Download The Limits of Good Governance in Peace Processes: A Sociological Perspective and more Study notes Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! 1 The Sociology of Peace Processes Lecture 4 summary: Explaining peace processes the governance way One of the reasons why peace processes and negotiated settlements are so fragile is because the transition process is reduced to one of introducing good governance – democratic institutions and human rights law. These are good things but peace processes require much more than institutional reform if they are to be successful, and the focus on introducing good governance tends to leave untouched a whole array of sociological issues that are equally critical to the success of the transition process. I will be arguing three things today. That: • good governance is an important part of the transition process to peace • the emphasis on good governance arises from the liberal hegemony that dominates our understanding of democratic transitions • and that its focus on institutional reform is too narrow to cope with the array of problems which communal violence leaves as a legacy for peace processes Good governance assists in both eliminating the sources of conflict, especially when the conflict was about the undemocratic nature of the former regime and the failure of one or more groups to feel they were adequately politically represented and who were subject to human rights abuses, or if not eliminate the conflict, at least channel it in institutional ways that substitute talk for violence, discussion for damage. The stability of peace accords does depend in very large part on two things associated with good governance: a) people’s experience of governance and law after the violence has stopped b) the way resistance to the accord is managed within the new governance and human rights parameters Nonetheless, changes in governance and law alone are no guarantee that communal violence will end even in viable states. Let me give two examples of how the good governance approach is affecting political science as it thinks its way around the problem of how to introduce democratic transitions in formerly undemocratic and divided societies. The first example is consociational theory; the second deliberative democracy theory. Consociational theory is associated with Arendt Lijphart. This political model is based on European societies formerly divided by language and ethno-national identity but has since been applied to divided societies like South Africa and Northern Ireland. The principle is that groups not individuals form the political unit. Deliberative democracy seeks to encourage active engagement by citizens in deliberative forums as a way of overcoming their apathy and getting more active involvement in democratic institutions. It is not just that they believe good governance to be the epitome of the modern state, or that they value democratic forms of governance as the best type, it is that the democratic governments of the West provide the resources to support peace processes. It is the West that supplies the aid to support the new governments, the UN that provides the peacekeepers, mostly from Western or pro-Western countries, and it docsity.com
