Unpacking the local turn in peacebuilding: a critical assessment towards an agenda for future research

This article undertakes a critical assessment of the local turn in critical peacebuilding scholarship. It comes to the conclusion that the local turn is hampered by a binary and essentialist understanding of the local and the international, which are presented as the only relevant locations of power or resistance. This leads to an ignorance of local elites, provides a romanticised interpretation of hybrid peace governance structures, overstates local resistance and presents an ambivalent relationship to practice. The article recommends a more nuanced understanding of the actors involved in peace- and statebuilding, based on more empirical scholarship and a multidisciplinary approach.