A Case for a Normative Local Involvement in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding

Liberal peacebuilding's imperfect record of involving local actors in rebuilding post-conflict societies paved the way for the local turn in peacebuilding. One of the issues the local turn highlights is local involvement in peacebuilding processes. Drawing from the experiences of previous peacebuilding missions in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste, this paper contributes to the local turn by identifying the types of local involvement in peacebuilding and their consequences on post-conflict societies. This identification could be useful in steering the local turn away from the same flawed local involvement that brought liberal peacebuilding into crisis. The analysis in this paper demonstrates how exclusive, superficial, non-representative, and politicized types of local involvement failed to achieve or sustain peace in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste. The conflict-promoting tendencies of these types of local involvement make a case for a normative agenda that is inclusive, substantive, representative, and transformative.