legitimacy of the Advisory Committee itself. The legitimacy of the stakeholders who were invited to participate in these workshops was substantial, and it was reinforced by personal connections throughout civil society and exemplified by the recommendations made by the advisory committee.5

Conclusion: outsider legitimacy in Kashmir and Cyprus Part of Mitchell’s analysis of legitimacy in the introduction states that a peacebuilding organization usually has to be supported by respected insiders – or at least, an acceptable outsider – if it is to achieve the acceptance and the minimal legitimacy needed to do its work. In the past, IMTD had notified both the Indian and Pakistani embassies in Washington and elsewhere about its plans for peacebuilding activities in Kashmir. However, based on research in IMTD’s internal documents, it is clear that while the Pakistan Government showed much support for, and approval of, all the work carried out by IMTD in Kashmir, particularly in the form of the Kashmir Conflict Transformation Workshops, the Indian Government failed to show much support for IMTD efforts.6 IMTD’s direct involvement with the Kashmir conflict was largely a result of Ambassador McDonald receiving an invitation in 2000 from Shah Qadir, an MP of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Parliament, to travel to Azad Jammu and Kashmir (IMTD, ND). Ambassador McDonald accepted this invitation and spoke in front of parliamentarians, indicating his support for the right to self-determination

External peacebuilders and legitimacy 97 for the Kashmir people. He also traveled to a refugee camp in Muzzafarabad in 2000 and interacted with refugees there (McDonald and Zanolli, 2008, 256). By traveling to the region and speaking thus, he gained the support of the Pakistani government but, unfortunately, not that of the Indian government. It is wellknown that New Delhi does not want foreign “interference” in the handling of this conflict, a provision outlined in the Simla Accords (Kux, 2006). In 2006, after McDonald sent a letter to the Indian government notifying them of IMTD’s intent to conduct a conflict transformation workshop with Kashmiris, the Indian embassy sent a response saying that they would not support the Institute’s peacebuilding activities (Jassal, 2006).7 In the case of Cyprus, McDonald made no public statements and showed no support for either position. Instead, work was carried out exclusively by Diamond, who found that informing local political leadership was important but not essential in executing the conflict resolution process. IMTD conducted their work with the full knowledge of political leadership and the US Embassy (IMTD, 1995, 7).8 Peacebuilding organizations often find it difficult to determine whom to invite to the table so that conflicting parties can discuss issues openly and candidly through a facilitated dialogue. Considerable care and much scrutiny is required so as not to inflame national governments – who see themselves as the only direct parties to, or stakeholders of a conflict – so that the initiative does not seem “biased” or unfavorable to them. Legitimacy has always been an important factor in past IMTD initiatives and one that needs to be incorporated into any future IMTD strategy, should it re-start its Kashmir peacebuilding program. The lessons to take away from this chapter are that legitimacy in the South Asian context tends to be based indirectly upon stakeholder identity. That is, it is based largely upon the identities of those who become directly involved in the dialogue process. Insights gained from IMTD’s peacebuilding work on Cyprus also indicates that the legitimacy which is required for the activities of an outsider organization and its program can often be achieved by involving key local people who are directly affected by the conflict. The key is to involve them directly in a “buy-in” process. Diamond employed this buy-in process by ensuring the participation of locals in her Conflict Resolution Workshops. As a part of her work, she would empower workshop participants to take agency and invite new attendees, telling them that if they wanted to arrange sessions that she would conduct them (IMTD, 1995, 6). As word began to spread via participants with their contacts, they would vouch for the trainings and encourage people to participate. At the conclusion of the trainings, IMTD, as part of the Cyprus Consortium, collectively trained approximately 800 people (Chigas, 2015, 238). The major differences between the two IMTD cases could be observed in the initial phases of the programs. In the case of Kashmir, IMTD relied on the input of an Advisory Committee, which suggested candidates for the Conflict Transformation Workshop. In Cyprus, Diamond used a different strategy by frequently going herself to the island and having previous participants undertake the recruiting on her behalf.

98  Rajit H. Das Peter Jones succinctly defines Track II diplomacy, as “a relationship of trust between the parties to the conflict to a level that is sufficient for them to be drawn into a conversation in which they will gradually reconsider the meaning of the conflict and simultaneously reveal their innermost perceptions of the conflict to each other” (2015, 102). My findings indicate that participant selection is a key element of generating trust and legitimacy for both the process and for the intervening organization. Jones, when discussing Track II participants who were involved in dialogue discussed the relationship between them and Track I participants (politicians, members of cabinet, or other officials). The closer the relationship between the participants at different levels, the higher the potential exists for Track II dialogs to affect track negotiations (Jones, 2015, 140). By contrast, if the relationship between Track II and Track I  participants is weak, or the latter are perceived as unwilling to listen to the former, this can produce a deterrent effect upon the former, stifling the expression of new ideas during Track II dialogue sessions out of concern that there might be opposition from above (Jones, 2015, 140). Unfortunately, my analysis was unable to uncover any Track II to Track I relationships for any the IMTD workshops examined. This leads me to assume that there were no strong relationships and, as per Mitchell in Jones, that real change would be hard to come by from this process, as ideas created at the Track II level would have no way to move to the official Track I negotiations (Mitchell in Jones, 2015, 140–141). Mitchell’s assessment shows the importance of incorporating the need for a considerable level of acceptance and legitimacy into conflict resolution processes. Given the numerous and varied types of legitimacy discussed in the introduction, I have tried, here, to understand the legitimacy of both internal stakeholders and outside interveners, as well as its influence and effects in the Kashmiri context. It is also clear that trust needs to be built up, not only between adversaries but also between these stakeholders and outsider peacebuilders. Trust must surely be considered as a necessary precursor to legitimacy. What the Kashmiri and Cypriot cases indicate is that the key buy-in should not come from the outsider organization, like IMTD, but from people on the ground, as dialogue can only be conducted successfully if parties directly involved in the conflict are ready to talk. IMTD and other peacebuilders can only be “legitimized” by the people of the region. Hence, this can only occur in future if the people of Kashmir take General Hooda’s recommendation to heart in light of the present status quo: My appeal is for calm. We have to sit down, put our heads together and see if we can find a way out of this situation. So everybody, who is in anyway involved in J&K, needs to introspect and see what we can do to stop it. It is not one person or one organization which can do it (alone).9

Notes 1 Eventually, with Hindu revivalism came political reactions against non-Hindu rulers and attempts to restore the integrity of Hinduism (Buultjens, 1986). 2 Furthermore, most Indian people view the elections held in Kashmir in 2014 to have been free, fair, and legitimate (Sibal, 2016).

External peacebuilders and legitimacy 99 3 The ISI is Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, an independent agency created to coordinate intelligence services among Pakistan’s military branches and largely responsible for the training and oversight of militant organizations operating outside of its borders. For more, see Gunaratna (1993). 4 Unfortunately, the work was halted due to programming difficulties. IMTD is motivated to restart its work in Kashmir, by investing in a new approach, based on identifying the lessons learned from past program implementation – conflict transformation workshops – in Kashmir. 5 IMTD’s work in Kashmir can be contrasted with its training and peacebuilding work in Cyprus between 1993 and 2003 when the Green Line dividing the island into two was finally opened. The work in Cyprus was led by Louise Diamond, whose previous initiatives and reputation on the island added to the acceptance and legitimacy of the IMTD program there. As in Kashmir, part of the IMTD’s legitimacy was, in a sense, “conferred” because of the status of the participants who participated in the various cross boundary initiatives. For accounts of the Cyprus work, see the 1995 IMTD Report and Chigas (2015). 6 On the other hand, IMTD’s methods in Cyprus were successful because they initially worked at the grass-root level and encouraged local community buy-in. However, as the reputation of the work of “the Cyprus Consortium” spread throughout both parts of the divided island, representatives of various official political parties – and even some of the direct relatives of leaders then in power – became involved in the meetings. 7 Nonetheless, the initial set of Kashmiri participants was invited on the grounds that they met the requirements set out by the Advisory Committee. 8 Diamond frequently traveled to Cyprus and interacted with local leaders. The trainings she conducted were frequent and reinforced the concept of conflict resolution. In this way, the conflict resolution model, the person in charge, and the organization (IMTD) were partially legitimized. 9 Statement by Lt. General D.S. Hooda, Northern Army Commander on August 20, 2016, in response to the most recent outbreak of unrest in Kashmir. www.ndtv.com/india-news/ army-appeals-for-calm-in-kashmir-says-everyone-needs-to-step-back-1446218.

Works cited Akhtar, S., 2012. Intra-Kashmir Dialogue: Need for Consensus. Strategic Studies, 32, 44–70. Anon, 2016. Hurriyat Will Be Isolated If It Doesn’t Participate in Kashmir Peace Talks: BJP. The New Indian Express, September 5. Bennett-Jones, O., 2009. Pakistan: Eye of the Storm, 3rd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Bhalla, A., 2016. Pakistan Spent Rs 100 Crore Funding Terror in J&K Over the Past Year, Indian Intelligence Sources Say. Daily Mail, July 14. Buultjens, R., 1986. India: Religion, Political Legitimacy, and the Secular State. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 483, 93–109. Byman, D., 2015. Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. Chigas, D., 2015. The Harvard Study Group on Cyprus: Contributions to an Unfulfilled Peace Process. In M.S. Lund & S. Mcdonald (eds.) Across the Lines of Conflict: Facilitating Cooperation to Build Peace. Washington, DC, New York: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Columbia University Press, 231–279. Chowdhary, R., 2014. India’s Response to the Kashmir Insurgency: A Holistic Approach. In M. Yusuf (ed.) Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in South Asia: Through a Peacebuilding Lens. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 45–76.

100  Rajit H. Das Das, R., 2014. Seeing the Conflict in Kashmir Through the Lens of Conflict Resolution. Presented at Conflict Studies & Global Governance: The New Generation of Ideas, September 15. Boston, MA: University of Massachussetts, Boston. Diamond, L.  & Mcdonald, J.W., 1996. Multi-Track Diplomacy: A Systems Approach to Peace, 3rd ed. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Gunaratna, R., 1993. Indian Intervention in Sri Lanka. Colombo: South Asian Network on Conflict Research. Hajari, N., 2015. Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Haqqani, H. & Curtis, L., 2017. A New U.S. In Approach to Pakistan: Enforcing Aid Conditions Without Cutting Ties. Washington, DC: H. Institute. IMTD, 1995. Progress Towards Resolving an ‘Intractable’ Conflict: The Case for Cyprus. Arlington, VA: Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy. IMTD, 2004. Kashmir Conflict Transformation Workshop. Arlington, VA: Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy. IMTD, 2006. Kashmir Conflict Transformation Workshop Final Report. Arlington, VA: Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy. IMTD, nd. IMTD Intervention in India – Pakistan (1995–2001). Arlington, VA: Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy. Jameel, Y., 2016. Massive Protests Break Out in Kashmir After Death of Youth in Firing. Deccan Chronicle, August 31. Jassal, R., 2006. Letter Sent to Ambassador McDonald Concerning 2006 Workshop – Embassy of India. Arlington, VA: Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy. Jones, P., 2015. Track Two Diplomacy in Theory and Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Joshi, S., 2014. India’s Role in a Changing Afghanistan. Washington Quarterly, 37, 87–102. Kandaswamy, A., 2014. The K Stands for Kashmir, But it Does Not Need to. Stalemates: The Bologna Center Journal of International Affairs, 17, 43–55. Keay, J., 2000. India: A History. London: HarperCollins. Keay, J., 2014. Midnight’s Descendants: A History of South Asia Since Partition. New York: Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Klieman, A.S., 1979. The Divisiveness of Palestine: Foreign Office Versus Colonial Office on the Issue of Partition, 1937. The Historical Journal, 22, 423–441. Kux, D., 2006. India-Pakistan Negotiations: Is Past Still Prologue? 1st ed. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Ludden, D.E., 2014. India and South Asia: A Short History. London: Oneworld Publications. Mcdonald, J.W. & Zanolli, N., 2008. The Shifting Grounds of Conflict and Peacebuilding: Stories and Lessons. Lanham: Lexington Books. Milam, W.B., 2009. Bangladesh and Pakistan: Flirting With Failure in South Asia. New York: Columbia University Press. Mukerjee, M., 2010. Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II. New York: Basic Books. Narayanan, R., 2010. The India-Pakistan Dyad: A Challenge to the Rest or to Themselves? Asian Perspective, 34, 165–190. Press Trust of India, 2014. BJP Fields More Muslim Candidates in Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian Express, November 17. Razdan, N., 2016. India Raises Balochistan Issue In Geneva, Accuses Pak of Rights Violation [online]. New Delhi Television (NDTV). Available from: www.ndtv.com/

External peacebuilders and legitimacy 101 india-news/india-raises-balochistan-issue-in-geneva-accuses-pak-of-rights-violation1458750?pfrom=home-lateststories [Accessed 14 September 2016]. Riedel, B.O., 2013. Avoiding Armageddon: America, India, and Pakistan to the Brink and Back. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Saraf, P., 2015. Hope Over Pandits’ Home Coming Recedes into Political Sloganeering [online]. Sahara Samay. Available from: www.saharasamay.com/nation-news/opinion/ 676571538/hope-over-pandits-home-coming-recedes-into-political-sloganeerin.html Accessed 1 March 2016]. Scroll Staff, 2015. Kashmir Is the ‘Unfinished Business of Partition’, Says Pakistan Army Chief [online]. Scroll.in. Available from: http://scroll.in/article/754127/kashmir-is-theunfinished-business-of-partition-says-pakistan-army-chief [Accessed 4 March 2016]. Sharma, V., 2016. The Persecution of Kashmir’s Minority Hindus [online]. The Diplomat. Available from: http://thediplomat.com/2016/01/the-persecution-of-kashmirs-minorityhindus/ [Accessed 10 September 2016]. Shepheard, W.P.B., 1899. Suzerainty. Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation, 1, 432–438. Sibal, K., 2016. Identifying Aspirations – Kashmir’s Elected Leaders Seem Unable to Talk to Their People. The Telegraph, September 5. Snyder, J., 2005. Empire: A Blunt Tool for Democratization. Daedalus, 134, 58–71. Sood, P., 2005. Centre, Hurriyat Agree to End All Forms of Violence. The Tribune, September 5. Tharoor, S., 2016. An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India. New Dehli: Aleph Book Co. Tnn, 2014. For BJP, Highest Vote Share in J&K, But 2.2% in Valley. The Economic Times, December 24. Wiseman, P., 2002. Kashmir Conflict Has More Than Two Sides. USA Today, January 9. Wolpert, S.A., 2006. Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Wolpert, S.A., 2010. India and Pakistan: Continued Conflict or Cooperation? Berkeley: University of California Press.

6 Legitimacy, international accompaniment, and land reform in Colombia Catherine Ammen and Christopher MitchellLegitimacy and land reform in colombia

Catherine Ammen and Christopher Mitchell

Introduction While the modern notion of “International Protective Accompaniment” (IPA) is relatively new, it has its roots in ideas similar to those behind the original founding of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the mid 1800’s – protection from armed threats and violence. More recently, IPA also has a solid bedrock in the theory of human rights and in international humanitarian law (IHL) as they have been refined over the last 75 years since the Second World War. Its actual use has expanded considerably, especially in the last three decades, with an increase in the number of organizations providing international accompaniment; while many of the groups initially providing limited IPA in the 1970s have expanded their operations into other regions and countries. This growth was also due to the effectiveness that accompaniment was seen to have provided, plus the growing literature on how the practice of putting strong moral pressure on governments and armed actors to deter violence could most effectively be employed. The United Nations has also drawn on these experiences, and began to incorporate a model of accompaniment through what has become called the ‘protection of presence’.1 This chapter begins by discussing the nature of international protective accompaniment, why it is thought to work, and what the different goals are of groups that provide such accompaniment. The main questions then explored are, first, the extent to which a focus on international protection enhances or undermines the legitimacy and hence the effectiveness of the individual or organization being so protected. Second, the impact on the credibility and hence the legitimacy of the organization providing accompaniment, either in the sense of its ability to provide effective protection or alternatively in its ability to further the aims of the organization or individuals so accompanied. More specifically, to what extent does “impartiality” as opposed to “partisanship”, enhance or undermine the accompanier’s own legitimacy and thus its effectiveness in providing deterrence by garnering support from the national and international community, a question more fully discussed by Patrick Coy (2011)? This dilemma constantly confronts many accompanying organizations, so in its final sections, our chapter illustrates the dilemma, with examples of protective accompaniment from Colombia. Here the focus will be on cases of accompaniment for local communities seeking to validate land claims in the north east of that country.

Legitimacy and land reform in colombia  103

International Protective Accompaniment IPA involves the physical presence of an “accompanier” intended: • • •

to provide a deterrent to physical violence perpetrated both by a government and its agents or by non-state armed actors; to provide encouragement and moral support to accompanied groups and the causes they are working on; and to help give greater legitimacy to these same groups and causes.

Groups that request and receive accompaniment are typically those defined generally as working for social justice and human rights. Naturally, not every human rights group invites accompaniment, and there are usually not enough resources to provide accompaniment to every group that asks. Situations in which accompaniment is unlikely to be effective are when an actor – state or non-state – is employing violence to legitimate itself – using violence and terror to demonstrate that they are able to act with impunity. IPA is most likely to be effective where violence can bring about serious repercussions, particularly if it cannot be practiced without arousing public and official notice. Liam Mahony puts the argument thus: The accompaniment volunteer is the embodiment of international concern, a compelling and visible reminder to those using violence and repression that it will not go unnoticed. Accompaniment has three primary impacts: it protects, it offers moral support, and it helps to build the global movement for peace and human rights. (Mahony, 2013, 12) Colombia is a good example of where protective accompaniment has often been effective, especially if North American organizations are involved. This is largely due to the existence of strong political and economic relationships between the United States and Colombia, exemplified by trade agreements, military assistance, humanitarian foreign aid, and foreign business investment, especially by US companies. It is important for any Colombian government to maintain the perception that it respects human rights, that it “does no harm” to Americans or American interests, and that it has violence and unrest under control. While this perception is important to any Colombian government in its relationship with the United States government, it is also crucial for foreign corporations operating in Colombia. These also need to be seen as not supporting, benefiting from, or becoming involved in direct violence. Frequently, outside companies do benefit, indirectly or directly, from ongoing violence, especially when land takeovers are involved. Hence, maintaining at least the perception that corporations are not so involved is crucial for many transnational corporations working in Colombia. This is why monitoring and accurate reporting on the conflict and on those responsible for unlawful violence is an important part of the work of accompaniment.

104  Catherine Ammen and Christopher Mitchell

Accompaniment and deterrence One of the main goals of all organizations providing accompaniment is thus the deterrence of physical violence as well as of the threat of violence, although the effectiveness of this is almost impossible to measure with much accuracy. Accompaniment works as a deterrent against violent attacks by being a “watchful eye” against violence and other human rights abuses. Always implied is the counter threat that observing, documenting, and sharing this information may lead to repercussions from the international community. Mahony and Eguren outline this “rational” argument for deterrence as follows: A state, concerned with its political and economic relationships with other more powerful nations, presumably wants to minimize the political cost of its human rights practices. (Mahony and Eguren, 1997, 85) However, they go on to say that there are several caveats and complications to this argument. For example, it assumes first that the actor directly perpetrating violence is a rational decision maker and second that there will be political or economic pressure leveraged from (usually) more powerful countries over human rights abuses. However, a lack of communication between national decision makers and those who commit the violence would be likely to render deterrence ineffective. Moreover, an incumbent government might make a political calculation that the risk of attacking, for example, a local human rights organization might be worth any possible ramifications (cf. Mahony and Eguren, 1997, 84–85). Even in cases where “rational” violent actors would be dissuaded by possible adverse political and economic reactions; an IPA initiative must also take practical steps to make deterrence effective. An accompanying organization must clearly communicate its presence, and its day-to-day movements to those they believe are most likely to attack, as well as making clear what types of actions are unacceptable (Mahony and Eguren, 1997, 86–87). This also assumes that the accompanier is accurate in knowing who the attacker most likely would be, and ensuring that the latter will receive communications to this effect. In a conflict zone this is never an easy task, given that there are likely to be numerous groups who might make a threat or launch an attack. Inevitably, confusion lowers the effectiveness of deterrence, which depends on a potential perpetrator’s strong belief that it will suffer an international response. Much of this involves guesswork, in that it may prove impossible to activate a strong reaction – or the perpetrator may believe this is unlikely and so commits the abuse. Hopefully, this is then followed (subsequently) by an international outcry against the violence, but in this case preventive deterrence will have failed. With all of these uncertain factors in play, it is always the case that the accompanier’s organizational capacity in the host country and the organization’s international reputation are important aspects to consider.

Legitimacy and land reform in colombia  105 In many situations, deterrent effectiveness is enhanced by other measures, including documentation and reporting of human rights abuses, regular communication with government officials and known armed actors, and education and speaking tours in the host country, all the while providing protective accompaniment to threatened local groups and individuals. It is always important to educate and build a support base of activists, while lobbying and communicating with local NGOs and with INGOs for support.

Accompaniment: central features The practice of international accompaniment blossomed in the 1980s during the violence that was then taking place in Central and South America. Many of the accompanying organizations and groups were from the United States, often church based and moved by disapproval of the support of the US government for military dictatorships throughout Latin America. In Colombia, for example, Peace Brigades International (PBI) first began providing accompaniment in 1994, and since then a number of other groups have joined this effort.2 In the early days, “international accompaniment” was not an easily defined concept, nor even a term that was used consistently. Other terms included “nonviolent intervention”, “unarmed peacekeeping”, “unarmed accompaniment”, and “third party peacemaking (see Mahony and Eguren, 1997; Moser-Puangsuwan and Weber, 2000; Koopman, 2012). The practice was also understood to mean different things to the different groups using the approach, and it was often defined simply by the various tactics and strategies actually used, rather than by underlying principles. Over time, and at its most basic level, it came to be considered that IPA was: • • •

an activity carried out by a civilian, either as an individual, but often as part of an organization, with the intent to provide either protection or support to groups and communities in their quest for human rights and social justice who are at risk for undertaking that type of work amid protracted, violent conflict.

Other writers, many of whom had direct experience of being accompaniers themselves, have discussed the practice and the underlying ideas and have developed more elaborate definitions, including Patrick Coy, who writes: Multinational teams trained in nonviolence, interposition, and documentation skills, and supported by a well-developed international network, may provide at least five overlapping, mutually reinforcing forms of protective accompaniment . . . Individual escorts . . . Presence . . . Observing . . . Visits . . . Delegations. (Coy, 2003)

106  Catherine Ammen and Christopher Mitchell Mahony and Eguren describe a “community of support” to organize and overcome terror that is inflicted by violence: Terror destroys the social fabric around the affected individual, either by literally annihilating their family, friends, or community or by systematically isolating them. They have to rebuild this fabric themselves. Finding a supportive community breaks the isolation and helps to heal. (Mahony and Eguren, 1997, 91) For example, on this latter point, when Alvaro Uribe was President of Colombia (2002–2010), he often labeled human rights workers as “terrorists”, “guerrilla sympathizers”, or simply “communists” as a way of trying to delegitimize their organizing efforts and to make violence against them more acceptable. Accompaniment can help counter this fear in organizing when it is politically dangerous to do so, as well as helping to provide legitimacy to any work opposed to a narrative that is trying to claim that their realities and grievances are invalid.

The issue of partisanship: solidarity or impartiality? Not surprisingly, the strategies used by organizations providing IPA can vary widely, especially as we noted earlier, around the key issues of “impartiality” and “partisanship” or “solidarity”. Many accompanying organizations seek to make a distinction between, on the one hand, trying to remain “impartial” and, on the other, not being “partisan”. The former means having no preference about those groups to whom they offer assistance and simply trying to prevent that group suffering illegitimate violence or having their human rights violated. In contrast, being “non-partisan” involves remaining non-judgmental and refraining from directly advocating, or taking action in support of, the work of those that are being accompanied as against those who oppose them, as long as the latter do not use violence (Coy, 2011, 4).3 The dilemmas of providing both protection and support It will immediately be obvious that this is a difficult distinction to make – and some accompanying organizations tend to ignore it completely and are quite happy to be seen as partisan, openly advocating for change (cf. Coy, 2011). However, for those organizations that are trying to adhere to this “non-partisan” principle, numerous conceptual difficulties inevitably arise. Various rationales can be offered for adhering to a nonpartisan strategy. One arises from the need to maintain credibility with the international community – governments and IGOs – who may be called upon to support the activities of the accompanying organizations. The other is the need for the accompanying organization to be seen as behaving within the legal limits of the host country, thus being credible and minimally “legitimate” within the eyes of national governments and other key actors in an ongoing conflict. In theory, the fundamental strategy involves not directly

Legitimacy and land reform in colombia 107 supporting the empowerment, self-determination, or capacity-building of an accompanied group.4 In itself, this presents a dilemma, as most accompanying organizations claim that one core aim is “solidarity with “, and the provision of “support for”, those being accompanied. For one accompanying organization, this strategy of “standing in solidarity” may simply involve presence and the open and public revelation of threats and violence, but for another, this might be taken to mean becoming part of campaigns of protest, of providing publicity for aims and activities, or of the provision of technical, organizational, or legal expertise. It can be argued that both are forms of “solidarity” and can be useful in different circumstances, or that “non-partisanship” and “solidarity” are not necessarily incompatible. However, we would argue that the foundation of effective international accompaniment, at least in its protective role, has to be based on its being seen only to offer moral support and encouragement, in contrast to being seen as fully and unquestioningly supporting all and any of the activities of some local group, which often has profound social change as its primary goal – and, sometimes, confrontational activism as its method. In reality, the minimal security that an IPA organization can provide through accompaniment will, in itself, support indirectly the building of internal capacity, as it gives some level of reassurance, especially to those beginning to organize. This is perhaps one of the most important forms of support that an international accompanier can provide as far as local capacity building is concerned. Most, if not all, of the organizations providing accompaniment, describe one key aim of their work as being to provide some level of encouragement and moral support to local organizers. In contrast, open advocacy and activism have the potential to undermine credibility and hence diminish any legitimacy that an IPA organization might have developed at the national level, especially with the central government. This, in turn, might then affect the organization’s ability successfully to deter violence (Coy, 2011, 15). On the other hand, it can be argued that an IPA organization that has a highly effective and influential network among policy makers both nationally and internationally might interpret their most effective role to involve directly supporting the aspirations and tactics of the communities or organizations they are accompanying. They might thus be willing to run the risk of having to downplay their protective role, while becoming seen as activists and advocates Advocating for policy change may not be inherently a bad thing, as long as this advocacy is carried out in accordance with the local organization or community’s vision, although this sometimes can be hard to discern. An organization, a group or a community that is just starting to build its organizational capacity, for example, may not have an articulated vision and efforts to advocate for one may take away from the critical steps needed in internal organizing. Altering and strengthening internal decision-making processes continue to take place even after a group is well established. It is important, therefore, to analyze the current capacity and goals of any community that is requesting international accompaniment and to understand their vision for the community, as well as the strategies

108  Catherine Ammen and Christopher Mitchell they have used prior to accompaniment. These assessments should be carried out while also evaluating the strengths and weakness of the IPA organization asked to provide accompaniment, in order to best match capacities to support and enhance current strategies and goals.5 The practicalities of non-partisan choice: impartiality or solidarity? Clearly, there needs to be some critical, conceptual distinctions made in any discussion of “nonpartisanship” versus “solidarity”, as these may be seen by some IPA organizations as mutually exclusive concepts. However, depending on how the concepts are used in practice, this does not necessarily need to be the case. In her dissertation, Sara Koopman came across the tension around the two terms. Among her interviewees, those working for organizations providing international accompaniment almost exclusively viewed their work as “in solidarity”, although there was a lot of confusion about what this meant in practice. Were such activities as technical skills exchange workshops, leadership-building workshops, attendance at rallies, or completing day-to-day tasks with the groups being accompanied, just examples of “solidarity” – or not? Some international organizations, such as Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR) or PBI, have stricter rules than others about actions that are included within the scope of “partisanship” (Koopman, 2012, 192). None of the above activities were inherently activist or partisan, but all of them could be seen as such by adversaries. We should also recall that accompanimimento, or companero (comradeship), as well as many indigenous forms of organizing and of “being together” are much older than the international solidarity movement of the 1980s. The literature on accompaniment has a tendency to focus on international organizations that practice accompaniment at the national or local levels of conflict-torn societies and mainly to examine the protective effectiveness of such initiatives. By contrast, much “accompaniment” can take the form of national organizations establishing a strong presence in local communities, usually with the aim of helping local campaigns for development, influence or justice. In such situations, it is clearly the case that the accompanying organization is thoroughly partial, and its being “in solidarity” with the local community involves direct assistance in the latter’s campaign for major change. The aim of protection is clearly a secondary, if important, one. Moreover, some forms of protective accompaniment can turn out to be wholly local as well as deeply personal. In an interview with leaders from the Nasa indigenous community in Cauca, interviewees talked about “providing accompaniment” to funerals, walking with families who had lost loved ones. In the same community, the “Indigenous Guard”, inspired by the leader Manuel Qunti’n Lame, began organizing in the early 1980s to serve as protectors of their community. They were originally part of a movement for land occupation, itself an aspect of organized community resistance to displacement and violence from large landowners who had appropriated indigenous territory. As a self-defense group, the Nasa “Indigenous Guard” thus had its roots in violent resistance but, as the result

Legitimacy and land reform in colombia 109 of constitutional changes in 1991, they handed in their weapons and modified their strategy (Wirpsa et al., 2009, 234–235). Community organizing and resistance remain the backbone of the Indigenous Guard, but now they can be seen with bastones (sticks) as symbolic weapons of protection, and their strength lies is their ability to mobilize a local community quickly if a threat is imminent. Throughout Colombia, community organizers also frequently accompany individuals and families to stand with them, physically, on their land as they resist displacement. Apart from practical assistance – resources, legal advice and consultation, training, publicity – this form of accompaniment provides moral “solidarity”, giving the strength to “take a stand” as well as the protection that group solidarity in numbers can offer. The strategy is never a complete guarantee of success, and there are certainly numerous examples of entire communities continuing to be the object of targeted violence or of assassinations and massacres which are still carried out despite any type of accompaniment, international, national or local. However, throughout Colombia and elsewhere, strength in numbers – a community literally standing together – has proved a powerful form of resistance against violence.

Land in Colombia: conflicts over title and control The tension between impartiality – accompaniment to provide protection for threatened individuals and local communities – on the one hand, and solidarity with the aims of those being protected on the other is nowhere better illustrated than in the numerous struggles over land ownership in Colombia, which include many cases of forced displacement. We should start by recalling that Colombia has been ranked as one of the most unequal in the world, especially as regards income inequality but, equally importantly, as far as land ownership is concerned.6 Thus, all recent political activities in Colombia, including constitutional and economic changes, are embedded in the context of a violent conflict over land and land rights, with high poverty rates, over four million internally displaced people, and a long history of turbulent – if often unsuccessful – efforts at reform. Land inequality has long been a central grievance in Colombia, and it continues to drive violence in the 21st century. Addressing local land inequality is a central pillar of public declarations made by many local peace communities, whose members see the issue as a central part of creating a process of peaceful co-existence and justice. However, local communities – campesinos, as well as indigenous and Afro-Colombians – all face numerous obstacles in negotiating for land rights, which are perpetuated by structural inequality, a major imbalance of power, and historically having been on the margins of society, both geographically and socially. Indigenous organization, “others”, and land reform In the case of many indigenous groups, those starting from a firm base of social capital have developed strong organizing capabilities for self-governance and

110  Catherine Ammen and Christopher Mitchell autonomy, which have proved key pillars in the pursuit of indigenous land rights. This involves local decision-making processes regarding the allocation of resources, the managing of interpersonal conflicts, and negotiation with local armed groups.7 Local indigenous groups are often supported by and support national or regional indigenous groups, such as the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council (CRIC) and the Indigenous Organization of Antioquia (AICO). However, even national indigenous groups do not always have similar platforms from which to influence national level policies, while many regional associations are aligned along political divides. Various local groups have created their own Planear La Vida, which forms one of many planks of the platform of national indigenous groups. Velasco describes, for example, a large effort in 2003 to mobilize interethnic cooperation in the Naya Basin in Cauca. This built on the Interethnic Territorial Union of the Naya River (UTINAYA), which represented all the local indigenous and Afro-Colombian organizations living in the area. The organization advocated for ethnic rights and for mapping and recording property rights. It sought to co-manage natural resources, strengthen local organizations and improve general wellbeing through health care, education, and the achievement of “land sovereignty” (Velasco, 2011, 418). Campesinos in the region also had a vested interested in interethnic cooperation, as they would benefit from acceptance in the community and, through this organization, established local agreements about land. Local governance mechanisms are not confined only to indigenous groups. The Naya Basin is home to a diverse ethnic composition. In 2005, the majority – nearly 90% of the 1.3 million people – were Afro-Columbian, while 5% were composed of at least five different indigenous groups, and 5% were campesinos (Velasco, 2011, 406). One of the challenges presented by the reforms of the 1991 Constitution for ethnic groups and land rights was that “Indian and riparian Black communities can claim collective land ownership, but only Indian authorities enjoy legal status as public entities in their land. This means that Indian language and customary laws are official in their land” (Velasco, 2011, 415). Velasco goes on to describe that there are “22 local organizations, including four ethnic-territorial organizations and 15 rural community associations in the Naya . . . Afro-Colombians, who are the majority of the population, are represented by the Naya Community Council” (Velasco, 2011, 415). As diverse groups work together to continue to build a foundation for organizing trust and working together collectively in participatory decision making, they form a bedrock of strength from which other bargaining can take place. Without strong relationships at the ground level, local governance structures are not able to effectively influence the various mechanisms to facilitate other bargaining demands. Asymmetric bargaining for land reform and community protection Whatever the precise nature of local grassroots organizations and their aspirations about local land, political competition over land rights seems highly likely if not inevitable, and this can lead eventually to some form of negotiation and

Legitimacy and land reform in colombia 111 bargaining. As Thomas Flores (2014) points out, this process will be carried out through a variety of mechanisms whenever there are incompatible claims made by at least two groups. Political leaders must allocate resources – in this case, land rights and land titles – and can employ or withhold the use of force when violence is used to seize or defend the land. They can use force to enforce a land title and can allocate resources (such as dams) to international corporations to enable them to operate on the land. As we noted above, land rights have held a central role for indigenous groups over the centuries, and the kinds of legislative changes discussed previously have usually strengthened the legality of these claims to land titles, although the legislation is not always enforced. For example, Article 63 of the 1991 Constitution states: “Property in public use, natural parks, communal lands of ethnic groups, security zones, the archaeological resources of the nation, and other property determined by law are inalienable, imprescriptible, and unseizable . . .” (2017). Although part of the 1991 Constitution, this article is vague and open to interpretation – and dispute – about what it means that some territory is “communal” land, and what the enforcement mechanism should be once a piece of territory is deemed to be communal. Will the government go so far as to remove a powerful landowner by force if he or his agents currently occupy the land? Processes that are open to influence thus include legal procedures and the process by which local authorities develop the political will to advance enacted legislative changes – that is, to implement and enforce the law. Both of these involve layers of bargaining in which indigenous groups necessarily have to be involved. However, they seldom have the same level of political power, legislative access, or coercive power as do their adversaries, such as large latifundistas, international mining companies, or transnational corporations. In a system that privileges those with access to power, these situations are those in which “prosperous actors likely retain significant bargaining advantages over their less affluent peers.” Moreover, they “likely can dedicate more resources to the bargaining process, drawing greater attention to their claims and permitting greater access to the organs of the state. They likely also command greater social respect. Prosperous citizens can more easily gain the support of politicians and purchase private coercive power” (Flores, 2014, 12–13). In such a system, it is important to identify potential access points for those without status and influence. Hence, given that “solidarity” seems to require the provision of such analytical and other types of help, it is necessary to explore ways that international accompaniment organizations can help balance power for less influential groups, thus altering the bargaining process. Once again, we have arrived back at our central dilemma regarding the inevitable tensions between solidarity and impartiality. Solidarity in other asymmetric settings The dilemma arises similarly – and yet again – in other situations, where a relatively resources-less local group is bargaining with armed actors and requiring

112  Catherine Ammen and Christopher Mitchell from their accompanying organizations not merely solidarity with their aspirations and aims but actual physical protection from threats and direct violence, either from those involved on the other side in the bargaining – or from their disapproving rivals. Local communities can often find themselves in a different asymmetric negotiating situation with adversaries possessing alternative forms of advantage, as when a grassroots peace community seeks a safe space on which to settle. While Christopher Mitchell and Sara Ramírez (2009) have argued that a “zone” of peace can be more than simply a geographical area, and that a peace community (or “experiencia de paz”) does not require land to form a community, land is clearly involved for most peace communities. This is especially the case for those who have moved back to resettle a region from which they have been expelled, as well as for communities that have clung on to their own land, and seek to protect that land and themselves from violence and further displacement. The bargaining process associated with all these activities can take place on multiple levels and with various actors. Local communities often find themselves negotiating with local armed groups in an effort to create a safe space on an existing territory and to bargain for safety and security. Other negotiations can take place with armed groups over communities positioning themselves as “neutral” or even over persuading armed groups to leave a territory.8 Helping local communities to negotiate with local armed actors can, of course, be regarded as a form of “protection” – protecting a group of people who are the legitimate owners and protectors of the land. In many cases, accompaniment can strengthen their bargaining position and add to the balance of power in favor of the community, especially when the armed groups in question see local community claims as ideologically valid and that there are benefits to be gained from local negotiation. Communities that have organized can increase their bargaining strength in a variety of ways through the power of numbers and the power of representing local grassroots communities. Add to this the power of the moral high ground – the communities seek peace, at least locally. Accompaniment can enhance all three of these factors by adding the accompanier’s actual power in numbers, by showing that many people actually are watching and by the fact that there could potentially be repercussions to any violence. As we emphasized earlier, accompaniment works through the leverage provided by local negotiators recognizing that “the world is watching”.9

Solidarity and protection in Colombian land conflicts Examples of international protective accompaniment in Colombia are numerous and varied. In some cases, the accompaniment is directly associated with individual peace communities and the main objective, at least initially, is to provide some degree of protection to local people as they strive to become recognized as neutral in the struggle and to develop locally based decision-making processes as well as local economic enterprises. In many such cases, these locally based initiatives become supported – in some cases encouraged and even initiated – by regionaland national-level organizations. The main aim of such organizations is to support

Legitimacy and land reform in colombia  113 and act in solidarity with local communities by supplying moral approval, needed skills, and material goods, but frequently, they often end up under threat and thus themselves require international accompaniment. In many cases, local peace initiatives have been accompanied both by national and international organizations, which, to at least some degree, have the intention and the effect of supplying publicity and protection on the one hand, and providing solidarity and direct support on the other. In both cases, the involvement of such organizations can have the effect of increasing the legitimacy of the protected local community – as well their own. For example, the Afro-Colombian Communities of Jiguamiando in Choco (Nueva Esperanza, Pueblo Nuevo, and Bellaflor), together with their parallel communities in Curbarado, have a long history of protective accompaniment. This even resulted in the communities being the subject of a 2003 Court Order from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which ordered the Colombian government to ensure that the people could continue to live in their then location (close to their own original land that had originally been given over to palm oil cultivation) unthreatened and unmolested. However, in spite of this order, the communities have suffered constant threats, harassment and violence at the hands of both paramilitaries and their successor “criminal gangs”, frequently with close links to the oil palm companies. Estimates are that over 50 leaders of movements for local land restoration have been killed since President Santos took office in 2010.10 This complex and confusing combination of national and international organizations being involved in efforts to supply protection and support for local peacebuilders is nowhere better illustrated than in such conflicts over land ownership and control that have arisen throughout the country, especially in situations where communities have fled or been driven from their land. Later, they sought to return and claim ownership of land that has often been appropriated and developed for commercial agriculture, cattle ranching, or mineral extraction.11 As we pointed out above, such land conflicts are inevitably highly asymmetric and prone to one side using threats and occasional violence as tactics, while the other finds itself in need of not just protection but also support, skills, and resources they seldom possess, which often have to be supplied by outside organization prepared to act in solidarity with the local community. The case of land disputes over Hacienda de Las Pavas in Bolivar has become emblematic of this kind of conflict and of the role played by outside accompaniers, caught between the principle of providing protection on the one hand or support and solidarity on the other. Land conflicts in Las Pavas The estate of Las Pavas lies in the south of the Province of Bolivar in a remote region of Medio Magdalena. Formally, it is a part of the municipio of El Penon and is close to the hamlet of Buenos Aires, many of whose inhabitants, in 1997 formed themselves into the Asociacion Campesina de Buenos Aires (ASOCAB), one of the main parties to the complex set of disputes that developed over various land titles within the estate. Of the 15 different lots forming Las Pavas, there

114  Catherine Ammen and Christopher Mitchell appears to be no dispute over who has title to the four biggest pieces of territory, but the titles to the remaining eleven lots is unclear and for the last ten years has been in dispute between ASOCAB and a commercial consortium, the Consorcio El Labrador, originally representing the palm oil companies Aportes San Isidro and CI Tequendama (a subsidiary of Daabon S.A.). The territory of Las Pavas was originally state owned, as is most unoccupied territory in Colombia. In 1983, it was purchased by Jesus Emilio Escobar, a relative of Pablo Escobar, the head of the Medellin drug cartel, the purchase possibly being one example of the then trend for major Colombian drug smugglers investing money from the drug trade into Colombian land. Escobar used the estate for cattle ranching for the next ten years. He then abandoned it and eventually moved to Costa Rica. The abandoned estate was then partially taken over and used by local campesinos to settle and farm their own crops. In 1997, they formed ASOCAB as a cooperative to organize and coordinate their farming activities. In the early 2000s, ASOCAB was claiming that Escobar had carried out no actions to indicate his possession for over ten years, whereas they had been farming the property for that period and thus had acquired the right to a formal legal title, for which they approached the state’s Rural Development Institute (INCODER) in June 2006.12 However, in that same year, the original owner, Jesus Emilio Escobar, reappeared and having forcibly removed the campesino farmers from the land in November 2006, began negotiations to sell it off. In March 2007, Las Pavas was sold to the palm oil Consorcio, whose representatives subsequently argued that they bought the land in good faith as there was no notification that the title to the estate was in dispute, which would have prevented it being sold by the original, if contested owner.13 These series of events intensified the struggle between ASOCAB and the Consorcio over the land and the legal title to the land. The complex conflict has taken place in three basic arenas: the courts, local, regional, and national administrative institutions, and on the ground, in the estate itself. At all three levels the conflict has, inevitably, been highly asymmetric, with a locally based peasant organization with few resources facing a relatively wealthy and influential business organization with close links to many levels of government, especially that of President Uribe. This imbalance has given the Consorcio numerous advantages in all three arenas, especially in the case of financial resources, legal expertise, and ease of access to political influentials and authorities.14 To some extent, this imbalance has been offset by the community’s ability to count on the support and solidarity of outside accompanying organizations, which has meant that national and international media attention has not been lacking. Moreover, since 2010, the government of President Santos has pursued an admittedly halting policy of restoration and restitution to local communities who have lost their land through violent displacement during the height of the civil strife.15 In Las Pavas between 2007 and 2016, the local arena has been the most violent, attracting the most external interest and action from national and international accompaniers. Here, a pattern can be seen, whereby campesinos from the local community have occupied land and begun farming, then been ejected by threats

Legitimacy and land reform in colombia  115 and violence, often losing their own crops and later seeing them replaced by intensive palm oil plantations. They then returned to parts of the estate and re-occupied the land to begin farming once again.16 This pattern has occurred four times and involved four displacements and returns. International and national accompaniment in Las Pavas Las Pavas is emblematic of land conflicts in Colombia, although – given the amount of outside interest, help, and media attention devoted to the case – one could argue that Las Pavas is quite unusual. At the very least, these factors have altered, to a quite profound degree, the typical asymmetries normally involved in most disputes between small peasant communities and powerful business interests, national and transnational. A better case can, perhaps, be made for its being an excellent example of the kinds of accompaniment, both national and international, that can be effective in offering some protection to one side of the dispute, as well as providing the kind of support that somewhat reduces the asymmetric structure of the adversarial relationship. Initially, local community members of ASOCAB were very much on their own, but in 2005, they were encouraged to start the process of applying for formal title to their farmland from INCORA by the mayor of El Penon. Otherwise, the involvement of the local authorities of the municipio has tended to be minimal throughout. All of this changed in January 2009, following the campesinos’ decision to re-occupy the land, a symbolic event that attracted the attention of a local priest. He then began ASOCAB’s connection with the Catholic Church through a local bishop and the Jesuit organization, CINEP. The same local adviser put the community in touch with a number of NGOs, including a regional peace and development organization, the Programa por Desarollo y Paz en el Magdalena Medio (PDPMM). The involvement of PDPMM from that point onward meant that ASOCAB had access to legal advice and representation supplied by PDPMM during the diverse legal processes that developed subsequently, both in the communities’ disputes with the Colombian state and with the palm oil Consorcio.17 Legal aid and advice became available from the Clinica Juridica of Javeriana University in Bogota, as well as from lawyers from the Corporacion Sembrar. All this action in support of ASOCAB clearly reduces the legal asymmetry in the conflict between the local community and the powerful transnational organizations in the consortium, which were rumored to have close ties to the Uribe administration and to influential economic interests at the national level. The three organizations supplying legal assistance and advice to ASOCAB are clearly regional or national Colombian institutions and are clearly examples of outsiders supplying support and solidarity of various types to a local community. If we look for outside accompaniers simply supplying “protective accompaniment” via presence and revelation, the search becomes more difficult and reveals how hard it is – theoretically – to distinguish protection from support and how difficult it can become – practically – to provide one without the other. Two international organizations have been active in this role in Las Pavas are Christian

116  Catherine Ammen and Christopher Mitchell Peace Teams and Peace Watch Switzerland. Both have visited the community on a regular basis. Others have become involved occasionally. For example, for the organized return on April 4, 2011, 200 local farmers were accompanied by PDPMM members and also by 45 members of the Indigenous Guard from north Cauca. However, it has to be acknowledged that both CPT and PWS are members of a “shadow team” or “dialogue table” of all 12 accompanying organizations, set up originally by PDPMM to provide technical capacities (legal, agrarian, and cartographic) and to coordinate strategies and enable the community to participate fully in the INCODER process of determining legal title to the land.18 This “table” includes accompanying organizations that have helped the community conduct its legal cases, communicate with the media, develop a business plan, and fund small programs that it lacks resources to implement. These are very worthy activities, but they all appear to cross the line suggested above that should prevent outside accompaniers from involving themselves in the decision making of the accompanied community. The examples do little to clarify the murky distinction between accompaniment and involvement or between impartial protection and partisanship. What is clear is that the actions of these 12 members of the “table” have undoubtedly changed the balance of asymmetry between the adversaries in this particular conflict.

Conclusion We started this chapter with a brief review of the theories and assumptions underlying the practice of IPA, with a view to asking in what sense such an intervention could be regarded as acceptable and hence those practicing it as legitimate. It rapidly became clear that the practice of IPA covered a wide variety of practical activities and very many differing – and sometimes contradictory – roles. These could range from an outsider organization (national as well as international) simply observing and reporting on threats or violence to a local individual or organization engaged in the conflict to another outsider offering material or other types of aid to one side, thus enhancing the latter’s capacity to pursue its aspirations in the conflict. This theme appeared in the IPA literature as one aspect of a complex discussion of impartiality, of being “non-partisan”, or of behaving “neutrally” and the impact of choosing one or other mode on an outsider organization’s ability to protect effectively. We ended by making a distinction between protective accompaniment and supportive accompaniment, noting that it was usually difficult, in a practical sense, to keep the two strictly and neatly separate. Our final query involves raising the issue of how these two patterns of (very different) behavior complemented or undermined one another, and then how they raised or lowered the legitimacy of those being accompanied and those accompanying. The clear implications arising from even a brief discussion were that, while the involvement of outsiders – especially international outsiders – undoubtedly had many effects on the course of the conflicts where the IPA intervention took place, the effects on the legitimacy experienced by both adversaries and protectors could vary greatly. There could be little doubt, for example, that what we

Legitimacy and land reform in colombia 117 had come to entitle “supportive” accompaniment could have a major impact on the degree of asymmetry between adversaries. We illustrated this with reference to the struggle over land titles in Las Pavas, and how supportive accompaniment provided skills, resources and access to the local community there. For example, the support of such entities as the Colombian Jesuit organizations like CINEP, of Christian Aid, and of PDPMM provided access to agencies of the national government, which, to some degree, counter-balanced the access already enjoyed by their rivals from the Consortium. Material, financial, and planning resources helped members of the community re-launch their frequently destroyed farming efforts on the estate. Publicity plus moral support from various accompaniers, national and international, equally helped sustain the morale and determination of members of the embattled local community. Seen from a slightly different angle, outside protection, support, and recognition clearly conferred some degree of limited legitimacy on the protected community, at least in the eyes of some relevant people, parties, and organizations. To many members of the Buenos Aires community, ASOCAB undoubtedly became regarded as the legitimate representative of their interests after 2009, when Catholic Church organizations became involved on their side in the conflict.19 Again, ASOCAB only became a recognized, legitimate presence in the various legal processes arising from the conflict once they received professional advice and representation from lawyers associated with PDPMM and the Universidad Javeriana. Finally, in the eyes of one important outside organization, the Body Shop, the community became the legitimate claimants to the disputed land following its 2010 investigation – or, to reverse the argument, the consortium of CI Tequendama and Aportes San Isidro were clearly seen as the illegitimate parties in that particular dispute. On the other hand, other peoples and parties undoubtedly regarded ASOCAB as an illegitimate organization, and continued to do so, even forming a rival “consortium”. As one of us argued in the first chapter of this book, legitimacy – or lack of it – is always a relational concept. Those declining to recognize ASOCAB as a legitimate organization, representing the local community with the right to work land at Las Pavas ranged from local paramilitaries, the original owner, the purchasing palm oil companies, local courts and police services, a public prosecutor in Cartagena, and politicians in Bogota. In some cases, the fact that the local community were being protected and supported by some of the national accompanying organizations in itself reduced the possibility of ASOCAB being viewed as legitimate, given that some of the accompanying organizations were themselves seen as having doubtful legitimacy, often being reported as “guerrilla sympathizers” or “enemies of progress”. In these circles, it seems likely that being accompanied by “questionable” organizations like PDPMM reduced whatever miniscule levels of legitimacy ASOCAB enjoyed even further, if this were possible. This final discussion returns us once again to the complexity and confusion that surrounds the use of the concept of “legitimacy” once one leaves the limited ground of government legitimacy – or lack thereof. This present chapter illustrates the difficulties of using the concept when seeking to analyze outside

118  Catherine Ammen and Christopher Mitchell accompaniment, especially supportive accompaniment wherein national or international organizations go beyond a purely witnessing and revelatory role and seek to act in solidarity with one side or the other in a protracted intra-state dispute. In such cases, conceptual and practical problems about who is legitimate, to whom, and in what sense arise, just as they do when the focus is on rival claimants for government in Somaliland, alternative sources of local authority in rural peace communities in Colombia or mediating organizations seeking acceptance from adversaries in Kashmir.

Notes 1 “Presence” is itself a rather vague term and Sara Koopman makes a strong argument that it should be distinguished from the old idea of “interposition”, which used to be applied to military peacekeeping forces acting as barriers: “. . . Most accompaniers describe being witnesses, or observers if you will, as essential to . . . their role as accompaniers. Interposition is generally different than accompaniment and better describes how peacekeeping is traditionally imagined – as standing between two armed parties. The concept of presence is too vague . . . to be useful, though it could certainly be argued that accompaniers are a ‘presence’ ” (Koopman, 2012, 10). 2 Koopman (2012, 366) notes that 12 organizations have provided accompaniment in Colombia, including PBI, Witness for Peace, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Projet Accompagnement Solidarité Colombie, Swedish Fellowship of Reconciliation, International Peace Observatory, Operation Dove, Peace Watch Switzerland, and International Action for Peace. Two others, Community Action for Justice in the Americas and Red de Hermanidad, provided occasional accompaniment in the 2000s. 3 Mahony and Eguren argue that “to be partial but nonpartisan, then, is to say, ‘We will be at our side in the face of injustice and suffering, but we will not take sides against those you define as enemies’ ” (1997, 236). 4 We have encountered arguments that there is only one important distinction which distinguishes an organization claiming “non-partisanship” from one that has become wholly partisan – and might itself be in need of protective accompaniment. This is the case where the accompanying organization has become deeply involved in the internal decision making of the organization they have agreed to accompany, especially as regards the latter’s strategy and tactics. It is contended that such circumstances are quite different from an accompanier advocating for the principle of inclusive internal decision making and even helping to bring about such a decision-making system. It seems to us, however, that there are many other ways through which accompanying organizations can become highly involved in the aims and activities of the individuals or groups being protected. We discuss some of these below. 5 For example, some communities in Colombia are very active and well versed in international human rights language. They refer to specific declarations in their press releases. In a different community, this may not be an ideal strategy, and it may even undermine their internal organizing capacity to advocate too soon – if at all – for human rights goals. 6 A UNDP Report on land ownership in Colombia, issued in 2011, noted that just over 1% of landowners held 52% of the country’s productive land, while 78.31% of farmers accounted for only 10.5% of land use. An earlier, 2009, UNDP Report calculated that the Gini Coefficient of land concentration in the country was 0.87, one of the highest in Latin America. The report, in Spanish, is available online at http://hdr.undp.org/en/ content/razones-para-la-esperanza. 7 Such often result in local agreements, but these are not recognized on the national level.

Legitimacy and land reform in colombia 119 8 For example, in the absence of any overall, national peace agreement, the indigenous organizations in Cauca often negotiate on their own behalf with armed groups in their area. 9 Accompaniment is a tool that can be used to prevent displacement for the same reasons – to provide support collectively in numbers and to give courage to stand behind a community’s decision to stay on their land and to resist displacement. 10 In the case of the Humanitarian Zones in Choco, several of the business men from the palm oil companies involved in taking over the land “vacated” in 1997 were found guilty of association with paramilitaries and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment – the same sentence that had been imposed on paramilitary leaders from the region. 11 Initially such commercial development involved growing coca, but since the early 2000s, the favored crop has been palm oil. 12 According to Article 52 of Law 160 (1994), owners of rural land lost their property rights if the land had been abandoned for three years – or had been used for drug trafficking. 13 However, it is also the case that in 2006 another palm oil company, Palmeras de la Costa, interested in buying Las Pavas, withdrew on learning about the existence of a dispute over title to the land. It is clear from the evidence that the dispute should have been obvious and was indeed known to the Consorcio. 14 In a recent academic analysis, Imma Mader (2012) argues that an imbalance of access to legal, administrative and political processes involved in land re-titling is the key asymmetry in any explanation of the failure of centrally initiated government reform programs – especially any intended to alter the overall pattern of ownership in rural areas in Colombia. 15 When he became President in 2010, Juan Manuel Santos embarked upon what appeared to be a serious effort to put in place processes for land restitution for rural farmers [indigenous, Afro-Colombians, and campesinos], victims whose land had previously been taken by paramilitaries, “narco-businessmen”, and agro and mining corporations. Santos’s Victims and Land Restitution Law has been widely criticized as having the effect of consolidating the legal hold of large businesses and corporations on land they have acquired by dubious means, rather than helping small farmers regain land that they previously worked but to which they possessed no clear legal title (see Tenthoff and Eventon, 2013). 16 In recent years, following on from the brief slump in palm oil prices caused by the “Great Recession” of 2008, the Cosorcio has switched to cattle ranching on parts of Las Pavas, partly to maintain productive activity and their claim to a title. 17 By 2016 ASOCAB was involved in seven separate legal actions against both the Colombian state and Aportes San Isidro. 18 The other accompanying organizations making up this “table” were the international organization, Christian Aid (linked to the London based consortium “AB Colombia”) and the Colombian NGOs: PDPMM: ECAP (Equipos Christianos por la Paz); Fundacion Chasquis; Pensamiento y Accion Social (PAS); SUIPPCOL; the National Social Concerns Ministry of the Church (CINEP); and the Federacion Agrominera del Sur de Bolivar (FEDEAGROMISBOL). 19 Mader (2012, 20) estimated that something around one half of the members of the campesino community in Buenos Aires were members of ASOCAB. From 2009 onwards, it has become common to talk of about “123 families” being directly involved in the conflict.

Works cited Anon, 2017. Colombia’s Consttiution of 1991 With Ammendments Through 2005. Comparative Constitutions Project, Oxford University Press, 130. Coy, P.G., 2003. Protective Accompaniment [online]. Conflict Information Consortium. Available from: www.beyondintractability.org/essay/protect

120  Catherine Ammen and Christopher Mitchell Coy, P.G., 2011. Nonpartisanship, Interventionism and Legality in Accompaniment: Comparative Analyses of Peace Brigades International, Christian Peacemaker Teams, and the International Solidarity Movement. The International Journal of Human Rights, 16, 963–981. Flores, T.E., 2014. Vertical Inequality, Land Reform, and Insurgency in Colombia. Peace Economics, Peace Science, & Public Policy, 20, 5–31. Koopman, S., 2012. Making Space for Peace: International Protective Accompaniment in Colombia (2007–2009). PhD. University of British Columbia. Mader, I., 2012. The Actors on the Ground: Access to Land and the Dynamics Impeding Land Restitution in Colombia. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam. Mahony, L., 2013. The Accompaniment Model in Practice. Fellowship. Fellowship of Reconciliation, 12–16. Mahony, L. & Eguren, L.E., 1997. Unarmed Bodyguards: International Accompaniment for the Protection of Human Rights. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Mitchell, C., & Ramírez, S., 2009. Local Peace Communities in Colombia: An Initial Comparison of Three Cases. In V.M. Bouvier (ed.) Columbia: Building Peace in a Time of War.. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 245–270. Moser-Puangsuwan, Y. & Weber, T., (eds.) 2000. Nonviolent Intervention Across Borders: A Recurrent Vision. Honolulu, Hawaiʻi: Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace, University of Hawaiʻi. Tenthoff, M. & Eventon, R., 2013. A ‘Veritable Revolution’: The Land Restitution Law and the Transformation of Rural Colombia. Amsterdam: The Transnational Institute. Velasco, M., 2011. Confining Ethnic Territorial Autonomy in Colombia: The Case of the Naya River Basi. The Journal of Environment & Development, 20, 405–427. Wirpsa, L., Rothschild, D.  & Garzon, C., 2009. The Power of the Baston: Indigenous Resistance and Peacebuilding in Colombia. In V.M. Bouvier (ed.) Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 225–244.

7 Harnessing legitimacy through networks Laura VillanuevaHarnessing legitimacy through networks

Civilian-led, closed virtual communities as a new type of zone of peace Laura Villanueva It is also important to understand the wider picture. How will the global trends towards web-based, virtual interaction affect traditional, physical organizations and face-to-face interaction in dialogue and problem solving? Will Lederach’s original “house of peace,” which he described in his thoughts on peace infrastructure (1997), also find a virtual address, and what will the “house of peace 2.0” look like? (Hopp-Nishanka, 2012)

Introduction Although there is no consensus on what a “house of peace 2.0” would look like the impact technologies in the digital revolution have on social change is of great interest to peacebuilding practitioners and scholars as they encounter its presence and power in civil society. As early as 2003, Branka Mraovic (2003, 353) noted that what was “revolutionary about this new technology is that it provides a potential change of legitimacy in the sense of opening space for the individual to defy dominating coalitions of power and become an equal participant in the cyberspace discourse.” What Mravoic’s observation implies is that new technologies will have an impact on the organizational and the social aspects of human infrastructures. However, the differing levels of maturity in the technical, organizational, and social aspects of this emerging infrastructure make it difficult to assess whether different initiatives by civil society constitute an emerging peace infrastructure. The study in this chapter emerged on Facebook. Although it is not described as revolutionary it does detail a civil society initiative emerging as one building block of what I term Virtual Infrastructures for Peace (VI4P). This VI4P builds on the initial concept introduced by Lederach in the 1980s as well as variants of I4Ps “which can exist at any stage of peacebuilding” (Giessmann, 2016, 17). Most research on virtual communities has been descriptive rather than theory driven. However, these communities, which transcend spatial, temporal, and structural boundaries are another way for people to stand up to and organize against the violence that affects their daily lives. This study will explore a civilian-led, closed

122  Laura Villanueva virtual community (CVC) named Porteando por la Paz (PP) as an example of a new type of Zone of Peace (ZoP), noting the different sources of legitimacy that virtual networks engender. This Mexican CVC emerged in October 2014 following the forcible disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School in Iguala, Guerrero in Mexico. Legitimacy, a concept considered one of the oldest problems in the history of social thought, will be reconsidered in the light of digital technologies that act as a new medium and tool (Zelditch, 2001, 4). I will use an Information Ecology lens, one of many Media Ecologies. This approach is a system that focuses on human activities served by technology, thereby looking at the interaction of people, practices, values and especially technologies that make-up the system (Nardi and O’Day, 1999, 49). It is with this interaction that a change in legitimacy has taken place. I  will infer from the research conducted that this type of ZoP is a piece of the puzzle in understanding the wider picture of harnessing legitimacy through networks which have implications for a potential address for a House of Peace 2.0.

Concepts Zones of peace ZoPs are usually defined territorially, “although there are instances where the concept is more abstract, such as a whole community of people” (Hancock and Iyer, 2007, 29). In countries like Colombia and the Philippines, there are many local communities that have tried to withdraw from the conflict. Such local communities decided they no longer wanted to be part of the conflict and created a ZoP based on the idea of sanctuary. The concept of sanctuary has a long history, and it has been “usually sought wherever one can best find it” (Mitchell, 2007, 2). ZoPs that have been widely studied are mainly territorially based and have served as weapon-free areas or as a corridor for medical supplies. Although there is no agreed-upon concept of a ZoP, some zones have also been more unusually “visualized as personally based in the sense that certain categories of persons are immune from particular forms of (forbidden) behavior being directed towards them” (Mitchell, 2007, 3). There are now several typologies of peace zones originating from the bottom-up or supported by external actors (Mitchell and Nan, 1997). A further distinction is made when internally displaced people (IDPs) establish peace communities or when they are established on the original territory for protection or to facilitate some change in the community itself (Mitchell and Ramírez, 2009). It is also the case that ZoPs, such as Samaniego and Las Mercedes in Colombia, originated from the bottom-up but also received external support (Mouly et al., 2015). By contrasting, the classic conception and the modern online conception of legitimacy I  will build on Mraovic’s (2003, 353) idea of how technology has the potential to change legitimacy through the experience of PP.

Harnessing legitimacy through networks  123 Classic conceptions of legitimacy The central challenge that the literature on legitimacy poses is that the term is used in different, complicated, and inconsistent ways. There is no universally accepted definition of legitimacy that would consider all actors in a process or that would mean the same thing to all actors. The kinds of problems considered relevant to the discussion of legitimacy have varied depending on the dominant group and the intellectual structure at any point in history. In the 5th century, Thucydides was concerned with understanding under what conditions the use of power was legitimate. Plato would write The Republic and Aristotle would write Politics in another attempt to solve the problem of power’s legitimacy (Zelditch, 2001, 4). What remains constant from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to John Locke and Max Weber is that the main focus of analysis has been the state. This assumption permeates contemporary literature on legitimacy. A traditional view of legitimacy suggests that only that which is institutionalized is then continuously reproduced and thereby legitimated in social interactions. This would lead legitimacy to be a result of institutionalization. Legitimacy has been thought to depend not only on the context but also on the nature of the “power” embodied or wielded. This implies that the type of power exercised can be used to assess the level of legitimacy enjoyed by various actors at different times. However, “because the concept of power, and power politics, super power and world power are frequently used in works on international relations, it is useful to point out that our Twentieth Century journey in the quest for peace has greatly expanded the instruments through which power can be exercised” (Alger, 1999, 37). Rational-legal authority is associated with 19th-century government institutions. However, states have lost a great deal of control over information in their own societies, because of the rise of the Internet. Thus, the virtual world cannot derive legitimacy from the Weberian tradition, because the Internet bases its legitimacy on its utility and relevance. Modern conceptions of online legitimacy In an online community, you do not have to abide by the state’s principles, norms, rules or decision-making procedures. Consequently, you are operating outside of the rational-legal authority that characterizes modern government institutions. The initial understanding of online and offline existing as separate domains has slowly eroded through technological innovations and user experience. Leighninger’s (2006, 2) argument that “twenty-first century citizens seem better at governing, and worse as at being governed, than ever before” might prove correct given that civilians can now represent themselves using a very powerful set of technological tools. A rational-legal system is legitimate only as long as the ruled have a positive view of the ruler. Today, the ruled and the rulers engage in physical and virtual environments that have different spatial, temporal, and structural boundaries. People are creating networks of life and social capital that can use the connectivity,

124  Laura Villanueva speed, and mobility of the Internet to legitimate themselves. In comparison to traditional infrastructures, virtual networks transcend spatial, temporal, and structural boundaries. Networked action is challenging traditional notions of civil society. The tools that technology provides have enabled the emergence of VI4Ps. These infrastructures affect power, legitimacy, and ultimately traditional infrastructures for peace.

Civilian-led CVCs as a ZoP The ZoP that will be discussed in this paper emerged on line in 2014 as a CVC, but I will start by using Mitchell and Nan’s (1997)1 definition of a physical ZoP as an “attempt to establish rules or norms which limit the destructive effects of violent conflict within a particular area or during a particular time period or with regard to a particular category of people.” There are differences in expression due to the virtual nature of CVCs but what both types of ZoPs, virtual and physical, share is that they offer a form of sanctuary to their members. The virtual ZoP in question offered a form of sanctuary to those affected by the violence and insecurity sweeping across contemporary Mexico, which culminated in the forcible disappearance of the 43 students in the province of Guerrero. Forcible disappearances are not new to the Mexican landscape, nor are groups working on the behalf of the disappeared demanding justice. However, what is new is finding sanctuary online. This study thus presents the CVC as an extension of the original conception of a ZoP in which “at the very least, sanctuaries can differ in four major aspects” (Mitchell and Hancock, 2007, 212). A  CVC differs in all four aspects of type, function, environment, and form of protection. These differences had an impact on the form of agency emerging in this virtual context. The following are a set of characteristics that define an online CVC as a ZoP: Villanueva Table 7.1 CVCs do have a hierarchical structure although they typically espouse a commitment to horizontal organization. They also have boundaries, to limit access to community members, as well as rules that specify community behavior and expectations. What differs from the original type of physical ZoP are not the “time frames within which a zone might be created” but how individuals in a CVC experience time and the impact of this on the inviolability and life of a ZoP (Hancock and Iyer, 2007, 30). Although examinations of ZoPs have taken a temporal approach of their activities either during or after violent conflict, the CVC resides online and the Internet “lifts social interaction out of the spatial and temporal context” (Hine, 2000, 84). The Internet provides a context in which “temporality becomes disordered, as the apparent intimacy of Internet interactions is combined with asynchronous modes of communication” (Hine, 2000, 189). In traditional ZoPs, territorial spaces and face-to-face communication are replicated in a CVC by the “death of distance” that allowed the members of the CVC to interact at any hour regardless of time or location (Cairncross, 1997; MacDonald, 2015). Building on this

Table 7.1  CVC ZoP characteristics Establishment Boundaries

Rules

Permitted Behavior Prohibited Behavior Instability of local environment Outsider’s capacity of imposing sanctions Monitoring

Maintenance What Peace ?

Peacebuilding Activities Impact on Members

Impact on Social System

CVC politics

With a handful of mothers in Mexico. The boundaries of the CVC are two-fold. First, with a Secret-Group, it is not possible to find it online. Second, in order to join, one needs permission from the administrator of the page. The core group in the CVC drafted a set of rules. It encompassed permitted and not permitted behaviors, organizational responsibilities by core group members, as well as the limits of the actions that could be taken by the group. Engaging in a respectful and loving manner with other members. Any form of violent expression or behavior is prohibited, specifically trolling, harassment, or aggressive behaviors. The context of insecurity in Mexico does not directly affect the CVC being in operation, since it does not have physical boundaries. Imposing sanctions on the virtual space is difficult, since one can quickly create another address. The rule of maintaining democracy was applied by having a core group that then took decisions for the entire group with no formal system for having the little more than 500 members vote. Maintaining a CVC implied that if anyone joined, they had to be given the OK by the core group. The social peace that the CVC members espoused is one based on attachment parenting. They defined the peace they were actively working toward, thereby talking a peace among the peaces. Virtual and offline activities. Both feed on each other. Members were able to engage in a space that was safe from the physical insecurity sweeping Mexico, as well as having a community with whom to process the events and eventually take action. As a public presence, PP’s involvement will continue to be a presence that demands justice for the forcibly disappeared and for future generations. The CVC had representatives that were the only ones that could speak on behalf of PP to external sources. This does not apply to the members who are sharing the philosophy and vision of PP with other mothers/fathers involved in other networks.

126  Laura Villanueva idea, Aoife McLoughlin’s research indicates that as our individual time-keeping pacemaker “increases in speed we must feel that time is passing at a faster rate, giving rise to a time pressure within us” (McLoughlin, 2016, 25). This has led her to propose that as “the speed of pace of life increases, the subjective feeling of available time decreases, causing a sense of time pressure within the individual” (JCU, 2015). A CVC as a non-territorial, non-physical structure where “time is erased in the new communication system when past, present, and future can be programmed to interact with each other in the same message” presents a new type of ZoP (Hine, 2000, 84). I argue that the subjective feeling of decreasing available time due to the interaction of humans with technology impacted the perception of time in the CVC in this study. This might serve as one factor in the collapse of the CVC as a sanctuary and its transformation into a collective, known generally as Porteando por la Paz. PP was formed by mothers from various parts of Mexico, who not only differed in their views of childcare practice, but also in their political sensibilities. Their political differences were manifested in commitments towards political and civic engagement, with older mothers carrying experiences that led them to believe that the CVC needed to remain closed while younger mothers, perhaps being impacted by the compressed experience of time in a virtual environment, felt that enough had been achieved and that a more open expression of solidarity was needed. A CVC acts as a virtual ZoP by returning the sense of agency to those civilians that are affected by ongoing violence and insecurity. The Internet is a network of networks, and although Mitchell and Hancock’s definition of a ZoP is based on a number of territorial cases, networks, whether physical or virtual, are drivers of social change. Although “most ZoPs are defined by statements, assertions of agency, in which the inhabitants create rules and processes by which they both attempt to create space of peacebuilding and, at the same time, push back against the violence that hitherto has defined their daily lives”, a CVC with a micro-level view of how agency is acquired through a virtual context also applies to how legitimacy is harnessed through networks (Hancock, 2017, 261).

Context: Mexico In September 2014, 43 students of the all-male Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in Guerrero, Mexico, were forcibly disappeared. These students were mostly locals of Guerrero, which is the second poorest state, and the least peaceful state in Mexico according to the 2016 Mexico Peace Index. The history of these Escuelas Normales is highly relevant to the situation that Mexico is facing, as well as being the trigger event for the emergence of the CVC in this study. The sociohistorical and political reality that forged these schools is reflected by the fact that: The life and struggles of the Normales Rurales are an indissoluble part of the tenacious struggle of poor Mexican peasants throughout the twentieth and

Harnessing legitimacy through networks 127 twenty-first centuries. They were born with the Mexican Revolution along with the distribution of land and the formation of ejidos. (Coll, 2015, translation by author) The long history preceding the 245 Escuelas Normales Publicas (Normal Public Schools), of which 17 are Esuelcas Normales Rurales, is one describing schools that have served the poorest of the poor. The Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College offers a free education to rural poor, still keeps to its Marxist roots and is known for keeping to socialist principles. In the 1960s and 1970s, two graduates of this school “led peasant and civic movements in the state of Guerrero against the despotism of local party bosses and for the defense of social rights” (Cázares, 2015). Before the disappearances at Ayotzniapa the protests emanating from this school were not new and Manuel Gil Antón, a researcher at the Center for Sociological Studies at El Colegio de México (Colmex) reflected on the government’s stance: I think the government’s plan before Ayotzinapa was for the Normal Schools to starve to death, and that’s a real shame. Instead of facing the problem, they decided to stifle them economically. (Arteaga and Francisco, 2014, translation by author) The protests that ensued brought the parents of Normal School students from different parts of the country, and included teachers, youth, intellectuals, and families. Shortly thereafter, solidarity protests took place throughout Mexico and abroad. Nearly 70% of Guerrero’s population lives in poverty and one in three people is indigenous (Black, 2015). Cartel violence, gang violence, political corruption, and a legacy of marginalization make this one of Mexico’s most violent states. The strong reaction to the disappearances is best captured in the following confluence of factors: the students’ identity, the role of the police, the government’s involvement and mismanagement, the persistence of the students’ families and community, and the emptiness of the government’s “Mexico’s Moment” narrative. While the students’ kidnapping and likely murder have already created a national and international movement, their effects could very well prove to be a turning point in Mexico’s history. (Eads, 2015) However, before these protests began, Mexican mothers had already become an important voice in denouncing ongoing femicides and other forms of violence. The pandemic structural and direct violence suffered by women is embedded in a country that is also characterized by a general context of insecurity. Despite these circumstances mothers of the missing and forcibly disappeared have become tireless in their search for their missing loved ones. They have also become as well versed on the topic of state violence with many joining or leading grassroots organizations.

128  Laura Villanueva

Porteando por la Paz The CVC in this study emerged due to the trigger event at Ayotzinapa. The sentiment in the CVC and one across the country was a sense of fear, grief, and of being powerless in the face of the violence and insecurity. PP was formed largely by mothers who understood the pain of the of the missing students’ mothers. “Porteando por la Paz” in Spanish translates into “Babywearing for Peace”. “Portear” means to carry your baby on your back or chest with the aid of a baby carrier, which can be made from a simple shawl and it constitutes a lifestyle choice associated with attachment parenting (crianza con apego). This set of childcare practices are said to facilitate bonding between the caregiver and baby, assuring the development of healthy emotional attachments by the child. In the case of PP, this also constituted a political choice reminiscent of “motherist movements” in Latin America, which refers to the politicization of motherhood. One of the best-known movements of this type is the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina. Other “motherist” movements that have mobilized in response to kidnapping and disappearances exist in El Salvador, Guatemala, Juarez in Mexico, and in the Caravan of Central American Mothers. These groups have begun from an acceptable social space of maternal identity that ultimately allows for maternal politics. However, there is also the interpretation that “once these groups are successful in helping to change the repressive terrain by claiming important political space, they may be eclipsed by the dominant political forces” (Schirmer, 1989, 55). What is clear is that motherist movements are a force in different parts of the world because they are able to continue demanding justice based on maternal politics. PP first emerged on Facebook as a civilian-led, closed virtual community (CVC), which functioned as a ZoP in its inception. Due to security concerns, PP migrated to another virtual address that would remain a Secret rather than a Closed-Group. It did so with the speed and mobility afforded by information technology. However, I will continue to use the acronym of CVC in this chapter because this is how PP as a ZoP first emerged with an online presence. Many of PP’s members had been members of another, open, virtual community, which was focused on sharing the experience of motherhood. A photo shared by this group of a babywearing father at a protest march led the mothers of PP to overcome their fear of marching and to begin to organize and participate. Up until that time, PP members had seen themselves as contributing to social peace through the political act of attachment parenting, transforming society by focusing on raising healthy children. They spoke about their commitment as an act of fighting for your rights. This was based on the need to fight for their children’s right to a peaceful future as well as educating their children to fight for their own rights. Their fight is a non-violent one that involves engaged attachment parenting as a tangible effort in rebuilding Mexico’s deteriorating social fabric. On November 2014, PP participated in a demonstration, ending in el Zócalo, the main square in the center of Mexico City. They joined marches in Mexico City, called for public gatherings and engaged in actions related to attachment parenting as well as with groups that would join them in their public activities.

Harnessing legitimacy through networks 129 The narrative of the group then expanded, calling for “families” in Mexico that were conscious of the need for non-violent political participation by mothers and fathers focused on raising children. They asked for this engagement from families that would share the “raising of children” along with their motto “Criar y amar para el mundo transformer” (Raising children and basing that action on love to transform the world.) They engaged in both virtual and in person activities, and in December of 2014 they created an open Facebook group, separate from the CVC. Through the public Facebook page, they would invite parents by advertising upcoming events that included walking in solidarity for the missing 43 students and activities related to the act of babywearing. Having a Facebook page was the first step in moving away from a CVC intending mainly to provide a sanctuary. The second step took place in 2015 when a member from PP became one of 20 women who attended an initiative headed by Voices of Women, Stories that Transform (Voces de Mujeres), which provided attendees with audio and digital tools so that the women could tell the story of their own efforts.2 A video titled “Mujeres Madres, Andando: A story of a Mexican Mothers’ Collective” was produced and then published on YouTube on September 14, 2015, 12 days before the one-year anniversary of Ayotzinapa. There were differing opinions within the group about making PP a public Facebook page, as well as about making a video whose aim was to publicize the transformative role of women in their communities. There were those that didn’t want a public Facebook page, and there were also those that thought a public page was enough, and there was no need to produce a video. PP did not emerge to create a space for movement organization. However, it did facilitate the move from sanctuary to being a “collective”. Through their public page, they announced marches and also made calls for virtual activities. One virtual activity called for women all over Mexico to take a picture of themselves engaging in the act of babywearing, while carrying a sign with the name of one of the missing 43 and the message “Mi corazón carga al tuyo” (my heart carries your heart). This message of solidarity with the pain of the mothers of the missing students was published on the PP public Facebook page as well as eventually being shared by other networks. By August 2015, they were continuing to engage in a monthly gathering in Mexico City which they entitled, “Rolando una vez al Mes” (Going around together once a month). This activity takes place, once a month, somewhere in the city, such as in Mexico City’s main square or in another green space. Activities include forming peace circles, walking for the missing 43, breastfeeding in public to defy stigma, as well as promoting breastfeeding and other aspects of attachment parenting. Although PP began by standing up for the 43 missing students they also stood for other causes, such as Guardería ABC (Nursery ABC), to remember the children who died in a nursery fire in the Mexican state of Sonora. On September 13, 2016, eight days before the second anniversary of the missing 43, PP presented a panel at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) on the subject of “¿Nuevas masculinidades?: Varones ante el cambio en las relaciones de género” (New Masculinities? Males in the face of change in Gender Relations).

130  Laura Villanueva On September 26, 2016, the Anniversary of the Missing 43, PP marched in Mexico City, in one of many that took place across Mexico.

Information Ecology In order to understand how CVCs harness legitimacy through networks this chapter acknowledges that recent literature on social movements and digital media “has often reduced diverse complex socio-technical configurations and cultural contexts to simple easy-to-understand Twitter or Facebook ‘revolutions’ ” (Treré, 2016, 127). However, a Media Ecology lens has emerged that addresses this reductionism. The advantage of Media Ecology is its “potential to capture the coexistence of interdependence between human actors and technologies whilst addressing their systemic (dis)-continuities” (Dahlberg-Grundberg, 2016, 526). Another ecological perspective on media is the Hybrid Ecology lens, which addresses the simultaneous use of new and old information technologies in places like the Arab Spring movements (Robertson, 2013, 327). This study will use one of the four main ecological approaches, Information Ecology, in order to understand humans as digital actors who have agency in the production of new information infrastructures; where human interaction with technology is a means to an end rather than an end in itself (Nardi and O’Day, 1999). In our case, we will examine how the CVC, PP, used information infrastructures to generate legitimacy that impacted their conceptualization of and mobilization for peace and justice.

Analysis Information Ecology applies an ecological framework to explore interactions among a system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a local environment (Nardi and O’Day, 1999). An Information Ecology is a system of diverse people and tools that coevolve over time along with keystone species. These species are vital to the ecologies survival and are often “skilled people whose presence is necessary to support the effective use of technology” (Nardi and O’Day, 1999, 53). Lastly, it is defined by locality. According to this lens, users wielding influence in an ecology is what gives birth to the local. This is achieved through “participation and engagement – and commitment to a set of shared motivations and values” (Nardi and O’Day, 1999, 58). Information Ecologies acknowledge coevolution of the social and the technical, informing how actors and their environments evolve together. The CVC exists in multiple interacting environments; physical, biological, social and cultural. Building on Nardi and O’Day’s Information Ecology metaphor the following analysis develops a framework for understanding how a CVC, as a new form of ZoP, harnesses legitimacy through networks. People Metaphors matter. People who see technology as a tool see themselves controlling it. People who see technology as a system see themselves caught up inside it. We see

Harnessing legitimacy through networks  131 technology as part of an ecology, surrounded by a dense network of relationships in local environments (Nardi and O’Day, 1999, 27). Information Ecology dismisses the idea that humans are “cogs in sweeping sociological processes” (Nardi and O’Day, 1999, 50). As per the first metaphor, the individuals in PP see technology as a tool and see themselves controlling it. They are not only users but also designers that individually and collectively make decisions about its use, ultimately determining the values and the roles that technology will play in the ecology. Information Ecology contends that only participants “can establish the identity and place of the technologies that are found there” (Nardi and O’Day, 1999, 55). This is framed as not only an opportunity but also as a responsibility, implying the presence of agency. The same applies to coevolution in the ecology where “social and technical aspects of an environment coevolve” (Nardi and O’Day, 1999, 53 emphasis in original). This process of coevolution can be traced through the people, practices, values, and technologies in the CVC’s Information Ecology. PP members are moral agents, clearly making a distinction between right and wrong, and standing up for peace while refuting violence. PP and other such “virtual civil society networks use technology to remain responsive to circumstances and take independent, creative action towards shared goals” (Larrauri et al., 2015, 4). One characteristic that CVCs share with territorial ZoPs are the rules that dictate “proper” conduct. This translates into permitted and prohibited behaviors, entailing the ability to make choices and being responsible for one’s moral decisions and actions. Individuals in both territorial and virtual ZoPs are moral agents who are constantly reproducing their agency by making choices that either weaken or reinforce their community. Practices For members of PP, many of their practices centered around the ideas of attachment parenting and the need to improve society through a deep level of care for the next generation. These practices applied to both men and women, but for the latter, the promotion of breastfeeding added a biological component that emphasized not only the loving bond between mother and child, but the physical health of both. Members of PP used the narrative of motherhood to claim the right to act in public for peace and social justice, implying that they had this right not only through their social roles as mothers, but also through the biological imperatives to care for their infants and young children. Consequently, they were able to become active moral agents in a quest to rebuild the fabric of Mexican society. Contributing to peace and social justice by raising children in a loving manner was not just an individual act, but also allowed for the development of collective agency through the PP organization. In their monthly gatherings, ‘Rolando una vez al Mes”, some of their activities included creating peace circles, walking for the missing 43, breastfeeding in public, and time for addressing different aspects of attachment parenting. Their most visible act was that of babywearing. The act of walking for the parents of the missing 43 while babywearing was a practice that not merely demanded justice, but also created empathy in the wider community of families of the missing and forcibly disappeared in Mexico.

132  Laura Villanueva Babywearing in marches followed the premise that a mother protesting is also a mother who is educating. This education is not only for children, but for educating the broader society. The Ayotzinapa disappearances influenced the salience of the mother-father identity in Mexico, moving maternal and parental politics from the private to the public sphere. PP also served as a place of reflection in which women started to question the often-isolating experience of motherhood. In PP, women developed the idea that social change could emanate from the use of a traditional baby carrier, which could be positioned either on the chest or on the back. Borrowing from Hannah Arendt’s (1958, 10) idea that each human life begins with birth, it follows that “action has the closest connection with the human condition of Natality; the new beginning inherent in birth can make itself felt in the world only because the newcomer possesses the capacity of beginning something anew, that is, of acting.” Arendt made natality a central category of political thought, focusing on humans as unique, capable of action, and engaged in political activities in the public sphere. PPs philosophy follows Arendt’s notion of natality in which every human is born with the capacity to act. Action and natality are presented by Arendt as preconditions for political involvement. The social change espoused by PP (through attachment parenting) emanates from the private sphere but takes place in the public sphere, which Arendt denoted as the “plurality” in which humans work and live together, where they belong. PP has undertaken practices that focus on the distinctive human capacity to bring forth the new, which resonates with Arendt’s political philosophy on natality in which the moment of birth marks the moment one is born into the political. Values For PP, the value that lies under attachment parenting, breastfeeding, humanized birthing practices, and respectful communication is love. This concept, value and practice runs through the emergence and development of PP. It is explicitly referred to in internal CVC interactions and later in the public facebook page. Given that the practice chosen by PP is based on building social peace through attachment parenting, the role of oxytocin is relevant in this analysis. Oxytocin is included but not limited to facilitating, birth, lactation, and maternal behavior. According to a 2014 Annual Review of Psychology, there “is little doubt that oxytocin plays a central role in the social behaviors that lies at the heart of the human experience of love” (Carter and Porges, 2013, 25–26). Although love clearly has a biological function that ensures the survival of a species via social attachment, gathering, copulation, and reproduction, the neurobiological aspects have only recently become the focus of basic science (Esch and Stefano, 2005, 175). In this light, PP’s focus on love as a value, from a scientific perspective, one can add that love is not just a cultural notion, but a biological part of human infrastructures. The concept of love is present in religious, cultural, social, and political narratives. Although each narrative articulates an approach to love, there is a great deal of overlap among them. Our shift to considering love from a biological standpoint requires

Harnessing legitimacy through networks  133 revisiting Kenneth Boulding’s mapping of power as integrative. Boulding (1989, 25) described integrative power as “an aspect of productive power that involves the capacity to build organizations, to create families and groups, to inspire loyalty, to bind people together, to develop legitimacy” (1989, 109). He noted that integrative power was an “elusive and multidimensional concept that is very hard to quantify, yet it has a strong claim to be, in the last analysis, the most significant of the three major categories of power.” He observed that people from the past who had the greatest impact on human history were those who possessed integrative power, rather than economic or coercive power, arguing that, perhaps, “the most important single source of integrative power could be described as the capacity to love in a generalized sense” (Boulding, 1989, 115). I argue that PP’s use of the power of biological love was confined to family settings, community settings, and embedded in general traditional structures. Given that it was present in these structures, and that it can move in both horizontal and vertical directions at individual and collective levels, it also permeated the virtual networks. Local environment Information Ecology is defined by its locality, and it is the “people who are immersed in a particular Information Ecology that can provide a local habitation and a name to new technologies” (Nardi and O’Day, 1999, 55). Taking an example presented by Nardi and O’Day, it is the user’s understanding of the function that technology fulfills that informs its significance and use: A computer in a library is most likely a card catalog or an Internet access machine. A computer in an office is often a personal information appliance. A computer in a small business might be a budget and payroll machine. In each of these settings the computer can have precisely the same hardware configuration, but what it is for each user population is different. (Nardi and O’Day, 1999, 54 emphasis in original) In the case of PP, Facebook as the chosen technology is used as an extension of the human experience and it served as a zone of peace at its emergence. Despite criticisms about the danger of reification, this study argues that it is necessary to focus on understanding of locality through PP’s use of their chosen information technology (Mac Ginty, 2008; Hirblinger and Simons, 2015). The Information Ecology perspective argues that individuals all have knowledge about their own local ecologies that is not accessible to outsiders (Nardi and O’Day, 1999, 55). Our focus on agency implies that each PP member is also producing knowledge and through their online encounters, this knowledge is able to move to other online or offline platforms. Advances in technology have offered networked, creative, and decentralized alternatives to established frameworks. What is pertinent to the idea of CVCs is the self-running aspect of virtual communities based on knowledge contribution (Cheng and Guo, 2015, 229). Although the women hailed from Mexico and were mothers, not all of them had the same child care practices

134  Laura Villanueva nor political sensibilities. What united them was an understanding of the pain of a mother losing a child, leading to the practice of babywearing as a simple, practical, and viable response that was accessible at the local level. PP members positioned themselves as being the caretakers of the next generation, prompting a need for political action. As mothers, the women of PP understood the minimal value placed on life in Mexico as reflected in the impunity for the missing and mounting violence. This reality led them to recognize the importance of engaging in acts of love, in listening to the pain of others, in being respectful, and in caring for the lives of others. By redefining maternal and paternal roles as politically active in support of love and life, PP helped to develop the power of civilian-led groups in Mexican society. The CVC acting as a sanctuary gave PP members a space to strengthen their local practices and develop ownership. This is juxtaposed to the ownership that is fomented by liberal peacebuilding as presented in an earlier chapter by Landon Hancock. According to Hancock (2017, 260), this paradigm “seems more directed at meeting the physiological and safety needs of post-conflict societies, but often does so in a manner that deprives locals of their psychosocial needs for mastery, self-direction and autonomy.” What a virtual ZoP can do as a sanctuary is to provide the space for satisfying psychosocial needs in a self-directed manner, providing the opportunity for ownership. Technologies Technology lies at the intersection of the membership of Porteando por la Paz and their desire for sanctuary. Technological tools not only influenced the establishment of PP as a CVC, but it also influenced individual members’ behaviors. The use of technology has implications for the difference that emerged between those PP members who wished to expand beyond a primarily sanctuary-oriented condition and those who did not. Factors such as age, personal experience of social activism, and political sensibilities also played a role, but two other factors related to technology and agency played a major part. The digital world speeds up many processes that would take other forms in a traditional ZoP. Although there is no way to measure the impact of human perceptions of time on the need by some to migrate offline or to another online address, one can infer that this is in part due to human perceptions of time through online filters. As one member of PP described engaging though a virtual space: “It is a double-edged sword.”3 Members who wanted to migrate felt that the group was ready, that the group was now strong enough, reflecting a journey from a weaker condition to one of strength, arguing PP enabled mothers to come together in a way that “would have been impossible 10 years ago.”4 The second factor for moving from sanctuary to a public space concerns agency. Borrowing from Kant’s moral law in which moral duty binds all moral agents, PP’s practices suggest the existence of moral agency. Hancock (2017, 264) theorizes agency as a form of human need, and I  argue that this applies to the CVC in this study since agency, “rather than just the more limited idea of local ownership, is key because it is a satisfier for a range of psychosocial needs, which include identity, dignity, role-defense, self-determination or self-actualisation.”

Harnessing legitimacy through networks  135 The implication of Kant’s association of moral law with the universality of reason, makes all moral agents equal and therefore, whether in a territorial ZoP or in a CVC, a moral duty and obligation binds all members together, allowing them to practice moral agency, which involves having the ability to choose based upon a differentiation of right and wrong. In Experience of Agency and Sense of Responsibility, Moretto, Walsh, and Haggard present a small study “on the relation between a primary feature of the experience of agency and the notion of responsibility for action” (2011, 1852). Their study yielded evidence for several important links between a sense of agency and responsibility for action. These results imply that the “human sense of agency is sensitive to moral responsibility,” which I argue is applicable to both a CVC and to territorial ZoPs (Moretto et al., 2011, 1849). When PP members formed their sanctuary, they were able to satisfy a range of basic human needs, one of which was agency, by being able to harness legitimacy through an online network. One could infer that human time perception and satisfying agency as a form of a human need varied among the CVC members. This resulted in their disagreement about staying in the sanctuary or going public. Ultimately, members of both a virtual and territorial ZoP are moral agents. This implies that they are accountable for both their actions and the consequences. Therefore, they are exercising agency and, in the case of the CVC, harnessing legitimacy through networks. Sources of legitimacy in VI4P Designers of tools are responsible for providing useful and clear functionality, but they do not complete the job. As users of tools, we are responsible for integrating them into settings of use in such a way that they make sense for us. (Nardi and O’Day, 1999, 55)

PP emerged by using the Internet, which is “international, decentralized, and comprised of networks and infrastructure largely owned and operated by private sector entities” (Kruger, 2016). However, as users, the members of PP had control of the settings and the mediating conditions needed for this CVC to serve as a sanctuary in its initial inception. The Information Ecology in PP, with its people, practices, values, and technologies, provided the space for agency as a form of human need to be satisfied by providing a context that engendered choices, resulting in new alliances and the ability to access the political and moral imagination of people, practices, and values (Nardi and O’Day, 1999). The theoretical debate on the concept of Infrastructures for Peace is still evolving, and there is no single working definition. When looking at the initial definition as presented by Lederach in 1997, in which I4Ps are “made up of a web of people, their relationships and activities, and the social mechanisms necessary to sustain the change sought,” it becomes clear that PP’s Information Ecology fits this description (1997, 84). In 2012, Lederach expanded on this notion of I4P’s, adding that “among the key challenges an infrastructure for peace must address,

136  Laura Villanueva the most significant remains how to provide for robust creativity and adaptive capacity in the wider system of change rather than focusing narrowly on institution building” (2012, 12). In the wider system of change, I4Ps in traditional infrastructures serve as building blocks for Virtual I4Ps. The rapidly growing and shifting landscape of VI4Ps puts us at odds with the assumption that physical reality is logically coherent and can be understood by those living within it. Although we understand the components that make up virtual reality, we still do not have a coherent view of our life as digital-human actors. There is a need to create a language that can provide an understanding that the use of old and new technologies is not an amalgam but a temporal and spatial reconfiguration that introduces digital-human actors who have agency in the production of a new infrastructure. Along with this agency, digital-human actors are harnessing legitimacy through networks, as is the case of PP. The members of PP used the narrative of motherhood to claim their right as legitimate actors for social peace, but they went a step further. The narrative of motherhood implies that the members embody this right not only through their role as a social actor but also through their bodies, thus embodying legitimacy from an intellectual and corporeal stance. The new alliances they could build between each other and with other networks, was a moment of choice, of having agency as a social and a digital human actor despite the insecurity sweeping the country. Here lies the critical difference between legitimacy in a non-state situation (such as virtual communities) and traditional forms of legitimacy in which the state is the accepted focus of analysis. The state’s social identity interacts with global norms. A state is said to have an identity only to the extent that it is recognized by other states (Ringmar, 1997, 34). PP’s identity stems from an intellectual and corporeal stance and can harness legitimacy through networks, since it shares this identity with millions of women in other networks. PP did not negotiate its agency or its ability to harness legitimacy through networks like a state. Instead, the fluid boundaries of the virtual world form digital ecosystem(s) that provides speed, connectivity, mobility, and a level of autonomy that states often lack.

Conclusion I presented the case of PP, the CVC that emerged following a triggering event in a politically repressive environment, and which sought sanctuary by technological means. Social media has provided a platform for the existence of virtual communities. Informed by virtual networks it has expanded the ways in which individuals and groups can harness human agency. In this study agency was approached as a form of human need and I  have argued that PP, as a CVC, represents an expression of this agency as an emerging “zone” that does not fit into any of the standard typologies of ZoPs. Although we think in terms of complicated systems and address complex social conflicts, as producers of analyses, we are also part of a complex biological and social environment. The interdependence of our relationships both at the local

Harnessing legitimacy through networks  137 and global levels necessitate that our analysis reflects this reality. In Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart, Nardi and O’Day encourage an understanding of how people and technology are interrelated and how human to human interaction is still paramount in this ecology. J. C. R. Licklider, a psychologist in the 1960s, “foresaw the utilization of computers as extensions of the human being,” and, thus, I present PP’s Information Ecology as such an extension, a type of building block in I4Ps, in this case, VI4Ps (Hafner and Lyon, 1996, 27). This chapter explored agency as a prelude to legitimacy in a virtual network context. It remains true that the “more one looks at the dynamics of social systems, however, the more it becomes clear that the dynamics of legitimacy is one of the most important elements in the total-long run dynamics of society” (Boulding, 1971, 1). Harnessing legitimacy necessitates the ability to have choices, the ability to choose, and the tools necessary to do so. A digital human actor’s agency translates into individual and collective actions that are first legitimate in the eyes of the CVC members themselves and then to wider online networks. The emergence of civil society groups also suggests that the social value of online interactions builds incrementally in a manner that is subtle in comparison to the Internet which contains “60 trillion web pages, remembers 4 zettabytes of data, transmits millions of emails per second, all interconnected by sextillions of transistors” (Kelly, 2016). This precipitates the evolution of a new social structure and consequently new forms of human agency. PP’s Information Ecology is an extension, a type of building block that I labeled VI4Ps, which is an extension of I4Ps. I did not label VI4Ps as an alternative infrastructure because this would imply that they are outside of what it means to be human when we are still in pursuit of a language that can embrace the human reality that sits amidst virtual and physical human infrastructures. PP as a ZoP, in its sanctuary form, was a group of digital-human actors who had agency in the production of its VI4P components. Once PP moved to a digital public space, their function as a sanctuary ended, but I propose that they continue to exist as a ZoP. Today, PP continues to be a presence in the Mexican social landscape with a little more than 2,000 followers on their Facebook page. They continue engaged in public activities that demand justice for the “missing 43”, as well as other causes. The original members from the CVC have not left, and although there is little activity, the CVC remains online. Contrary to a physical sanctuary, members in a virtual sanctuary may remain connected. This implies that this virtual sanctuary is always accessible to its original members. Harnessing legitimacy through online networks takes place in the backdrop of a temporal and spatial reconfiguration of our human experience. This implies that we don’t have a language or a framework to effectively convey this reality, although it is part of everyday life. Directions for future research can be summed up in what Hancock (2017, 269) proposes at the end of his chapter: “When one considers agency as a basic need, and recognizes that successful peacebuilding efforts are constructed on a foundation of agency, then the next logical step is to find models for peacebuilding that are also built upon local agency.” I propose that PP as a ZoP in its condition of sanctuary or public presence harnessed legitimacy through networks

138  Laura Villanueva due to peacebuilding efforts that were built upon local agency that is a prelude to the ability to harness legitimacy in both physical and virtual ZoPs.

Notes This Peace Review article is only available in HTML format, so no page numbers are available. 2 The project was Voices of Women, Stories that transform and was headed in a collaborative effort through Luchadoras TV, La Sandia Digital, SocialTIC, Subervisiones, and Witness. 3 Díaz Pérez, Isaeth Karla, Member of Portando por la Paz, Skype Interview by author, January 13, 2015. 4 Díaz Pérez, Isaeth Karla, Member of Portando por la Paz, Skype Interview by author, January 13, 2015.

1

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Harnessing legitimacy through networks  139 Hancock, L.E., 2017. Agency  & Peacebuilding: The Promise of Local Zones of Peace. Peacebuilding, 5(3), 255–269. Hancock, L.E. & Iyer, P., 2007. The Nature, Structure and Variety of “Peace Zones”. In L.E. Hancock & C.R. Mitchell (eds.) Zones of Peace. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 29–50. Hine, C., 2000. Virtual Ethnography. London, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hirblinger, A.T. & Simons, C., 2015. The Good, the Bad, and the Powerful: Representations of the ‘Local’ in Peacebuildin. Security Dialogue, 46, 422–439. Hopp-Nishanka, U., 2012. Giving Peace an Address? Reflections on the Potential and Challenges of Creating Peace Infrastructures. In B. Austin, M. Fischer  & H.J. Giessmann (eds.) Berghoff Handbook Dialogue. Berlin: Berghoff Institute.. JCU, 2015. Wired Society Speeds Up Brains . . . and Time [online]. James Cook University. Available from: www.jcu.edu.au/news/releases/wired-society-speeds-up-brains-andtime [Accessed 20 November 2017]. Kelly, K., 2016. Hypervision. Wired, 24, 74–112. Kruger, L.G., 2016. Internet Governance and the Domain Name System: Issues for Congress. In C.R. Service (ed.) CRS Report R42351. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 23. Larrauri, H.P., Davies, R., Ledesma, M. & Welch, J., 2015. New Technologies: The Future of Alternative Infrastructures for Peace. Geneva: G.P. Platform. Lederach, J.P., 1997. Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace. Lederach, J.P., 2012. The Origins and Evolution of Infrastructures for Peace: A Personal Reflection. Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 7, 8–13. Leighninger, M., 2006. The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule Is Giving Way to Shared Governance-and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same, 1st ed. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Mac Ginty, R., 2008. Indigenous Peace-Making Versus the Liberal Peace. Cooperation and Conflict, 43, 139–163. MacDonald, F., 2015. Science Says That Technology Is Speeding Up Our Brains’ Perception of Time [online]. Science Alert. Available from: www.sciencealert.com/ research-suggests-that-technology-is-speeding-up-our-perception-of-time [Accessed 20 November 2015]. Mcloughlin, A., 2016. Time Flies When You’re Having Phone. Australasian Science. Wattletree Australia: Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, 2. Mitchell, C., 2007. The Theory and Practice of Sanctuary: From Asylia to Local Zones of Peace. In L.E. Hancock & C.R. Mitchell (eds.) Zones of Peace. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 1–28. Mitchell, C. & Hancock, L.E., 2007. Local Zones of Peace and a Theory of Sanctuary. In L.E. Hancock & C.R. Mitchell (eds.) Zones of Peace. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 189–221. Mitchell, C.  & Nan, S.A., 1997. Local Peace Zones as Institutionalized Conflict. Peace Review, 9, 159. Mitchell, C. & Ramírez, S., 2009. Local Peace Communities in Colombia: An Initial Comparison of Three Cases. In V.M. Bouvier (ed.) Columbia: Building Peace in a Time of War. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 245–270. Moretto, G., Walsh, E. & Haggard, P., 2011. Experience of Agency and Sense of Responsibility. Consciousness and Cognition, 20, 1847–1854.

140  Laura Villanueva Mouly, C., Idler, A. & Garrido, M.B., 2015. Zones of Peace in Colombia’s Borderland. International Journal of Peace Studies, 20. Mraovic, B., 2003. The Speed of Mind in Information Society. In L. Budin, Z. Bekić & D.V. Hljuz (eds.) 25th International Conference Information Technology Interfaces ITI. Zagreb: Zagreb University Computing Centre, 353–358. Nardi, B.A.  & O’day, V., 1999. Information Ecologies: Using Technology With Heart. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ringmar, E., 1997. Alexander Wendt: A Social Scientist Struggling with History. In I.B. Neumann  & O. Wæver (eds.) The Future of International Relations: Masters in the Making? London, New York: Routledge, 269–289. Robertson, A., 2013. Connecting in Crisis: “Old” and “New” Media and the Arab Spring. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 18, 325–341. Schirmer, J.G., 1989. ‘Those Who Die for Life Cannot Be Called Dead:’ Women and Human Rights Protest in Latin America. Feminist Review, 32, 3–29. Treré, E., 2016. The Dark Side of Digital Politics: Understanding the Algorithmic Manufacturing of Consent and the Hindering of Online Dissidence. IDS Bulletin, 47, 127–138. Zelditch, M., 2001. Processes of Legitimation: Recent Developments and New Directions. Social Psychology Quarterly, 64, 4–17.

8 Targets of violence, zones of peace Patricia A. MauldenTargets of violence, zones of peace

The child and school as post-conflict spaces Patricia A. Maulden Introduction In times of protracted social conflict, insurgency, or civil war, schools serve many functions. They provide a consistent source of militia recruitment (forced or voluntary) but can also exist as a site of existential concern depending on the ideology of the armed groups involved. From this perspective, schools can represent the continuation of an unacceptable system or simply a target of opportunity that can be counted upon to create a dependable amount of fear, chaos, and uncertainty when attacked. Declaring schools, school buses, and roads leading to schools as zones of peace has, in recent years, become one child protective strategy to deal with at least some of these fundamental dynamics. This approach, founded upon international declarations and conventions (1948 Declaration of Human Rights, 1949 Geneva Convention, 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and 2002 Optional Protocol to CRC) builds upon formal global normative frameworks to declare children and subsequently school sites as zones of peace (SZoPs). In response, NGOs engage in program development and oversight to operationalize these standards. In so doing, these agencies attempt to establish the legitimacy of international structures vis-à-vis the legitimacy of their own organizational standing and reputation. Prior to the international declarations noted above, Eglantyne Jebb, one of the founders of British Save the Children Fund, was formally charged and tried in the United Kingdom with giving aid and succor to the enemy who, in this case, were children on both sides of the conflict in World War I. Her acquittal gave the organization legitimacy to continue working on behalf of all children in times of war.1 In 1946, the British Save the Children organization (and others) further legitimized their work through their programming with all children impacted by war and natural disasters. In the 1980s the conceptualization of children as a conflict-free zone was proposed to UNICEF and has since been reframed as children as zones of peace (Children in War 1996) based on three principles – children do not instigate armed conflicts, children suffer disproportionately from consequences of armed conflicts, and children need protection (Sheppard and Knight 2011).2 Using Nepal as primary case study with the Philippines and Afghanistan as contextual comparatives, this chapter explores four topics: how legitimacy is

142  Patricia A. Maulden situated, claimed, justified, and believed; the aspects of legitimacy that led to the SZoP projects; the political and ideological spaces of school and education; and their potential as a domain of protection as well as of recovery from war. The concluding section considers the determination of the child/student as a moral signifier and how this attribution impacts both perceived and created legitimacy and associated programming. It reflects upon education and schools as domains of both influence and concern.

Frames of legitimacy Legitimacy, whether based upon law, claims of morality, situational dynamics, or political declarations, can serve as claimed ground upon which subsequent actions are taken by a variety of actors. The attribution of legitimacy involves external and internal factors. For example, the 2002 Optional Protocol to the CRC3 adds prohibitions to the CRC against recruiting soldiers under the age of 18 or from participation in acts of aggression. States may sign the document but then choose to opt out due to emergency conditions, threats of insurgency, or terrorism. While acknowledging, at least tacitly via signature, the legitimacy of the Protocol, situational dynamics (a higher legitimacy from a state point of view) may impede full implementation. IGOs and NGOs may argue that the Protocol’s moral claims (in terms of keeping children out of direct combat) add to its legalistic validity but these organizations lack authority to ensure full implementation. From the Weberian conceptualization of legitimacy, the validity of the norms emerges as they are followed. Legitimacy involves an individual or a group substantiating or justifying the implied sanctioned domination of one idea or approach over another (Bensman, 1979, 326–334). In other words, legitimacy could be said to involve claiming or believing one epistemological frame over another based on individual or group interpretation of needs, wants, interests, and positions. In an exploration of legitimacy in times of political transition with a particular focus on justice, Buckley surfaces the dilemma present throughout this chapter, that of determining the practical possibilities in conceptualizing and implementing the most just policy or program design in relation to specific normative frameworks. He further outlines the function of disagreement in the articulation of what is just (moral) and what is legitimate (accepted) and the two correlate operational approaches – moral correctness and primacy of legitimacy (2013, 329–331). The author’s framing of transitional justice reflecting “reasonable disagreement” (2013, 339) recalls the framing of children as a zone of peace (CZoP) and schools as zones of peace (SZoP). The international norms upon which these framings build and through which they achieve a level of legitimacy emerge specifically from Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights4 that states “everyone has a right to education” and Article 28 of the 1989 Conventions on the Rights of the Child5 that gives additional details to the 1948 pronouncement. Both of these statutes refer to children and education, but the 1989 document also identifies schools as the site for mandated educational opportunities.

Targets of violence, zones of peace  143 As part of a continuous cycle of interactions within situations of social and political upheaval such as an ongoing war, immediate post-war transition, or postconflict peacebuilding, however, understandings can no longer be solely theoretical. The child, the school, and education itself can reflect the underlying dynamics and causal factors of each of these phases, taking on meanings relevant to stakeholders’ convictions and goals. Differences in perspective from the international, the national, the NGO, and the local position can be stark. The primacy of legitimacy in keeping children out of military engagement – directly and indirectly – comes in part from work done by individuals and organizations that made a case for the moral correctness of doing so, often along the lines of child protection as necessary for the good of future societies. On the other hand, insurgencies and groups fighting for social, economic, and political goals could easily argue that their own goals are clearly more legitimate. They often argue that all able persons are morally obliged to engage in the struggle in whatever ways are possible for the good of future societies. In such situations, children who are part of fighting forces distinctly embody the practical possibilities of different legitimacy frames. While engaging with these dynamics stakeholders can move between the sanctioned and the un-sanctioned, depending upon with whom they are engaging around what issues and with what outcomes desired by what actor or organization. Elaborating on this fluid nature of legitimacy, Kriesberg (2003, 14–18) takes particular notice of the role of domination. Domination occurs in relation to power and control, specifically in connection with authority, which can be interpreted as legitimacy. From this perspective, domination might imply threat or negative sanctions seen as legitimate by the threatening party and illegitimate by the threatened party although concessions might be made reluctantly in the face of the threats. On the other hand, if incentives offered a greater share of resources in exchange for alterations in policy or shared access to territory, the positive benefits of such concessions made in light of resources gained could re-calibrate the level of perceived legitimacy of the exchange. Kriesberg also brings in the element of context in relation to the systemic dynamics and history of the “space” in which the contention occurs. In addition, the author highlights the importance of understanding the rules by which the conflict is carried out in terms of “regulation”. The idea of regulation – whether internalized by participants, expressed in tradition or elsewhere represented outside of the participants, and/or enforced by sanctions – connects the earlier discussion of moral correctness and primacy of legitimacy in relation to claims, beliefs, validity, and acceptance. Jenkins (2013, 26), in his discussion of peacebuilding as a contested and evolving concept, additionally brings in the tensions between order and legitimacy. Of particular concern here is the disagreement about whether order (framed around a belief in a self-regulating peace) could be possible without legitimacy. Legitimacy might be acknowledged or made visible through a process of trust-building that grows as local populations perceive an emerging sense of order that might well be accompanied, on the other hand, by temporary measures that could be considered illegitimate by local and/or international actors. Philpott (2010, 117, n32) describes

144  Patricia A. Maulden two primary concepts of legitimacy – normative, or the intrinsic rightness of institutions and laws, and descriptive, or judgments made by those engaging with institutions and laws. Mac Ginty’s (2011, 1) analysis of liberal peacebuilding at the international and local levels underscores the presence of the normative and descriptive framing of Philpott as he explores the concept of hybridity or the mixing of norms and practices. Mac Ginty examines the problems of legitimacy, in particular regarding newly created or re-fashioned, post-conflict states, where tensions between local practices and norms are often “overwritten” or at the very least in a power struggle with internationally based practices and norms (2011, 31). The locus of legitimacy in this scenario could be seen to be in the eye of the beholder and encouraged or provoked through material forms of power (often from the military or humanitarian side) and/or by the authority of moral standing and traditional sanction from the local side (Mac Ginty, 2011, 41, 46). These perspectives could be difficult to reconcile, particularly in light of the discussion of domination in relation to power, control, and authority without an adequate and acceptable shaping of incentives and resource sharing. If a “space” is created where these transactions, ascriptions, and attributions occur and an emerging sense of order can be determined, then perhaps – at least in the short term – a perceived intermediate sense of legitimacy can be acknowledged. It is at this point that political and ideological domains might be articulated and schools, children, and students enter into the negotiation of legitimacy.

Rationalizers of legitimacy My analysis now turns to rationalizers of legitimacy and how they play out theoretically and practically as well as how they influence the framing of “the child” as a zone of peace and schools as zones of peace in Nepal, the Philippines, and Afghanistan. To begin, much of the legitimacy that shapes these frames derives from international conventions and declarations in response to what Ilcan and Phillips term “global rationalities of security” (2006, 59) that must keep pace with the increasing global demand for safeguards and protection. From a legitimacy standpoint, this harkens back to ideas of regulation, moral correctness, and the validity of chosen norms, which gain justification as they are followed and increasingly sanctioned over time. While security rationalizers are globally determined in many cases, they are also individualized, particularly in the case of children. Child protection is a fundamental value of moral correctness that guides international and nongovernmental policy and programming efforts. The acceptance of or validity ascribed to the idea of the child as a ZoP, a space inherently and perpetually secure, would certainly change depending on where fighting occurred, who engaged in violence, and who experienced violence. It could also shift with the outcome of the war. In more peaceful times, if the zone held, the potential for re-consideration of motives, values, and practices might follow. If peace and peace initiatives could be said to involve some forms of change at several levels of

Targets of violence, zones of peace  145 engagement, then the secure child zone could directly impact the peace potential. In this scenario, the child would be considered an asset for a more secure future. Practically, however, the child more realistically may be categorized as a resource that can be used for various purposes that focus more directly on immediate political, economic, and social needs, which may well involve the future but often at the cost of the well being or the life of the child in the present. This variation of Buckley’s reasonable disagreement of purpose, value, and efficacy could give added validity to the necessity of protective measures such as declaring the child a zone of peace. The primacy of a legitimate struggle against oppression and the desire for political, economic, and social power, on the other hand, would say otherwise. The possibility of the individual child making their own determinations and acting for themselves, however, is not considered and is, by this omission, attributed as illegitimate. The fact that children make up from 25 to 50% of fighting forces across the world speaks to the lack of legitimate acceptance of the child as a zone of peace (Iyer and Hancock, 2004) and possibly to the individual child’s determination to claim legitimacy for themselves through their military activities. Returning to the idea of child protection, the child as a ZoP implies a “place” that moves with the child and gains protective qualities by the child’s presence therein. In other words, whatever place the child occupies becomes sanctified in the name of peace and the child serves as moral signifier of that place and the policy or program. This “strategic spatialization” can be found where the child exists at any point in time but can also be defined by institutional spaces traditionally occupied by the child such as a school (Hart, 2012, 474–478). From that point of view, the school itself becomes a rationalizer (and possibly signifier) of security within which individualized security, vis-à-vis the child, resides. The blending of the individual and the institutional (the school as part of a larger social, political, and economic system) expands the validity of the conceptualization linking the zone (the child, the school) and peace, based on adherence to international statutes. The school within the larger system delivers education as a public good. Increasingly, international organizations (for example, the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, the European Commission, OECD, Save the Children) note the importance of education in relation to conflict. Education within schools has traditionally been the locus of socialization and the place where certain types of knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes transmit from generation to generation (Smith, 2010, 1–4). In the post-Cold War era with increasing civil wars, revolutions, and political upheavals, education has taken on even more weight as a potential countermeasure to violence and revolt. Schools in general could be considered informal zones of peace when they provide physical safety while also supplying forms of psychosocial and cognitive protection through curriculum, discussion, creative expression, and socialization. In post-conflict transitions, however, the importance of education becomes more centralized to the peace making agenda (Maulden 2013, 287). In particular, schools and education are subsumed under the internationally determined holistic frame of “fragility” that houses dynamics of previous or

146  Patricia A. Maulden ongoing violent conflict, war, inequality, economic instability, poverty, and any other contextual factors that apply. Schools and school children through this lens could serve to either aggravate or improve the situation (Barakat et al., 2013, 126). However, labeling schools and education therein as fragile at worst delegitimizes locally established approaches or at best presumes that these approaches have been insufficient and need global guidance. In addition, the child as carrier of the future is inherently categorized as fragile particularly in relation to adults.6 Education’s focus becomes to instill within the child student values and practices made legitimate through either international statute, decisions made by nongovernmental organizations that design, implement, and evaluate educational programming, or through local socio-cultural and parental demands and expectations. Through this process, as the child ages and moves through the educational journey they theoretically become less fragile and a more capable carrier of these values, norms, and practices into the future. As this occurs, again theoretically, the society also becomes less fragile. To say that the discussion to this point indicates that the burden of a peaceful future has been placed to a large extent upon the shoulders of the child dependent upon the extent to which they are “educated” in an appropriate fashion seems a fair conclusion. The rationale for doing so puts the child in both the fragile as well as the potential category with education (among other things) as the continuum between. All of this assumes that adults will do their part well and view the child as valuable resource to shape a peaceful future. However, this assumption may have little legitimacy in certain contexts, with certain actors, or at various times along that same educational continuum. The Nepali case highlights these dynamics and struggles with the consequences of recent or ongoing war and violence involving child soldiers, the lasting effects of monarchy, conquest, or colonialism, and the outcomes of these factors, which particularly include extreme poverty, ethnic or caste marginalization, and historically limited educational opportunities. The child and school as zones of peace, as normative imperative and corresponding intervention, enter into the confluence of past actions and current effects which I analyze in the primary country case of Nepal, and the comparative cases of the Philippines and Afghanistan.

The case of Nepal Background A landlocked country of approximately 28 million people speaking 123 languages from four major language groups, the population of Nepal is divided into 125 ethnic and caste groups following several religious traditions (Lawoti, 2014, 131). Eighty percent of the people are dependent on subsistence farming and the country is 157th out of 187 countries listed in the UN Development Programme Human Development Report for 2013.7 Within Nepal, intracountry differences in poverty levels as well as other contextual variations (social, political, economic) impacted the rationale for violence and the rise of the Maoist guerilla “People’s War” begun

Targets of violence, zones of peace 147 in 1996 (Panday, 2011; Bokhara et al., 2006, 114). In 2002, the National Coalition for Children as Zones of Peace formed to protect children from the effects of armed conflict. The group’s concept paper (2003), supported by Save the Children, set out the international normative framework of rights for children during armed conflict. In addition to declaring children as zones of peace the group also embraced the concept of schools as zones of peace as developed by Save the Children Norway. A coalition of national and international organizations worked with political parties, communities, and leaders to gain support for these programs.8 These actions provided the foundation for later child- and school-related projects organized by a wider coalition of international organizations under the UNICEF umbrella. Legitimacy, insecurity, and security The zone of peace idea has a history and basis for legitimacy in Nepal. During his 1975 coronation ceremony, King Birendra proposed the idea that the state of Nepal be declared a zone of peace to solidify Nepalese non-alignment, citing the country’s need for peace in relation to security, independence, and development. This proposal gained the endorsement of 130 countries and was strongly advanced by President Reagan (The American Presidency Project, 1983). However, this idea was dropped after the government system changed in 1990. Given this thread of historical narrative, tangential legitimacy already existed upon which international organizations could build. Schools in general hold places of social prominence during peace and can, during war, be seen as desirable assets and tactically significant targets. Van Wessel and van Hirtum (2013, 7–16) explore the strategic value of schools as the physical sites often take up the flat parts of hillsides and offer important meeting, recruitment, and training spaces. During the course of the war in Nepal, both Maoists and government troops directly targeted schools for these reasons. Maoists would take shelter, digging trenches around school buildings and constructing defensive barriers to repel government attack. Government forces would use school buildings as barracks, surround the school with barbed wire, and position armed guards around the perimeter while school children were in classes. In essence, school facilities were deemed legitimate military assets – and targets. For society, schools represented normalcy. For Maoists troops, however, schools represented the government and taking control of such sites represented, at least symbolically, a victory over the enemy and one way to undermine what they considered to be illegitimate authority. Schools also proved excellent recruiting grounds. As Maoists took over schools for recruitment and other purposes, government forces attacked, often injuring or killing students and teachers in the process. In addition, schools are the nexus for a wide range of social relations, community services such as health provision, and a hub of community activity. Taking control of the space allowed a group to take control of a large part of community life. Teachers, considered respected community leaders and often politically aligned union members, could play a role in political mobilization which,

148  Patricia A. Maulden depending upon their alignment, could frame them as enemies or allies. Lastly, the school represented financial resources, perhaps through persons with money or access to money in the area, or perhaps goods that could be accessed through the school. By war’s end in 2006, over 13,000 deaths were reported, the majority (86%) occurring after 2001 when the Maoists organized the People’s Liberation Army and the Royal Nepalese Army organized to fight against them. Prior to that time, the war was prosecuted by the state using the Armed Police Force. The state forces were credited with two-thirds of the deaths, with only about 15% of the total deaths named as police or army casualties. In addition to the deaths and an unknown number of wounded or injured, between 100,000 to 200,000 people were displaced (Gilligan et al., 2014, 607; van Wessel and van Hirtum, 2013, 4). Reports about young people’s activities with Maoist and government forces during the war have been compiled and summarized in the Child Soldiers Global Report (2008, 246–249). The Report notes that 1,995 children were associated with parties in the conflict, most with the Maoists, with 1,576 recruited after the April 2006 ceasefire.9 Of the first number, 475 were under the age of 15 at the time of recruitment (while enrolled in school), a clear violation of the optional protocol to the CRC (ratified by Nepal in 2007). The adoption of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2006 began the movement away from war. As the government did nothing to undertake its responsibility for the reintegration of child soldiers, UNICEF and partners (one being the Child as Zone of Peace (CZOP) Coalition) did so. Education, however, did not make up a significant part of the initial reintegration program (Binadi, 2012, 189–195). The insecurity of those affected by the war, and the negative effects of civil society disruptions (Gilligan et al., 2014, 604–605) served as a partial catalyst for UNICEF’s development of its Education in Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition (EEPCT) Programme in 2007. This policy focused on improved education quality within at-risk contexts and strengthening the resilience of the education sector overall (Barakat et al., 2013, 128–129). Founded on the principle of creating a culture of peace and an understanding of human rights, program personnel revised the curriculum for grades 1–10 and officially declared that schools were SZoPs. Advocacy and media campaigns accompanied efforts to “de-politicize” schools (related directly to previous Maoist influences), reach out to communities and local groups (Barakat et al., 2013, 130–132), and to involve Local Peace Committees (Odendaal and Olivier, 2008). Difficulties continued with marginalized groups whose language and caste differences had not yet been sufficiently addressed. In fact, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement instituted a policy of requiring Nepali as the language of instruction, exacerbating grievances among non-Nepali castes and ethnic minorities (Barakat et al., 2013, 130). The language policy, while perhaps meant to unite all residents of Nepal under a common language and understanding in the name of peace, ignored – or more realistically, entrenched – historic patterns of exclusion based on ethnicity, caste, religion, and regional identities (Lawoti, 2014, 132; Wargo, 2013, 147). Education does have the potential to be a strong influence for peace

Targets of violence, zones of peace 149 and conflict prevention, but it can have the potential to upend nascent peacebuilding efforts (Barakat et al., 2013, 125; Huaman, 2011, 243). Long-standing grievances, such as those mentioned previously, combined with the negative effects of violence during and after the war (created by and creating the “landscape of war”), facilitate shifts in individual psychological, material, and physical status. These shifts can impact social cohesion in ways that shape day-to-day life as well as considerations and articulations toward a more secure or insecure future (Gilligan et al., 2014, 604; Wargo, 2013, 147). Given the importance of schools in the conduct of the war, the rationalities of security take on new dimensions. The school as a military-free zone with students and teachers protected from harassment, danger, and abduction seems eminently logical, although still difficult to enforce. The child as a zone of peace (CZoP) outside of the school environment continues to be an aspiration that is even harder to enforce. To make the potential for increased peace more of a reality in Nepal, both zones require more fully acknowledged legitimacy by a wider range of social and political actors. Rationalizers, protection, and education As discussed previously, legitimacy as articulated theoretically and practically in relation to the CZoP/SZoP emerges from international conventions and declarations in response to “global rationalities of security” (Ilcan and Phillips, 2006, 59). Security rationalizers, perhaps initially globally determined, become localized and personalized with the child and the school in conflict or post-conflict environments. The “rightness” of protecting children from war and violence and providing education as a public good seems obvious. However, that rightness often depends upon descriptive legitimacy such as context interpretations, and the value placed upon the child, the school, and the type of education. Also of concern are how the continuous cycle of interactions regarding insecurity, security, peace, and conflict embody the practical possibilities of these legitimacy frames and determinations. Protection and education are closely linked. Separating points of contact, however, such as protection of the child outside of school, protection of the child while at school, protection of the school space on behalf of students, teachers, and staff, protection of the child’s right to education, and protection of education as a public good allows for a deeper understanding of legitimacy in the sense of “by what right” policy implementation succeeds or fails. As Alan Smith (2010, 2) proposes, particularly in areas where violent conflict or the potential for violent conflict exist, education and schools can play a protective role by providing a place of stability, a consistent daily routine for children, as well as a transformative social role through certain types of curriculum. Hart, on the other hand, explores child protection as a spatialized endeavor (2012, 474) designed to reduce physical risk and increase physical safety. He explores the concepts of “enclosure” as the school itself and “separability” as the child within the school, unconnected from the larger economic, political, and social domain. Enclosure and separability could also be viewed through the exclusion

150  Patricia A. Maulden of languages other than Nepali from national education policy and the preclusion of indigenous knowledge from the curriculum. The counter argument to this rationalizer of security emerges around the question of what occurs within the school grounds in relation to Smith’s framing of education as an instrument through which socialization, identity construction, knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes are formally taught (2010, 1). If the international and/or state goal of the SZoP movement is to depoliticize schools to allow for local ownership and increased trust between communities and the state then the legitimacy of such a movement rests within local acceptance (Barakat et al., 2013, 131). In part, this can be achieved through the inclusion or exclusion of local groups’ framing of knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes. This approach indicates that the school should be the space in which greater understanding occurs among political actors based on shared legitimacy of protection and education. This tactic seems to place the burden not only on the child as the “object” in terms of present and future but also on the school site and curriculum. These become the “mechanism” through which shared understanding of a safer, more peaceful present and future are passed to the representatives of that present and future. The legitimacy frames at play in this calculation include not only the normative but also the legal as, for example, the 2011 government endorsement of a directive declaring schools and school buses to be zones of peace in response to reports of arson and vandalism of buildings, buses, and the children within.10 The government made this determination rather late in the SZoP process (begun in 2002 during the war), but by 2011, Nepal was seen as a leading country in the SZoP movement. The country received significant international investment in behalf of the movement, and was slated to host workshops and conferences assisting other countries to learn from their “Schools as zones of peace” program.11 12 In other words, the implementation of the CZoP/SZoP normative frames increased the country’s and government’s standing internationally as well as within the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Maintaining that legitimacy and good will proved sufficient incentive to motivate a formal declaration. At the international level, UNICEF was one of the main proponents of the SZoP in Nepal, bringing both legitimacy and resources to efforts taking place during the war as well as in the post conflict, peacebuilding phase. During the war, advocacy for the child as a zone of peace began with a collaboration of international and civil society organizations that devised a campaign for all parties to the conflict, appealing for respect for children’s rights.13 They proposed group treatment of children as the indicator of group credibility, focusing on normative rightness, and stated that protection of the child as a zone of peace evidenced a group’s moral authority, and was an essential component to any legitimate political leadership (Smith, 2010, 262–264). Advocacy did not prove sufficient, however, to protect children or schools from the war and a request was made to UNICEF that curricula be developed to encourage the school as zones of peace program. Part of that curriculum included a model for negotiating and developing school codes of conduct in order to safeguard schools as peace zones. The initial program also included mobilization of civil society groups, providing psychosocial support for

Targets of violence, zones of peace  151 students, coping skills for teachers, and instruction about landmine awareness and protection (Smith, 2010, 266). Barakat et al. (2013, 131–132) highlight the School Management Committee and Parent-Teacher Associations as key actors in advocacy and support for the SZoP policy. Odendaal and Olivier (2008, 13) point to the Local Peace Committee as fundamental to the accepted legitimacy of the SZoP as well as providing a space where non-Nepali speaking groups can be represented. Accompanying the program, a school code of conduct framed the normative expectations, within a clear understanding of the roles, and regulations for behavior. The war time code of conduct prohibited weapons, political rallies, arrests, abductions, harassment, interference with student development, and so on. The code of conduct negotiation process included representatives from the government, Maoist fighters, community-based organizations, and was facilitated by trusted community members, predominantly women (Smith, 2010, 266–268). After the peace accords were signed, another campaign developed, a revised program was articulated, and a new set of code of conduct negotiations occurred. Local and external NGOs, school management committees, parent-teacher organizations, and local peace committees worked to determine representative stakeholders’ participation, to analyze community issues, to build consensus and establish common ground, and to develop and ratify the code (Smith, 2010, 270–275). As such, district codes varied but each represented a legitimate normative framework as far as it represented and was inclusive of a broad sample of community concerns and groups. The successful process, if indeed it proved successful, created an interpretation of fairness, instilling a descriptive legitimacy that, if the code of conduct was agreed upon, carried over to a normative legitimacy that supported behavioral, political, economic, and social regulations as part of the school as zone of peace. Unfortunately, on April 25 and May 12, 2015, devastating earthquakes impacted 1.1 million people or 40% of the population, causing widespread damage, with 31 out of 75 districts termed most affected and 14 districts declared severely affected. The earthquake destroyed over 5,000 schools with thousands more damaged, interrupted school, health, and sanitation services, and led to a major humanitarian crisis.14 In addition, political unrest in response to the new Constitution failing to address historic grievances of marginalized communities created additional tensions and uncertainty. How the CZoP and the SZoP will fare amidst overwhelming devastation and continuing political upheaval remains to be seen.

Comparative cases The comparative cases of the Philippines and Afghanistan further highlight contextual variations as well as cross case similarities relative to country background, legitimacy, insecurity, security, and rationalizers, protection, education. Philippines The Republic of the Philippines, a nation of approximately 88  million people, comprises 7,641 islands with three main geological divisions from north to south:

152  Patricia A. Maulden Luzon (site of Manila, the capital city), Visayas, and Mindanao.15 Half of the population live in rural areas, where 80% of the country’s poor (approximately onethird of the population) reside. Illiteracy, unemployment, and poverty are highest among indigenous peoples and people living in upland areas. Rural poverty can be traced, in part, to small farm sizes, unsustainable agricultural practices, extensive deforestation, depleted fishing waters, and a lack of access to alternative assets and opportunities.16 Conflicts have been ongoing on various islands over many years. On the island of Mindanao, however, a war for independence has raged for 47  years, displacing over four million people since 2000, with 150,000 people killed.17 Residents of Mindanao, on the other hand, have also organized a peace movement initially as a struggle against exploitation, unequal resource distribution, and human rights violations with the legitimizing frame of a common destiny. Given the view of each ethnic or religious group as being distinct from each other, however, arriving at a consensus as to a shared vision proves an ongoing dilemma (Ringuet, 2002, 42–44). Legitimizing, via formal governmental or regional organization documents, has a history in the Philippines. The Republic of the Philippines is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that on November  27, 1971 declared Southeast Asia as a zone of peace (ASEAN 1972, 183–184). In 1992, in response to government forces establishing bases in schools and civil society concerns about this military presence, the Philippine Congress passed the Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act. Section 22 declared that children are “Zones of Peace” and prohibited the use of schools “for military purposes such as command posts, barracks, detachments, and supply depots” (Sheppard and Knight, 2011, 6–7). In 2005, the Department of Education order No. 44 again declared children as zones of peace and also affirmed a commitment to schools as zones of peace (DepEd, 2005). The display of “This School is a Zone of Peace” banner was mandated in 2013 (DepEd, 2013, ND), and a “Yes For Peace” program reiterated the declaration that the school was a zone of peace (DepEd, 2016). The potentially smooth waters of the “school as zone of peace separate from military personnel and purposes” became muddied, however, firstly with the issuance by Education Secretary Luistro of Memorandum 221 on December 13, 2013, Guidelines on the Protection of Children During Armed Conflict: and secondly with the Letter Directive 25 as enclosure to the memorandum from General Emmanuel Bautista of General Headquarters, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Guidelines in the Conduct of AFP Activities Inside or Within the Premises of a School or Hospital, dated 15 July 2013 (DepEd, 2013). One point of contention, and public outrage, involves the Armed Forces’ understanding of lawful purpose for entering a school or hospital. Reports from teacher alliances as well as others aligned with alternative, non-state provided schools built by local communities where no state schools existed claim that military personnel unlawfully entered the premises, committed human rights abuses against students and teachers, ransacked dormitories, and caused emotional trauma to students and teachers.18 Other

Targets of violence, zones of peace  153 reports from Mindanao also point to state-sponsored attacks on community-developed indigenous schools and daycare centers.19 However, in another part of Mindanao, as residents returned to an area formally under martial law, UNICEF’s Education in Emergencies Initiatives supported NGOs through the Learning Institutions as Zones of Peace (LIZOP) Project. Community leaders worked together, engaged with government agencies around policy guidelines for child protection, and signed a declaration stating that all community-supported learning institutions were zones of peace.20 It could be argued, citing the letter of the law, that the schools in question did not “technically” fall under the mandate of the state memorandum, as they were not state-sponsored. The examples discussed here, however, indicate that context, conflict history, perception of threats and sundry additional factors enter into decisions concerning where and when armed forces enter state and non-state school spaces. The potential for the descriptive legitimacy of contextual interpretations (lawful purpose and state-sponsored in this case) could be postulated to have higher normative “rightness” when aligned with a perceived overarching principle, such as the legitimacy of global or national rationalities of security and perceptions of insecurity. This equation pertains directly to the military but in all its variations underscores the difficulty of “peace” rising in the hierarchy of legitimacy in situations where particular conceptualizations of insecurity and spaces or zones of insecurity exist. Afghanistan Afghanistan, a nation of approximately 32 million people speaking 34 different languages is divided into 14 different ethnic groups representing various sects of Islam. The country is one of the poorest in the world with poverty spread across rural and urban areas. Forty-two percent of the population live below the poverty line; with poverty being most severe in the Northeast, Central Highlands, and parts of the Southeast. An estimated 70% of Afghans are “food insecure”. In addition, the nation has suffered over 30 years of conflict and invasion, as well as various natural disasters.21 The 2016 Children and Armed Conflict Report of the Secretary-General declared Afghanistan a situation of concern and put it on the agenda of the Security Council. The Report (2016, 5–7) notes children as being disproportionately affected by the intensifying conflict with the number of verified child causalities rising 14% since 2014. Evidence presented in the Report states that in 2015 one in four civilian casualties was a child. Perpetrators of the 132 verified attacks on schools break down as follows: Taliban (82); ISIL-related groups (13); undetermined army groups (11); Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (1); Afghan National Defence and Security Forces and pro-Government militias (23); unattributed incidents (2). Since 2014, the number of children abducted by armed groups has tripled. However, “in a positive development” as the Report states, the Government signed the Safe Schools Declaration to protect education facilities from military use during conflict.22 Cases of military use of education facilities

154  Patricia A. Maulden continue, however: 24 have been recently related to Afghan National Defence and Security Forces and 11 related to armed groups (Taliban 4, ISIL-affiliated 7). Despite these contextual tensions, Afghani educators and child rights activists attended meetings in Nepal to study schools as zones of peace programs.23 Afghanistan is a SAARC member nation, as is Nepal and Sri Lanka, indicating that the legitimacy of the SZoP movement in the region is strong. In 2013, a report commissioned by Save the Children (in relation to SZoP implementation in Afghanistan) analyzed existing mechanisms to mitigate threats to schools, staff, and students with the goal of additional protective measures for persons, schools, and education. Although access to education has considerably improved, researchers found a common sense of fear in all individuals surveyed. Students reported that they felt safest at home and at school but least safe as they traveled back and forth (Save the Children, 2013, 6). Teachers and staff also expressed fear of harassment or personal harm as they traveled between home and school. Among the 26 schools surveyed, respondents reported threats, written or verbal, messages written on school wall (the night letter) or conveyed during a telephone call. Physical attacks included gas attacks, bombs, grenade strikes, and murder (Save the Children, 2013, 7). Protection mechanisms focused primarily on school shuras, or groups of students, parents, and community members such as School Management Committees, Parent-Teacher-Student Associations, and School Defense Councils. The groups fund-raised to support the construction of boundary walls, building of additional classrooms, and hiring of extra guards. The groups also spoke with parents to convince them to send their children to school and served as a communication bridge between the school and community in a variety of ways (Save the Children, 2013, 14). Overall, the study found four categories of protection – the government, the school shura (including all organized groups), religious leaders, and NGOs. Interestingly, each category’s respondent comments were ordered by frequency of theme. “Value of education” (phrased in the positive) was the only shared theme across categories (Save the Children, 2013, 22). As the valuation of education across sectors increases, this descriptive or interpretive legitimacy could also increase and potentially, over time, become a normative frame, the “rightness” of which would be generally understood and accepted. However, many ongoing dynamics could block positive valuation, one in particular focusing on ideology. Wargo (2013, 147–148) points out the ideological framing concerning girls in school, girls in school with boys, and girls and boys taught curricula beyond approved interpretations of religious texts. Each of these points is a test of legitimacy, depending upon the individual’s normative standpoint. In addition, fear, certainty or uncertainty regarding social control, and the desire for continuation or disruption of cultural, social, and political traditions all impact individual and group interpretations. As such, they become part of the continuous cycle of interactions through cognitive appraisal and attribution of legitimacy or illegitimacy. Skoval et al. (2014, 176–177) goes further, introducing neutrality into the mix (zones of peace and neutrality) in order to counter military as well as socio-cultural

Targets of violence, zones of peace  155 interventions to what the authors determine the legitimate framework for schools and education in general. The idea of neutrality included in the phrase “zones of peace” seems to imply its possibility or perhaps understands neutrality as passive acceptance of a particular program, in this case, SZoP. From the discussion of the cases of Nepal, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, neutrality as an overarching value remains aspirational and would look very different from the armed actors’ point of view. Regardless, the possibilities for CZoP and SZoP in Afghanistan remain fraught with contrasting ideologies and ongoing violence. On the other hand, in some areas of the country, community groups, parents, teachers, and students are working together to embody the practical possibilities of protection, education, and some level of security within a dangerously insecure environment.

Conclusion This chapter has explored frames of legitimacy in relation to periods of transition and with a focus on the disagreement in articulation of what is just or moral and what is “legitimate” or accepted based on prevailing views of moral correctness and primacy of legitimacy. The fluid nature of legitimacy between stakeholders, the role of domination related to power and control and the influence of context added to the complexity, as did rule-based regulation from the international to the community levels of engagement. The discussion of legitimacy highlighted the tensions between order and legitimacy in an environment where peace is nascent and illustrated that the processes by which peace could be fostered depended upon a blend of local, national, and international actors. The concept of “post-conflict” is a loose one, primarily indicating that a country emerging from large-scale war is not currently engaged in widespread violence. Rationalizers of multidimensional legitimacy and the framing of global rationalities of security were explored in the light of “the child as a zone of peace” project. This was an international legitimizing frame of protection, but also a resource to be exploited in ways that will support the fight against oppression, the quest for access to resources, or the righting of grievances. The zone concept widened to include schools, by default including children, in a program of strategic “spatialization” in the name of protection and the fostering of peace. We examined Nepal as exemplar of the CZoP and SZoPs, where legitimacy, rationalizers, and programs engage with context, history, and a variety of stakeholder groups. Secondary cases of the Philippines and Afghanistan widened the set of contextual dynamics even further. All three cases shared, however, many variables such as military use of school property, large numbers of marginalized groups, insurgencies, high poverty rates, and ethnic or religious divides. A synthesis of the case material in relation to the categories and variables of legitimacy linked to security/insecurity, and rationalizers linked to protection/ education, indicates potential correlations as depicted in Table 8.1. For example, as security increases, child and school protections as well as available educational opportunities may also increase (with, of course, attendant normative or descriptive legitimacy), and when insecurity increases, the reverse

156  Patricia A. Maulden Table 8.1  Legitimacy and rationalizers Legitimacy

Rationalizer

+ Insecurity + Security − Insecurity − Security + Insecurity + Security − Insecurity − Security

− Protection + Protection + Protection − Protection − Education + Education + Education − Education

may be the case. Tensions between determinations of insecurity and security could play significant roles in shaping or adapting normative frameworks of protection and education at the individual, group, national, and international levels. These dynamics are in evidence to different extents in each of the cases, all with the child and the school in the center of the vortex. The cases explored in this chapter did not significantly involve refugee populations or non-state actors. The problematic differences highlighted in each case involved primarily gender, ethnic identity, language, culture, or economic, social, political positioning. Currently, as larger population groups are forced to flee across national borders with few belongings and perhaps no documentation, the issues of insecurity, otherness, determination of resources allocated for relocation or integration, and the international, national, local determinations of individual and group value could reshape frameworks of legitimacy. As such, the moral correctness and primacy of legimacy related to claims, beliefs, validity, and acceptance of nonstate individuals could be framed and rationalized very differently than even the least representated in-state group. With this in mind, would refugee schools be considered zones of peace or would the refugee child, as embodiment of difference and potential marker of insecurity, be protected under the individualized zone of peace umbrealla within the protected space of the school? The issue of whether the refugee group represented the legitimate government of their former state or comprised a group of counter or anti government individuals could well, depending upon the political framework of the host state, impact the frames of legimacy, rationalizers applied, conclusions drawn, and programs implemented in response. At best, the CZoP and the SZoP programs have limited global implementation, regardless of the number of international conventions and declarations. States that have long-term conflict trajectories seem to be focal points for equally limited zone of peace program implementation, highlighting the difficutlies of mounting and sustaining zone of peace spaces, whether in war or in peace. Shifting population patterns, increasing cross-border wars between state and nonstate actors, millions of refugee resettlements, shortages of resources of all kinds, and increasing legitimizing and rationalizing of insecurity as embodied by the individual

Targets of violence, zones of peace  157 refugee all impact the zone of peace concept. It could easily be determined to have no validity or, from a utilitarian perspective, moral correctness (if the refugee is legitimaized under this framework) and, in consequence, put in abeyance for a time. This takes the argument back to Mac Ginty’s discussion of the locus of legitimacy as in the eye of the beholder, encouraged or provoked through material forms of power. The option for abeyance implies that individuals and groups will meekly accept what is offered for the survival and success of themselves and their families. The evidence of insurgencies, revolutions, and social movments could be interpreted to indicate otherwise. The role for zones of peace could well be reshaped to work within ongoing situations, legitimized as a locus of survival and renewal encouraged through moral correctness. That said, it seems inevitable that the future of a fully legitimized moral correctness of the child/school as zones specifically or of zones of peace generally will be a very long negotiation in which individual, community, national, and international interests contend with security concerns, power, poverty, marginalization, and hope.

Notes 1 See Save the Children, “Our Founder: Eglantyne Jebb.” Available online: www. savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.6354847/k.2DD5/The_Woman_Who_ Saved_the_Children.htm 2 For additional details on child soldiers, related international normative structures, and NGO program and policy development, see Cohn and Goodwin-Gill (1994), Brett and McCallin (1998), Machel (2001), and McCann and Uppard (2001). 3 United Nations Human Rights Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR), “Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.” Available online: www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/OPACCRC.aspx 4 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Available online: www.icnl.org/research/library/files/Transnational/ UNIVERSAL_DECLARATION_OF_HUMAN_RIGHTS.pdf 5 UNICEF, “Fact Sheet: A summary of the rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.” Available online: www.unicef.org/crc/files/Rights_overview.pdf 6 The category of youth, on the other hand, depending upon the contextual determination of status, economic viability, and consequent community respect, can range between the ages of 12 and 35. This group, rather than being classified as fragile, more often elicits the descriptor of “dangerous”. These individuals, particularly males, do most of the fighting and disruptive activities associated with war and violence. They seek to change the status quo, which increases their danger to the adult category of individuals who have an established economic, social, cultural, and political stake in systems maintenance (Maulden, 2011, 2012). This chapter focuses on the “child” as determined by international and nongovernmental organizations. There is slippage, however, between the “child” determination and that of “youth” that makes the child as zone of peace conceptualization even more fraught with moral, legal, and situational concerns and is definitely a site for the reasonable disagreement of legitimacy. 7 Malik, Khalid, “Human Development Report 2013.” Available online: www.ruralpovertyportal.org/country/home/tags/nepal 8 A partial list of organizations includes: ActionAid Nepal, Center for Child Studies and Developent (CCSD), Child Workers in Nepal (CWIN), Child NGO Federation, Child

158  Patricia A. Maulden Nepal, Informal Sector Service Center (INSEC), and Children-Women in Social Sciences and Human Rights (CWISH). 9 Binadi claims the total at 4,500 (citing Zia-Zafari in Human Rights Watch, 2007, 2, Vol. 19, No2). 10 UNICEF, “Schools as Zones of Peace.” Available online: www.unicef.org/infocbycountry/nepal_65410.html 11 Joshi, Rupta, “Countries learn from Nepal’s ‘Schools as Zones of Peace’ Programme.” Available online: www.unicef.org/education/nepal_62457.html 12 Kathmandu Post, “Schools as zone of peace in Afthanistan.” Avaliable online: http:// kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2014-12-20/schools-as-zone-of-peace-in-afghan istan.html 13 Child Workers in Nepal, Institute of Human Rights and Communication Nepal, Centre for Victims of Torture, Save the Children Norway, National Human Rights Commission, and the International Committee of the Red Cross 14 UNICEF, “Country Office Annual Report 2015 for: Nepal, ROSA.” Available online: http://unicef.org.np/media-centre/reports-and-publications/2016/05/09/countryoffice-annual-report-2015-for-nepal 15 The Philippines is listed in the 2016 Children and Armed Conflict Report of the Secretary-General in the section of “situations not on the agenda of the Security Council”. The Report (2016, 32–34) notes armed clashes affecting children took place predominantly in Mindanao. All verified attacks on schools and education personnel took place in indigenous communities. 16 International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), “Rural Poverty in the Philippines.” Avaliable online: www.ruralpovertyportal.org/country/home/tags/philippines# 17 Ferrie, Jared, “Forgotten Conflicts: The Philippines.” Available online: www.irinnews. org/special-report/2016/04/28/forgotten-conflicts-philippines 18 Alliance of Concerned Teachers, “Press Statement: DepEd Memo 221 Endangers Students and Teachers.” Available online: www.actphils.org/content/press-statementdeped-memo-221-endangers-students-and-teachers-schools-are-learning-not 19 Ty, Rey, “Indigenous schools: closure and militarization?” Available online: www. insightonconflict.org/blog/2015/06/indigenous-schools-closure-and-militarisation/ 20 Cabrera, Mario, “Schools as ‘zones of peace’.” Available online: www.unicef.org/phil ippines/reallives_19131.html#.V-zo4ulRHdk 21 International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), “Rural poverty in Afghanistan.” Available online: www.ruralpovertyportal.org/country/home/tags/afghanistan# 22 The 2004 Constitution designated education as a right. 23 Kathmandu Post, “Schools as zone of peace in Afghanistan.” Available online: http:// kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2014-12-20/schools-as-zone-of-peace-in-afghan istan.html

Works cited The American Presidency Project, 1983. Ronald Reagan: Toasts of the President and King Birendra Bir Bikram Shal Dev of Nepal at the State Dinner, The American Presidency Project archive, December  7, 1983. Available from: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ ws/index.php?pid=40842 [Accessed 13 December 2017]. ASEAN, 1972. Declaration on South-East Asian as a Zone of Peace. International Legal Materials, 11, 183–184 [Accessed 28 August 2016]. Barakat, S., Connolly, D., Hardman, F. & Sundaram, V., 2013. The Role of Basic Education in Post-Conflict Recovery. Comparative Education, 49, 124–142. Bensman, J., 1979. Max Weber’s Concept of Legitimacy. In A. Vidich  & R. Glassman (eds.) Conflict and Control: Challenges to Legitimacy of Modern Governments. Beverly Hills: Sage.

Targets of violence, zones of peace  159 Bindai, D., 2012. Returning Home Towards a New Future: Nepal’s Reintegration Programme for Former Child Soldiers. In M. Darweish, C. Rank & S. Giles (eds.) Peacebuilding and Reconciliation. London: Pluto Press. Bokhara, A., Mitchell, N. & Nepal, M., 2006. Opportunity, Democracy, and the Exchange of Political Violence: A Subnational Analysis of Conflict in Nepal. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50, 108–128. Brett, R. & MacCallin, M., 1998. Children the Invisible Soldiers, 2nd ed. Sweden: Rädda Barnen. Buckley, M., 2013. The Priority of Legitimacy in Times of Political Transitions. Human Rights Review, 14, 327–345. Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, 2008. Child Soldiers Global Report. Available from: www.child-soldiers.org Cohn, I. & Goodwin-Gill, G., 1994. Child Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflicts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DepEd., 2005. 8 August Memorandum 44: Declaration of Schools As Zones Of Peace. Available from: www.deped.gov.ph [Accessed 28 August 2016]. DepEd., 2013. 27 September Memorandum (Unnumbered): This School Is A Zone of Peace. Available from: www.deped.gov.ph [Accessed 28 August 2016]. DepEd., 2013. 13 July Enclosure to Memorandum 221: Guidelines in the Conduct of APF Activities Inside or Within the Premises of a School or Hospital. Available from: www. deped.gov.ph [Accessed 28 August 2016]. DepEd., 2013. 13 December Memorandum 221 Guidelines on the Protection of Children During Armed Conflict. Available from: www.deped.gov.ph [Accessed 28 August 2016]. DepEd., 2016. 26 January Memorandum 62: Yes For Peace – Reiteration of Declaration of All Schools a Zone of Peace. Available from: www.deped.gov.ph [Accessed 28 August 2016]. Gilligan, M., Pasquale, B. & Samii, C., 2014. Civil War and Social Cohesion: Lab-in-theField Evidence From Nepal. American Journal of Political Science, 58, 604–619. Hart, J., 2012. The Spatialisation of Child Protection: Notes From the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Development in Practice, 22, 473–485. Huaman, E., 2011. Transforming Education, Transforming Society: The Co-Construction of Critical Peace Education and Indigenous Education. Journal of Peace Education, 8, 243–258. Ilcan, S. & Phillips, L., 2006. Governing Peace: Rationalities of Security and UNESCO’s Culture of Peace Campaign. Anthropologica, 48, 59–71. Iyer, P. & Hancock, L., 2004. Zones of Peace: A Framework for Analysis. Conflict Trends, 1, 16–24. Jenkins, R., 2013. Peacebuilding: From Concept to Commission. New York: Routledge. Kriesberg, L., 2003. Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution, 2nd ed. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Lawoti, M., 2014. Reform and resistance in Nepal. Journal of Democracy, 25, 131–145. Mac Ginty, R., 2011. International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance: Hybrid Forms of Peace. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Machel, G., 2001. The Impact of War on Children. London: Hurst & Company. Maulden, P., 2011. Fighting Young: Liberia and Sierra Leone. In S. Cheldelin  & M. Eliatamby (eds.) Women Waging War and Peace. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 66–81. Maulden, P., 2012. The Post-Conflict Paradox: Engaging War, Creating Peace. In B. Charbonneau & G. Parent (eds.) Peacebuilding, Memory and Reconciliation: Bridging TopDown and Bottom-Up Approaches. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 19–33.

160  Patricia A. Maulden Maulden, P., 2013. Education and Learning. In R. Mac Ginty (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding. Abingdon: Routledge, 287–295. McConnan, I. & Uppard, S., 2001. Children Not Soldiers. London: Save the Children. Odendaal, A. & Olivier, R., 2008. Local Peace Committees. Available from: www.i4pinternational.org/files/207/3.+LOCAL+PEACE+COMMITTEES.pdf [Accessed 13 October 2014]. Panday, P., 2011. Interplay Between Conflict, Poverty and Remittance: The Case of Nepal. International Business & Economics Research Journal, 10, 76–76. Philpott, D., 2010. Reconciliation: An Ethic for Peacebuilding. In D. Philpott & G. Powers (eds.) Strategies of Peace: Transforming Conflict in a Violent World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 90–118. Ringuet, D., 2002. The Continuation of Civil Unrest and Poverty in Mindanao. Contemporary Southeast Asia, 24, 33–49. Save the Children., 2013. Schools As Zones of Peace: The Challenges of Making Afghan Schools Safe for Education. Available from: http://resourcecentre.savethechildren. se/library/schools-zones-peace-challenges-making-afghan-schools-safe-education [Accessed 28 August 2016]. National Coalition for Children as Zones of Peace, \2003. Concept Paper. Available from: http://resourcecentre.savethechildren.se/sites/default/files/documents/1889.pdf [Accessed 15 May 2015]. Sheppard, B. & Knight, K., 2011. Disarming Schools: Strategies for Ending the Military Use of Schools During Armed Conflict. Available from: www.hrw.org/news/2011/10/31/ disarming-schools-strategies-ending-military-use-schools-during-armed-conflict [Accessed 22 April 2015]. Skovdal, M., Emmott, S. & Maranto, R., 2014. The Need for Schools in Afghanistan to Be Declared as Zones of Peace and Neutrality. Child Abuse & Neglect: The International Journal, 21, 170–179. Smith, A., 2010. The Influence of Education on Conflict and Peace Building. Available from: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0019/001913/191341e.pdf [Accessed 15 May 2015]. Smith, M., 2010. Schools as Zones of Peace: Nepal Case Study in Access to Education During Armed Conflict and Civil Unrest. In Protecting Education From Attack. Paris: UNESCO. United Nations., 2016. Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary General. Available from: https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org [Accessed 28 August 2016], van Wessel, M. & van Hirtum, R., 2013. Schools as Tactical Targets in Conflict: What the Case of Nepal Can Teach Us. Comparative Education Review, 57, 1–21. Wargo, A., 2013. The Child Protection Viewpoint. In K. Cahill (ed.) History and Hope: The International Humanitarian Reader. New York: Fordham University Press, 140–154.

9 Peace as a tool of war

Sweta SenPeace as a tool of war

Non-state armed actors and humanitarian agreements Sweta Sen

Introduction The Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M), one of the key participants of the Sudanese Civil War, was directly responsible for almost 40,000 deaths and indirectly caused the displacement of millions of civilians (CIA, 2017). In 2001, the same group signed a Deeds of Commitment document with international NGO Geneva Call, pledging adherence to a total ban on anti-personnel mines, cooperation in mine-destruction, victim assistance, and mine awareness efforts within their areas of control (Geneva Call, 2001). This chapter explores this shift from threatening civilian safety to civilian protection to try and answer the question: why did the insurgents decide to participate in upholding humanitarian norms while engaging in a violent conflict with the state and thus greatly limiting an effective tool of war? My research finds that the signing of humanitarian agreements is one tool used by non-state armed groups (NSAGs) to attain legitimacy in the eyes of domestic and international political actors. This legitimacy flows from what Mitchell describes in the introduction as transactional, or based on the provision of certain goods and services – though some elements of the SPLA/M’s legitimacy also flowed from identity-based sources. Mostly however, an NSAG’s wartime legitimacy flows from its ability to create itself as a viable alternative to the state in the eyes of domestic and international politically relevant actors. The process by which an NSAG builds its legitimacy begins at the local level with civilians and other domestic actors, culminating in the cooptation of international humanitarian actors through the adoption of international humanitarian norms. This process involves five actions including the rhetoric of the group’s objectives, building a civilian-oriented governance structure, the provision of social services, and the cooptation of humanitarian actors operating within that territory. In asymmetric warfare situations, building this kind of transactional legitimacy provides NSAG’s with some advantages in their competition with their, usually much more powerful, state adversaries, including helping them to acquire control over more resources, improving their chance of developing or contacting sympathetic political communities – both domestically and internationally – and potentially leveraging this legitimacy to gain better standing at any future

162  Sweta Sen negotiations. This study draws inspiration from an emerging field of literature in International Relations seeking to understand the complex networks of NSAGs and their socio-political relations, and motivations, their conduct during irregular war, and treatment of non-combatants. My work is focused on NSAG interactions with civilians, aiming to advance the discussion of “rebel governance”, “stationary bandits”, “rebel diplomacy”, “rebel active rivalry”, and variations in rebel violence by looking at the behavior of the NSAGs in regard to international humanitarian norms and their concern for the well-being of non-combatants during protracted warfare (Duffield, 1998; Duffield, 2001; Kalyvas, 2003; Mampilly, 2007; Mampilly, 2011; Arjona et al., 2015). Without overlooking the fact that NSAGs are often responsible for grave atrocities and violence towards citizens, I  concentrate on their protective roles in conflict zones. When, how, and why do they choose to limit their repertoire of violence? My analysis shows that NSAGs compete with state and other non-state actors during protracted civil war, and use multiple tools to eliminate their competition and establish their legitimacy. When a group’s objective is to secede from the state or garner autonomy, it is imperative for a NSAG to signal its competence to take over the role of a state in terms of security as much in terms of governance. The objective requires political recognition for their struggle. They need to legitimize their movement vis-a vis the state. And, legitimization and recognition cannot be achieved by adopting only violence as a tool of war. Establishing legitimacy outside the state requires the NSAG to create and maintain an alternative power structure that can exist and succeed without the state. This phenomenon of an NSAG administering or governing within the sovereign boundary of a state is not unique or a recent phenomenon. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front in Ethiopia are two of the examples of rebel groups that successfully supplanted the state in their areas of control by organizing their own governance systems, including administration, adjudication, and even police forces. Thus, the behavior of NSAGs during protracted warfare indicates that these groups rely on various tools of war, both violent and non-violent, to construct a power-base and create a favorable image of themselves, and that humanitarian agreements are one such tool used to obtain a group’s objectives. This case study is organized as follows. First, I  trace the emergence of the SPLA/M in Sudan, attempting to answer why it emerged and its original objectives. I  also analyze its conduct during the initial period of conflict, during its period of crisis in the 1990s and its subsequent reorganization. Next, I look at the interaction of the SPLA/M with humanitarian groups before honin in on how this NSAG used informal rebel diplomacy and adherence to international norms to develop its legitimacy both at the grassroots and internationally.

The story of two Sudans: origins of the SPLM/A The origin of the SPLA/M can be traced back to 1983 when a group of southern soldiers in Bor mutinied against non-payment and integration into the northern

Peace as a tool of war  163 army. Behind this immediate cause was a simmering dissent underscored by profound cleavage between the northern political center and the peripheral groups of Sudan. Sudan, a country sized slightly less than one-fifth of the size of the US, is home to 572 different ethnic groups speaking more than 100 distinct languages (HRW, 1994; CIA, 2017). However, the war between southern and northern Sudan, and the resultant emergence of SPLA/M was not a consequence of an ethnic conflict; it emerged from a complex intersectionality of an exclusive political hegemony instituted by northern elites through their Islamic and Arabized world views. This hegemony was pursued via the subjugation of non-Arab, non-Muslim ethnic groups, economic deprivation of the peripheries, and created the south’s desire to break the shackles of northern intimidation. Thus, to understand the origin of the rebel movement and its support base, we need to first have an overview of the history of antagonism within Sudan which dates to the nineteenth century. Northern Sudan, before the advent of the colonial period in 1820, had very limited contact with the southern part of the country. The Dinkas, Nuers and Shilluks, the three largest ethnic groups of the of south, actively resisted every expansionist pressure from the north, maintaining the territorial sovereignty of the “stateless” south (Daly and Sikainga, 1993, 3; Johnson, 1998, 5). The situation changed when the joint Turkish and Egyptian regime invaded Sudan, marking the “beginning of the north-south divide” (Metelits, 2010, 35). Although there had been occasional slave raids from the north prior to the invasion, the Turkiyaa regime witnessed an unprecedented increase of slave-raiding between 1885–1989. Owing to increased taxes, the northern agriculturists started a widespread slave trade, and initiated a massive exodus of farmers south to exploit its territory and natural resources. The slave trade developed an intricate stratum within the state based on race, color of skin assigning southerners the term “abid” – meaning slaves (Jok, 2001). By the time the Turkiyaa regime was overthrown by the Mahdi in 1881, identity divisions based on masters and enslaved had taken root in the country. Although short-lived (1881–1898), the Mahdi period marked the establishment of the first independent Sudanese state with its capital in Khartoum. Additionally, the regime instituted Islam as a religious identity associated with the ruling class. Muhammad Ahmad, a riverain Islamic Arab and his followers known as “Ansar” joined with the nomadic Northern Baggara Arabs in proclaiming a holy war, or jihad, against the Turkiyaa (HRW 1990). Metelis (2010) argues that this combination of state and religion during Mahdi rule signaled for the first time emergence of an Arab-Islamic nationalist identity promoted by the state. In 1898, an Anglo-Egyptian army defeated the Mahdist army and the Mahdiya was ousted from power. Fearing the spread of Islamic nationalism in the south after the Mahdist uprising, the new colonial rulers adopted an active policy of differentiation in Sudan, administering the two regions separately. They centralized northern political control in hands of the two main Muslim groups in the Sudan – Khatmiyaa, a Sufi order, and Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, the posthumous son of Mahdi and a moderate Mahdist leader of the Ansar organization. These two sects developed a patrimonial system, and later became two of the most prominent political parties of modern Sudan. The Ansar organization secularized and

164  Sweta Sen became the Umma Party, and Sayd ali Mighrani, leader of the Khatmiyaa sect supported the al-Azhari and his supporters to form the Unionist Party (African Rights, 1997). The political stronghold of the Umma and Unionist parties also benefited from economic development that centered around Khartoum and the Gezira scheme, the largest irrigated farm in the world developed to supply cotton for the British industries (African Rights, 1997). Development around Khartoum promised more return on investment, ensuring greater state expenditure from the British. With Khartoum hosting the bulk of governmental institutions, infrastructural improvements, and educational facilities, governance in the rest of the country took the simplest form. A “skeletal” administration comprised of a few Egyptian and Sudanese clerks put in place in the south, education was left in the hands of Christian missionaries, and economic development was completely abandoned (Daly and Sikainga, 1993; Mampilly, 2011). The result of these policies was a politically unsophisticated south, and the rise of a small, educated, politically-conscious Arab elite in the north, who eventually isolated the south from post-independence political developments. Joseph Lagu, leader of the Anya Nya separatist movement in the first Sudanese Civil War captured the sentiment of southerners, stating that: They felt this occupation indicated a possible renewal of slave trade after the British left. The southern Sudanese had always regarded the British as the delivers and protectors, while they viewed the northerners as slave traders and tormentors . . . it was not a true independence of south, but start of another colonialism by the north, their traditional enemy. (Lagu, 2006, 60) After independence, Sudan witnessed a predominantly military government with short spells of democracy. Regardless of the nature of the regime, the elites of the north prevailed, and marginalized remained at the periphery. Out of the 800 posts left vacant by the British, a mere four were given to the southerners (Brosché, 2014). Thus, when the southern army mutinied against their northern officers on hearing that they were about to be transferred to the north, in what is now considered to be the genesis of the first Sudanese civil war, the dissent was hardly about military policies – it was an amalgamation of every injustice that the southerners had suffered over time. The spark ignited by the Torit Mutiny led to the first civil war in 1964. The democratic government of Ismail Al-Azhari (1956–1958) and the subsequent military government of General Ibrahim Abboud (1958–1964) took no constructive steps to placate southerners after the Torit mutiny. Instead, both adopted an unabashed expansionist policy of Islamization and Arabization. The central government took over the Christian missionary schools and introduced Arabic as the medium of instruction. Mutineers were aggressively hunted down and increasingly repressive tactics were employed to stifle rising southern resistance to state authority. Government aggressiveness was met with equal resistance by southerners.

Peace as a tool of war  165 Educated political figures and students joined forces with the mutineers hiding in the bush and formed a political front, the Sudan African Nationalist Movement; the guerilla army front of the movement came to be known as Anya Nya, named after a type of deadly snake poison. The formation of Anya Nya marked the beginning of the first Sudanese civil war. The war continued for 17 years (1955–1972) and had a profound effect on state politics. Disillusioned by the Abboud government’s efforts to end the war and the massive economic pressure that the war caused, northern political parties revolted against the military government. In October 1964, the second parliamentary government was established headed by the Umma party and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) with Umma’s Sadiqal-Mahdi as the president. Khartoum was constantly fraught with economic turmoil, sectionalism, and an inability to resolve the war. The regime finally succumbed when the Sudanese Communist party in conjunction with the army successfully staged a coup in May 1969. Colonal Jaafar Nimeiri, a pan-Arabist and son of a postman from Khartoum became the president of Sudan. To his credit, Nimeiri did end a grueling civil war; he signed Addis Ababa Agreement with Joseph Lagu, leader of the Anya nya and the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement in 27th February 1972. Peace, however fragile, returned to Sudan for a brief period of 11 years, but soon, the state squandered its opportunity when it descended into a spiral of internal squabbling and power-plays. The second civil war: emergence of the SPLA/M Soon after coming to power, Nimeri joined Egypt, Libya, and Syria in a panArab Federation. His union with Gaddafi saved his position when the communists staged a coup against him. The failed coup instigated a massive backlash on all political parties; he dissolved the parliament, banned all the political parties and crushed an incipient Ansar revolution, killing thousands of Ansar soldiers of the Umma Party. In September 1971, he ran as the sole candidate for the presidential election. But, his enemies were growing both domestically and internationally. After surviving six attempted coups, one of those engineered by the USSR-allied Gaddafi, who was against Nimeri’s growing closeness with the west, Nimeri allowed other parties to return to the political arena in an attempt to appease some of his opponents. In 1977, a national reconciliation took place between Sadiq al-Mahdi, exiled leader of the opposition Umma Party and Nimeiri. Nimeiri also released from prison Hassan al-Turabi, brother-in law of al-Mahdi and leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Later, Al-Turabi was appointed Attorney General and increasingly used his position to Islamize the country’s legal system. Eventually, Sudan expelled its Soviet advisories and became the highest recipient of US aid and military assistance in Africa as the proxy war characterized by the cold war heated up in the region. The US saw Nimeri as the shield protecting them against the influence of USSR through Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia (Joffe, 2009). Meanwhile in the south, the deception that was Addis Ababa agreement began to unravel. The agreement theoretically granted autonomy to three regions of

166  Sweta Sen southern Sudan with a self-governing regional assembly and a High Executive Council. In reality, Nimeiri dominated every aspect of the autonomous government by directly or indirectly influencing elections of every president of the High Executive Council. After aligning with new political allies with clear Islamic orientation, Nimieri, returned to a radical Islamic and Arabic statist orientation. He imposed a military government in south by dissolving the regional assembly in 1981. In 1983, he divided the south into three parts, abrogated proportional representation of southerners in the Sudanese Army, and, finally, in September, imposed Sharia Law (Wakoson, 1993; Johnson, 1998; Mampilly, 2011). Soon after the Sharia Law declaration, violence erupted in and around army barracks in the southern Bor region. This rebellion formed the genesis of the Second Civil War that lasted for 22 years and eventually resulted in the birth of the youngest country of the world, South Sudan. The initial days of SPLA/M: objective, leadership, organizational structure, and relation with the host societies The Bor mutineers sought refuge in Ethiopia where many veterans of the first civil war already had a base. There, under the patronage of the Ethiopian Derg regime, the mutineers and rebel leaders of Anya-Nya II formed the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in 1983. John Garang, who had a doctorate from the Iowa State University and was a former general of the Sudanese army, successfully brought other southern rebel groups within SPLA/M’s fold. By the mid-1980s, he assembled a powerful army led by experienced leaders including Akut Atom (former Anya Nya minister of Defense), Major Kawac, formerly of the National Assembly and Regional Assembly member, Samuel Gai Tut (a Nuer and Anya Nya military commander of Upper Nile), and Colonel William Cuol of Anya Nya (Scott, 1985). With political acumen, Garang developed a domestic and international military support base in northern Sudan and Ethiopia. He found support from Nuba Mountain, South Kordofan, and Darfur states, where civilians were as much victims of Khartoum’s political, economic and social marginalization as the South (Rolandsen, 2005). Atrocities committed by informal pro-government militia formed among the Misseriya community and the harsh treatment towards the citizens for their non-Arab identity forced many civilians to take up arms against the state (Amnesty International, 1990; Amnesty International, 1991). African Rights (1997) commented that many SPLA/M volunteers were disgruntled students from the north frustrated with the lack of education and opportunities for them. The second civil war, fought against the backdrop of the Cold War, gave Garang the opportunity to exploit political and military benefits beyond his domestic partners. The Sudanese government for years had, under the supervision of the US, aided the Eritrian rebel groups against the Marxist Derg regime. In return, the USSR-allied Derg regime funneled military and logistical aid to Garang. Thus, Garang exploited the human rights abuses and political landscape of the Khartoum regime to amass a massive army of both southern and northern dissidents, backed by resource-rich ally. By the end of the 1990s, Garang had

Peace as a tool of war 167 developed a massive military force, comprising of over 65,000 cadres, with which he took over control of vast areas of Ethiopian border, the entire Kenyan border and most of the interior rural areas of southern Sudan by 1989(Johnson, 1998, 59; Rolandsen, 2005; Mampilly, 2011). The second war was fought with military precision, determination, political astuteness, and a ferocity not witnessed in the first war. Unlike the Anya Nya, which suffered from political isolation owing to its fractured political leadership, the SPLA/M operated under the unified leadership of Garang. With active backing from Ethiopia, Garang managed to become the chairman of the group’s political wing, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), as well the commander of the SPLA/M – merging both the political and military wings under his leadership. The highest decision-making body of the SPLA/M, the Provisional High Command, later named Politico-Military High Command, was controlled by Garang and a few of his affiliates. He allowed other autonomous groups to merge with the movement (Such as Abyei Liberation Front) but retained command of the group in his own hands (Mampilly, 2011). Departing from the overtly ethnic, secessionist objectives of the first Anya-Nya movement, Garang called for the liberation of all of Sudan and complete transformation of the centuries old institutional structure of violence. Garang, influenced by his Marxist education in the US and his close proximity to the Derg regime, desired to establish a united, democratic, secular Sudan that would “enable the masses, not the elites from different regions, to exercise real power for economic and social development of the region” (DeLaney, 2010, 9). Despite the inclusive, mass-based developmental ideology proclaimed in its Manifesto, the SPLA/M was initially accused of severe human rights abuses (HRW, 1994). Outside of its main recruiting grounds in Eastern Equatoria and Upper Nile, the SPLA/M was particularly harsh towards the civilians. Those areas were controlled by government-sponsored militias where members of the Murle, Mundari, Toposa, and Gajaak Nuer ethnic groups lived (Johnson, 1998; Pinaud, 2014). The non-Dinka Nilotic tribes perceived the SPLA/M as a Dinka army of domination (Johnson, 2003, 68). Mampilly confirms this, stating that: the SPLA/M treated Equators in particular as occupied territory, moving large Dinka populations into the province where they would have better access to relief aid and avoid the worst fighting . . . in parts of Equatoria, Dinka IDPs outnumbered remaining non-Dinka by three to one, while those who remained found themselves subject to political and economic marginalization. (Mampilly, 2007, 120) Civilians in SPLA/M-administered areas were forced to pay taxes of 20%, usually made up of grain, cattle or other in-kind payments. Rebels regularly pilfered relief stocks meant for the famine-affected civilians, and bartered the items across borders.1 African Rights (1997) in a letter to Garang, described instances of looting by individual SPLA/M members. In a specific incident SPLA/M soldiers looted 1,500 sacks of food from civilians at the Torit farm. Information obtained by the

168  Sweta Sen Human Rights Watch (1990) also indicates a number of occasions in which civilians were deliberately killed by SPLA/M forces. The organization documented numerous instances of SPLA/M us of anti-personnel mines in a manner calculated to deliberately endanger civilians. In one instance, “in early 1989, at Rego village, near Terakeka . . . the SPLA came by night to one side of the village, and laid anti-personnel mines. The following day the SPLA attacked the village from the other side. This forced the residents to flee into the mine field” (HRW, 1990, 156). Although unanimously agreeing that the SPLA/M’s conduct towards civilians were harsh in the initial days, academics and researchers have considerable disagreement towards the rebels’ ability to administer areas under their control. In Facing Genocide (1997), African Rights commented on the lack of SPLA/M institutions during the 1989–1990 period, but Johnson (1998) contends that the SPLA/M began to get involved in political mobilization and organizing local chief’s courts as early as 1984 by regulating the election of chiefs. The movement used Radio SPLA/M to explain the objectives of the movement and inform civilians about civil/military administration in new areas coming under its control. The SPLA/M’s civil administration structure was integrated within its military edifice. Military commanders had overall responsibility for civil administration in their zones. SPLA/M Officers carried out specific civil administrative duties as Civil/Military Administrators (CMAs) or judicial officers. CMAs were responsible for collecting taxes from the civilian population and judicial officers were responsible for overseeing the court system within their jurisdiction. Chiefs within SPLA/M-administered areas were responsible for labor recruitment, tax collection, distribution of relief, and adjudication of disputes under customary laws. These were the same duties they performed under the British system; the SPLM simply coopted them into their own system (Johnson, 1998; Rolandsen, 2005; Metelits, 2010). In 1983, the SPLA/M enacted a military penal code to keep discipline in their army ranks. In 1984, the 1983 code was amended to incorporate a general penal code, and a code for procedures. The 1984 law specifically recognized the application of customary law in each community within SPLA/M-controlled territory and, in addition to recognizing the customary courts, established three tiers of military courts. However, most of this structure remined highly theoretical. Many of the judicial officers had no firm grounding on customary law. The application of disciplinary codes was often irregular and arbitrary. The 1983 Penal Code prescribed the death penalty for crimes committed by military personnel, including looting and rape. By procedure, all death sentences had to be confirmed by Garang, but only a few were sent to him. According to Johnson (1998), this meant the death sentences were carried out by the local commander or not implemented at all. African Rights also talk about a similar lack of implementation in the Nuba Mountain region (cf. Kuol, 1997; Johnson, 1998). The crisis of 1991: internal and external loss of support The leadership of Garang and his communist idea of a united Sudan was never unquestioningly accepted within the SPLA/M. Seniors leaders such as Arok

Peace as a tool of war 169 Athon Arok, Ajot Atem, Kerubino Bol, William Nyuon, Gordon Kong and Joseph Oduho resented Garang’s dictatorial style of leadership and the lack of transparency with the decision-making of PMHC. They accused Garang of not allowing any plurality in the decision-making system, entrenching his control, and vision regardless of the sentiments of his contemporaries or subordinates. Senior leaders such as Samuel Gai Tut and Akwot Atem were sceptical of Garang’s rhetoric of unification, when the overall sentiment on the ground was in favor was independence. The simmering discontent finally came to a head when Eritrean and Ethiopian rebels ousted the Derg regime in 1991, and Garang lost his most powerful ally. Garang’s affinity with Megistu Haile Mariam was not only ideological; the SPLA/M leader, on many occasions, militarily helped the Mengistu regime in its secessionist war with the rebels by providing manpower. In return, Mengistu not only opened Ethiopia’s arsenal and border for Garang, he also curbed any ingroup dissent that formed against Garang. In 1987, Mengistu captured and handed over Kerubino Bol to Garang when the former attempted to stage a coup against the SPLA/M leader (Metelits, 2010; Rolandsen and Daly, 2016). When the Derg regime fell, it proved to be the most challenging political backlash that the movement, and Garang personally, faced. Two commanders from Upper Nile, Lam Akol and Riek Machar, were at loggerheads with Garang regarding his leadership. Furthermore, many local commanders were resentful of Garang’s decision to use of SPLA/M cadres as a national force, to be sent to Ethiopia wherever needed (Johnson, 1998). The dissatisfaction of many leaders regarding the undemocratic composition of the rebel group resulted in the movement’s split once the massive support of Ethiopia disappeared in 1991. On August 28, 1991, Machar, Akol and Chuol announced Garang’s overthrow and a new policy seeking total independence from the south via the BBC World Service. In “Why John Garang must Go Now”, the splinter group known as the SPLM-Nasir openly accused Garang of human rights violations and demanded an entire overhaul of the internal system of the movement (Akol, 2005; DeLaney, 2010). This strife between the two groups soon sparked a full forced south-in-south conflict when. Three months after splitting from the mainstream SPLA/M, a SPLM-Nasir force, led by Machar, a Nuer, attacked the Dinka community in Bor, which was known to be close to Garang. This Bor massacre, left hundreds dead and displaced almost 70% of the civilian population in the region (Hutchinson, 2001). In retaliation, Garang targeted Nuer villages, starting a phase in the civil war that unintentionally favored the government of Sudan. The government immediately capitalized on the split by forging an alliance with SPLA/M-Nasir. Many rebel leaders from Garang’s group defected to the opposition side to take advantage of the steady flow of government food aid and military support. In 1993, SPLM-Nasir renamed itself as SPLA/M-United or the South Sudan Independence Movement (SSIM) when Machar was joined by Anya Nya II, the independent Bul Nuer Anya Nya Group II of Paulino Matip, Kerubino Bol’s troops in Gogrial and Northern Bahr al Ghazal, William Nyuon’s mixture of Nuer and Equatorial troops based on Lebel Lafon (Johnson, 1998). The Khartoum government’s strategy of divide and rule culminated in the signing of Khartoum

170  Sweta Sen Peace Agreement in 1997 with Riek Machar, Kerubino Bol, and several other military leaders who coalesced their troop under the umbrella organization came to be known as the Southern Sudan Defense Forces (SSDF). The ensuing southsouth war had a devastating effect on the southern quest for independence and the mainstream rebel movement. It lost a significant share of its military power to the defectors. The repercussion of this was evident when SPLA/M lost to a government offensive in Eastern Equatorial, Jonglei, and Upper Nile. Changed military and political environment for the rebels: emergence of new alliances While SPLA/M was struggling to retain its presence in the warzone, two important developments took place in the political landscape. First, foreign humanitarian NGOs became more prominent in Bahr al-Ghazal as a response to the 1988 famine that killed roughly 250,000 people (De Waal, 1997). Mass starvation exacerbated by Khartoum’s deliberate refusal to give access to relief aid in affected southern areas prompted the SPLA/M chairman to send an urgent letter to the United Nations expressing the rebels’ readiness to cooperate with the organization in assisting the needy population. Through Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), a relief consortium comprised of UN agencies and 35 NGOs, Garang agreed to a six-month cease-fire to facilitate and implement a peace corridor to deliver aid to civilians. Lam Akol, one of the early leaders of the groups who later defected, professed that the advent of OLS provided an opportunity for the SPLM/A high command to “have a presence outside Addis Ababa, facilitating sustained direct access to the SPLA/M leadership for the international community and the press. For the first time in the SPLA’s history, journalists were milling around in previously out of bounds SPLA- administered areas” (Akol, 2005, 54). Next, Garang joined a coalition of 16 parties and 51 trade unions, forming the main opposition front against the military government of Omar al-Bashir, who came to power in 1989 by ousting the democratically elected government of Sadiq alMahdi. Garang joined ranks with prominent Sudanese political parties including the Democratic Unionist Party, the Umma Party, Beja Congress, and Sudanese Communist Party to form the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an umbrella organization opposing Bashir’s National Islamic Front. Prior to 1991, Ethiopian support had allowed the SPLA/M to ignore criticisms against its conduct and policies. These changes in the political landscape after 1991 forced Garang to find a stable resource base elsewhere. The NDA and humanitarian actors filled this vacuum. Under pressure from the humanitarian organizations, and to repeal the idea of the SPLA/M as a Dinka-dominated group, the leadership started on a path toward reform (Mampilly, 2011). The 1991 split of the Nasir groups made it explicit that the call for unity was never popular within the organization. The fall of Derg regime finally allowed Garanf to move past the Ethiopia-sanctioned political objective of a united Sudan; at this junction, the rebel group saw it fitting to change the insurgent movement’s objective from independence to self-determination for the south. His

Peace as a tool of war 171 shift towards self-determination was clearly a reaction to the growing popularity of the Nasir declaration, while simultaneously denouncing separatism to appease the northern political ally, NDA that was against southern secession from Sudan (Mampilly, 2011). Additionally, the accusation of Dinka domination made the leadership more receptive towards decentralizing its internal organization to appease to non-Dinka supporters and to further safeguard the movement against division. The result of the newly emerged constraints were the Torit Resolutions of 1991. The PMHC, for the first time in the entire existence of the SPLA/M movement, met in Torit to create a policy document for the future of the rebel movement. Rolandsen (2005) proclaims that the resolutions signaled a the SPLA/M’s transformation from a militant army to a formal structural organization with clear objectives and directions. The 18 resolutions adopted in the meeting included allowing civilians to become members of the SPLA/M without going through military training, establishing an autonomous local administration, and an SPLA/M commitment to non-discrimination, freedom of worship, and protection of prisoners of war (Rolandsen, 2005, 55–57). The Torit meeting was a first step that eventually led to a 1994 National Convention in Chukudum Eastern Equatoria. Many commentators consider the Convention and the resolutions reached there to be a defining moment in the reorientation of the rebel movement: [T]he National Convention has in the years since it took place been seen as a positive turning point in the SPLA/M history, whereas the 1991 split has been viewed as the setback. In general, the NC has become the symbol of a new start, when old errors were admitted and new practices adopted. This was supposed to include political reforms with an emphasis on establishment of civil government structures; democratization through elections and accountability; and the declaration of the “New Sudan.” (Rolandsen, 2005, 111) African Rights noted that: In the South, it is only in the last year that the SPLM- as a movement – has become a reality, Until the First SPLM Convention of April 1994, the SPLA had very few civil institutions worthy of the name. It was simply an army. (1997, 304) These resolutions led to the Conference on Civil Society and the Organization of Civil Authority in Himman-New Cush, where the idea of the Civil Authority of the New Sudan (CANS) was conceived and executed. It became a watershed moment in the history of the rebel movement. Although, the group had a decentralized administrative apparatus in place from its inception,2 CANS, for the first time, represented a civil administration formally independent from the military command. CANS divided rebel-held territory into a three-tier structure creating a

172  Sweta Sen decentralized, representative administration. The bottom level was the boma (village). The next level was a payam, comprised of four to six bomas, and the county level sat above the payam. The administrative system of boma was bifurcated, meaning the power of administration was shared between the traditional chiefs and boma administrators. The village community selected the traditional chiefs whereas the insurgent group chose the administrator. The payam administration was more intricate. Each payam had a legislature composed of mostly elected and some appointed members, headed by an executive administrator. The administration served as the liaison between the people and the rebel groups. At the country level, several committees were charged with providing services to the constituencies. Above the county level, the zonal or regional commander appointed by the high command served as the highest military and civilian authority (Mampilly, 2007, 148–149). CANS also represented the first attempt to develop a formalized school system in the liberated areas. The position of education secretariat was established as a liaison point between the SPLA/M and NGOs. It should be noted that education was funded mostly by the various religious and secular organizations working in the SPLM-held areas; however, SPLM-approved locals primarily staffed the schools. As with education, health services were also mainly administered by NGOs and staffed by the SPLA/M cadres. With the help of the foreign aid organizations, the SPLA/M managed to create a three-tier health system. First tier, primary health care units, were designed to provide basic health care services and education. The second tier consisted of primary health care centers that were equipped with dealing with diseases such as tuberculosis. At the third tier, general hospitals operated above the PHCC, with the capacity to offer basic surgical procedures (Mampilly, 2011). The SPLA/M also strengthened dispute-resolution mechanisms by expanding and reinforcing the court system in areas under its control. The SPLM/A co-opted traditional leaders within their own system of judiciary through traditional courts. The traditional chiefs had independence in terms of adjudication; but, their power was limited by formalized laws that were a mixture of customary laws, sharia laws (if applicable), and recommended actions by the SPLM. Thus, rebel leaders opted for a bifurcated judicial system; while the traditional court was used to settle inter-ethnic conflict related to cattle and land, the military courts served as intra-ethnic communal relations. The code of conduct introduced by the rebel leaders in 1983 prohibiting certain forms of violence against citizens was further formalized in this period (Johnson, 1998; Johnson, 2003; Mampilly, 2011).

International diplomacy of rebels: interaction between the SPLA/M and humanitarian groups The SPLA/M’s efforts to strengthen its domestic relations with civilians and supportive groups corresponded with the rebels’ conscious interactions and negotiations with various international humanitarian actors, resulting in several formally concluded agreements. The first was between the UN and the SPLA/M resulting in Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS). OLS was an UNICEF-led initiative that was

Peace as a tool of war  173 created in 1989 to assist and provide food aid in areas affected by the great famine in 1988. The agreement ensured safe-transportation of humanitarian aid to the populations in need. In 1995, OLS signed another agreement with the humanitarian wing of the SPLM, the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA).3 In this agreement, the SPLA/M expressed its commitment to follow international humanitarian conventions and the principles of the Conventions on the Rights of the Children of 1989, the Geneva Conventions of 1949; and the Convention’s 1977 Additional Protocols.4 The rebel group also had several interactions with the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC). Garang allowed the ICRC to visit his political prisoners beginning in 1989. The ICRC also carried out humanitarian law training programs with SPLM/A commanders and courses for SPLM officers in 1996 and 1999 (ICRC, 1996; ICRC, 1999).5 In 1998, the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association, along with the Secretariat for Education and Child Welfare and the Relief Association of Southern Sudan (RASS) developed the Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Child Soldier program, which focused on promoting child rights. It was funded and co-implemented by Save the Children Sweden. From 1998–2000, they demobilized almost 2,000 children. In mid-2000, UNICEF joined the initiative. Mayadit, the deputy chairman of the SPLA/M, handed UNICEF a document spelling out the SPLM’s commitment to the demobilization process, with promises that there would be no further recruitment of children under 18. Almost 3,500 child soldiers were demobilized by 2,001 (Sharma, 2004). As early as 1996, the SPLM/A had agreed to demine areas under its control. It also established an SPLM/A-linked NGO called Operation Save Innocent Lives. On October 4, 2001, the SPLM/A signed the Deeds of Commitment proposed by the Geneva Call, and vowed to “treat this commitment as one step or part of a broader commitment in principle to the ideals of humanitarian norms” (Geneva Call, 2001).

Using informal diplomacy to develop wartime legitimacy as a strategic tool This case suggests that the SPLA/M actively sought to attain legitimacy from both domestic and international sources (Jo, 2015). However, the process described was not a linear one. During the first period of conflict, when the SPLA/M was allied with the Derg regime, its motivations and conduct were largely military. The constraints placed on the SPLA/M by its leftist, and rather brutal, benefactor greatly affected the SPLA/M’s organization, rhetoric, objectives, governance and, in particular, its behavior towards civilians under its control. Under Garang’s dictatorial leadership, the SPLA/M lacked a separate functioning political wing, any semblance of local autonomy and severely restricted the formation of diverse opinions. During this period, SPLA/M soldiers were accused of severe human rights abuses against civilians, indicating that legitimacy was of little concern to Garang during this period. The fall of the Derg regime in 1991 and subsequent split of the SPLA/M resulted in a loss of resources and a massive military defeat for the group. Following this,

174  Sweta Sen Garang needed to reach out to obtain alternative sources of supply and to safeguard the group from further splintering. International humanitarian groups and the NDA became important players at this point, with the former providing relief aid and the latter providing military assistance. These new arrangements meant that Garang could no longer run the SPLA/M in such a dictatorial fashion. Their new support base demanded the right to participate in decision-making and more responsiveness. The result was the creation of a civil administrative infrastructure, formal dispute resolution mechanisms, a code of conduct for SPLA/M soldiers, and a focus on improving the group’s human rights record. When the SPLA/M’s objective shifted from replacing the northern-dominated Sudanese government with a more representative one to the south’s secession, the NSAG became more willing to be judged by their behavior, including their ability to provide security and other governance services to civilians in areas under their control. In that sense, they focused on providing a viable alternative to the state in order to diminish its legitimacy and hopefully build their own (Ahmed, 1982; Schlichte, 2009; Branovic and Chojnacki, 2013). I further explore this process of building wartime legitimacy through a model of network dynamics between combatants and non-combatant support bases. The model is horizontal and vertical, based on the social and political characteristics of the support bases. Horizontal support bases are typically at the grassroots, and include civilians and traditional chiefs and other social groups intimately associated with the conflict situation (Mampilly, 2007). Vertical support bases include those networks, groups, or individuals that come from or operate outside of the NSAG’s areas of control. For the SPLA/M, its horizontal base consists of the civilian population in Southern Sudan and Northern Sudan, victims of continued repression the dominant core of Khartoum. Its vertical support base has relied upon international support, varying from the Derg regime to diaspora groups and the international humanitarian community. Preexisting social ties can provide the underpinnings of an identity-based legitimacy to a new insurgent group, as was the case when the SPLA/M was formed. This transfer of legitimacy from the state to the SPLA/M was facilitated by the former’s use of repression to rule over the south, which led to southern civilians and members of the military transferring their support to the SPLA/M (Schlichte, 2009). This history of marginalization is crucial for understanding the emergence of the SPLA/M, and its transformation from a mere military insurgent group to a widespread, national movement. The continued repression, a nascent identity based on slavery, and a major political movement prior to the establishment of the SPLA/M, the Anya Nya group and war, the Addis Ababa agreement, the subsequent re-division of South by Nimeiri, created a strong politicized social base, which was instrumental for the success of the movement. This allowed the SPLA/M to initially transcend the usual identity-related categories of legitimacy – based on religion, ethnicity or language – creating a collective identity defined by a shared sense of grievance aimed at the state, and legitimized the SPLA/M in a transactional manner, as the only entity willing and able to provide security against state predation.

Peace as a tool of war  175 However, this transactional legitimacy faltered when the SPLA/M effectively failed to provide a broader set of services that the civilian population desired. This is likely due to the fact that their main international supporter at that time was Ethiopia’s Derg regime, and until this regime was ousted from power, the SPLA/M relied upon a more limited form of transactional legitimacy alongside a primary identity-based sense of legitimacy. However, once the Derg had fallen and the SPLM/A had suffered a reversal of fortune, Garang apparently realized that an identity-based legitimacy was too narrow to support the aspirations of the SPLA/M in the south’s multi-ethnic environment. The SPLA/M’s responses are noteworthy, as they show how the NSAG shifted from limited horizontal support by fellow ethnics and limited vertical support by the Derg regime to a broader horizontal support of civilians under theSPLA/M’s control and, especially, relief aid support from international humanitarian groups. In order to achieve this, the SPLA/M had to shift to a more broadly transactional form of legitimacy. For the civilian population, the SPLA/M had to prove its legitimacy by providing services beyond just security, including civil administration, courts, medical services, and education. In order to prove its legitimacy to international humanitarian organizations, the SPLA/M had to demonstrate their willingness to provide services to the civilian population and, to a certain extent, to act within internationally-defined humanitarian norms. Legitimacy, as described by John Locke, is the “consent of the governed” and simultaneously, the “right to govern”. The normative nature of this particular classification of legitimacy differentiates itself from its state-based, legal, constitutional counterpart. That is to say, we should not identify this quality as inherently that of the state, but rather embedded in the context (community) that confers it the right to govern. It is a relationship of reciprocity, a belief system that delineates the difference between mere power and authority. It is relational and based on mutual benefits. This concept of legitimacy will help us better to understand the realities of political complexes such as Sudan, where legitimacy tends to be socially exclusive, rather than inclusive. For those who have been included, they constitute a new form of representation, a system that might be violent, but in many areas, it is the only form of authority that has power to administer stability (Duffield, 2001). This form of authority signals a rather limited legitimacy of the state. NSAGs are not fully legitimate in the sense that the international community does not sanction them; but nevertheless, they have managed to establish a new system of quasi-state apparatus in the economic and social roles they play (Debiel and Lambach, 2009). A state’s legitimacy is not absolute: it is earned and often depends on the behavior of the particular authorities (Mampilly, 2011). When a state exercises extreme repression, the support of the affected population towards the regime starts to shift. At this juncture, the relational dependence of the on the state begins to decline, and creates a vacuum. In this period of decreasing state authority and legitimacy, we often see the emergence of a “counter-state” entity seeking to challenge the sole authoritative power of the state (Wickham-Crowley, 1987). The counter-state establishes itself through a process of “asymmetrical exchange relationship” with

176  Sweta Sen the affected population and, in effect, creates a new social contract with the populace (Wickham-Crowley, 1987; Mampilly, 2011). In that sense, NSAGs like the SPLM/A become legitimate by the virtue of their ability to replace state roles in social, political and economic spheres where it fails to perform. The SPLM/A constructed their initial base of legitimacy through three different mechanisms: identity-based affiliation, ideology-based discursive politics, and transactional legitimacy based on their capacity to confront the government of Sudan and provide a degree of security. But, the ideological legitimacy the SPLM/A gained from the strategic promotion of ideological unity was not enough to sustain a movement/rebellion, it was necessary for the group to consolidate its position as a viable alternative to the state in order to develop some transactional legitimacy. To gain legitimacy, NSAGs engage in activities that engender a degree of intimacy with the population base. An identity-based legitimacy may help at the outset, but at its base, any authoritative system requires institutions and practices that are capable of regulating the daily life of citizens and providing the services necessary for a normally functioning society. The Sudanese civil war was not about military conquest; it was a political struggle between two warring political parties, a state with formidable military resources, and an NSAG whose military weakness meant that they typically relied upon traditional guerilla warfare. Defeating the Sudanese state via military means was not possible for the SPLA/M. So we can see that the SPLA/M was driven to seeking both horizonal legitimacy and vertical legitimacy because of instrumental needs rather than an intrinsic desire to follow humanitarian norms. Their turn to international political networks was an attempt to seek social capital through international legitimacy and it is at this juncture we see the SPLA/M start to become for restrained in their treatment of civilians (Huang, 2016). They organized a civil administration, engaged in providing public goods such as health and education to the civilians, and, lastly, signed international humanitarian agreements to limit wide-spread abuses against the population. Implementing these strategies was a means of garnering support for the group and its cause through the development of a more transactional legitimacy. The governance structures and provision of public goods were strategically motivated to win the support of civilians and prohibit further splitting after the 1991 division within the SPLA/M. The humanitarian norms helped to build up international support and sympathy outside the territory of the state of Sudan. As the SPLA/M’s legitimacy developed through domestic and international mobilization strategies, their chances of winning the war increased.

Notes 1 Author interview, Claire Metelis, April 2017. 2 It had seven working committees, including a National Committee, a Central Committee, a Political Committee, and an Executive Committee. See Phillipa Scott Scott, P., 1985. The Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM) and Liberation Army (SPLA). Review of African Political Economy, 69–82.

Peace as a tool of war 177 3 Also with Fashoda relief and Rehabilitation Association, offshoot of SPLM-United (the name adopted by SPLM-Nasir in 1993) in May  1996. SSIM also signed it on August 1995. 4 SPLM/ Operation Lifeline Sudan, Agreement on Ground Rules, July 3, 1995 5 I stopped accumulating data of ICRC visits in 2000 because the one-sided violence already stopped by then.

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178  Sweta Sen Call. Available from: http://theirwords.org/media/transfer/doc/sc_sd_splm_a_2001_0158ef863da127d50988246563c7d0e2f1.pdf [Accessed 2 October 2015]. HRW, 1990. Denying “The Honor of Living”: Sudan, a Human Rights Disaster. New York: Africa Watch Committee. HRW, 1994. Human Rights Watch World Report 1994 – Sudan [online]. Human Rights Watch. Available from: www.refworld.org/docid/467fca7c14.html [Accessed 8 December  2016]. Huang, R., 2016. Rebel Diplomacy in Civil War. International Security, 40, 89–126. Hutchinson, S.E., 2001. A  Curse from God? Religious and Political Dimensions of the Post-1991 Rise of Ethnic Violence in South Sudan. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 39, 307–331. ICRC, 1996. Southern Sudan: Not Forgotten [online]. Relief Web. Available from: http:// reliefweb.int/report/sudan/southern-sudan-not-forgotten [Accessed 8 December 2016]. ICRC, 1999. Sudan: Teaching the Law to Combatants [online]. Relief Web. Available from: http://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/sudan-teaching-law-combatants [Accessed 8 December  2016]. Jo, H., 2015. Compliant rebels: rebel groups and international law in world politics. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Joffe, L., 2009. Jaafar Nimeiri. The Guardian, June 5. Johnson, D.H., 1998. The Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the Problem of Factionalism. In C.S. Clapham (ed.) African Guerrillas. Oxford, Bloomington: James Currey, Indiana University Press, 53–72. Johnson, D.H., 2003. The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars. Oxford: James Currey. Jok, J.M., 2001. War and Slavery in Sudan. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kalyvas, S.N., 2003. The Ontology of “Political Violence”: Action and Identity in Civil Wars. Perspectives of Politics, 1, 475–494. Kuol, M.A., 1997. Administration of Justice in the (SPLA/M) Liberated Areas: Court Cases in War-torn Southern Sudan. Oxford: Refugee Studies Programme, University of Oxford. Lagu, J., 2006. Sudan: Odyssey Through a State: From Ruin to Hope. Omdurman: MOB Center for Sudanese Studies. Mampilly, Z.C., 2007. Stationary Bandits: Understanding Rebel Governance. Ph.D Dissertation. University of California, Los Angeles. Mampilly, Z.C., 2011. Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life During War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Metelits, C., 2010. Inside Insurgency: Violence, Civilians, and Revolutionary Group Behavior. New York: New York University Press. Pinaud, C., 2014. South Sudan: Civil War, Predation and the Making of a Military Aristocrac. African Affairs, 113, 192–211. Rolandsen, Ø.H., 2005. Guerrilla Government: Political Changes in the Southern Sudan During the 1990s. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Rolandsen, Ø.H. & Daly, M.W., 2016. A History of South Sudan: From Slavery to Independence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schlichte, K., 2009. In the Shadow of Violence: The Politics of Armed Groups. Frankfurt am Main, New York: Campus Verlag. Scott, P., 1985. The Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM) and Liberation Army (SPLA). Review of African Political Economy, 12(33), 69–82.

Peace as a tool of war 179 Sharma, A., 2004. The Child Soldiers of Northern Bahr El Ghazal: A Demobilization Experience. Nairobi: Save the Children Sweden. Wakoson, E.N., 1993. The Politics of Southern Self-Government 1972–1983. In M.W. Daly & A.A. Sikainga (eds.) Civil War in the Sudan. London, New York: British Academic Press: Distributed by St. Martin’s Press in the United States of America and Canada, 27–50. Wickham-Crowley, T.P., 1987. The Rise (and Sometimes Fall) of Guerrilla Governments in Latin Asmeric. Sociological Forum, 2, 473–499.

10 Twisted legitimacy?

Jacqueline WilsonTwisted legitimacy?

Leadership, representation, and status in traditional and fragile societies Jacqueline Wilson Introduction On its surface, the concept of legitimacy is simple – definitions generally include terms such as legality, authenticity, or credibility. Legitimacy is almost always linked to the concept of the state, because the structure of a “sovereign” state provides legitimacy to state actions, and by extension, to state actors. Yet legitimacy can also apply, I argue, to non-state actors and to individuals, adding complexity to the concept. Levi et al.,(2009, 355) note that in 1959 psychologists French and Raven defined legitimacy “as social influence induced by feelings of ‘should,’ ‘ought to,’ or ‘has a right to.’ ” It can arise in many settings, stemming from various social influences, presenting a challenge if legitimacy is linked solely to a state. Our analysis, therefore, requires nuance as we consider the complex dynamics that legitimacy takes in under-developed, developing, or traditional states, as well as in places experiencing intractable conflicts, involving profound fragility, suffering, and violence. This chapter explores that nuance and complexity. It focuses on perspectives of legitimacy in environments where the presence and influence of the state is weak, or in traditional settings where customs and traditions may define and frame legitimacy in ways that differ from more modern societies. In some of these situations, those who claim legitimacy attempt to fill gaps created by failures or shortcomings of the state. These non-state actors may claim legitimacy by drawing upon non-state, or even anti-state, sources of credibility. Such claims to legitimacy are based upon narratives like “freedom fighter”, justifying armed challenges to the state, claims that the sitting government is “illegitimate” (for acts such as rigging an election), claims of financial corruption within the state, or rejection of international human rights norms by the state, among others. In addition to claims of “legitimacy”, some legitimacy may be conferred on recipients (actors or leaders) by followers based upon the leader’s status, achievements, reputation, position, or statements. In fragile settings, legitimacy might be conveyed by followers based upon the leaders’ belligerent or provocative acts or statements about the state, because of status earned through acquiring great wealth (e.g., owning many cattle) or as a result of patronage schemes that empower otherwise marginalized groups.

Twisted legitimacy? 181 This dynamic whereby legitimacy is claimed by, or conferred upon, nonstate actors or entities, produces a distorted or “twisted legitimacy” – a concept attempting to view legitimacy through a more nuanced lens. This incorporates actions beyond the control of the state, actors who challenge the state, indigenous or grassroots sources of legitimacy that fill gaps not filled by the state, and legitimacy conveyed because of unexpected or outside-the-mainstream actions that may actually defy the state. In other words, this chapter views legitimacy through the eyes of those for whom state legitimacy is woefully lacking. At the same time, it questions whether this “twisted”, unofficial, non-state legitimacy is in fact “authentic”, positing that state legitimacy in weak and fragile states may also be artificial, distant, and lacking in credibility. In essence, what outsiders may perceive as legitimate is actually distorted because it claims validity that it actually lacks. The chapter begins by examining and comparing components, characteristics, and bases (or origins) of state legitimacy in the accepted use of the term, in contrast to places where state fragility is very high and other forms of legitimacy are likely. I then explore specific cases of non-state legitimacy in several developing and fragile contexts, including the case of two prophets in South Sudan, as well as that of a Western anthropology scholar embedded within a traditional, conservative community in a changing society. In this examination, I  draw upon my decade-plus of peacebuilding work in over 25 countries around the world. I strive to help better understand legitimacy from a fragile, non-state perspective and apply this knowledge to peacebuilding processes. Viewing legitimacy through these diverse perspectives is also critical from a conflict resolution perspective, as those fragile states where we find twisted legitimacy also happen to be states often wracked by horrific cycles of violence, poor governance, poor health and education levels, displacement, and many other signs of fragility. Exploring this concept through an interdisciplinary, inductive, grassroots lens may help us discover that state-centric legitimacy may be less relevant in these areas than the lens of “twisted legitimacy” within which average people in fragile settings operate every day. My conclusions are largely framed as observations, preliminary hypotheses, and questions that will almost certainly generate and inform further study.

What is legitimacy? In their work on Stakeholder Theory (primarily focused on identifying who is important for managers of businesses), Mitchell, Agle, and Wood identify three criteria helpful in determining who actually matters from a manager’s perspective. These criteria are: (1) the stakeholder’s power to influence the firm, (2) the legitimacy of the stakeholder’s relationship with the firm, and (3) the urgency of the stakeholder’s claim on the firm (Mitchell et al., 1997, 854). Shifting these criteria from the business world to the realm of peacebuilding requires only a slight modification. A  typology of legitimacy adapted to peacebuilding would

182  Jacqueline Wilson likely indicate that someone with legitimacy – the recipients – would meet these criteria: 1 2 3

Has the power to influence; Has a longstanding or close relationship with the people (those who confer legitimacy); and, Has an important interest in the issue at stake.

Yet there are other views or understandings of legitimacy. Max Weber most famously studied legitimacy in some depth, and described three types or sources of legitimacy (what Christopher Mitchell in Chapter 1 terms “bases” or drivers): 1 2 3

Rational character-resting on the common belief in the legality of rules and the right of those empowered to exercise authority (i.e. legal authority); or, Traditional character-resting on the common belief in the sanctity of existing traditions and the legitimacy of that authority thereby empowered (i.e. traditional authority), or finally Charismatic character-resting on an uncommon devotion to the sanctity, heroism or otherwise impressive character of an individual and to the dispositions openly enacted by that person (i.e. charismatic authority) (Weber and Heydebrand, 1994).

Clearly, Weber’s category of rational character as a source of legitimacy applies to legitimacy associated with a functioning state. At first glance, Weber’s category of legitimacy via traditional character could relate to non-State, twisted legitimacy. In some cases, traditional leaders do in fact hold legitimacy by playing a leadership role in society, by serving their communities in ways that earn them reputation, status, standing, power, and authority, or by representing their communities to higher authorities. Yet as we will see below, changing circumstances and opportunities, structural or economic changes within societies, and even shifts in social norms seem to allow this traditional leadership to become twisted. We may also consider that Weber’s charismatic character category might incorporate twisted legitimacy. The way Weber describes charisma, his world view is such that it is customarily used in constructive, healthy ways. His use of the words “sanctity, heroism, or otherwise impressive character” tell us that Weber did not envision legitimacy through charisma being used for malign purposes. Yet we will see below that charismatic legitimacy can indeed become twisted. More recently, Suchman defined legitimacy as “a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions” (1995, 574). Although Suchman was writing through a lens of business and management, clearly this broadened definition still challenges us to describe as legitimate the characteristics we see when examining non-state or fragile state notions of legitimacy. “This definition implies that legitimacy is a desirable social good, that it is something larger and more shared than a mere self-perception, and that it

Twisted legitimacy?  183 may be defined and negotiated differently at various levels of social organization” (Mitchell et al., 1997, 867 italics added). We will consider below whether these definitions and typology of legitimacy remain valid for people in fragile settings.

The state, fragility, and legitimacy State legitimacy in a developed country can be seen through multiple lenses. The legitimacy of a state can form the legal basis for actions. Alternatively, state legitimacy can be formed or guided by other frameworks or processes based on procedural justice and fairness (such as through elections) that determine access to positions of authority or the means of selecting the individuals who will both define and become the face of state legitimacy. State legitimacy can be demonstrated through a leader’s adherence to a common code of behavioral norms or social mores, such as by keeping one’s word and honoring one’s commitments, by influencing policy constructively through public policy development or through public service, or by achieving a certain respected status through accomplishments or honorable contributions to society. State legitimacy can also relate to our earlier definition that linked legitimacy to the use of certain types of power, to so-called “social influence”, or to visionary leadership. According to Kevin Clements, state “legitimacy is determined by whether the contractual relationship between the state and citizens is working effectively or not. Individual citizens or tribal members recognize political actors, institutions and relationships in return for services, which guarantee their individual and collective welfare” (2014, 13). This idea of a social contract obviously builds on the work of Rousseau and other philosophers who have tried to describe these relationships of legitimacy over time as relating to trust between the governors and the governed. However, we are forced to ask again the question of what occurs when the contractual relationship between state and citizens is not effective. One response to such situations, I propose, could well be “twisted” legitimacy. Within a state, non-state actors also demonstrate characteristics of limited legitimacy, perhaps in terms of delivering services to their local community, through their own professional achievements, or through participation in social welfare organizations. Non-state actors such as respected physicians, the principal of a school, or the town’s leading entrepreneur may gain some limited or functionally specific legitimacy in the eyes of the community. This legitimacy is not unlike state legitimacy in that it derives from acting consistently within the rule of law, is validated by behaviors such as fulfilling commitments, and falls within a set of behavioral norms and standards consistent with the broader society and with one’s position or occupational qualifications. Many non-state actors will demonstrate social influence at the community or broader levels. Many will also demonstrate the ability to use various forms of power. Some individuals make claims of limited legitimacy. Some may claim to be the legitimate representative or the legitimate leader of a group or constituency. The “flip side” of any claim of legitimacy is conferring legitimacy, the process by which followers or believers indicate their support for the legitimacy of a

184  Jacqueline Wilson leader, or indicate their intention to follow someone who claims legitimacy on their behalf. These dynamics, of claiming legitimacy and conferring legitimacy, would seem to work the same for non-state actors as they do for states. However, non-state actors may need to meet additional criterion, such as lawful selection or conformity to recognized process rules or financial propriety. Yet what meaning can be associated with a term like legitimacy in settings that fall far short of such circumstances – in places that are, essentially, beyond the authoritative reach of state institutions? These settings can be characterized by a lack of a credible state presence beyond the capital city, by a seemingly consistent inability to carry out commitments and by a wide swath of behaviors deemed by many to be immoral. These can include corruption and consolidation of power among elites, militarized repression of minorities who challenge the status quo, and a willingness to manipulate the so-called rule of law for their own ends (such as has happened recently where ruling regimes imprison the leading opposition candidates).1 For example, in large swaths of Sudan and South Sudan, state legitimacy clearly falls towards the low end of measures, such as highlighted in the Fund for Peace Fragile States Index.2

Legitimacy in fragile states “Fragile” states are currently defined by criteria based on twelve key social, economic, and political indicators used on a “Fragile States” Index. Data for 2015, the 11th year of the Index, show that South Sudan is the world’s most fragile state, while Sudan is the fourth most fragile. These two represent, along with Somalia and the Central African Republic, states that fall into the “Very High Alert” category. The methodology used to create the Fragile States framework focuses, as we note above, on identifying a variety of key characteristics. These indicate that characteristics of fragility may vary, but they almost always include: • • • •

The loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly of the use of force considered to be “legitimate”; The erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions; An inability to provide reasonable public services; The inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community.3

One of the key indicators of a lack state legitimacy, involves “Corruption and a lack of representativeness in the government (which) directly undermine(s) the social contract.”4 There are also sub-categories of state legitimacy, including political participation or power struggles, which require further scrutiny. Using Levi et al’s (2009, 356) framework, we work from two primary bases or “drivers” of legitimacy: trustworthiness of government, and the existence of procedural justice. Both of these indicators are clearly relevant to legitimacy, and both are persistently lacking within government such as those in Sudan and South Sudan,

Twisted legitimacy?  185 as well as other fragile states. Key indicators of fragility include the government’s inability (or unwillingness) to provide basic services, such as health care and education, the lack of infrastructure and economic development in rural areas, and demographic signs such as tension and violence between groups, causing population displacement and flight. Poverty and unequal distribution of income are key economic indicators of fragility, as are political indicators including weak state legitimacy and factionalized elites. Clearly, primary characteristics of state legitimacy are lacking in place like Sudan and South Sudan. However, local South Sudanese conceptions of legitimacy may be different than what an outside observer might predict. For example, surveys of South Sudanese conducted in 2013 first asked an open-ended question about the most important qualities of a leader. For 34% of respondents, “honest” was their top response, with “intelligent” and “inspiring” the next two responses at 19% and 17%, respectively. Next, respondents cited “competent” (15%), followed by “visionary” (15%), “fair/just” (15%), and “courageous” (14%). When asked about the most important jobs, roles, or responsibilities that leaders should fulfil, given a list of potential terms, the top rankings included: • • • • • • • •

to solve problems, to think strategically, to gather data and think critically, to plan and manage, to help people identify problems and opportunities, to mediate and negotiate, to mobilize people, to serve as role models/lead by example.

The next ranked response on this list was to “build and maintain legitimacy” (Thomson et al., 2013, 6). There could be several ways to interpret this. Perhaps in a fragile setting there are more important expectations of leaders than basic legitimacy. There could be an assumption that if one is considered a “leader”, then there must be some inherent or assumed form of legitimacy that transfers to the individual, to the office, or to whatever characterization that identifies someone as a leader. Perhaps the concept of legitimacy itself may not be well understood. Perhaps it does not have a reliable translation or counterpart word in local languages or the meaning is somewhat different. Perhaps fragile settings, or places where democratic principles and processes are shallow and new, include a sense that legitimacy is not conferred by the whole people, but just resides in people with power, in people who have inherited legitimacy, in people that communities are told have legitimacy, or in people who simply claim legitimacy. Perhaps legitimacy is just claimed, and the idea that people can actually withhold or refuse to confer legitimacy may not yet have taken root. Another set of fragility indicators relates to group grievances and related violence. In such cases, state legitimacy may be lacking because the state has failed to resolve disputes or to address root causes of grievance. This failure to address

186  Jacqueline Wilson group grievances could stem from shallow democratic institutions, such as would be reflected in a stolen election. Alternatively, it could stem from shortcomings in access to education or jobs in rural areas, which could drive claims of bias and favoritism at best, marginalization and discrimination at worst. In these cases, non-state actors may gain legitimacy by juxtaposing themselves against the corrupt, ineffectual elites controlling the centers of power. Evidence of unresolved group grievances could manifest itself through those groups taking up arms, or by “rebels” claiming to be legitimate representatives of marginalized groups. It could result in formation of new political parties, with individual party leaders or the party itself making claims of legitimacy in opposition to the ruling group or party. In such cases, the legitimacy may be related to legitimacy of an opposition perspective or experience, to the legitimacy of an individual or party, or to the legitimacy of the narratives or evidence that claim to be alternatives to the statecentric narratives or actions. We begin to see that understandings of legitimacy may be different in fragile settings. Other results from the 2013 surveys are also enlightening. When asked about characteristics the South Sudanese respondents desired in their leaders in general, (i.e. the most important qualities desired in a leader) the top four responses were “honest, intelligent, competent, and inspiring.” Yet when asked about characteristics of their own actual leaders, the South Sudanese surveyed responded that the top four characteristics actually present were “courageous, strong, independent, and intelligent.” Their lowest four characteristics in this question (meaning those characteristics they believe their current leaders possess the least) included “fair, supportive, caring, and honest” (which received the lowest rating of the 19 characteristics rated). A question that comes to mind then is: what characteristics do South Sudanese, or any other people in fragile states, associate with “legitimacy”? If legitimacy correlates with being honest, just, and fair, but the perception of leaders is that they are not, then perhaps what becomes legitimate is solving problems, thinking strategically, mediating and negotiating, and mobilizing people. The nuances of this concept of legitimacy continue to expand. Another basis for state legitimacy involves stability. Legitimacy can be evidenced by strong control of borders, by having a professional, well-equipped military, and by strong community policing. Yet some governments may step over a line, taking “control” to a new level. “Governments that base their rule primarily on coercion expend enormous resources to create a credible system of surveillance through which to monitor public behavior, reward desired behavior, and punish rule violators. The existence of legitimacy reduces the transaction costs of governing by reducing reliance on coercion and monitoring” (Levi et al., 2009, 355). But reliance on coercion may create a new, twisted legitimacy, such as a reputation as a “strong man” or the cult of personality that often accompanies centralized control. Thus, repression and coercion may actually invite armed opposition and rebellion. In such cases, state legitimacy through control can actually invite a response of twisted, non-state legitimacy by encouraging behaviors that

Twisted legitimacy? 187 further undermine the legitimacy of the state and legitimizing those actors who challenge the state. In addition, there may be special circumstances related not only to fragility, but also related to violence, that affect an understanding of legitimacy. First of all, violence serves to erode trust across communities and society writ large. This lack of trust can generate a variety of tactics useful to gain legitimacy. In some cases, legitimacy may be earned through negotiating a solution, participating in a peace conference, or being able to implement a negotiated or mediated agreement. Yet reactive violence can result in defending or claiming territory, control of which can be cited as a source of legitimacy. Violence can be used to respond to a cattle raid to retrieve stolen property or abducted women and children. Violence can result in a show of strength in an attempt to gain or retain legitimacy. This raises the question of whether the use of violence can be a source of legitimacy, and if so, whether there comes a time when the use of violence has the opposite effect. This nexus of violence, fragility, and legitimacy requires deeper exploration.

Twisted legitimacy Further clarifying state legitimacy and its fragile-state5 counterpart of “twisted” legitimacy requires returning to our definitional constructs. Levi et al. (2009, 356, emphasis added) frame legitimacy “as a sense of obligation or willingness to obey authorities . . . that then translates into actual compliance with governmental regulations and laws . . .” In quasi-lawless or fragile states then, are we looking at situations where an unwillingness to obey (formal) authorities, translates into non-compliance with government laws and regulations and thus, paradoxically, becomes a mechanism to earn legitimacy? In this regard, David Smock, citing the work of John Prendergast, describes “the manipulation of ethnic rivalry as an easy vehicle for social mobilization and for political and economic gain . . . the violent accumulation of such assets as valuable land . . . fueled by a hyper-exploitative quest for resource consolidation” (1997, 16). This exploitation draws upon ethnic rivalries, likely using ethno-political loyalties, but also legitimacy derived from (or claimed by) the group on the part of those promulgating this plunder. Those who are able to mobilize others for political and economic gain may translate these gains into an even wider form of legitimacy due to its social, economic, and political benefits to the group. This use of ethno-political ties to generate one form legitimacy is normally called tribalism. In essence, when a member of a tribe garners assets that benefit the larger tribe, this member earns a certain level of “twisted” legitimacy. This process is validated by a frequently cited African maxim, “It is our turn to eat.” Another, alternative form of “twisted” legitimacy might well be called “elite” legitimacy, a term actually used by Sharon Hutchinson and Naomi Pendle in an interview about their research. “While US government policy became more explicitly critical of South Sudanese elites after December 2013, the Government and Opposition leaders still benefit from the legitimacy bestowed on them by

188  Jacqueline Wilson being the focus of international diplomacy. Elite legitimacy based on international recognition shields them from the critiques of their own people” (Anon Interview, 2015, 2) Use of the term “elite” legitimacy also conveys the perception that legitimacy resides within a small group of individuals who have distanced themselves in some way from the masses-either through their actions, their acquisitions, or their accomplishments. This disconnect holds within it a key question – if elites who claim legitimacy are by definition distanced from those who are not elites, from whom do they gain their legitimacy? Does this gap allow elites to gain power through manipulation of marginalized, traumatized, illiterate communities? If legitimacy is not actually conferred or granted by anyone, but rather is just asserted, is this self-conferred claim one very common type of “twisted” legitimacy? Is twisted legitimacy just another way to describe the emperor who has no clothes? In terms used earlier by Mitchell in Chapter 1, might there be no actual “source” of conferred legitimacy? When viewed from a bottom-up perspective, the state itself – especially in fragile settings – could be seen as benefiting primarily the elites, a dynamic which (may or may not) call into question the state’s legitimacy. Likewise, the fact that a state suffers from a lack of “representativeness” – one of the indicators of fragility – implies a lack of legitimacy when viewed from the perspective of those “at the bottom” or “on the periphery”. Perhaps individuals decide to take it upon themselves to capture state largess to benefit under-served minorities, the poor or disenfranchised dwelling outside the capital city, or the individual’s clan or ethnic group that may suffer from being underrepresented among the elite. In this case, do the individuals who capture state resources to benefit the underserved, become legitimate? Does it matter what tactics or techniques they use to capture those resources? Does it matter whether or not these efforts are effective at capturing resources, or is just the effort – militarized challenges to the ruling regime, challenges from within the media to hold the elites accountable, or non-violent protests against the government – sufficient to gain legitimacy for alternatives to “elite legitimacy” and to undermine the legitimacy of state actors? Importantly, “[l]egitimacy does not signify that power will be used to promote the good of the nation or of humanity” (Levi et al., 2009, 355). These efforts to address this disconnect between state legitimacy and twisted legitimacy may create opportunities for individuals engaged in them to claim legitimacy they otherwise would not be able to claim. They may actually provide opportunities to create new forms of legitimacy. Hamas, Hizbullah, and the Muslim Brotherhood all strove to gain legitimacy by highlighting how the corrupt, impious, or unrepresentative states they live within failed to serve “the people”, and they began addressing societal needs themselves. When their military or terrorist tactics put them in an unfavorable light and threatened to undermine their legitimacy, some groups formed political wings that took on service delivery (a legitimizing role) while their military and terrorist wings continued conducting anti-state and anti-social actions (perhaps an attempt to gain twisted legitimacy?) Individuals such as traditional leaders often claim legitimacy because they see

Twisted legitimacy? 189 themselves as providing a safety net for the downtrodden and vulnerable within their communities. Some tribal claims to legitimacy are based on witchcraft, sorcery, or claims to supernatural powers (Hutchinson and Pendle, 2015). Others may claim legitimacy through being a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. Even extremist movements such as Al Shabaab and the Islamist State claim to be rebelling against state-centric norms that run counter to their own definitions of legitimate governance. They seek to provide alternatives that they perceive as legitimate. Below we examine two other examples of non-state based claims to legitimacy in the form of two Nuer prophets whom anthropologists claim are “trying to construct alternative frameworks of legitimacy and build peace” (Hutchinson and Pendle, 2015, 2). As we discuss later in light of this understanding of state fragility and its relation to differing forms of legitimacy, it is important to mention what could be called “pre-state” legitimacy. In many cases, and in many contemporary contexts, customary law predates a formal judicial structure, yet remains an active presence today. Customary law is the province of elders and chiefs who traditionally mediate or adjudicate disputes according to longstanding custom. As mediators or adjudicators, they develop reputations – in essence, legitimacy – for these conflict resolution functions. This legitimacy may or may not be transferrable to other zones of governance, such as collection of taxes, claims of land rights or sovereign territory, or the establishment of military forces to protect their “people”. The leaders may or may not have been considered legitimate in terms of how they were selected. Some inherited their titles, while others were selected in community consensus processes (these processes themselves may differ in the ways in which they deliver or confer legitimacy). The recipients may or may not retain legitimacy in terms of whom they actually represent – i.e., their legitimacy may have been situational or recognized only by a small group of individuals or followers. Yet if they wholly lacked legitimacy, people would not come to them for dispute resolution. So, reputation is an underlying characteristic of their legitimacy, presumably based on demonstrated practice and success. Discussion of customary law naturally returns us to a consideration of tribes and tribalism. Once again, we see the distorted, twisted nature of legitimacy in fragile settings. We can think of Afghanistan, where efforts to establish strong national governments have faced tremendous challenges when rural communities look to their jirgas in lieu of the national government for governance and guidance. In places like Sudan, strong tribes have the ability to challenge their central government and at times, act in direct opposition to it (Wilson, 2014). Tribal leaders may respond to the call for members of the tribe to support government security exercises, or they may reject those calls and raise their own militias in opposition to the government. Tribes have been armed and mobilized to act on behalf of the government against other tribes, but sometimes sacrifice their own legitimacy at the expense of supporting government legitimacy. In fragile settings, tribalism may strengthen communities yet may actually undermine state legitimacy when tribal legitimacy is ascendant (Bujra, 1973, 143).

190  Jacqueline Wilson Twisted legitimacy is hardly a new phenomenon. Historically, forms of government such as monarchies or aristocracies were illiberal, and their degree of legitimacy undoubtedly varied. They may have held legitimacy from the elite, land-owning gentry, but not from the rural peasant class. Did peasants then create or select “legitimate” spokespersons? If so, what criteria did they use to identify their legitimate representatives? This question opens the door to exploring the roots of legitimacy. Peasants could have used family name and/or reputation to identify a legitimate spokesperson or representative. They could have selected the tallest, strongest, or most handsome individual. They may have selected individuals based upon their character, or upon reputation for honesty. Almost certainly, their search for legitimate voices to represent and address their struggles spurred the rise of rebellions and revolts which were led by individuals who may have exemplified any number of characteristics that led them to take the mantle of legitimate leadership – and for followers to follow. The extensive resources that states use to validate their legitimacy, may in some cases actually validate it (the “strong” states). In other cases, (fragile states), they can become an albatross and have the opposite effect, actually undermining state legitimacy and encouraging the development of alternatives (Levi et al., 2009, 355). Undoubtedly, in summary, there are numerous bases for legitimacy, twisted or otherwise, and I have come across many in my peacebuilding work in fragile settings. I  have heard of legitimacy through marrying daughters to powerful men, through a large number of cattle received for a bride price, and through the number of people (and western guests) attending a wedding. Legitimacy can come through education or through speaking multiple languages, indicators of legitimacy that were attained largely through privilege. People demonstrate their legitimacy simply by keeping other (less important) people waiting for meetings. Others show their legitimacy by controlling an agenda or by determining who gets to participate in events. Some civil society activists can gain legitimacy through being arrested or detained. There can be legitimacy based primarily on “presence”, which could refer to distinctions between those who stay and fight versus those who leave (Bayat, 2004). Some earn legitimacy for their ability to recite poetry, or their knowledge of proverbs. Clearly, legitimacy is a complex and varied concept. Yet, even in fragile settings, we must ask the question of exactly for what reason or purpose these individuals are considered legitimate. Traditional leaders may gain legitimacy as conflict resolution practitioners or mediators. Criminals may gain legitimacy as someone who can boldly challenge an unpopular law or policy (think of Al Capone and Prohibition). Militia leaders may gain legitimacy for standing up to illegitimate, repressive, or discriminatory ruling regimes on behalf of marginalized and suffering populations. In each of these cases, it is important for us to question which legitimacy is “twisted” and which is genuine legitimacy.

Two cases of twisted legitimacy It is helpful to examine specific examples of “twisted legitimacy” in fragile contexts to try to pin down exactly what this concept is and to better understand how

Twisted legitimacy? 191 it impacts peacebuilding and conflict resolution. One example comes from a traditional, tribal setting in South Sudan where anthropologists have been exploring local characteristics of legitimacy. In this specific case, anthropologists Sharon Hutchinson and Naomi Pendle closely studied two Nuer prophets for almost a decade. The relationship of these prophets to various claims of legitimacy, particularly in cases of preventing or implementing lethal violence – a form of legitimacy normally claimed by the state – demonstrates aspects of how legitimacy may be different in fragile and/or traditional settings. Legitimacy through prophecy in the South Sudan The two Nuer prophets, Gatdeang and Nyachol, played a variety of social roles relative to their communities and provided moral interpretation of daily events related to everything from birth, marriage and death, to cattle, war, and wealth. Their link to the divine was critical for maintaining their role in society. “Nuer prophets must continuously demonstrate divinity’s inner presence or risk losing legitimacy” (Hutchinson, 1996, 306, 338–350, Hutchinson and Pendle, 2015, 417). Importantly, these prophets’ interpretation of morality or the needs of their community holds the potential either to support or undermine the legitimacy of government leaders calling for peace or for violence. Hutchinson and Pendle give an excellent example of how a Nuer prophet gained legitimacy through promulgating traditional behavioral norms that ran counter to prevailing practice. During a period in which South Sudan had seen pervasive violence and fractured leadership, the prophet Gatdeang claimed that the defensive use of violence was the only legitimate form of violence. In addition, he used his local connections to build a community in which his legitimacy was unquestioned. “Gatdeang aims to gather around himself a united and loyal circle of supporters by providing them with security, hospitality, and gifts of cattle. In addition, Gatdeang is also a conduit for rain and all the other life-promotion gifts of health and fertility Deng*6 can bestow” (Hutchinson and Pendle, 2015, 422). Another Nuer prophet, known as Nyachol, “fashioned herself as outside and above government while also performing many of the tasks over which government claims to have exclusive right of action” (Hutchinson and Pendle, 2015, 419). She encouraged her followers to perpetrate violent cattle raids and claimed these raids were necessary in the name of retaliation. As the raids she sanctioned escalated in scale, the government response was an order to arrest her. But several divinely inspired tactics, from using a sacred drum to a refusal to use modern conveniences (such as telephones), along with the threat of violence from her supporters if the arrest was carried out, kept her free. “This incident reveals Nyachol’s position between the government and the civilian grassroots and her ability to explicitly challenge authority by eluding government orders and by fulfilling government responsibilities more successfully than the government. Her refusal to obey the government while retaining popularity highlighted the power of the legitimacy she demanded” (Hutchinson and Pendle, 2015, 426).

192  Jacqueline Wilson Nyachol also began stepping into a customary law role, despite the fact that she is a prophet, not a chief, who are the traditional keepers of Nuer customary law. Using the moral authority of her diety, her successful adjudications led even to chiefs referring cases to her in direct defiance of government orders not to do so. As a result, “Many chiefs and families . . . continue to seek out her judicial and purification function services. Nuer-Nuer conflicts in Nyachol’s home region have plummeted since 2010 . . . Nyachol offers the kind of protective and judicial services that government . . . jealously claims to be within its own exclusive purview but that it has failed to provide, a failure that extends across South Sudan” (Hutchinson and Pendle, 2015, 424). In these cases, we see how the bases of legitimacy may differ in fragile settings. The example of these prophets shows that legitimacy can be removed from some actors and granted to others. The bases – or drivers – of their legitimacy lie in their relationship with their deity, and the belief system of their followers that this relationship (and the prophets which were the vessels of that relationship) benefits the entire community. Another base of the prophets’ legitimacy is their ability to link their actions and edicts to a higher morality. According to Hutchinson and Pendle, “these prophets have been able to challenge the legitimacy claims of rival elites and have provided a check on the unrestrained, secularized ideas of violence promoted by gunmen at the top” (2015, 1). In this case, the prophets gain legitimacy through their ability to “rein in the amoral, secularized, and objectified forms of violence that all too often lie at the heart of government’s legitimacy claims . . . Their contrasting moral narratives help to remind people that the power of guns and of the government are always secondary to those of God. Gatdeang and Nyachol have thus, provided a crucial check . . . by forcing ambitious state leaders to take account of alternative, popular frameworks for interpreting the moral limits of lethal violence or to risk losing legitimacy” (Hutchinson and Pendle, 2015, 428). Interestingly, the morality being used to claim legitimacy was clearly fluid; one prophet justified violence using morality, another used the same morality to prevent violence. Likewise, the demonstrations of legitimacy in these cases are opposite; on the one hand, a prophet gained legitimacy by being able to mobilize thousands of Nuer youth in support of the opposition’s cause. In the other case, the prophet gained legitimacy by enabling defensive security actions to prevail. Legitimacy in a Bedouin society in Egypt We find a somewhat different path to legitimacy within a traditional Muslim Bedouin community in western Egypt. Within the context of this rural community setting, “greater moral worth is the basis of one’s authority or social precedence, with moral worth measured by the extent to which an individual embodies the ideals of personhood, ideals suggested by the code of honor . . .” (Abu-Lughod, 1999, 33). In this case, “moral worth” or piety is not evidenced by one’s ability to conjure up seemingly magical acts, or to call upon the power of a deity to bring rain, but rather through daily, very human, choices and demonstrations of

Twisted legitimacy?  193 “right” behavior. Hence, legitimacy in this cultural context entails demonstrating consistency and living by the “values of generosity, honesty, sincerity, loyalty to friends, and keeping one’s word, all implied in the term usually translated as honor (sharaf)” (Abu-Lughod, 1999, 87). Even more important, however, is the complex of values associated with independence. “Being free (hurr) implies several qualities, including the strength to stand alone and freedom from domination. This freedom with regard to other people is won through tough assertiveness, fearlessness, and pride, whereas with regard to needs and passions, it is won through self-control. Failings or weaknesses in any of these areas disqualify one for positions of responsibility and respect and put one in a position of dependency or vulnerability to domination by others” (Abu-Lughod, 1999, 87). Another basis for legitimacy in this context is a characteristic known as wasta. Wasta, which derives from an Arabic word, can be translated to mean clout, or power. It is sometimes related to favoritism or to nepotism. It also has meanings related to having connections, such as providing a reference – i.e. using those connections. Wasta is a type of legitimacy. People with wasta have influence, reputations, and standing related to the extent of their wasta. How do these characteristics translate into legitimacy in this social setting? “Insofar as persons demonstrate these virtues [moral ideals], they are entitled to the respect that validates, if not establishes, the social precedence and authority generally associated with these principles. But . . . the principles themselves are not sufficient to determine status. In other words, greater age or wealth, better genealogy or ancestry, or even gender does not necessarily guarantee greater autonomy or social precedence.”7 (Abu-Lughod, 1999, 86). Importantly, women cannot engage in precisely the same demonstrations of ideals and therefore are compelled to participate in a different sort of evaluation to gain legitimacy according to different criteria. “To have moral worth, these people (women) must show modesty (hasham), which must be understood as voluntary deference to those in the system who more closely embody its ideals” (Abu-Lughod, 1999, 33). In addition to demonstrating morality, i.e. honorable and modest behavior, kinship groups gain a certain type of legitimacy through each other: Kin share concerns and honor  .  .  . This strong identification with patrikin manifests itself in several ways. First, in many contexts, individuals act as if what touches their kin touches them all. For example, an insult to one person is interpreted as an insult to the whole kinship group, just as an insult to a kinsperson is interpreted as an affront to the self . . . Likewise, one family member’s shameful acts bring dishonor on the rest of the family, just as everyone benefits from the glories of a prominent agnate or patrilineal ancestor. (Abu-Lughod, 1999, 66) Members of a tribe or clan essentially sacrifice their own claims to legitimacy in order to empower others to claim it on their behalf-this dynamic essentially produces a form of representative, collective legitimacy.

194  Jacqueline Wilson Perhaps because of this legitimacy-through-kinship dynamic, one’s ability to provide for the community, by demonstrating access to resources or bringing jobs to the tribe or clan, also becomes a basis for legitimacy. Yet in some ways, economics is changing this group dynamic. The new economic situation created by the Bedouin involvement in a cash economy – through smuggling, legitimate business, land sales, and agriculture – has radically altered both the volume and distribution of wealth . . . Although there have always been rich and poor among the Bedouins, fortunes often reversed unpredictably, and a concentration of wealth in the hands of any one person or family was never secure. Now social stratification has become more marked and fixed; the wealthy have the capital to invest in lucrative ventures and the poor do not. (Abu-Lughod, 1999, 70) Personal or family wealth has become a source of legitimacy, rather than strictly providing for kin-group well-being. This shift has important implications for legitimacy. “Perhaps even more important for consolidating social and political power has been the gradual expansion of the types of resources that can be privately owned, which has enabled some people to make others dependent and thus to control them. Whereas formerly, economic, political, and social status were not tied – as status and leadership were based largely on genealogy and achieved reputation, and dependency implied less economic helplessness – today they are becoming increasingly coterminous” (Abu-Lughod, 1999, 70). This shift may replicate the twisted legitimacy that is “earned” by those with excessive wealth, such as movie stars or those who excel at sports. We can begin to see how these norms that produce legitimacy can become twisted. Rather than bringing honor to the village for one’s personal behaviors, now the village business maven may subvert the village elder in terms of legitimacy. With respect to women and honor, we can reiterate the truth that honor killings and other “twisted” behaviors can result from a desire to validate one’s legitimacy primarily through the behavior of the women in one’s family (or to seek redress even over mere rumors of behavior beyond the norm).

Bases of legitimacy in fragile or traditional settings Looking at the characteristics of fragile settings, and drawing from the cases presented above, we can begin to home in on the bases for, and the sources of legitimacy in fragile and/or traditional settings. The two Nuer prophets, for example, drew legitimacy from a “higher authority”, a deity. We can find other examples of claims to legitimacy that draw upon a higher power – violent religious extremists are probably the most visible and timely example. Yet claims to legitimacy for ISIS leaders do not seem to rely on widely accepted interpretations of morality, wherever they stem from, but rather utilize a throwback, fundamentalist set of

Twisted legitimacy?  195 norms that are far outside contemporary global norms. And rather than determinations of what is “moral”, extremist claims to legitimacy seem to be based upon a strict, almost inhuman, standard of piety. Still, claims to legitimacy based upon morality or piety require demonstrations. The two prophets had to demonstrate time and again their links to the deities they claimed to represent. ISIS, Boko Haram, and other religious extremists use demonstrations meant to emphasize the extent to which they will go in order to prosecute non-believers or believers who stray from the prescribed norms. Practices such as beheadings, although abhorrent acts, become somewhat easier to understand when viewed as twisted attempts to claim legitimacy. In the case of the Bedouin society in Egypt, we saw a slightly different effort to use morality to buttress claims to legitimacy. In that case, the demonstrations related to honorable behavior, to examples of generosity and concern, and to asl or a type of inherited nobility. In these cases, we can see how concern with establishing or maintaining legitimacy through honorable behavior can also become twisted, such as the need to maintain legitimacy by strictly controlling the behavior of women or other members of the tribe to the extent that it results in honor killings or in tortuous ordeals and rituals such as testing truthfulness by licking a red-hot spoon (Harris, 2016, 78). It is important to consider that we do not know whether these twisted forms of legitimacy are created in opposition to or as a result of illegitimate, ineffective, unrepresentative, or fragile forms of government. We do not know if the “twisted” aspects relate to the unique, timely circumstances or opportunities that are seized by individuals. In other words, the basis of legitimacy may stem from a vacuum of legitimacy in the fragile states in which these situations exist. We also do not know if fragility results from these alternative, “twisted” actors seizing roles perhaps ordinarily enacted by legitimate state actors. Do high levels of fragility actually correspond with low levels of state legitimacy and, potentially, high levels of non-state or alternative legitimacy?

Legitimacy and peacebuilding It is critical to analyze these examples in a way that lends constructive ideas to peacebuilding processes. Clearly, peace processes engage “peace actors” to reach and implement agreements. But if the wrong actors are in the room – in essence, if elite, state-centric definitions of legitimacy are being used to select who is a peace actor, then peace processes may be empowering the wrong and ignoring the right actors. In addition, the needs, desires, agendas, and values of these elite, statecentric peace actors may differ considerably from the interests, needs and values of marginalized or remote peace actors. In fact, the deeper we dig into society away from the capital cities, the more we may find that the people’s desires, as well as whom they consider to be legitimate representatives of their perspectives, may differ greatly from the view through a more top-down lens. My own research consulting with ten communities in Southern Kordofan that had experienced violent conflict generated over 50 reasons why local peace

196  Jacqueline Wilson processes were not sustainable. These reasons (some have called them “excuses”) include a number related to legitimacy, such as having “the wrong” people attending peace conferences, or elite mediators from outside the area being assigned to mediate local disputes (Wilson, 2010). In other instances, while eliciting characteristics of effective mediators, participants listed knowledge of local proverbs as a characteristic. Such examples highlight how important it is for peacebuilders to understand local concepts of legitimacy, and to understand the disconnect between the views of local peace actors and national or international peace actors. This detachment of ideas and representation could, at minimum, mean that peace agreements are neither actionable nor sustainable. But perhaps more importantly, these gaps could result in frustration and anger, and ultimately to rebellion, or could contribute to narratives of retaliation and revenge. In some cases, these disconnects in legitimacy between the grassroots and the state-centric elite could constitute a root cause of revolt. “Evidence from developing countries points to a link between deteriorating or inadequate government performance and noncompliance with laws or regulations and even resistance movements” (Levi et al., 2009, 358).

Conclusion Traditional views of legitimacy have always been tied to the concept of “the state”. We have seen, however, that legitimacy can be conferred onto any number of actors or recipients at many levels within a state (or completely delinked from it) and for a wide variety of reasons. This exploration of legitimacy in fragile states and other environments shows a major disconnect between local or traditional views of legitimacy and the more customary state-centric, or elite-focused, views. We have also seen the extreme complexity of the various bases for legitimacy, and how these can change profoundly over time. All of this emphasizes that concepts of legitimacy in fragile states and especially in areas affected by violent conflict require further exploration and research, some of which are highlighted in many chapters in this volume. Numerous questions will arise through the course of this exploration. Is this concept of “twisted” legitimacy new, or is it just an extension of our understanding of state legitimacy? Is legitimacy therefore a dualistic concept, such that legitimacy and twisted legitimacy are two sides of the same coin, or is legitimacy actually a much broader concept that requires further analysis and explanation? Surveys may help us to understand how hip-hop stars gain a form of legitimacy among the young for the size of their gold necklaces or the venality of their lyrics, while lifelong public servants are considered corrupt and untrustworthy. Interviews of rural citizens may showcase why people who “speak truth to power” are held in high esteem while they simultaneously garner great wealth for themselves – think of the humble pastor who builds a massive church empire (and elegant standard of living) while simple parishioners tithe from their meager earnings. Nuanced distinctions such as the difference between position and authority, between morality and piety, between wisdom and education, or those between status and power,

Twisted legitimacy? 197 credibility and claims of being credible, corruption and generosity, all may hold a key to understanding how legitimacy becomes twisted. Importantly, just as there are numerous potential bases for legitimacy, there are many, many ways that twisted legitimacy can manifest itself in fragile (or not-so-fragile) societies. Legitimacy based on prophecy can be used to mobilize large numbers of the young to conduct violence. Legitimacy based on honor or piety can lead to horrific sacrifices of loved ones. Politicians whose profession has been deemed “public service”, a profession that usually conveys legitimacy, can parlay their position into malfeasance and corruption. As peacebuilding scholars, we must search for greater clarity of these “twisted” aspects of the concept, and all must be framed by the question of how local actors perceive the concept of legitimacy itself. Although we began our journey examining legitimacy through the lens of fragile states, we have come full circle to show that twisted legitimacy may actually have little connection with fragility. Certainly, legitimacy as a concept exists in both fragile and stable settings, as does twisted legitimacy. This leads us to a far different conclusion than that which we might have anticipated at the beginning of the chapter. We would do well to broaden our understanding of the bases for, or drivers of legitimacy, as it is in the examination of these origins that we begin to see how they produce twists. In some cases, the bases of legitimacy may not even matter. Claims to legitimacy may be fraudulent, outdated, or meaningless, but simply making the claim may be enough. The opportunities to observe twisted legitimacy appear endless. In our modern, globally interconnected world, anyone can put up a website claiming, for example, to have found a cure for cancer. Businesses can claim massive earnings that are later discovered to be fraudulent. Politicians claim successes which are undermined by subsequent events. Legitimacy of any kind may be becoming increasingly fleeting and fragile. True legitimacy itself may have become twisted by our modern world. The real challenges to true legitimacy may come not from those who claim it, but rather from the failure, inability, or unwillingness of followers to question or challenge claims of legitimacy, hence conferring it through acquiescence, ignorance, or indifference. This may indeed put fragile settings in the limelight, since citizens who are displaced, under threat, marginalized, poor, and hungry may simply have inadequate resources to be able even to consider luxuries like legitimacy – which, in the end, may be the most twisted aspect of all.

Notes 1 See, for example, the case of Uganda http://allafrica.com/stories/201605100053.html, Niger, www.voanews.com/content/niger-opposition-suspends-participation-runoff-ele ction/3226404.html and Democratic Republic of Congo www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ afp/article-3584566/DR-Congo-police-disperse-thousands-opposition-supporters. html accessed May 11, 2016. 2 Fund for Peace 2015 Fragile States Index, http://fsi.fundforpeace.org/rankings-2015 The data on fragility include a complex indicator for state legitimacy as well as other

198  Jacqueline Wilson

3 4 5

6 7

related indicators, such as brain drain, group grievance, and uneven economic development, among others. Fragile States Index http://fsi.fundforpeace.org/faq-06-state-fragility Accessed Jan 24, 2016 The Fund for Peace Fragile States Index, 2017. Indicators. Available from: http://fundforpeace. Fragile States Index, 2017. org/fsi/indicators/, [Accessed 14 December 2017]. I use the term “quasi-lawless” to describe a situation where the formal justice sector is weak or lacks authority and where customary law may function to a limited extent, but where neither of these potential constraints on behavior is sufficient to stop widespread violence, corruption, repression, human rights abuses, or non-state armed groups from maintaining lawless environment. This may be an area for further research. Deng is “the most powerful divinity in the Nuer spiritual pantheon” (Hutchinson and Pendle, 2015, 418). The anthropologist researching the Bedouin does not use the term “legitimacy” to refer to these dynamics, but rather uses terms related to status, leadership, and autonomy (the opposite of dependency).

Works cited Abu-Lughod, L., 1999. Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society, Updated ed. with a new preface. ed. Berkeley, London: University of California Press. Anon Interview, 2015. Two Anthropologists Look beyond Diplomacy for a Peace Framework in South Sudan. Anthropology News. American Anthropological Association, 2. Bayat, A., 2004. The Art of Presence. ISIM Newsletter. The Netherlands: International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, 5. Bujra, A.S., 1973. The Social Implications of Developmental Policies: A Case Study From Egypt. In C. Nelson (ed.) The Desert and the Sown: Nomads in the Wider Society. Papers presented at a conference held in March 1972 at the American University in Cairo. Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California Berkeley. Clements, K.P., 2014. What Is Legitimacy and Why Does It Matter for Peace? In A. Ramsbotham & A. Wennman (eds.) Legitimacy and Peace Processes: From Coercion to Consent. London: Conciliation Resources, 13–16. Harris, L.C., 2016. Travels into the Heart of Egypt. Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing Vellum Books. Hutchinson, S.E., 1996. Nuer Dilemmas: Coping With Money, War, and the State. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hutchinson, S.E. & Pendle, N.R., 2015. Violence, Legitimacy, and Prophecy: Nuer Struggles With Uncertainty in South Sudan. American Ethnologist, 42, 415–430. Levi, M., Sacks, A. & Tyler, T., 2009. Conceptualizing Legitimacy, Measuring Legitimating Beliefs. American Behavioral Scientist, 53, 354–375. Mitchell, R.K., Agle, B.R. & Wood, D.J., 1997. Toward a Theory of Stakeholder Identification and Salience: Defining the Principle of Who and What Really Counts. The Academy of Management Review, 22, 853–886. Smock, D.R., 1997. Building on Locally-Based and Traditional Peace Processes. In D.R. Smock (ed.) Creative Approaches to Managing Conflict in Africa: Findings From USIPFunded Projects. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 15. Available from: https:// www.usip.org/sites/default/files/pwks15.pdf [Accessed 14 December 2017]. Suchman, M.C., 1995. Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and Institutional Approaches. The Academy of Management Review, 20, 571–610.

Twisted legitimacy? 199 Thomson, P., Madit, P., Amosa, S.D., Deng, M., Mabor, W., Twok, J.  & Umbayo, J.J., 2013. Leadership: The Perspectives of University Students in South Sudan. Juba, South Sudan: T.C.U.O.S. Sudan. Weber, M. & Heydebrand, W.V., 1994. Sociological Writings. New York: Continuum. Wilson, J.H., 2009. The 57 Reasons Why Local Peace Processes are Unsustainable. Unpublished raw data. Wilson, J.H., 2014. Local Peace Processes in Sudan and South Sudan. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 97.

11 Hybrid sources of legitimacy

Mary Hope SchwoebelHybrid sources of legitimacy

Peacebuilding and statebuilding in Somaliland Mary Hope Schwoebel

Introduction Chapters in this work by Christopher Mitchell and Jacqueline Wilson discuss the various ways in which the concept of legitimacy has been applied to diverse political entities, ranging from the state itself and incumbent governments to nonstate armed groups challenging the existence of the state or the legitimacy of the incumbent government. They also include local communities striving to survive and even build local peace, governance, and justice in an environment of civil strife and widespread violence. The legitimacy of – often rival – actors is particularly contested when no recognizable state exists and a struggle develops between entities claiming the legitimate right both to construct a state for and maintain the peace within a stateless society. The key questions in such circumstances are: Who has a legitimate right to establish a state? And on what is that right based? This chapter describes the peacebuilding and state-building processes in Somaliland since its formation in 1991 to 2015. It focuses on how Somaliland’s founders married indigenous, Islamic, and Western peacebuilding and state-building processes and structures. They aimed to balance and blend differing conceptions of legitimacy among different segments of its population – a Westernized, urbanized center and a traditional, rural periphery. It then discusses the ongoing challenges facing Somaliland’s government to maintain its legitimacy internally, while keeping one eye focused externally. As internal actors in Somaliland’s center have moved the government closer to a Western-style, democratic system, its internal and external legitimacy have been undermined by secessionist and/or irredentist movements. These movements, which exist on Somaliland’s peripheries, are based on different conceptions of and bases for territorial and internal legitimacy. Furthermore, since these movements support membership in the federal Somali state, they have an equal chance of gaining some degree of external legitimacy. Although Somaliland has not received full international recognition, its government has enjoyed a degree of internal legitimacy and some external legitimacy, which has not been enjoyed either by the series of “transitional” governments leading up to the Somali Federal Government (SFG), or the current SFG itself. This chapter, therefore, examines the implications of the current lack, and possible

Hybrid sources of legitimacy 201 future, international recognition of Somaliland. It explores the question of whether international recognition, rather than being the expected panacea for Somaliland’s remaining woes, might turn out to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back of Somaliland’s internal legitimacy.

The issue of hybrid legitimacy Somaliland has been hailed by peacebuilding and state-building scholars, and by practitioners, as an example of a success story of a “hybrid political order” (Clements et al., 2007; Boege et al., 2009): In “hybrid political orders” diverse and competing authority structures, sets of rules, logics of behaviour and claims to power co-exist, overlap, interact and intertwine. They combine elements of introduced western models of governance and elements stemming from local indigenous traditions of governance and politics, with further influences exerted by the forces of globalisation and related societal re-making or fragmentation (for example ethnic, tribal, religious). (Wiuff Moe, 2011, 144) Wiuff Moe identifies two general approaches to thinking about “hybridity” within the general field of critical peacebuilding. The first focuses on internal hybridity and is concerned with the ways that various state and non-state actors and systems intersect and interact in peacebuilding and state-building contexts, as exemplified by the work of Boege, Clements, and others (Clements et al., 2007; Boege et al., 2009). The second focuses on the ways that various local and international actors, agendas, and interventions interact in these contexts, as exemplified by the work of Mac Ginty, Richmond, and others (Mac Ginty, 2010; Richmond and Mitchell, 2012; Kaldor et al., 2016). It is important to emphasize that this chapter is concerned with the former. Boege et al. (2009, 10) build on Max Weber’s three types of legitimate authority (based on rational, traditional, and charismatic) to define the concept of “hybrid legitimacy: traditional legitimacy and/or charismatic legitimacy plus legal-rational legitimacy.” However, in Somaliland and other Somali societies, hybrid legitimacy also includes religious authority, whether old style Shafi’i or new style Salafi, while charismatic authority tends to be an extension of, or an overlap between, traditional, religious, and/or rational authorities.

Conceptions of legitimacy in Somaliland For most of their history, the Somali people of the Horn of Africa have organized their society according to what anthropologists refer to as a segmentary lineage system. Segmentary lineage systems are constituted by a number of structurally similar kinship groups that combine or divide at different levels according to political, economic, or security circumstances. In the pastoralist society of Somaliland,

202  Mary Hope Schwoebel these are clan families, clans, sub-clans, and so on down to guri or reer, which traditionally were the small herding units composed of several extended families, whose heads are generally closely related agnatic kin, and several hundred animals (Lewis, 1994, 23–24). While it is acknowledged that there is no such thing as a pristine, unchanging, “ur-authentic” Somali culture, Somali society manifests some salient and resilient structures and processes – albeit modified and adapted by changing circumstances – that continue to distinguish Somali political, economic, and juridical relations. These include a system of making and enforcing political, economic, and social agreements through the practice of xeer (custom or contract) and a collective juridical system involving the practice of diya (bloodwealth). Everyday decision making in Somali society takes place within the reer. At critical times, all adult males from the diya-paying group, which is comprised of several reer, may come together for decision making in a shir (an assembly of all adult males). A shir sometimes also includes clan religious leaders, who are sometimes members of specialized religious clans outside the diya-paying system. Their roles and responsibilities are generally those of conciliators rather than of arbitrators of conflicts within and between lineages, but their presence and functions are crucial to bolster the legitimacy of the proceedings and, by extension, the decisions of the clan leaders. Traditionally, a leader’s authority in Somali society is based on the individual’s performance rather than inheritance: Personal bravery, skill in oratory and political mediation, or economic largesse, could propel an individual to a temporary position of prominence within the clan or lineage; but this conferred no permanent authority on the man or his lineal successors . . . And while certain titles connoting military or ritual preeminence were often passed down through particular lineages, the individuals holding them gave the positions whatever real authority they had. (Cassanelli, 1982, 86) The position and exercise of religious leadership is somewhat different, as religious authority can be transferred from one individual to another. However, spiritual authority does not generally translate into secular authority. Until its contestation by proponents of political Islam in the past three decades, this has continued to be the case. The British system of indirect rule in Somaliland during the colonial period resulted in the undermining of the legitimacy of customary elders to some extent, as the British manipulated the practices of xeer and diya and coopted individual elders for their own purposes. The positions and powers of traditional elders were further undermined by post-independence central governments, which both usurped many of their functions but also coopted them to further the regimes’ own agendas. Nevertheless, the constitutions of both the post-independence Somali Republic and the Somali Democratic Republic specified the roles of the formal judicial

Hybrid sources of legitimacy  203 system, shari’a, and customary conflict resolution systems in adjudicating different arenas of conflict. Meanwhile, traditional political and juridical systems continued to evolve to address the changes brought about by urbanization, diasporas, the proliferation of weapons, the privatization of water and pasture, environmental degradation, and other challenges. One legacy of post-independence Somali governments is that, in both Somaliland and Somalia, the Somali word for politician (which is another Arabic-derived word, siyaasi, plural siyaasasin) has generally come to have negative connotations. This is because – as elsewhere – politicians are viewed as corrupt and greedy power-mongers, more concerned with jockeying for power and position in the center and the acquisition of personal wealth, than representing and advocating for their geographically based constituents as an elected official or for their clan members as a traditional leader. Thus, power and position in the rational political system often presume illegitimacy, and it is the rare individual indeed who manages to maintain their legitimacy in multiple systems. As a result of the vacuum created by the collapse of the central government in 1991, the clan system experienced a resurgence and traditional leaders enjoyed a restoration of their positions and powers in both Somaliland and parts of Somalia. Between 1988 and 1991, clan elders in Somaliland reestablished their roles as conflict resolvers between and within clans and/or sub-clans. However, today’s clan leaders are expected to have expanded skills compared to their traditional counterparts. They are expected to fulfill their traditional roles as advocates for their clans and sub-clans and to be skilled in managing relations between and among clans. But now they are also expected to be able to manage relations at the national and often international levels, including those with government officials, foreign donors, international NGOs, and representatives of extractive industries. Playing these multiple roles often presents leaders with a delicate balancing act, as legitimacy in one arena sometimes undermines legitimacy in their “traditional” clan territories. The Somali word for “legitimacy” is the Arabic-derived term sharcinimada (from sharci ah meaning legitimate). No one interviewed for this chapter was able to provide a (pre-Islamic/non-Arabic-derived) Somali word for legitimacy. It may be assumed that conceptions of legitimacy in Somaliland have been shaped by Islamic conceptions. Islamic thinking about legitimacy has itself undergone change over the course of that religion’s long history, and it can be extrapolated that changes in Islamic thought elsewhere would have an impact on thinking in Somaliland given the ongoing exchanges of people, goods, and ideas between Somaliland and the societies of the Gulf.1 Initially, Islam arrived in the Horn of Africa shortly after the Hijra and can be considered one of the foundational processes of the region’s history. Lewis (1998, 2) writes, “the coastal commercial colonies of the Himyarite Kingdom before Islam, eventually developed into the small Muslim states of Zeila in Somaliland, and of Mogadishu in Somalia. These were ruled by local dynasties of Somalized Arabs and Arabized Somalis.” While little is known about Islam’s diffusion among the Somali population of the Horn, it is presumed to have penetrated the

204  Mary Hope Schwoebel pastoralist interior from these coastal cities, disseminated by itinerate holy men who were subsequently sanctified and enshrined, and consolidated by Sufi orders, primarily the Ahmadiya and the Qaadiriya. Somalilanders have typically maintained a separation between secular leaders, waranleh or warriors, and religious leaders, wadaad or men of religion, who are considered to have different sources of power and to fulfill different functions in society. However, like all Muslim societies, Somali society in general, both traditionally and in the present, there exists an ongoing tension over the roles of religion and religious leaders in political affairs; and there have been times in its history when men of religion have acquired secular political power. This has been especially true during times of cataclysmic crisis. Since its establishment in 1992, Somaliland’s government has been particularly effective in preventing these movements from gaining traction in its territory. Although Ahmed Abdi Godane, the long-standing leader of Al Shabaab (killed by an American drone strike in 2014) was from Somaliland, outside his own clan, he had few followers inside the country. At a minimum, in order to be viewed as legitimate, leaders of Somali populations cannot contravene shari’a or Islamic law as outlined in the Quran and the Hadith. For this reason, every constitution in the lands governed by Somalis includes the affirmation that nothing in the constitution can contradict shari’a. Thus, depending on their perspective, their position and their education, Somalilanders apply the term legitimacy or sharcinimada through traditional, Islamic, and/or state-based lenses, or through a syncretic, millennial Somalilander lens.

Peacebuilding and state-building in Somaliland Almost immediately upon the formation of the Somali Republic through the amalgamation of the British Protectorate of Somaliland and Italian Somaliland following independence, Somalilanders, and in particular the Isaaq clan, who did not have kinship ties in other regions of Somalia to draw upon, felt marginalized by the central government in Mogadishu. This sense of marginalization intensified following the 1969 seizure of power by General Mohammed Siad Barre and his establishment of an allegedly “scientific socialist” regime throughout the renamed Somali Democratic Republic (SDR). After the unsuccessful Somali-Ogaden war of 1977–1978, Ogadeni refugees flooded into Somaliland, where they initially received significant amounts of assistance from the central government and where they were later favored for government employment, contracts, scholarships, licenses, and the like. By the early 1990s, Siyad Barre was singling out the Isaaq clan family for political and economic harassment. At the same time, he favored the Darod clans, especially the Ogaden clan of his mother and the Dolbahante clan of his wife. In response, an opposition group, the Somali National Movement (SNM) was organized and established bases in Ethiopia. The SNM waged a guerrilla war against Barre’s forces in Somaliland (at the time a region of Somalia), which resulted in further retaliation against the Isaaq. Meanwhile the Barre regime

Hybrid sources of legitimacy  205 strove to sow the seeds of conflict between the Isaaq and the other clan families of northwestern Somalia, including the Gudabirsi and Cisa clans of the Dir clan family and the Dolbahante and Warsangeli clans of the Darod clan family. (keep this endnote).2 The conflict with Barre’s regime became an all out war in April  1988, with the signing of a peace accord between Somalia and Ethiopia, agreeing to normalize their relations and to cease supporting each other’s opposition groups. In desperation, the SNM attacked government military installations in Hargeisa and Burco. Barre’s forces responded with a massive air and ground assault, bombarding northern cities and laying land mines. An estimated 50,000 people were killed, and at least half a million fled to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Djibouti (Schwoebel, 2007, 153–154). When the Hawiye clan-based insurgent group, the United Somali Congress (USC) marched on Mogadishu in January 1991, Barre’s regime collapsed. The Republic of Somaliland, (encompassing the territory that constituted the former British Somaliland Protectorate) took the opportunity to declare its independence from the rest of Somalia in May 1991 and quickly set about the business of internal peacebuilding and state-building. However, a decade of marginalization and conflict had left the country and the people devastated by war and its infrastructure and its institutions largely destroyed. Peace processes and state formation, 1991–1993 In February 1991, a conference of the Guurti, a council of elders, or traditional leaders, from all clans in Somaliland, took place in Berbera. The meeting established a general cease-fire and fixed the date for another conference to be held in Burco in April and May. The accomplishments of the Burco Conference included

Figure 11.1  Main clan families of Somaliland and Puntland

206  Mary Hope Schwoebel

Figure 11.2  Main Isaaq clans and sub-clans

the Declaration of Reassertion of Sovereignty, which was, in effect, its declaration of the independence of the Somaliland Republic from the former Somali Democratic Republic; the establishment of a transitional two-year rule by the SNM (which included a role for non-Isaaq clans during this period); and the initiation of a peace process with the predominantly Darod-inhabited eastern regions. Abdulrahman Ahmed Ali “Tuur”, a former diplomat, the incumbent Chairman of the civilian wing of the SNM, and a Haber Yoonis (a sub-clan of the Garxajis clan of the Isaaq clan family), became Interim President of the transitional administration. From February until September 1991, Somaliland enjoyed a period of peace. The Burco meetings provided the framework for the next phases of Somaliland’s peacebuilding and state-building efforts. Yet even at its birth, there were already internal questions about the existential legitimacy of the state of Somaliland, and questions soon followed about who had actually supported secession. Although most Isaaq were in favor of succession, some of the SNM leadership were themselves ambivalent and many non-Isaaq had reservations. Many Gudabirsi had supported secession because they had felt neglected and marginalized by successive post-independence governments. Most Darod were shaken by the violence being perpetrated against the Darod and other non-Hawiye clans by the Hawiye-led USC in Mogadishu, Kismayo, and elsewhere in the south. Some Darod subsequently claimed that they had been caught between a rock and hard place – between the superior military strength of the Isaaq and the “clan cleansing” in the south – as did some Gudabirsi, who feared that they would end up in a position of profound inferiority in any confrontation with the Isaaq. About this complex situation, Hoehne writes: Among members of the region’s older generation, the chaos of the Burco conference was an open secret silenced in public for political reasons; but

Hybrid sources of legitimacy 207 among many of Somaliland’s younger, mostly Isaaq, inhabitants, secession is viewed as a fait accompli. This is why many younger Somaliland nationalists today consider the conflict in the Harti territories between Somaliland and Puntland the result of treason on the part of Dhulbahante and Warsangeli. They argue these two groups agreed to join Somaliland and dropped out only later when they seemed on the verge of getting a better deal from Puntland or southern Somalia. (Hoehne, 2015, 43) Moreover, while the Burco Conference contributed to peace between the Isaaq and their neighboring clans, especially the Gudabirsi, it did not address tensions between Isaaq clans and tensions within the SNM. Tuur’s administration soon found itself at war with a coalition of clan-based militias, which were linked to the military wing of the SNM, who accused the government of being dominated by civilians and Tuur’s Haber Yoonis clan at the expense of the military and other clans. The association of the first SNM interim administration with the Haber Yoonis led their longstanding rival, the Haber Jeclo, to become the first major Isaaq clan to oppose the interim administration (Schwoebel, 2001, 3). Competition for political and economic dominance (particularly of the livestock trade) resulted in the outbreak of violent conflict in January 1991 between the Haber Yoonis and Haber Jeclo clans in Burco, a town that is co-inhabited by the two clans. The confrontation was short-lived, and was resolved by the Gudabirsi and other non-Isaaq clan elders serving as mediators (a role they also played in subsequent conflicts between Isaaq clans). However, the fighting highlighted the inability of the Guurti to resolve internal tensions within the SNM, and the episode contributed subsequently to a more serious conflict Violence occurred a second time in Berbera between the Haber Yoonis and the Cisa Musa. In March 1992, the administration attempted to establish government control of revenue-generating public facilities, including the lucrative port of Berbera. The town of Berbera is inhabited by several Isaaq clans, including the Cisa Musa and the Haber Yoonis. The Cisa Musa, whose militias controlled the port, perceived this move as an attempt by the Haber Yoonis to usurp their control of this revenue-generating resource. There followed six months of violent conflict between the two clans, during which neither SNM political leaders nor the Guurti were able to resolve the conflict. The Guurti intervened in October 1992, with Gudabirsi elders once again serving as mediators. A conference was held in Sheikh, during which a ceasefire was agreed upon and an agenda was set for a subsequent conference of the Guurti in Borama to restore general peace and to deliberate the future of Somaliland. This conference, usually referred to as the Grand Borama Conference, took place between January and May of 1993. Its participants included the 150-member Guurti, plus hundreds of delegates, with each clan and sub-clan being told to select five delegates. Observers attended from across Somaliland. Several important agreements were reached at the Grand Borama Conference. The first was the transition from the SNM interim government to a system based

208  Mary Hope Schwoebel on clan representation (beeled). Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Cigaal, a civilian and Cisa Musa from Berbera, was selected to be president and Abdirahman Aw Ali, a Gudabirsi, was selected to be vice president. A Peace Charter and a National Charter were adopted, which were to serve as the framework for the next two years during the processes of peacebuilding and state-building (Schwoebel, 2001, 4). About the Conference, Wiuff Moe writes: Institutionalizing a source of locally respected representational authority, the Guurti, was a way to redefine and legitimize the pillars of a new political order. It also broke with the form of centralized illegitimate power, which had constituted the state under the rule of Siad Barre. Moreover, whereas Barre had prohibited “tribalism,” the Somaliland system of governance, known as the beel-system (clan-based system), which was agreed upon at the Boroma conference, was based on the recognition of kinship as the basic mechanism for organizing social relations. Under the beel system both the Guurti and the House of Representatives were based on the principle that distribution of political seats should balance the centre with the periphery – i.e. secure national representation of all the northern clans. (Wiuff Moe, 2011, 152) The National Charter served as an interim constitution from 1993 to 1997, while the Peace Charter outlined procedures for the peacebuilding mandate of the Guurti, who were to review and revise the ongoing peace processes throughout the country. The administrative structure agreed to at the conference was to be made up of three branches: a two-chamber legislature, an executive council, and an independent judiciary. One chamber of the legislature was to be comprised of an elected parliament, while the other was to be comprised of the Council of Elders, the Guurti. State-building: developing a constitution, 1994–2002 The government of Cigaal was more successful than that of Tuur in establishing its authority over revenue-generating public facilities, such as the port of Berbera and the customs office in Gabiley, used to collect revenue from the lucrative khat trade from Ethiopia. This created a source of income for the administration to carry out its basic functions and to send peacebuilding delegations all over Somaliland. The introduction of the Somaliland shilling and the opening of the central bank bolstered the financial base of the administration. A judicial system made up of regional and district courts and a police force were established and began operations, at least in the central and western towns over which the government had control. Yet peace was disrupted again in November 1994, when violent conflict took place between government forces (a coalition of non-Garxajis clans) and Garxajis militias over the control of Hargeisa airport. In March 1995 the conflict expanded to engulf Burco, and it continued until 1996, resulting in considerable destruction

Hybrid sources of legitimacy 209 in both cities. In the midst of the conflict in 1995, Mohammed Cigaal’s first tenure in office expired. The Guurti extended his term by 18 months to avoid the total disintegration of Somaliland. However, the opposition viewed this decision as unconstitutional and a violation of the National Charter. The conflict had de-escalated by the time the next Guurti conference was held in Hargeisa between October 1996 and February 1997. At this conference, Cigaal was chosen for another five-year term as president, and a new vice president, Dahir Riyalle Kahiin, a Gudabirsi, was chosen. An agreement was also reached on a new three-year provisional constitutional document, which served as the first draft of the constitution. Regardless of its shortcomings, the Hargeisa Conference enabled Somaliland to get on with the business of political and economic development. In 2001, the Constitution of Somaliland was adopted by referendum. Mohammed Cigaal passed away in 2002 and his vice president, Daahir Rayaale Kaahin, took over as interim president. The same year, after several extensions of the interim government in order to make changes to the provisional constitution,3 Somaliland made the transition to multi-party democracy with district council elections contested by six parties. In April  2003, almost half a million voters participated in the presidential elections and the formal transition to Kahiin’s presidency proceeded peacefully, although he won by only 80 votes (Schwoebel, 2007, 167). State consolidation and electoral processes, 2003–2012 In the decade from 2002 to 2012, Somaliland successfully and peacefully held five elections. Following the ratification of the constitution, Somaliland held local council elections in 2002. Six associations (UDUB, Kulmiye, Saha, UCID, Hormood, and Asad) contested the elections. However, the constitution stipulated that only three parties could exist at one time; thus, the three associations that won the largest number of local council seats became Somaliland’s first political parties. These three parties maintained official political legitimacy for the next ten years. The rationale of restricting political legitimacy to just three parties aimed to preempt the proliferation of clan-based entities, which was perceived to increase the threat of the fragmentation of Somaliland and undermine the establishment of sustainable state institutions. However, it soon became clear that the political parties were not based on well-developed and articulated ideologies or platforms. Rather, they were driven by strong individual leaders who discouraged dissent and/or by the clan-based politics that they had been instituted to counter. While the Guurti was consolidating its power and evolving into a quasi-hereditary upper house, blurring the lines between traditional elders and politicians, the lower house or House of Representatives assumed complementary functions. Initially, the clans had selected their representative to the lower house, and they assumed different functions from the Guurti. However, they did not have the clout of the Guurti, in part because they did not enjoy the self-perpetuating status of the members of the Guurti. In 2005, Somaliland held its first parliamentary vote with

210  Mary Hope Schwoebel the aim of replacing clan selected members with elected members of the House of Representatives. The view was that these members would be considered to have genuine legitimacy by Somalilanders and external actors alike. The first presidential, local council, and parliamentary elections occurred peacefully. The second round of elections was somewhat more challenging. Both the district council and the presidential elections were delayed several times due to technical, legal, and political constraints. In addition, the Guurti and the President colluded to extend each other’s terms. But due to pressure from international donors and various internal actors, the second presidential election finally took place in June 2010. The incumbent lost to the former SNM Chairman and head of the Kulmiye party, Ahmed Mohamed Mahamoud “Silanyo”. In November  2012, the local council elections took place. As with the prior local council elections, seven associations and political parties fielded candidates with the aim of determining which three parties would be the only legitimate political parties. (The seven included five new associations and two of the previously successful parties, Kulmiye and UCID. UDUB, the party of Cigaal and Kahiin, had ceased to exist by 2011.) As in the parliamentary election, this election used an open list system, which meant that local communities, rather than the associations and parties, had control over the candidates’ selection. These factors, along with political, technical and legal issues, as well as the pervasiveness of clan-based politics, resulted in an election whose legitimacy was contested in ways the previous elections had not been. The contests over legitimacy revealed unresolved issues and unaddressed weaknesses of the state-building process in Somaliland. Of Somaliland’s 23 districts, voting took place throughout 17, partially in two, and not at all in four.4 The winning parties were Kulmiye, Waddani, and UCID. On the underlying basis of these local elections, Hersi writes: In the absence of strong party principles or doctrines, clan identity emerged as the primary political ideology . . . Theoretically the parties and associations had fielded the candidates and cobbled together political platforms pertinent to issues of concern in local governance. In practical terms however, the clan replaced the political party/association as the primary object of allegiance and exerted a great deal of pressure on the electoral process. (Hersi, 2015, 54) Presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place in March 2017.

Challenges to Somaliland’s internal legitimacy While peacebuilding and state-building accomplishments have lent Somaliland legitimacy in both the eyes of the international community and internally in the west and central regions of its territory, the Darod clans of the eastern regions – Sool, eastern Sanaag, and southern Togdheer – have been skeptical about an independent Somaliland. This skepticism grew during the 1990s and

Hybrid sources of legitimacy 211 spawned a series of secessionist and irredentist movements in Somaliland’s eastern provinces. These movements have also contested Somaliland’s claim to its territorial legitimacy within the colonial boundaries of the former British Somaliland.5 As in other pre-colonial Somali pastoral regions, territorial boundaries between clans traditionally were not clearly delineated in the regions of present day Somaliland and Puntland. The pastoralist population viewed land and its resources as something given to human beings by God. Access to pasture and water were what mattered and that access was a source of conflicts. However, intermarriage, conflict and migration meant that control of pasture and water were always changing hands. Indeed, a common pastoralist expression translates as, “My name is my address”, which refers to the importance of genealogy rather than geographical location in situating the individual in the society. Post-colonial regimes however used regional and district boundaries for the purpose of increasing the power and resources of particular clans and thus began a process of linking of land and identity in pastoral regions, and as Hoehne points out: Land and genealogical belonging became more closely linked during the civil war and the collapse of the Somali state. There is still much flexibility, though, particularly in rural areas. The more the conflict increased between Somaliland and Puntland – and after 2009, between local clan militias and the armies of these centres – the more people tried to draw firm territorial borders, something which has also hardened their political identities on the ground. (Hoehne, 2015, 58) When Somaliland declared its independence in 1991, it claimed the British colonial borders as the borders of the new state – Somaliland is thus defined territorially. As a state for the Harti clans, Puntland is defined genealogically. However, since pastoralist groups are always moving, its boundaries are also always shifting. In addition, Somaliland’s citizenship law defines “a citizen” as anyone whose paternal ancestors lived in Somaliland before the date of its independence from Britain in 1960. As members of the Harti, the Dulbahante and Warsengeli recognize citizenship according to the genealogical logic of Puntland (Hoehne, 2015, 59). As Somaliland’s peacebuilding and state-building processes progressed, the Dulbahante, Warsangeli, Gudabuursi, and Ciise became increasingly aware that they were minorities there, which in the case of the Darod, was in sharp contrast to their experience under Siad Barre’s regime. The adoption of the multi-party system meant that the Isaaq would henceforth dominate the government since they would garner the most votes in any election. This is certainly one of the reasons the Harti clans attempted to keep a foot in both Somaliland and Puntland after the latter’s break away in 1998. Another reason was their assertion that Puntland had been established to preserve the unity of the Somali state. Some observers in

Figure 11.3  Somaliland and Puntland6

Hybrid sources of legitimacy  213 Somaliland would complain that this was simply a case of the Harti clans maximizing their opportunities and hedging their bets.7 A major conflict between Somaliland and Puntland arose in the territories of the Dulbahante and Warsangeli in the eastern region of Somaliland. Because of their differing bases for territorial legitimacy, both states claimed the region. In the views of the local clans, because the region was occupied by Harti clans, it belonged to Puntland. These opposing views about the links between citizenship and territory became the beginning of the conflict between Somaliland and Puntland. In a research study for the Rift Valley Institute, Hoehne (2015), provides a detailed ethnographic account of this conflict as it played out from the establishment of Puntland in 1998 through 2012. His recounting of the conflict is summarized here because it illustrates the kind of conflict that can arise from a situation in which two states, formed on different understandings of the bases of legitimacy, can collide over which has the right to control territory – and on what that right is based. Throughout the 1990s, the eastern regions of Somaliland had been more or less neglected by everyone. Hence, the position and power of local elders experienced a resurgence in the absence of a government in Mogadishu and of a Somaliland government focused on its western and central regions. Clan elders acted to resolve local conflicts, including those between contingent Isaaq and Darod clans, and played roles in building peace in both Somaliland and later in Puntland. Both clans had factions that supported one territory or the other. During his presidency, Mohammed Cigaal chose not to attempt to exert power over these eastern regions, but rather simply paid influential clan elders in order to maintain their loyalty. Meanwhile, as far as independence for Somaliland was concerned, most Dulbahante and Warsengeli remained anti-secessionist. The Puntland government, upon its establishment in 1998, included in its charter its continuing commitment to the unity of Somalia. The charter also claimed Sool, eastern Sanaag, and southern Togdheer (Buuhoodle district) as part of Puntland’s territory – a direct challenge to Somaliland. In 1999, both Somaliland and Puntland had established local administrations in all the main towns of the eastern regions, with Dulbahante and Warsengeli holding local positions as well as occupying high ranking political appointments in both centers. Until the transition to multiparty democracy in Somaliland, both Puntland and Somaliland offered clans proportional representation, which meant that each clan and sub-clan were guaranteed a number of parliamentary seats and ministerial posts in proportion to their percentage of the population. Some clans and sub-clans, hedging their bets, sent representatives to both governments. In other cases, loyalty to Somaliland or to Puntland may have been based on lineage rivalries. And in still others, individuals may simply have seized on opportunities for position, wherever they presented themselves. In the meantime, those holding high-ranking political appointments in the centers tended to lose their legitimacy among their communities and constituencies in the periphery. The first military clashes between Somaliland and Puntland forces took place in 2002 in the town of Las Canood. Violence escalated again in the same town

214  Mary Hope Schwoebel in 2003 with both governments sending troops. In 2004, the forces engaged in battle using heavy weaponry, and Puntland’s troops remained in the town until 2007. However, the first idea of establishing a separate state in the eastern regions emerged in 2007. There was a sense of grievance that neither Somaliland nor Puntland had contributed to the development of these regions. Still another major confrontation occurred between the two states in Las Canood later in 2007. Dulbahante fought each other on behalf of both states, while thousands of others fled. This time Somaliland’s troops stayed in the town. In 2007, Dulbahante traditional clan elders released a public statement in which four of its six points mainly pertained to military issues. However, the other two were directly relevant to the question of legitimacy: 1 We inform the international community and the Somali people that we are not part of, nor do we recognize, the administration that calls itself “Somaliland” and that there are no agreements between us (the Dulbahante clan) and “Somaliland”, in the past or the present. We believe that the unity of Somalia is sacrosanct. 2 We only recognize clan borders that have always existed and the regional jurisdictions of the last Somali Government (Hoehne, 2015, 71). Throughout 2009, Dulbahante clan members, including members of the diaspora (who also provided financial support) met to discuss the establishment of a Dulbahante autonomous region, comprised of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (later to be referred to as SSC), that was to be under the jurisdiction of a federal government of Somalia based in Mogadishu. At a conference in October 2009 in Nairobi, a president and vice president were elected and a charter adopted which: set out the president’s main tasks: focusing on ending what it called the “occupation” of the SSC region of Somalia by Somaliland’s forces; representing these regions abroad; and promoting the interests of their inhabitants in relation to the international community and NGOs. The presidential term was set for two and a half years until mid-April 2012. (Hoehne, 2015, 81) The regional government was composed of an executive, a parliament, and traditional leaders. The SSC Charter stipulated that members of parliament were to be chosen by traditional leaders from their clans. It gave parliament the authority to replace the SSC president if he did not fulfill his responsibilities, and it gave the highest-ranking traditional clan leaders the responsibility to mediate between the executive and the parliament in the event of conflicts between them. It also gave them the responsibility to resolve conflicts and maintain peace in the SSC in general. The highest ranking traditional leaders all had backgrounds in the diaspora; they did not conform to the older stereotype of nomadic Somali leaders whose knowledge was confined to matters of kinship, animals and survival

Hybrid sources of legitimacy  215 in the semi-desert. The “new garaado”, as one can call them, commanded transnational relations and were well-versed in “Western” culture, but had also had an Islamic education and knew how to manoeuvre in national and perhaps international politics. Still, they needed “local credentials” which meant understanding the problems of nomads and others and finding pragmatic solutions for their survival in a harsh environment. (Hoehne, 2015, 82) Conflict broke out between SSC militias and Somaliland troops in May  2010, during the campaign season for presidential elections in Somaliland. In November 2010, the newly elected President Silanyo sent mediators to the region to try to resolve the conflict. But only ten days later, a local-level conflict broke out between Isaaq and Dulbahante pastoralists over water and pasture resources. The Somaliland government attempted to mediate the conflict but failed in its efforts, and, as it was perceived that the Somaliland government had sided with the Isaaq disputants, the conflict rapidly escalated, becoming clan-wide and expanding to involve Somaliland’s and Puntland’s governments. In January and February 2011, SSC troops engaged Somaliland troops in battle, resulting in the deaths and injuries of dozens of people. Subsequently, throughout 2011, security in Las Canood continued to deteriorate, contributing to growing hostility between Somaliland and the Dulbuhante. By mid-2011, internal conflicts had caused the SCC to collapse. The Somaliland government hoped to hold local council elections in these regions during November 2012. However, it was unable to do so. The SSC was only the first of a series of initiatives to form autonomous, clanbased regions in the eastern part of Somaliland. It was followed by another Dolbahante region, called Khatumo State, of Somalia and a Warsengeli region called Maakhir State of Somalia. Both wanted secession from a secessionist state in order to become federal states within a disaggregated federal state of Somalia. This represents an irony that must be difficult for Somalilanders to swallow. And they respond with accusations of treason, the maligning of clan character, and assertions of malfeasance on the part of Puntland (Hoehne, 2015, 100). Both Somaliland and the secessionist movements on its periphery, as well as the existence of Puntland, illustrate the challenge of conceptualizing legitimacy even in an apparently homogenous society and culture, such as the pastoralist Somali one. Wiuff Moe critiques: the expediency of ideal-types of “traditional” and “rational legal/liberal” legitimate authority, as well as the notion of these types as inherently distinct and “different”. Instead, the Somaliland case of hybridity re-casts these types as sources that contribute to wider processes of legitimisation and delegitimisation of political order. The case indicates that it is not the quality of any one source of legitimacy that in and of itself provides a sustainable basis for political institutions and order, but rather a web of connected sources of legitimacy. (Wiuff Moe, 2011, 167)

216  Mary Hope Schwoebel Yet, as a long-time observer of Somali politics, society, and culture, what I find surprising is not that the dynamics of clan fragmentation become obviously and destructively manifest, but that Somaliland has been as successful at multi-party politics as it has, even if primarily in its western and central regions. There can be no denying that a visit to Hargeisa and other towns in western and central Somaliland today highlights the fact that the population enjoys a considerable degree of peace, security and development not yet experienced in the cities and towns of Somalia. The irony, and tragedy, is that Somaliland’s failure to achieve peace, security, and development in its eastern regions appears to be driven by the same clan-based political and economic marginalization that led Somalilanders to take up arms against the pre-war government of Somalia.

The conundrum of external legitimacy Lack of international recognition has remained a thorn in Somalilanders’ side since independence. From the perspective of the international community, it is not difficult to understand why such recognition would be withheld, given the Pandora’s box it would open up not only in the lands occupied by Somalis, but throughout Africa and beyond. The issue of international recognition seems to be constantly on the minds of Somaliland’s leaders, at least in the context of their interactions with expatriates. Nevertheless, the international community has found ways to provide development assistance to Somaliland even without its having been granted full and formal international recognition, so while this may be a problem, it is not a disaster. In contrast, the clan-based movements on Somaliland’s peripheries, that are simultaneously hoping to unify with Somalia and secede from Somaliland, present an existential threat to the latter, as long as its territorial legitimacy rests on demarcated colonial borders. These movements represent contradictions to the narrative perpetuated by Somaliland elites both to populations inside Somaliland and to the international community. They call into question Somalilanders’ selfimage, and the narrative they offer their citizens and present to external actors: that Somaliland is a successful, democratic, state that deserves international recognition; this is in sharp contrast to Somalia, a failed state that enjoys international recognition. The goal of the 1997 Constitution, to transition from the beel system to multiparty democracy, caused vigorous debate in Somaliland. According to Renders, the beel system had proven itself: both legitimate and viable in the early stages of post-conflict transformation. However, the proponents of discarding the beel system argued that the disadvantages were that the system had an inherent risk of encouraging the pursuit of narrow interests along clan lines and thus was less suitable as a framework for developing more ambitious political programs. Moreover, the necessity of transition also became linked to the pursuit of international legitimacy in the form of recognition, as Somaliland was perceived as having a better chance

Hybrid sources of legitimacy 217 of becoming formally recognized if it adopted a political system based on multi-party politics. (Renders, 2006, 106) As Avruch (1998, 12–14) has written, culture is neither unchanging, homogenous, a thing spread evenly across individuals and groups, and held exclusively (as the only culture) by individuals and groups. While Somalilander’s leaders have appropriated some “imported” Western systems of governance and its accompanying practices and discourses, these are also part of their culture. This is so because of Somaliland’s history of British occupation, and because many of its leaders and citizens have lived in and/or been educated in Western countries, particularly England. Indeed, a seldom mentioned dimension of hybridity in Somaliland, but a visible cleavage, are the “imported” Wahabbist discourses and practices. Although many Somalilanders have lived and/been educated in “the West”, an equal, if not greater, number have lived and/or been educated in the Gulf, in Pakistan, and in other Muslim countries. Nevertheless, whether westernized or Wahabbicized, most Somalilanders, whether willingly or unwillingly, are unable to ignore the primacy of clan. And clan is inextricably linked with traditional systems. As Wiuff Moe has written: the customary system continues to fulfill important functions in terms of conflict resolution and security in people’s everyday life, both because it has proven highly adaptable and because kinship remains the basic social structure. Moreover, in many rural communities this system is the only system available. Also important to note, the customary system has not “taken over” functions from the state but is historically the main source of security and legitimate authority. (Wiuff Moe, 2011, 162) Some observers have noted that the lack of recognition is precisely what has contributed to Somaliland’s success. Osman writes, However, while it may seem otherwise, non-recognition may be sowing the seeds that may help Somaliland to prove all its critical bystanders wrong, and prepare for a brighter empirical future. Good governance derives from a strong social contract and good leadership, which then, can produce good policies. If Somaliland perfects these endogenously, recognition will only be a legal attribute rather than being an essential element of its foundational development. (Osman, 2012, 55) Indeed, should Somaliland gain recognition, a rapid influx of foreign assistance or of direct foreign investment could be destabilizing as both would escalate competition for political power. In addition, foreign aid inevitably creates winners

218  Mary Hope Schwoebel and losers, while it seldom succeeds in leveling the playing field. Just as foreign aid, particularly foreign military aid, but also humanitarian assistance, buttressed Darod political and economic fortunes under Siad Barre’s regime, under a multiparty democratic system within Somaliland it would further slant the playing field in favor of the Isaaq. Certainly, the fact that much of Somaliland’s budget has come from its own population, especially its businesspeople and its diaspora, ensures that it is accountable to them in ways that it does not have to be accountable to foreign donors. Somalilanders are astute judges of power dynamics. They well understand that foreign aid donors often need them as much as much as they need foreign aid – whether individual bureaucrats or foreign countries. Colonialism, the Cold War and now the War on Terror have taught them that. Nevertheless, the need for direct foreign investment, particularly in extractive industries, is an understandable motivation for putting in place a system that enhances external legitimacy. It will bolster the likelihood that extractive industries will be accountable to Somaliland’s state. Whether Somaliland’s state will be accountable to its citizens vis-à-vis the advantages and disadvantages that come with extractive industries is another matter altogether.

Conclusion: hybrid legitimacy In summary, the processes of peacebuilding and state-building in Somaliland have been explicitly based upon the formal hybridization of indigenous structures and processes and those of an international nation-state, and implicitly on those of Islam. Its success in peacebuilding and state-building has been built on combining the “legitimacy” of indigenous structures and processes and the legitimacy of international ones: the constitution, legislative, judicial and security institutions, and, especially, its electoral processes. Hybridity is characterized by complex dynamics and interchanges between the principles and practices of traditional values and systems, and the values and systems of state-based principles and practices. While allowing traditional and/or religious leaders to apply the traditional or religious juridical practices outside constitutional laws can undermine the authority of the state, in the Somali context, attempting to replace traditional and religious practices and enforcing state authority and constitutional laws is impractical due to the lack of enforcement capacity and would likely undermine state legitimacy. In the Somali context, centralized state power has a history of being predatory and is also associated with clan-based politics, in which the clan in power uses its position to consolidate its political and economic resources. Yet, in spite of its successes with multiparty democracy, Somaliland’s clanbased political parties have not managed to overcome the persistence of clan-based politics. More importantly, the conflicts in the eastern regions are symptomatic of the challenges of peacebuilding and state-building in the context of a society organized according to a segmentary lineage system. Specifically, they are symptomatic of what may be an insurmountable incompatibility between traditional

Hybrid sources of legitimacy 219 Somali/Islamic and Western political and juridical systems in Somali and other societies based on segmentary lineage systems. While hybridity has seemed to offer a solution for this conundrum, Wiuff Moe points out that: The integration of customary leadership and government authority was an inventive means of creating bonds between the emerging de facto state and a society in which several perceptions of what constitutes legitimate representation and governance co-exist. Yet . . . this integration or hybridity does not per definition maintain legitimacy or secure ongoing engagement and participation of local people, which was critical in the formative period of the Somaliland political order. (Wiuff Moe, 2011, 155) The 2012 local council elections in Somaliland served to highlight the persistence of clan-based politics. As Hersi (2015, 61) writes, “Clan-based party politics tend to produce highly personalized council leaderships and a fragmented form of municipal management, which are fundamentally in tension with democratic practice . . . Serious consideration of these issues is now required to address the adverse effects of creeping traditionalism and cynical politics on Somaliland’s democratic governance.” Indeed, rethinking needs to occur, but as I have written elsewhere, perhaps the rethinking needs to center on continuing to build on and expand (for example by including greater participation by and representation of women and minorities) the resilience of traditional clan-based consensus-based democracy and sources of legitimacy, rather than on the multiparty democracy that is driven by both internal constituencies and external actors (Schwoebel, 2007). The Western system of governance, which is less than a century old in Somaliland, still appears like a graft. Islam, on the other hand, has been around for around a millennium and is so interwoven with Somali society that it is almost impossible to distinguish what is Somali culture and what is Islamic culture. Pre-colonial Somali society had already evolved hybrid sources of legitimate authority that interwove traditional Somali and Islamic approaches into a functioning system. Somaliland has yet to successfully interweave indigenous and western sources of legitimacy into a functioning system. But this must be considered from a historical perspective. Islam has been in Somaliland close to a millennium, while Western governance has only been there for about a century. The organization of Somali society by lineages is much more than a means of surviving in a harsh environment, even much more than a source of identity, community, and belonging. It is a moral system that pre-dates Islam, but was easily syncretized with Islam, given that Islam emerged from a similarly organized society. A “legitimate” leader is a moral leader. He fulfills his responsibilities to his lineage and clan. He intercedes on their behalf in conflicts with other lineages and clans, he advocates on their behalf with powerful political, economic, or military actors (whether from Somali or foreign sources), he resolves conflicts within his lineage and clan justly and with an eye towards the collective good – and he is a

220  Mary Hope Schwoebel good Muslim. When this type of legitimacy and morality comes into contact with multiparty democracy, conflicts, collisions, and contradictions are inevitable. The result often ends up being viewed as illegitimate, both internally and externally. On the other hand, Somaliland has come closer than any entity within Somali governed lands yet, in creating, an albeit limited, zone of legitimacy.

Notes 1 The first two Caliphs, Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, “emphasized the aspect of legitimacy by resorting as much as possible to the nomadic-inspired tripartite principle of shūrā (inner consultation), ʿaqd (ruler-ruled contract), and bayʿah (oath of allegiance). This method was used in the appointment of their successor, ʿUthmān. Gradually, however, shūrā was overlooked, then ʿaqd and bayʿah were also dropped with the establishment by the Umayyads of a hereditary, semi-aristocratic monarchy. During the ʿAbbāsid era, the contradiction between the legitimacy of government and the unity of the ummah came to the fore . . . From then on, the emphasis in the juridical theory was on the authority of the caliph as a political symbol and the unity of the jamāʿah as a human base. Later on, when the authority of the leader and the unity of the community ceased to be intact and absolute, the emphasis . . . was to shift to sharīʿah as a basis for ideological unity, since political and human unity were no longer obtainable” (Ayubi et al., 2009, 2–3). 2 Clan charts adapted from Bradbury (2008). 3 The government had set an ambitious agenda aimed at a transition from the clan-based system to an electoral system, involving the following steps: 1 Parliament was to deliberate changes to the provisional constitution article by article, until the document was accepted by the two legislative houses. 2 The provisional constitution was to be explained to the public over the radio, article by article. At the same time, thousands of copies were to be distributed for discussion. 3 A referendum was to take place to approve or reject the provisional constitution. A vote in favor of the provisional constitution also meant a Somaliland-wide endorsement of the sovereignty of Somaliland. 4 Political parties would then be established, in line with the new Constitution. 5 The final step was to be a national election, in which the people were to choose which party to lead them and elect a new government. 4 Xudun and Buhoodle; and Taleex, Las-Qoray, Badhan, and Dhahar, respectively. The latter four are eastern districts. 5 On a visit to Somaliland in 2002, a ministry official pulled out an original British colonial map to show me the “legitimacy” of Somaliland’s territorial claims. 6 Map downloaded from the University of Texas libraries at www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ africa/txu-pclmaps-oclc-795784383-somalia_2012_somaliland_and_puntland.jpg 7 This is similar to the ways in which the Ogaden clan, which straddles Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, have opportunistically moved between the three countries, taking advantage of opportunities, avoiding crises, and even holding high-level political positions in different countries, as circumstances have changed in each country.

Works cited Avruch, K., 1998. Culture and Conflict Resolution. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Ayubi, N.N., Hashemi, N. & Qureshi, E., 2009. Islamic State. In Oxford Islamic Studies Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hybrid sources of legitimacy 221 Boege, V., Brown, M.A.  & Clements, K.P., 2009. Hybrid Political Orders, Not Fragile States. Peace Review, 21, 13–21. Bradbury, M., 2008. Becoming Somaliland. London; Oxford; Bloomington; Johannesburg; Kampala; Nairobi; Progressio; In association with James Currey; Indiana University Press; Jacana Media; Fountain Publishers; E.A.E.P. Cassanelli, L.V., 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600–1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Clements, K.P., Boege, V., Brown, A., Foley, W. & Nolan, A., 2007. State Building Reconsidered: the Role of Hybridity in the Formation of Political Orde. Political Science, 59, 45–56. Hersi, M.F., 2015. Confronting the Future of Somaliland’s Democracy: Lessons From a Decade of Multi-Partyism and the Way Forward. Hargeisa, Somaliland: Academy for Peace and Development. Hoehne, M.V., 2015. Between Somaliland and Puntland: Marginalization, Militarization and Conflicting Political Visions. Nairobi, Kenya: T.R.V. Institute. Kaldor, M., Solana, J., Rangelov, I., Andersson, R., Arnould, V., Boljicic-Dzelilovic, V., Darmois, E., De Waal, A., Giumelli, F., Haid, M., Ibreck, R., Kandic, N., Kellner, A.M., Mac Ginty, R., Martin, M., Mylovanov, T., Randazzo, E., Richmond, O.P., Schmeder, G., Selchow, S., Theros, M., Toaldo, M., Turkmani, R. & Vlassenroot, K., 2016. From Hybrid Peace to Human Security: Rethinking EU Strategy Towards Conflict: The Berlin Report of the Human Security Study Group. Brussells: Belgium. Lewis, I.M., 1994. Blood and Bone: The Call of Kinship in Somali Society. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Lewis, I.M., 1998. Saints and Somalis: Popular Islam in a Clan-Based Society. London: Haan Associates. Mac Ginty, R., 2010. Hybrid Peace: The Interaction Between Top-Down and Bottom-Up Peace. Security Dialogue, 41, 391–412. Osman, D., 2012. Lack of Recognition: A Blessing in Disguise? In Social Research and Development Institute (eds.) Somaliland Statehood, Recognition and the Ongoing Dialogue With Somalia. Hargeisa, Somaliland: Social Research and Development Institute, 49–58. Renders, M., 2006. Traditional Leaders and Institutions in the Building of the Muslim Republic of Somaliland. PhD. University of Ghent. Richmond, O.P. & Mitchell, A., 2012. Hybrid Forms of Peace: From Everyday Agency to Post-Liberalism. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Schwoebel, M.H., 2007. Nation-Building in the Lands of the Somalis. PhD Dissertation. George Mason University. Schwoebel, M.H., 2001. Impact Evaluation of the War-Torn Societies Project: Somaliland. Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development. Wiuff Moe, L., 2011. Hybrid and ‘Everyday’ Political Ordering: Constructing and Contesting Legitimacy in Somaliland. The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, 43, 143–177.

12 Legitimacy, peace, and peacebuilding Hancock and MitchellLegitimacy, peace, and peacebuilding

Landon E. Hancock and Christopher Mitchell

The initial purpose of this volume was to examine the manner in which the peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts of local communities in the midst of civil conflict affected and were affected by incumbent and insurgent actors. During our early investigations, we found that the key element of these interactions between local communities and “outside” actors – whether armed or peacebuilders – was the role that legitimacy played in whether or not these actors were able to gain support for their goals. The question we posed at the beginning of this volume is: by what right do outsiders obtain the active support, or at least acquiescence, of various communities? On what basis does an actor’s legitimacy rest? Does it matter what kind of actor is asking for, or competing for legitimacy? Does it matter what kind of actor is providing or withholding that legitimacy? And what factors, if any, contribute to the successes and failures of actors to gain and maintain legitimacy from various sources? In this conclusion, we examine each of our contributor’s chapters in order to see what, if any, tentative findings we have come up with across these different interventions involving different actors at different levels of analysis. We begin by re-examining the nature of legitimacy and its different sources. Then, we examine the kinds of actors that compete for legitimacy to review whether this has any impact on their ability to achieve and maintain legitimacy from different sources. Finally, we examine other factors that impact whether or not legitimacy is gained or lost by various actors and why. Following this, we briefly examine the relationship between legitimacy, peace and peacebuilding to collate our findings and suggest future directions for research and possibly practice.

The nature of legitimacy In the introduction, we discussed the notion that legitimacy is primarily relational; that it is offered by a particular source to a particular recipient – whether an individual, community, organization or government – and that the source will use some basis to justify its offering of legitimacy to the recipient. While there are undoubtedly many ways to describe different bases for granting legitimacy, we have attempted to group them into three broad categories. Legitimacy based on a shared identity or affinity between the source and the recipient. Legitimacy based

Legitimacy, peace, and peacebuilding  223 on ideology or shared values and aspirations between the source and the recipient. And legitimacy based on some sort of social contract, arising from a pragmatic or functional approach wherein the recipient earns the source’s legitimacy through the provision of material or symbolic goods. In order to clarify our terminology, we would suggest that these three broad bases for the granting or withholding of legitimacy be described as: 1 Identity-Based: those based on some form of shared identity or affinity. 2 Values-Based: those based on some form of shared ideology, values, or aspirations. 3 Contractual: those based on some form of social contract, arising from a pragmatic or functional approach. In each of our case studies, it appears that seekers of legitimacy often have to obtain this resource from multiple sources, or that even when seeking to obtain legitimacy from one particular source, they need to approach that source on more than one basis. For instance, in Hancock’s analysis of governance in zones of peace (ZoPs), we find that a contractual approach to achieving legitimacy is often combined with either an identity-based or a values-based approach. Many ZoPs insist on investing in local leadership, and often, the organizations that have come from the outside have also supported the development of local leaders. In places like the Philippines – particularly in Mindanao – leaders have been drawn from local identity groups, whether they are Christian, Moro (or Muslim) or from the indigenous Lumads. In Colombia, as shown in several chapters, the basis of local legitimacy tends to have less to do with identity – with the exception of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities – and is more values-based – typically centered around religious values – alongside contractual components. This contractual component is strongest in the examples given by Idler, Moully, and Garrido in Las Mercedes, especially when it is combined with the legitimacy granted to Church-affiliated authorities based on shared values. Alongside this, we can see in Masullo’s chapter that the legitimacy granted to the local peacebuilders in San Carlos by their creation of Joppaz was largely contractual, though the fact that they were local community members may have contributed to the perception that they were legitimate actors. At the regional level, the sources or bases of legitimacy become a bit more complicated. In Ammen and Mitchell’s examination of accompaniment in Colombia, we can see that the two different groups described begin with different bases for their legitimacy. International NGOs that provide accompaniment services to local communities and individual human rights defenders achieve their initial legitimacy with these groups based on a combination of values – mostly around a sense of the importance of human rights – and their contractual ability to carry out their work. These same groups’ legitimacy with national and international actors may be more based on a contractual understanding that they know the “rules of the game” and that not only will they bring unwanted pressure to national governments that hinder their operations, but they will steer clear of violating national

224  Hancock and Mitchell laws. National-level groups such as the Nasa “Indigenous Guard” operate on an identity-based legitimacy, with guard members and coordinators being elected by town assemblies (Zibech, 2008). Das’s examination of IMTD’s legitimacy in Kashmir clearly does not rely upon an identity basis, but instead initially relied upon Ambassador McDonald’s willingness to adopt some of the same viewpoints of local leaders with regards to selfdetermination, making his local legitimacy more values-based. However, given that local leaders and national leaders had different values, McDonald’s adoption of local values meant that he ran afoul of the central Indian government, which denied IMTD permission to continue its intervention. Here the issue may not have been the values that IMTD espoused, but instead, their expression in terms that could be construed as being more in solidarity with one party to the conflict rather than an overarching value that could be held by all parties. Espousing more generic values was clearly the strategy used in both the Ammen and Mitchell examination of international accompaniment organizations as well as Das’s comparison with IMTD’s intervention into the Cyprus conflict, where Louise Diamond focused on meeting the needs of local peacebuilders for training rather than on discussing or espousing sentiments that could be described as overtly political or overly partial. Villanueva’s analysis of Porteando por la Paz (PP) is a little different from our other regional examples because this group was regional only in the sense that it drew members from across Mexico, while it could have been considered somewhat local in that its narrower focus resembles some of the examples from our first chapters. PP’s bases for legitimacy began with a kind of affiliation, based on the participants’ identities as mothers. But this proved to be too narrow to generate participation outside of the virtual world. This transition took place when an image of a babywearing father at a protest was shared amongst the closed virtual community’s members, broadening the group’s basis for legitimacy beyond identity to one more associated with values. Focusing on this parenting aspect, rather than a narrower mothering aspect, helped push the transition of the group from an insular online-only community to a physical community that was willing, or at least partly willing, to engage more widely and contest for legitimacy in the public square. Our national-level cases, if anything, show even more complexity in terms of determining the various bases for recipients attaining legitimacy from various sources. In Maulden’s examination of Nepal, we can see a number of dynamics when looking at different bases for legitimacy. The movement to declare schools as zones of peace (SZoPs) during the Nepalese civil war was mostly values-based, with its foundation in international humanitarian law and moral norms about the treatment of children. These norms, illustrated by Conventions on the Rights of the Child – and other agreements – are based on beliefs about how children should be treated rather than on contractual notions or on affiliated identities – which would presumably include and exclude some children based on identity-related divisions. Her analysis shows us that even though the parties to the conflict – to a certain extent – were willing to give lip service to these ideals, their participation

Legitimacy, peace, and peacebuilding  225 may have been more from a contractual standpoint – like that of the SPLA/M described by Sen. Maulden notes that their adherence to SZoP goals depended upon the security situation. This was particularly true in the sense that while the Nepalese state was willing to declare that it wouldn’t recruit child soldiers, it reserved the right to do so if it deemed this to be necessary to avoid military loss. This follows from the Westphalian notion that the legitimacy of the state vis-à-vis other states is automatic and that the state’s relationship with its citizens is contractual not only in the sense that the state is supposed to protect its citizens, but that the citizens – potentially including children – are required to protect the state when it deems it necessary. It further suggests that states can, and sometimes do, assume that all citizens should accord the state legitimacy based on a shared identity as citizens, an assumption which conflates ideals of ethno-nationalism with patriotism (cf. Connor, 1994). Sen’s analysis of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement’ (SPLA/M) shows how the group, which used more of an identity-based form of legitimacy with respect to civilians and a more values-based form of legitimacy with its main patron – the Derg regime in Ethiopia – was forced to transition to more contractual forms of legitimacy on both levels once its patron was ousted and it faced schism and dissention from within the broader Sudanese rebel movement. In this Sen shows how rebel movements appear to be more pragmatic than one might have thought given historical analyses of ideologically-driven rebellions. By the end of her analysis, we can clearly see that for the SPLA/M, adherence to both international humanitarian norms and promoting a broader vision of who is a member of the South Sudanese polity were driven by instrumental concerns rather than by moral or legal ones. This conclusion is buttressed by the abject failure of the SPLM, and Garang’s successor, Salva Kiir, to unify South Sudan, leading to the outbreak of a civil war there in December of 2013. Wilson’s analysis of legitimacy in South Sudan reinforces both the central notion that legitimacy is not solely the product of a legal state apparatus and that, in this context, knowledge, and appreciation of local proverbs appeared to be as important as having the “right” people involved in the process. Both of these views speak to an identity-related basis for legitimacy, but again, this basis typically does not act alone. Knowledge of local proverbs is often combined with values-oriented notions of legitimacy, particularly in the espousing or following of rules of behavior that are expected in many traditional societies. Schwoebel’s analysis of Somaliland shows the difficulty of states in navigating different conceptions of legitimacy at the international and traditional levels. In Somaliland, the state appears to have had to marry a more contractual-based legitimacy with an affinity-based legitimacy in order to persuade some clans to accept state authority. As in Sudan and some of the Colombian cases, this may partly stem from the vacuum of state power at the local level, but here it largely appears to stem from cultural expectations that contractually based services are typically provided through identity and affinity-related groups, leading to a general mistrust of what are seen as “typical” politicians or political structures.

226  Hancock and Mitchell It seems clear that in most of our case studies, there is an initial basis for the granting of legitimacy by whichever source, which is most often either based on either shared affinity/identity or on shared values/ideology. However, once an initial levy of legitimacy has been granted, it must be continued through additional levies as time goes by. These additional levies almost always seem to be associated with a contractual basis for legitimacy. The one outlier is the Somaliland case, where the initial expectation appeared to be that its government could operate on a more contractual basis and found that it needed to develop a hybrid legitimacy that relied more on an identity-basis than one might expect for a national government. Again, this focus on identity-based legitimacy reflects the Somaliland experience, wherein a hybrid approach to securing local legitimacy becomes practical – a means to the end of a functional state – rather than an end in itself. One other takeaway is that it appears that different kinds of prospective recipients and sources of legitimacy appear to require different kinds of legitimacy and that this can create mismatches that lead to a failure to initially achieve legitimacy or its loss over time. We will examine these issues in our next two sections, focusing on the kinds of actors who compete for legitimacy and the dynamics of that competition.

Kinds of competitors In most of our cases, there were either multiple actors competing to be recipients of legitimacy or there were several sources of legitimacy, whose needs had to be balanced in order for specific recipients to attain and maintain legitimacy from all sources. The three chapters examining local ZoPs in Colombia and elsewhere show how these organizations often had to establish legitimacy both with their local communities as well as attempt to establish legitimacy with armed actors in the region, nonprofits and other funders and national governments. At the same time, as Idler, Moully, and Garrido show, peacebuilders in Las Mercedes had to contend with the actions of the FARC in competing with them for legitimacy from the populace. Masullo’s analysis illustrates how even when one group ostensibly has to focus only on one source of legitimacy – in this case, the local community – the activists from Joppaz needed to take care to balance their activities in order to not antagonize local armed actors by appearing to directly challenge their – largely self-appointed – senses of legitimacy. This delicate balance was also present in many of the cases examined by Hancock and parallels the findings of Ammen and Mitchell with respect to the work of international accompaniers in Colombia. In all of these cases, even when only focusing on gaining legitimacy from a primary source, the local population, these groups needed to avoid antagonizing others who might feel that their legitimacy is under threat. Earlier analyses of the ZoP phenomenon detail how many local peace communities had to negotiate with armed actors in order to continue to operate, often couching their arguments in terms that would suggest that by letting the zone operate, the armed group would be fulfilling a form of contractual or values-based legitimacy (Mitchell and Hancock, 2007). Additionally, these analyses showed that governments could be

Legitimacy, peace, and peacebuilding 227 quite touchy about the roles played by peace communities, often interpreting their gestures of active neutrality as anti-state (Hancock and Mitchell, 2012). Like Ammen and Mitchell’s examination of “outsiders” seeking legitimacy from multiple sources, Das’s examination of IMTD illuminates how difficult it can be for international NGOs to develop both local and national legitimacy. This delicate balance was achieved by international accompaniment groups in Colombia only by setting fairly strict guidelines on what they would and would not do and sticking to them, providing accompaniment services only to local actors who worked nonviolently and otherwise abiding by applicable governmental restrictions in order to deny the government the ability to remove them from the country. Likewise, Maulden’s analysis of the SZoP movement reflects some of the regional findings even though the movement attempted to work at the national level. Here, an internationally supported national movement had to walk a delicate line between arguing for values-based legitimacy and trying not to alienate the government by arguing that they could never operate in school areas, given that these were ostensibly government institutions and that the state legally had the right and duty to operate there. Her analysis shows how local groups and NGOs may have a difficult time challenging the presumed legitimacy of the state when they are contesting over the same space. Unfortunately, Das’ analysis shows how IMTD was not able to balance competing demands to establish legitimacy with local groups, the Pakistani government and the Indian government, leading to their inability to conduct workshops at that time. For national governments acting as recipients of legitimacy, one might think that the balancing act between the international, national and local would be easier to achieve. However, we can see from Sen’s analysis that the loss of one source of legitimacy – the Derg regime – led the SPLA/M to transform itself in order to attain and maintain other sources of legitimacy. Additionally, Wilson shows us that in the South Sudanese case, when the government fails to fulfill its obligations to the populace under norms of contractual legitimacy, it creates a vacuum that can be filled by other actors – such as the Nuer prophets. This finding is less surprising when compared to many cases of zones of peace in both conflict and post-conflict situations where governmental absence, through neglect or the presence of a governmental “no-go” zone, creates a situation where ZoPs – or peace communities – have the room to develop and deliver services that would ordinarily be seen as the provenance of the state (Hancock and Iyer, 2007). Perhaps the most interesting example of attempts to achieve this balance comes from Schwoebel’s analysis of the Somaliland government’s attempt to marry contractual legitimacy with identity-based legitimacy when they hybridized their efforts to have some governmental functions fulfilled at the national level and others at regional and local levels through existing clan structures. Overall, many of the actors we have examined fall into a broad peacebuilding category, whether these include local peacebuilders, international peacebuilding actors like Peace Brigades International or IMTD or national level actors like the SZoPs movement in Nepal. Other actors are less affiliated with the peacebuilding movement, such as those described in Wilson’s analysis of South Sudan. And yet

228  Hancock and Mitchell others, such as the governmental and rebel actors described by Sen, Idler, and her colleagues, Masullo and Schwoebel are arguably the furthest from peacebuilding in the sense that many of them tended to base their legitimacy at least partly on the notion that they could compel obedience through force, in effect using Rufio’s scabbard to elicit compliance. The relationship of grassroots actors to the goals of peacebuilding appears to be the most intrinsic, in the sense that these actors typically engage in peacebuilding in order to achieve the goals of peacebuilding. Hancock’s examination of governance – as well as Idler, Moully, and Garrido’s work on Las Mercedes – shows that structures were created to facilitate the provision of services to the community and with an eye towards meeting community needs. This appears to be true whether nor not these actors are local – as in the case of ZoPs – or operate on a larger stage like Maulden’s analysis of national organizations or Ammen and Mitchell’s analysis of international NGOs. It could be argued that each of these groups’ focus on the end goals of the peacebuilding activities as intrinsic and valuable in and of themselves may lend some credibility to their requests for legitimacy – and perhaps allowing them to seek that legitimacy on a wider basis than merely contractual. By contrast, Sen’s description of the goals of the SPLA/M indicate that the creation of governance structures and the inclusion of other voices in their decisionmaking processes was more instrumental in the sense that the SPLA/M engaged in these processes in order to serve its larger goals of survival as an organization and their eventual victory against Sudanese governmental forces. Wilson’s analysis shows that this kind of instrumental approach to legitimacy has its problems, especially when the populace sees through the rhetoric, leading to what she describes as a “twisted” situation in which the SPLM (now the South Sudanese state) loses legitimacy to local prophets or other actors who are able to actively contest with the state due to the fact that it is seen as amoral. Like the rebel forces, it seems that governmental actors might be the least aware of the need to seek legitimacy rather than to just assume that it is present. This is clearly the case for the Indian government – and to a lesser extent, the Pakistani government – in the Kashmir case. And while their mistrust of foreign actors is likely understandable given the colonial experience, the fact that the Indian government at least was unwilling to accede any legitimacy to local groups indicates a mindset that views legitimacy as a legal rather than a relational concept. This viewpoint is echoed in Maulden’s analysis of the Nepali government – though perhaps with a bit less orthodoxy – and has parallels in the views of the government of Colombian President Santos with respect to peace communities (Mitchell and Rojas, 2012). Again, the only outlier at this level appears to be the Somaliland case where, perhaps due to its lack of international recognition, the government there was more willing to focus on relational forms of legitimacy instead of relying upon the assumption that legitimacy was owed to it by the populace. As we can see from our analysis, the kind of actor may have an effect on which form of legitimacy might be the most effective in their initial period. However, there is also a sense in which, for most of these cases, regardless of the starting

Legitimacy, peace, and peacebuilding 229 point for an actor’s basis of legitimacy, some elements of contractual legitimacy always – or almost always – seem to creep in. Even governments that tend to assume that legitimacy is owed to them due to legal requirements can find that when they fail to provide expected goods and services – from basic security to health, education, or others – that their legitimacy can evaporate, again leading to the conclusion that after the first disbursement, continued legitimacy may need to be earned based on meeting contractual requirements between the source and recipient actors.

Legitimacy lost and gained: factors of success and failure When examining the factors that contribute to legitimacy lost or gained, it is useful to try and distinguish the sources of legitimacy that appear to be a priori – based on shared identity or shared values – and the source that requires continual feeding and evaluation, that of contractual legitimacy. Of all of our actors, it appears that communities, as sources of legitimacy, may be the most critical of their recipients. While communities may grant an initial levy of legitimacy based on identity or values, continued levies require fulfillment of contractual promises made. State actors, as sources of legitimacy with respect to international NGOs may grant initial levies based on values – as highlighted by Ammen and Mitchell – but can withdraw their consent to operate if that organization does not abide by the values that it espouses – as in the case of IMTD’s work in Kashmir. Our question for this section is what factors contribute to a recipient’s ability to gain and maintain legitimacy and whether these differ – as one might expect – when comparing different bases for legitimacy and different sources of legitimacy. As detailed in the introduction and above, one of the seemingly most secure forms of legitimacy is that based on shared identity or affinity. As an a priori category, one can assume that either the recipient is a member of the source community or they are not. This is particularly relevant for local peacebuilding organizations, such as those discussed by Hancock, Idler, Mouly, Garrido, and Masullo. However, as each of these cases also shows us, this initial levy is not as stable as one might assume. In each of these cases, an initial levy based on identity or ideology was not enough to guarantee that source populations would continue to grant legitimacy to local peacebuilders or other actors. At the regional level, the examination of outside actors by Ammen, Mitchell, and Das shows that their two primary sources of legitimacy required two different bases, and that in order to function effectively, they needed to effectively balance these bases. For NGOs, local support may have started with a valuesbased approach, but primarily depended upon their ability to deliver the services – whether accompaniment or peacebuilding activities – that were promised. National support, or at least acquiescence, required that these NGOs not deviate from their values and, more importantly, that they not overtly undercut the more traditional – legally-based – legitimacy of their host state. This difficult balancing act is shared by Maulden’s analysis of the international network assisting Nepal’s SZoP efforts and, to some extent, mirrors earlier examinations of the difficulties

230  Hancock and Mitchell faced by local peacebuilders in needing to achieve and maintain the buy-in of armed actors in their areas (Hancock and Iyer, 2007). The balance here focuses on the key role of neutrality or impartiality with respect to outcomes – i.e., with respect to which party wins a civil war, the outcome of a particular civil rights case or the eventual outcome of the Kashmir conflict – while focusing on the application of widely respected human rights norms such as the pacific settlement of disputes, the rule of law, and international conventions on the conduct of war, treatment of civilians, and rights of children. Where these groups are able to achieve and maintain a balance, their likelihood of success appears to rise; where they are unable or where they misstep, the likelihood of success falls. At the national level, our examinations of state actors and rebel groups again parallel that of local peacebuilders to some extent. What we see is that in many cases, the government or movement relies upon either identity or values to make its initial call for legitimacy. However, one difference between the state and rebel movements is in the former’s ability to make an initial call for legitimacy based on international recognition of its “right” to govern. It appears that governments assume that international legitimacy automatically translates into national legitimacy, perhaps when combined with the assumption of an identity-based or ideologically based legitimacy. But perhaps this translation of international to national relies upon the Rufio’s scabbard argument, derived from the Westphalian notion that states are ultimately sovereign inside of their own borders. Given that state actors in our cases are all secondary players, it is difficult to do more than extrapolate from the findings in this volume and the findings from earlier volumes on zones of peace (cf. Hancock and Mitchell, 2007; Mitchell and Hancock, 2012). Examinations by Wilson and Schwoebel, however, show that even this sense of inevitability can be challenged by other power centers in the country – or even by local communities themselves. Both chapters speak to the difficulty of the state in levying legitimacy based on identity and ideology without a commensurate sense that they are also able to levy contractually-based legitimacy through the provision of services to communities. The differences between the two cases illustrate the power that international legitimacy has – and doesn’t have – to influence their ability to successfully garner legitimacy at other levels. For South Sudan, we can see that in the transition of the SPLA/M from a rebel movement – as described by Sen and discussed below – to a national government, the sense of unity built up through the movement’s reorganization and shift to a transactional-based legitimacy was lost when various identity-based factions began to contest for control over the organization and the new state. This reversion to an identity-based legitimacy narrowed the government’s basis for support, gave space for opposition to strengthen, and limited the government’s ability, and perhaps willingness, to provide the kinds of services that would promote contractual legitimacy. As Wilson shows – and other ZoP examples confirm – the narrowing and limiting of governmental power and services leads to the creation of a vacuum that can – and often is – filled by non-state actors (Mitchell and Hancock, 2007). Rebel groups, by contrast, exist to contest the government’s sense of inevitability, often arguing that the state has failed to live up to its ideological basis or that

Legitimacy, peace, and peacebuilding  231 its identity basis is conceived too narrowly – that it fails to incorporate or speak for communities that the rebels represent. In this sense, rebel groups too may begin their search for legitimacy by appealing to shared identity or shared values and ideology. However, like governmental units, when rebel groups seek legitimacy from local communities or segments of the populace, then additional levies tend to operate on a contractual basis, even if the only service being provided is basic security. This is clearly the case for Sen’s analysis of the SPLA/M, which, as discussed above, needed to broaden its appeal to ethnic groups beyond the Dinka in order to legitimately claim to serve the dispossessed of southern Sudan against the depredations of the Sudanese government. A key element for understanding rebel relationships to the international community is their desire to obtain legitimacy from outside actors. Like the Somaliland government, the SPLA/M was not able to treat directly with foreign states – who were constrained in their ability to only interact with other states. Instead, the SPLA/M used its willingness to abide by international humanitarian conventions to show international NGOs that it warranted the granting of legitimacy based on its observance of internationally-recognized values. The benefits of this type of legitimacy were concrete, including access to humanitarian aid supplies, and potentially symbolic as well, with the possibility that this may have assisted the SPLA/M to position itself as the “legitimate” representative of the South Sudanese people. The organization’s recognition by international NGOs may have aided its efforts to be taken more seriously by other states in the international arena, smoothing its path to a seat at the negotiating table and to obtaining power in the newly independent South Sudan in 2011. Overall, it appears that the factors that contributed to the success or failure of these different groups to achieve and maintain legitimacy may have been more focused on the kind of actor granting that legitimacy than the kind of actor seeking it. For all of their seeming impotence, it appears that the ability to achieve legitimacy with local populations may be the foundation upon which building legitimacy with other sources is necessary. Part of this may be that it is the local populations that have the most interaction with the seekers of legitimacy on a daily basis. Part may also stem from an unwillingness of international sources of legitimacy to support seekers who fail to win the support of their local communities. Local peacebuilders who do not have local support, regional networks that fail to connect with the populations and international NGOs without local contacts are usually not seen as very effective, even if their ideological stances are correct and their intentions are good.

Legitimacy, peace, and peacebuilding: tentative findings Finally, we turn to the whole issue of the link between legitimacy and successful peacebuilding, especially peace activities carried out at a local, grassroots level. To start with one obvious conclusion, most of the cases studied in previous chapters seem to show clearly the unsurprising fact that local legitimacy for incumbent governments rapidly grows less in circumstances where local communities

232  Hancock and Mitchell fail to share any form of identity with those claiming to be in authority and thus demanding conformity. The most obvious example of such circumstances are peripheral regions in which indigenous peoples or ethnic minorities live, often firmly involved in traditional cultures which are at odds with “modernist” cultures dominating the national mainstream. Such environments seem most likely to produce processes of conflict rather than peace. This not particularly startling conclusion is illustrated in many of our case studies, not least by Schwoebel’s study of the difficulties of finding peaceful relationships between an aspiring central government in Hargeisa and peripherally antagonistic clans within Somaliland and in its border lands. If incumbents cannot claim legitimate authority to maintain the peace through identity based relationships which may exist in other regions – possibly urban as opposed to rural – can shared values or ideology be used as a basis for keeping or building up the peace? Several of our cases seem to show clearly that this form of legitimacy more often provides an advantage to insurgents challenging the government. Often, these movements are able to base their claim to legitimacy on values shared with local actors – disaffected communities experiencing outside exploitation of local resources for profits [which few of the locals see]; centrally planned and controlled developments with no local input; and the absence of resources for local education, transportation, or health services, as well as of political recognition. Moreover, in many cases, insurgents tend to be locally based and recruited, which adds another advantage not enjoyed by an incumbent’s security forces, often outsiders from far away. If legitimacy neither through identity nor ideology is easily open to incumbent governments in the case of intractable conflicts like those in the Philippines, Aceh, Nigeria, or Colombia, and often only slightly more easily available to locally based insurgents, then a customary strategy for both is to fall back on contractually based legitimacy. Both adversaries can make efforts to achieve at least minimal support and approval by supplying appropriate wants and needs to local communities. This strategy is a notable feature in several chapters, where all the violent actors, state and non-state, try to supply some of the expected goods (material, organizational, and psychological) to local communities. Of course, in the competition for legitimacy, both incumbents and insurgents are caught in the paradox that the more intense the conflict and extreme the violence, the less able they are to provide the goods most wanted by local communities – safety and security. As we noted earlier, the response of all the armed actors to this paradox is frequently to fall back on enforcement as a strategy and to claim legitimacy simply because they can. Rufio’s sword or the Kalashnikov become the crucial basis for this type of (pseudo) legitimacy – compelling obedience through force. In the struggle for legitimacy between insurgents and incumbents, between governments and non-state armed [or unarmed] groups, the outcome often appears to be conflict creating or exacerbating rather than peacebuilding. At best, the choice offered to local communities is posed as being between “our” form of peace and security, as opposed to continued conflict and destruction – not that

Legitimacy, peace, and peacebuilding  233 any real choice is ever offered and local people are often faced with the practical alternatives of: • Acquiescence; • Flight and abandonment; • Withdrawal and attempted neutrality within a peace zone or region; • Legitimizing and supporting peace-builders. The last two strategies are hardly mutually exclusive, and both can be found in many of the examples reviewed in preceding chapters. Hence, it may be a distraction to insist upon a distinction between withdrawal via declaring a local ZoP characterized by neutrality, extreme non-involvement or attempted creation of an arms-free territory; and active peacebuilding, which can involve arranging truces, negotiating safe passages and persons, planning peaceful re-insertions and mine clearing initiatives or indulging in region-wide peace negotiations. However, when enquiring about linking legitimacy – its sources, bases, and impacts – and peacebuilding, it seems important to distinguish between the essentially negative withdrawal strategy of local neutrality (which may be all that seems feasible in the circumstances) and the more involved but dangerous activities associated with wider, active peacebuilding. If, as we have argued so far, the contest for legitimacy between incumbents and insurgents is likely to produce further and more intense conflict, surely our case studies reveal more positive relationships between legitimacy and peacebuilding in the case of actors devoted more directly to peacebuilding. In our second section above, we distinguished a wide variety of ways in which involved actors competed to be recipients of legitimacy from multiple sources, starting with governments and non-state armed actors but also including such varied peacebuilding actors as churches and religious leaders (Ammen and Mitchell, Wilson), closed virtual communities (Villanueva), tribal elders (Schwoebel and Wilson), and INGOs such as Peace Brigades International and IMTD (Das). Unfortunately, any search for general findings about the linkages between successful peacebuilding and the level of legitimacy enjoyed by the peacebuilder is complicated by at least three factors: Peacebuilding organizations and individuals seeking to increase their level of legitimacy to enable them to get on with their peacebuilding work successfully often turn out simultaneously to be themselves sources of legitimacy, whose approval and support (or at least toleration) can help other peacebuilding organizations in some aspect of their work. 2 Support from some sources of legitimacy automatically involves actors in suffering from a lack of legitimacy in the eyes of other, rival sources, often leading to efforts to undermine peacebuilding activities. 3 For some kinds of peacebuilding actor, the search for legitimacy thus involves a balancing act involving the search for approval or support from some sources, while avoiding too much display from other sources. 1

234  Hancock and Mitchell Earlier on, we made the point that actors involved in intractable and violent conflicts normally seek legitimacy for themselves from multiple sources. As far as peacebuilding work is concerned peace actors need to achieve a crucial balance of legitimacy conferred on them as recipients in order to undertake local peacebuilding work effectively. Key among those conferring (or withholding) legitimacy are first the national government and its agencies (especially the security services). However, in many situations, the withholding of approval or tolerations by insurgents can also make peace work – relief, applications of human rights law, prisoner exchanges, ceasefires, de-mining, safe passage – very difficult. What are circumstances that help to make peacebuilding work easier or harder? What kind of balance of sources helps or hinders peacebuilding actors in their role? Looking back, we have at least a dozen studies of peacebuilding organizations or individuals trying to achieve a sufficient “level” and “spread” of approval and support to enable the continuation of its work. Peace actors fall roughly into three categories but, as we noted above, some are involved as sources as well as recipients of legitimacy. However, as recipients they can usefully be classified as belonging to one of the following groups: 1 2 3

External peacebuilders (IMTD, accompaniers such as CPT, or PBI, the EU, ASEAN, and national governments); National-level peacebuilders (CINEP, Nepalli Schools Movement, REDEPAZ); Local/regional-level peacebuilders (Peace Community leaders; closed virtual communities, regional groups like CRIC in Colombia or the Ortegas Peace Institute in the Philippines).

With each type of peacebuilding actor, it seems likely that the multiple sources of their legitimacy (ignoring for the moment the basis on which it is conferred or withdrawn) will very much affect the peace actors’ ability to carry out any peacebuilding work with much degree of success. In each case, the spread of the sources and the degree of support arising from the legitimacy conferred will make a contribution to the peacebuilders ability to operate. Crucial sources of legitimacy would appear to be the following: a b c d e

Governments/incumbents; Insurgents, aspiring governments, NSAGs; Members of the “International Community”; state governments, IGOs, INGOs; National civil society organizations (religious bodies, commercial organizations, etc.); Local communities; peace zones, IDP communities, indigenous groups.

Our final point is that not all sources are equal in the legitimizing game. Incumbents appear to be key actors in determining whether peacebuilding organizations can do their work, even though they sometimes do not have the final word,

Legitimacy, peace, and peacebuilding  235 especially in parts of a country where a “state vacuum” exists. However, they can forbid external peace actors entry into the country, curtail or control their activities, ignore their achievements and recommendations, and expel their personnel. Likewise, both insurgents and incumbents can deny access to particular areas of a country and prevent peace actors from carrying out necessary work. As Ammen and Mitchell emphasize, peace actors whose work depends on the support or even tolerance of the state are in a particularly delicate situation regarding the need to retain their spread of legitimacy and to include state agencies in that spread. However, it is also true that both governments and (sometimes) insurgents can be subject to pressure from international actors who regard peacebuilding organizations as highly legitimate. Different circumstances obviously affect the nature of what is a workable spread of sources of legitimacy and which actors are central to such a network, as well as the level of legitimacy that can be conferred on particular recipients. In most cases discussed in our studies, incumbent governments are crucial but for local peacebuilding actors it is usually the case that the local community itself is also central to the necessary network conferring legitimacy on peace actors. This is undoubtedly why Masullo emphasizes the way local youth leaders have managed to move from educational roles in their community into positions of potential peacebuilding leaders and why Hancock focuses on how the processes of local peacebuilding – the inclusion or exclusion of the local community – can contribute greatly to the community’s willingness to confer legitimacy on local peacebuilders. In other circumstances, local peacebuilding leaders, such as clan elders or local religious notables in both Puntland and Somaliland have managed to achieve pre-eminent roles as peace-builders based on previous religious status or ethnic identity. In some cases, this high level of operational ability and influence exists in spite of the denial of any legitimacy on the part of the central government. The level of legitimacy conferred by this spread of sources is clearly also of importance in affecting peace actors’ ability to operate and, in some cases, survive as peace activists. It surely makes a difference whether an outside accompanier (PBI, CPT), a Catholic regional peacebuilding organization (PRODEPAZ, the local Catholic Diocese), or a national/regional development and peace organization (PDPMM) is regarded by national government agencies or by local insurgent commanders with indifference, toleration or benign acceptance of its activities – or, even in rare circumstances, with approval or even support. One can easily see examples where sophisticated peacebuilders are making deliberate efforts to increase their legitimacy in the eyes of key sources through a variety of tactics – ensuring conformity with national laws, being impartial in condemning violence and destruction carried out by whomever, or supporting both sides’ efforts at offering conciliatory gestures to one another. Similar legitimizing behavior can be seen on the part of the conflicting adversaries, as Sen outlines in her study of the SPLA/M seeking publicly to follow the precepts of International Humanitarian Law (formally and originally intended to apply to states) or the actions of a variety of insurgent movements in signing

236  Hancock and Mitchell contracts about the non-use of anti-personnel mines such as those organized by Geneva Call. All of this leads to the clear conclusion that legitimacy is crucial for peacebuilding actors initially for their survival but subsequently for their ability to carry on peacebuilding work in both the midst, but also the aftermath of violence. As all our case studies illustrate, the sources, spread, and level of such legitimacy will vary from case to case and at different times within the same case, but the continuation of any peacebuilding work will greatly depend on the degree of legitimacy, especially at the local and national levels, achieved by peace actors.

Works cited Connor, W., 1994. Beyond Reason: The Nature of the Ethnonational Bond. In W. Connor (ed.) Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 195–209. Hancock, L.E. & Iyer, P., 2007. The Nature, Structure and Variety of “Peace Zones”. In L.E. Hancock & C.R. Mitchell (eds.) Zones of Peace. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 29–50. Hancock, L.E. & Mitchell, C.R., (eds.) 2007. Zones of Peace. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Hancock, L.E. & Mitchell, C.R., 2012. Between Local and National Peace: Complimentarity or Conflict? In C.R. Mitchell  & L.E. Hancock (eds.) Local Peacebuilding and National Peace: Interaction Between Grassroots and Elite Processes. London, New York: Continuum, 161–178. Mitchell, C.R. & Hancock, L.E., 2007. Local Zones of Peace and a Theory of Sanctuary. In L.E. Hancock & C.R. Mitchell (eds.) Zones of Peace. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 189–221. Mitchell, C.R. & Hancock, L.E., (eds.) 2012. Local Peacebuilding and National Peace: Interaction Between Grassroots and Elite Processes. London, New York: Continuum. Mitchell, C.R. & Rojas, C., 2012. Against the Stream: Colombian Zones of Peace Under Democratic Security. In C.R. Mitchell & L.E. Hancock (eds.) Local Peacebuilding and National Peace: Interaction Between Grassroots and Elite Processes. London, New York: Continuum, 39–67. Zibech, R., 2008. The Indigenous Guard of Colombia [online]. Warrior Publications: Reprinted from The Americas Program of the Center for International Policy. Available from: https:// warriorpublications.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/the-indigenous-guard-of-colombia/

Index

Bold page numbers indicate tables, and italic numbers indicate figures accountability 25, 32 – 33; down 25; horizontal/mutual 26; up 25 ACCU (Peasant Self-Defence Forces of Cordoba and Uraba) and massacre in San Carlos 68; later demobilisation 68 – 69 ACMM (Peasant Self-Defence Groups of Magdalena Medio) 66 ADR (alternative dispute resolution) 23 adversaries 1 adversary legitimacy 11 Afghanistan 153 – 155; Afghan National Defence and Security Forces 153; categories of protection 154; ISIL 153; SAARC member 154; Safe Schools Declaration 153; school shuras 154; Taliban 153; Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan 153; value of education 154; zones of neutrality 154 – 155 agency 20, 22, 26, 55 – 56, 126, 135 agents of peacebuilding 20 – 42 Ahmad, Lt. General Nishat 95 Al Mahdi, 163 Al Mahdi, Sadiq 165, 170 Al Qaeda, attacks on the USA 11 Al Shaaab, leader killed in Somalia 204 Alawite elite in Syria 5, 9 al-Turabi, Hassan 165 Ammen, Catherine xi ANC, struggle in South.Africa 10 Ansari, basis of UMMA Party in Sudan 163 – 164; failed coup attempt 165 Anton, Manuel Gil 127 Anya Nya separatist movement 164 – 165 apartheid 10 Arab Spring movements 130

Arendt, Hannah 132 Aristotle, view of the state 4, 123 ASOCAB [Asociación Campesina de Buenos Aires] 114 Assad regime in Syria 5, 9 Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College (Mexico) 122, 126 – 127 Azad Jammu and Kashmir 85, 96 Azad Jammu and Kashmir Parliament 96 Babywearing for Peace (Porteando por la Paz) 126, 128, 129, 132 Baghdad Caliphate 9 Bahr al-Ghazal famine 170 Barre, Mohammed Siad 204 bases for legitimacy 2, 17 Bashir, Omar al, seizes power in Khartoum 170 Bedouin bases of legitimacy 192 – 194 Bituan Zone of Life 34 BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) 89 – 90; in government 91 Body Shop, influence on Las Pavas conflict 117 Boko Haram, claims to legitimacy 195 Bor massacre 169 Borris, Eileen 95 Boulding, Kenneth, mapping of power 133 Burco Conference, April 1991 205 – 207 Burhan Wani, death of 84 CANS (Civil Authority of New Sudan) 171 – 172; decentralized authority 172; formalized school system 172 Capone, Al, legitimacy during Prohibition 190

238 Index CARE (Center of Accompaniment for Reconciliation) 74; organises “Memory Garden” in San Carlos 78; Pastora Mira 74 – 75, 77 Catholic Church, as outside intermediary in Colombia 49 – 59 Cauca Regional Indigenous Council (CRIC) 110 child protection: fundamental moral value 144, 145 Child Soldiers Global Report 148 Children and Armed Conflict Report 153 Christian Peace Teams (CPT) 13, 115 – 116 Church in Colombia 43 – 44, 53 – 59; as intermediary 56 – 59 Churchill, Winston 86 CIRDES (Dialog and Reflection Circles) 32 Civil Movement, in Eastern Antioquia 66 civil resistance 43 – 62; defined 47: examples of in Colombia 68 – 69 Civil/Military Administrators of SPLM/A 168 civilian noncooperation 63 – 83; four forms of 65 Clements, Kevin 3; defining state legitimacy 183 CNDD-FDD in Burundi 18n12 coercion 48, 50, 52 Colombia 8, 10, 14, 15, 28,43 – 59, 102 – 120; 1991 Constitution 110 – 111; accountability in 32; Communal Action Communities (JACs) 8; Constituent Assembly 33 – 34; land inequality and ownership/rights 109 – 116; National Front Government 8; procedural justice in 30 – 31; see also Church in Colombia; FARC; IPA; Las Mercedes; Las Pavas; National Liberation Army (ELN); Peace Brigades International; Uribe, Alvaro; war in San Carlos Commorra 18n9 Congress Party 86, 88; “Quit India” campaign 88 Consorcio el Labrador 114 contractual legitimacy 4, 223 Conventions on the Rights of the Child: Article 28, 142, 173 Coy, Patrick 103, 105 CPT (Christian Peace Teams) 13, 115 – 116 credibility, of protective accompaniers 103 CSOs (civil society organizations) 21 CVC (closed virtual community) 122, 124 – 126; resides online 124 – 126, 137;

transformation into a collective 126; see also PP (Porteando por la Paz) CVC ZoP characteristics 125 CZoP (Child as Zone of Peace) 148, 149 Daabon S.A., Colombian palm oil company 114 dap-ays (clan councils in Philippines) 34 Das, Rajit xi Defensoria del Pueblo [Ombudsman’s Office in Colombia] 57 degrees of legitimacy 17 deliberation in governance 33 – 34 deliberative governance 20 – 39; accountability in 32 – 33; local agency 34 – 36; in the peacebuilding context 26 – 28; procedural justice in 30 – 32; public participation 28 – 30; questions of 23 – 28; in ZoPs 28 – 34 deliberative peacebuilding 27 democratic governance 23 – 24 Department of Norte de Santander 48 DERG, Ethiopian regime; fall in 1991 173 – 174; support for SPLM 166 – 167 deterrence, by publicising threats 104 Diamond, Louise 95; Conflict Resolution Workshops 97; work in Cyprus 95, 97 diaspora identity 13 divide and rule policy in India 86, 87 domestic legitimacy 11; from community leaders 78 – 79 domination 143 Dudouet, Veronique 9 – 10 Duque, Juan Alberto Garcia, Mayor of San Carlos 76 Eco-Viva see FSSCA education: as public good 145 – 146 EEPCT (Education in Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition) program 148 Egypt: legitimacy in 192 – 194; wasta 193 El Salvador 28; La Coordinadora 30; LZP 29 – 30, 32 – 35; procedural justice in 32 ELN (National Liberation Army, Colombia) 49 empirical legitimacy 43 – 48, 51 – 53, 56 – 59 EPL (Popular Liberation Army, Colombia) 49 Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (Ethiopia) 162 Escuelas Normales Publicas in Mexico 127 external peacebuilders 84 – 101 external/international legitimacy 11

Index  239 failures of the liberal peace 20 FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia/Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) 10 – 11, 49 – 55; peace accord with 59; clashes with ELN in Eastern Antioquia 66 Flores, Thomas 111 FMLN guerrillas (El Salvador) 30 FoR (Fellowship of Reconciliation) 108 fragile states 180 – 199; defined 184; key characteristics 184 – 185; legitimacy of 184 – 187, 192 – 195; see also twisted legitimacy Fragile States Index 184 Franco’s Spain view of the state 4 Free Syrian Army 5 Friends for Peace initiative 49, 52 FSSCA (Fund for Self-Sufficiency in Central America) 37 functionality 10, 11 functionally based legitimacy 16 Fund for Peace Fragile States Index 184 Gandhi, Mahatma 47, 65, 88, 89 Garang, John 166; affinity with Ethiopia 169; Dinka domination 171; international aid 166; formation of SPLM/A 167; liberation for all of Sudan 167; massive military force 167; overthrow of 169; resentment toward 168 – 169; see also SPLM/A; SPLMNasir Garrido, Maria Belén xi Gatdeang (Neur prophet) 191 Geneva Call, de-mining agreement with SPLM 161, 173 Gezira scheme for cotton growing in Sudan 164 Giddens, Anthony 22 Godane, Ahmed Abdi 204 Grand Borama Conference 1993 Grupo de Memoria Historica 68, 73 Guarderia ABC, and nursery fire in Sonora 129 Guinea 26 Haile Mariam, Mengistu, Ethiopian leaders’ patronage of Garang 169 Hancock, Landon E. xi, 134 Haspelagh, Sophie 10 – 11 Hereros 6 Hinduism/Hindus 84; in India 84, 87; disestablishment in India 87; repository for nationalism 87 – 88

Hobbes, Thomas 4 House of Peace 2.0, 121, 122 humanitarian agreements 161 – 179 Humanitarian Zones in Choco 119 Hurriyat Conference 90, 93; legitimacy of 90 Hybrid Ecology lens 130 hybrid legitimacy 144, 200 – 221; characterization of 218; internal hybridity 201 I4Ps (Infrastructures for Peace) 135 – 136 ICRC (International Committee of Red Cross) 173 identity 10, 12 identity-based legitimacy 16, 223 ideologically based legitimacy 16 ideology 10, 12 Idler, Annette xii IHL (international humanitarian law) 102 illicit authority 46 impartiality: contradicts local solidarity 109; effects on protection 106 IMTD (Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy) 84 – 85, 94; in Cyprus 97, 99n5, 99n6; in Kashmir 84 – 85, 93 – 96; Kashmir Conflict Transformation report 96; Kashmir Peacebuilding Program 95; summary 224; tracks 94 – 95; workshops 95 – 96 incumbent legitimacy 3 – 4; basis for 8; internal vs. external 5 – 6; losing 6 – 8 incumbents 1, 14 India 84, 85; Armed Forces Special Forces Act 90; birth of 88 – 89; BJP government 90; British Raj 86 – 87; imposed “colonial legitimacy” 87 – 88; Christianity in 87; Interpretation Act 86; Mogul India 87; Simla Accords 85; suzerainty 86; Union of India 85; see also Congress Party; Indian National Congress; Muslim League Indian National Congress 88 Indigenous Guard (Colombia) 108 – 109, 116 Indigenous Territorial Union of the Naya River (UNTINAYA) 110 Information Ecology 122, 130 – 131, 133, 135 Infrastructures for Peace (I4P) virtual types 121, 124 Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy 84 – 101 insurgents 1

240 Index Inter-American Court of Human Rights 113 International Committee of the Red Cross 102 IPA (International Protective Accompaniment) 102 – 109; in Colombia 102; defined 105 – 106; deterrence of violence 103 – 104; impartiality vs. solidarity 102, 108 – 109; UN model 102 Irish nationalists 6 Isaaq clans and sub-clans 206 ISI 99n3; ISI-Military nexus 91; ISIPakistan army nexus 91 ISIL, claim to legitimacy 9, 195 ISIS 5, 9 Islam in India 87; dis-establishment 87; repository for nationalism 87 – 88 JACs 8 Jaish-e-Mohommad (JeM) 91 Jammu 84, 85 Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (NC) 92 Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 92 Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front 90 Jebb, Eglantyne 141 Jinnah, Mohammed Ali 88, 89; “Father of Pakistan” 88 Joppaz (Youth Project of Peace) 69 – 73; assist the displaced and prevent forced migration 72; counter social isolation and estrangement 72; prevents youth from being recruited 72 JUSTAPAZ 14 JVP 18n11 Kant, Immanuel: moral law 134 – 135 Kashmir 84 – 101; birth of India and Pakistan 88 – 89; conflict over 6, 84 – 85; conflict over legitimacy 89 – 93; failure of Track 1 85 – 86; inclusion in Union of India 85; Instrument of Accession 85; insurgent groups 91; the “K” in Pakistan 85; Kashmiri insurgency 85, 92; legitimate entry 95 – 96; multi-track diplomacy 94 – 96; outsider legitimacy in 96 – 98; Pakistan influence on 91 – 92; Pakistan Occupied Kashmir 85; right to self-determination 96 – 97; seeds of legitimacy 86 – 89; Track II 94 – 95, 98; see also Hurryiat Conference; IMTD Kashmiri Muslims 92

Kashmiri Pandits 92 – 93; Panun Kashmir 93; roots in Kashmir 9 Kir, Salva; failure to unify South Sudan 225 Koopman, Sara 108 Kosovo, Serb minority in 93 Kriesberg, Louis, role of domination in legitimacy 143 Lagu, Joseph 164; Addis Ababa Agreement and 165 Lame, Manuel Quintín 108; Indigenous Guard in Cauca 108 – 109 landmines, hampering return of IDPs 76 Las Mercedes 49 – 59; the Church 53 – 59; civil resistance 47 – 48; from civil resistance to shadow citizenship 50 – 52; from shadow citizenship to civil resistance 49 – 50; shadow citizenship 46 – 47; third parties as catalysts of peace 52 – 59; 223 see also Friends for Peace initiative; MAPP-OAS; OAS Las Pavas 113 – 116; ASOCAB 114 – 115, 117; CINEP 115; Consorcio purchase 114; Escobar purchase 114; PDPMM (Programa por Desarollo y Paz en el Magdalena Medio) 115 – 116 Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT) 91 leaders and followers 3 leadership 75, 180 – 199 Lederach, John Paul, infrastructures for peace (I4P) 135 – 136 legitimacy 1, 36 – 38, 44 – 46, 84, 123, 180, 192; classic conceptions of 123; competing sources of 1 – 19; community leadership and 64; defined 180 – 182; degrees of 5, 185; empirical v normative versions of 44 – 46; frames of 142 – 144; harnessed through networks 121 – 138, 174; hybrid sources of 174 – 175, 200 – 221, 223; international sources of 141 – 142, 155 – 156; 227; modern conceptions of 123 – 124; nature of 2 – 3, 185 – 186; of non-state actors 12 – 13, 45 – 46, 57, 180 – 190; 194 – 197; of peacebuilders 12 – 13, 195 – 196, 231; peacebuilding 195 – 196, 222 – 236; rationalizers of 144 – 146, 156; recipients of 3, 11 – 12, 180, 182; through power 123; transfer of 7 – 8; as two-way street 44, 45; transactional 161, 174 – 175; via utility and relevance 123; see also adversary; contractual; domestic; empirical; external/international;

Index  241 identity-based; ideologically based; incumbent; local; lost; outsider; pragmatic; state; source of; twisted; values-based legitimacy and rationalizers 156 Leighninger, Matthew 23 – 24, 36, 123 liberal peacebuilding paradigm 20 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) 162 Licklider, J.C.R. 137 LIZOP (Learning Institutions as Zones of Peace) 153 local agency 34 – 36; and social transformation 63 local legitimacy 13 – 16; from local sources 14 – 16 local ownership: definition of 21; vs. agency 22 – 23; problem or panacea 21 – 23 Local Peace Committees; role in postagreement stage 148, 151 Locke, John 123, 175 lost legitimacy 17n1, 229 love 132 – 133 low-power groups 21 LTTE insurgents 18n11 Lumad community 31, 33 Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, a motherist movement in Argentina 128 Mahony, Liam 103 Maldives, site of second Kashmiri dialogue 95 – 96 Maoist guerrillas in Nepal; begin “People’s War” 146 – 147; Peoples Liberation Army 148 MAPP-OAS 52 – 59 Marcos, Ferdinand 28 MAS (Death to Kidnappers) 66 Maslow, Abraham 22 Masullo, Juan xii Maulden, Patricia xii Maya, indigenous 5 McDonald, Ambassador John 95, 96 – 97 Medellin-San Carlos Alliance; influence on “Victims Law” and Familias en su Tierra 79; and return of IDPs 76 – 77 Medellin-Bogota highway 65 Media Ecology lens 130 Mexico 126 – 127; mothers advocating for children 127 – 128, 134; see also motherist movements Mexico City, demonstrations in 128 – 129

Mexico Peace Index (2016) 126 Mindanao 152 – 153, 223 Mira, Pastora 74 – 75 Mitchell, Christopher xiii, 112 Montville, Joseph, originator of “Track II” 94 Moro community 33 motherist movements 128; Caravan of Central American Mothers 128; Madres de la Plaza de Mayo 128; see also Porteando por la Paz Mouly, Cécile xiii Multi-Track diplomacy 94 – 95 municipality of San Carlos 67 Muslim League 86, 88; elections Bengal and the Punjab 88; support for separate Pakistan 88 Mussolini’s Italy view of the state 4 narratives of motherhood 131 – 132 Nasa Indigenous Guard in Cauca; origins in violent resistance 108; as self defence group 108 – 109 Natality as form of political thought 132 National Coalition for Children as Zones of Peace 147 Naya Community Council 110 Nazi Germany view of the state 4 Nehru, Pandit 88 Nepal 28, 146 – 151; Comprehensive Peace Agreement 148; earthquakes in 151; legitimacy, insecurity, and security 147 – 149; “People’s War” 146; rationalizers, protection, and education 149 – 151; school code of conduct 150 – 151; as Zone of Peace 147; see also National Coalition for Children as Zones of Peace networks 121 – 140 neutrality 26, 154 – 155 Nimeiri, Jaafar 164 – 166; closeness with the west 165; imposition of Sharia Law 166; radical Islamic orientation 166 non-cooperation 50, 63 – 83 non-state armed actors 161 – 179; sources of credibility 180, 183; see also NSAGs; state legitimacy; twisted legitimacy Norte de Santander, Department of 43, 48 North Korea view of the state 4 Northern Ireland 28 NSAGs (non-state armed groups) 161, 174; building legitimacy 161 – 162 Nyachol (Neur prophet) 191 – 192

242 Index OAS (Organization of American States) 43 – 44, 52 – 59; as intermediary in Colombia 56 – 59; MAPP-OAS support for local peace community 52 – 53 oblique non-cooperation 8 Ogaden War (1971–1978) 204 OLS (Operation Lifeline Sudan), relief consortium 170, 172 – 173 opportunity for voice 26 – 27 organic theory of the state 4 – 5 Orwellian view of the state 4 outsider legitimacy 84 ownership 21 – 22; vs. agency 22 – 23 Pakistan 84, 85; birth of 88 – 89; created as an Islamic Republic 85; militant activities in 91 – 92; Simla Accords paramilitaries, entry into Eastern Antioquia 66 – 68 Paramilitary/Security Forces (CRPF/ Kashmiri Police) 92 Partition of British India, 84, 89; creating rifts 89; Hindu and Muslim riots 84; mass human migration 84, 89 Pastrana, Andreas 10 – 11 peace as a tool of war 161 – 179 Peace Brigades International (PBI) 13, 105 Peace Watch, Switzerland 116 peace zones 48 peacebuilding 222 – 236; deliberative 27; legitimate agents of 20 – 39 People Power movement 28 People’s Liberation Army (China) 148 Philippines 28, 29, 151 – 153; children as Zones of Peace 152; Guidelines in the Conduct of AFP Activities Inside or With the Premises of a School or Hospital 152; Guidelines on the Protection of Children During Armed Conflict 152; Municipal Peace Committee 34; Special Development Areas (SDAs) 37; Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act 152; ZoPs 34 – 37; see also Mindanao PIRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) 9 Plato, view of the state 4, 123 police presence in Colombia; contested by guerrillas 51 post-conflict 155; spaces 141 – 160 PP (Porteando por la Paz) 122, 126, 128 – 130; collapse of CVC as a sanctuary 126; Guardería ABC (Nursery

ABC) 129; narrative of motherhood 136; Natality as political thought 132 pragmatic legitimacy 9 – 12 presence, ambiguous nature of 118n1 procedural justice and accountability 25 – 26, 30 – 32 Puntland 211 – 213 212; clash with Somaliland 213 – 214; conflict 215; Dulbahante clan in 213 – 214; main clan families of 205 PWS (Peace Watch Switzerland) 116 Qadir, Shah, invites IMTD visit to Kashmir 96 – 97 “Quit India” campaign 88 Quti’n Lame, Manuel, indigenous leader 108 Ramirez, Sara 112 REDEPAZ 14 REDPRODEPAZ 14 refugee groups: ZoPs 156 – 157 regulation 143 representation 180 – 199 Roberts, Sir Adam 47 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 123 Royal Nepalese Army 148 Rufio’s Scabbard argument 8, 9, 18n7; 232 SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) 150 San Carlos, municipality 63; location and environment 65 – 66; population flight (1985–2012) 68; wins 2011 National Peace Prize 7; 223 San Luis, municipality of 76 San Rafael, municipality; as a paramilitary base 66 sanctuary, via Zones of Peace 122; on line 124 Santos, Juan Manuel 13, 114, 119n15; 228 Sardinata, municipality of 49 Save the Children 147, 154, 173; founder 141 Sayeed, Hafiz M. 91; leader of Lashkar-eTayyiba (LeT) schools: see Zones of Peace Schwoebel, Mary Hope xiii Sen, Sweta xiii Serbs fighting in Kosovo 9 Serna, Monsignor, Bishop of Socorro 29, 30 SFG (Somali Federal Government) 200 shadow citizenship 43, 46 – 62; as agency 46; citizens 8; defined 48 Shepheard, William 86

Index  243 Simla Accords (1975) 85 Singh, Lt. General Gurinder 95 Sinhala nationalists 18n11 SNM (Somali National Movement) 204 – 207 solidarity, with local actors 107 Somali Democratic Republic (SDR) 202 – 203; General Mohammed Siad Barre 204 – 205 Somali Republic 202 – 203; formation of 204 Somali society: diya 202; reer 202; xeer 202 Somalia 203; diffusion of Islam 203 – 204; Somali-Ogaden war 204; United Somali Congress (USC) 205 Somaliland 6, 200 – 221, 212; birth of 206; Burco Conference 205 – 207; challenges to internal legitimacy 210 – 216; clan fragmentation 215 – 216; concepts of legitimacy 201 – 204, 204, 220n1; Constitution of Somaliland 209; conundrum of external legitimacy 216 – 218; Darod clan 204 – 206, 211; Declaration of Reassertion of Sovereignty 206; elections 209 – 210, 219, 220n3; Grand Borama Conference 207 – 208; Gudabirsi 205, 207; Guurti 207 – 209; main clan families of 205; main Isaaq clans 206; National Charter 208; peacebuilding in 204 – 208; Peace Charter 208; peace processes 205; Puntland boundaries 211; SSC separatist movement 214 – 216; segmentary lineage system 201 – 202; state-building 208 – 209; state consolidation 209 – 210; state formation 205; violence in 205 – 207; wadaad 204; waraleh 204; see also hybrid legitimacy; SFG; SNM; SSC sources of legitimacy 3, 6, 10, 17 South Africa 10 South Sudan: birth of 166; Bor mutineers 166; legitimacy through prophesy 191 – 192; last on Fragile States Index 184; alternative concepts of legitimacy 185 South West Africa, German rule in 6 SPLM/A (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army) 161, 166, 170 – 171; Derg regime 166, 167, 169, 170, 173; Dinka domination of 167; human rights abuses 167 – 168; interaction with humanitarian groups 172 – 173; military penal code 168; National Convention

171; Operation Save Innocent Lives 173; origins of 162 – 172; proving legitimacy 175; Torit Resolutions 171; using informal diplomacy as strategic tool 173 – 176; see also Garang, John; OLS (Operation Lifeline Sudan); SRRA (Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association) SPLM-Nasir 169; alliance with Khartoum Government 170; becomes SSDF 170 Sri Lanka 5, 28 SRRA (Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association) 173; Demobilization, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration of Child Soldier program 173 SSC (Sool, Sanaag and Cayn, Puntland) 214; conflict with Somaliland 214; SSC Charter 214 SSDF (Southern Sudanese Defense Forces) 170 SSIM (South Sudan Independence Movement) 169 – 170; formerly SPLM/ A-United 169; formerly SPLM-Nasir 169 stakeholder theory 181 state legitimacy 4 – 5, 183 – 184; in fragile states 185 – 187; see also legitimacy; non-state actors state security agencies, failure of 7; view of International Humanitarian law 12 – 13 status 180 – 199 Sudan 28, 163; “abid” (slaves) 163; Addis Ababa Agreement 165; Ansar organization 163 – 164; Anya Nya separatist movement 164, 165, 167; Arab-Islamic nationalist identity 163 – 164; cause of civil war 163; Conference on Civil Society and the Organization of Civil Authority 171; decentralized administration 172; Deeds of Commitment 161; elite north 163 – 164; first civil war 164 – 165; Gezira scheme 164; Khatmiyaa 163: Mahdi period 163; Muslim Brotherhood 165; Operation Lifeline Sudan 170; second civil war 165 – 168, 175; slave trade 163; Southern Sudanese Defense Forces (SSDF) 170; Southern Sudan Liberation Movement 165; “stateless” south 163 – 164; Sudan African Nationalist Movement 165; Sudanese Civil War 161; Torit Mutiny 164; Umma

244 Index Party 164, 165; Unionist Party 164; see also CANS (Civil Authority of New Sudan); OLS (Operation Lifeline Sudan); Nameiri, Jaafar; South Sudan; SPLM/A (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army); SSIM (South Sudan Independence Movement) support for insurgents 174 suzerainty 86 Syria: sources of legitimacy 12 Syrian state 5 SZoPs 141 – 142, 147, 149 – 150 Tamil minority in Sri Lanka 5, 18 targets of violence 141 – 160 technology 134; as intersection 134 Tharoor, Shashi 86 Thucydides 123 Torit mutiny 164 Torit Resolutions of 1991, 171 traditional societies 180 – 199 trigger event, for formation of a CVC; 128 TULF 18n11 twisted legitimacy 180 – 199; bases of 194 – 195; defined 181, 187 – 190; disconnect with state legitimacy 188; in Egypt 192 – 194; pre-state legitimacy 189; in South Sudan 191 – 192; tribalism 189; two cases of 190 – 194 unarmed peacekeeping 105 UNICEF 148, 150, 153; EEPCT (Education in Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition) program 148; initiative for O.L.S. 172 – 173 Universal Declaration of Human Rights: right to education 142 Universidad Javeriana 115 Uribe, Alvaro 11; “democratic security” program 37, 68; hardline administration 56; human rights workers labeled terrorists 105; “Justicia y Paz” law 68; links to business organisations 114

Valencia, Aristides 32 values-based legitimacy 223 VI4P (Virtual Infrastructures for Peace) 121; sources of legitimacy 135 – 136 Victims Unit [Medellin) 75 Villanueva, Laura xiv Voices of Women (Voces de Mujeres) 129 Wani, Burhan, death of 84, 91 war in San Carlos 65 – 79; Asfalto (Asphalt) 80n15; civilian noncooperation 64 – 65; civilian response to 68 – 78; disappeared persons 74 – 77; grassroots peacebuilding 73 – 74; municipality of 67; reconciliation 77 – 78; trajectories of 65 – 68; see also CARE; Joppaz wartime legitimacy 174 – 175 Weber, Max 2; charismatic character category 182; legal justification 45, 49; legitimacy 142, 182, 201; traditional justification 49, 53, 123, 182, 201 Weberian state: 50 – 51 Wilson, Jacqueline xiv youth: as category 157n6 Youth’s Project of Peace (Joppaz) 64; origins and activities 69 – 78; help from Church 69; from UNICEF 73; nonthreatening strategies 71 – 72; locating disappeared 74 – 75; resettling displaced 75 – 77; reconciliation 76 – 78 Zardari, Asif Ali 91 Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) 28 zones of peace (ZoP) 122, 141 – 160, 223; articulating the model 28 – 38; children as 141, 145; definition of 124; land considerations 112; Southeast Asia as 152; strategic spatialization 145; virtual communities 121 – 138; see also CZoP; LIZOP; PP (Porteando por la Paz); SZoPs