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Post-conflict statebuilding and state legitimacy: from negative to positive peace?

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journal contribution
posted on 2014-07-28, 13:35 authored by David RobertsDavid Roberts
This article is concerned with the potential that statebuilding interventions have to institutionalize social justice, in addition to their more immediate 'negative' peace mandates, and the impact this might have, both on local state legitimacy and the character of the 'peace' that might follow. Much recent scholarship has stressed the legitimacy of a state's behaviour in relation to conformity to global governance norms or democratic 'best practice'. Less evident is a discussion of the extent to which post-conflict polities are able to engender the societal legitimacy central to political stability. As long as this level of legitimacy is absent (and it is hard to generate), civil society is likely to remain distant from the state, and peace and stability may remain elusive. A solution to this may be to apply existing international legislation centred in the UN and the ILO to compel international organizations and national states to deliver basic needs security through their institutions. This has the effect of stimulating local-level state legitimacy while simultaneously formalizing social justice and positive peacebuilding.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Politics and International Studies

Published in

Development and Change

Volume

39

Issue

4

Pages

537 - 555

Citation

ROBERTS, D., 2008. Post-conflict statebuilding and state legitimacy: from negative to positive peace? Development and Change, 39 (4), pp. 537-555.

Publisher

Blackwell Publishing (© Institute of Social Studies)

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publication date

2008

Notes

This version of this article has the following title: Statebuilding 3.0: building local legitimacy, essential security and global governance. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: ROBERTS, D., 2008. Post-conflict statebuilding and state legitimacy: from negative to positive peace? Development and Change, 39 (4), pp. 537-555, which has been published in final form at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2008.00495.x. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.

ISSN

0012-155X

eISSN

1467-7660

Language

  • en