Engaging with the ‘local turn’ in post-conflict states : a critical analysis of UN peacebuilding in Côte d’Ivoire and Libya

Abstract

The ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding represents a reorientation of the process to better integrate local actors in order to promote and facilitate agency and national ownership. Institutional capacity building, promotion of liberal democratic principles, and engagement with locals largely at the national elite level are the key features of the UN’s peacebuilding agenda in post-conflict states. This essay is critical of the United Nations’ (UN) engagement with the ‘local’ in its peacebuilding and development agenda. Such an approach presents a narrow focus on institutional level reforms to promote peacebuilding with a limited appreciation of the local context. The essay argues that inherent complexities exist among the different local actors based on significant social identifiers such as ethnicity and social stratification. It is therefore necessary to problematize the tendency for some practitioners and academics in the field of peacebuilding to create a homogenized portrayal of local actors and their interests in relation to the process of post-conflict reconstruction. The two cases of post-conflict states studied for analysis of UN reporting on peacebuilding are Côte d’Ivoire and Libya.