Peacebuilding and Authoritarianism THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF UN ENGAGEMENT IN POST-CONFLICT SETTINGS Dr Adam Day, Dr Sarah von Billerbeck, Dr Oisín Tansey and Ayham Al Maleh Dr Adam Day is Director of Programmes at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, Dr Sarah von Billerbeck is Associate Professor of Politics and International Relaitons at the University of Reading, Dr Oisín Tansey is Professor of International Politics at King’s College London and Ayham Al Maleh is an independent consultant supporting the UN in information management and peacebuilding. The authors would like to thank the following people who participated in an expert roundtable event based on the preliminary findings of this report: Marc-André Franche, Nicole Ganz, William Gardner, Asif Khan, Nigina Khaitova, Marcus Lenzen, Aikaterini Limenopoulou, Bart Paans, Chelsea Payne, Alexandra Pichler Fong, Monica Rijal, Samuel Rizk, Alma Saliu, Gillian Sheehan, Ugo Solinas and Alejandro Bonil Vaca. The views expressed in this report are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect these participants’ views or those of the United Nations Secretariat. This material has been funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office; however the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK Government’s official policies. ISBN: 978-92-808-6535-6 © United Nations University, 2021. All content (text, visualizations, graphics), except where otherwise specified or attributed, is published under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-Share Alike IGO license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO). Using, re-posting and citing this content is allowed without prior permission. Citation: Dr Adam Day, Dr Sarah von Billerbeck, Dr Oisín Tansey and Ayham Al Maleh, Peacebuilding and Authoritarianism: The Unintended Consequences of UN Engagement in Post-Conflict Settings (New York: United Nations University, 2021) Cover photo: UN Photo/Iason Foounten Back cover photo: Jose Hernandez/Shutterstock Contents Introduction ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������1 I. How Peacebuilding Enables Authoritarianism���������������������������������3 II. A Comparison Across Peacebuilding Settings �����������������������������10 III. A Framework for Peacebuilders ��������������������������������������������������23 Case Study I: Cambodia Case Study ���������������������������������������������28 Case Study II: Haiti Case Study ������������������������������������������������������36 Case Study III: Democratic Republic of Congo Case Study������������44 References ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������53 Introduction any UN peacebuilding interventions This project explores the ways in which take place in settings governed by peacebuilding may unintentionally enable M authoritarian regimes and are often authoritarian tendencies, despite its stated goal overtly designed to overcome deeply entrenched of more inclusive forms of governance. We build patterns of autocratic rule. Whether large on scholarship that has analysed the impacts of multidimensional peacekeeping operations democratization efforts in post-conflict settings,4 like those in the Democratic Republic of the and the substantial literature describing how Congo (DRC), Mali, and Central African Republic authoritarian systems may prove resilient to (CAR), smaller peacebuilding missions in places external efforts to transform them, including like Guinea-Bissau and Haiti, or peacebuilding by instrumentalizing democratic institutions, projects in non-mission settings like Kyrgyzstan controlling resources, and emplacing political and Cameroon, the legacies of autocratic rule structures that tend to centralize authority in present some of the most direct and immediate a small elite.5 While helpful in understanding challenges for international intervenors. In fact, the politics of authoritarian rule, this literature peacebuilding has seldom resulted in a complete seldom offers an analysis of the causal transformation from an authoritarian system relationships between peacebuilding and to an open democratic one. Instead, most authoritarianism, leaving policymakers and systems retain some form of authoritarianism practitioners without a clear framework to via a continuation of a particular ruler, ruling understand the impact of their interventions. party, or consolidation of power in a small The fact that peacebuilding is one amongst many elite.1 More worryingly, many post-conflict factors influencing authoritarianism means settings experience a further concentration of that its possible contribution to tendencies of power and even greater repression as regimes centralization and political repression often go take advantage of new forms of economic unnoticed. development and international support.2 In some cases, there is evidence that peacebuilding The principal argument of this project is that support may have contributed to increasing peacebuilding support may enable authoritarian levels of authoritarianism, even while advancing forms of governance in two ways: (1) by providing other important goals.3 material and other resources to the central State, 1 thereby allowing it to consolidate control over but also aims to provide a usable framework key institutions and levers of power, and (2) by and set of recommendations for policymakers signalling in ways that lower the perceived costs and practitioners to avoid some of the common of autocratic, non-democratic forms of rule and pitfalls and ensure that peacebuilding support may help to shield leaders from accountability is not distorted or co-opted. To that end, this for their actions.6 Together, these operate as a paper is organized as follows: Part One reviews causal mechanism through which international the literature on post-conflict peacebuilding peacebuilders may bolster authoritarian and authoritarian governance, noting that the tendencies within political systems even while bulk of scholarship on peacebuilding provides ostensibly promoting democratic forms of few causal explanations for the prevalence rule. In contrast, where peacebuilding support and resilience of highly centralized forms of diversifies its resources to a broader range of governance. It then lays out the research design stakeholders and sends signals that the political and the use of the two-part causal mechanism costs of non-democratic forms of governance described above. Part Two illustrates how may be high, it should contribute to reductions these dynamics play out in a range of country in authoritarian tendencies. While these impacts settings where the UN has invested significantly may be difficult to isolate – especially given that in peacebuilding support. The analysis compares the UN is often a small player in the broader across in-depth country case studies on DRC, peacebuilding landscape – an examination Haiti, and Cambodia (see case studies below), of international peacebuilding support more and draws on an assessment of peacebuilding generally across a range of settings will facilitate funding flows in eight other countries.8 a better understanding of these dynamics at play. Part Three builds on the country comparison This approach will also help us understand the and provides a framework for policymakers and dilemmas facing peacebuilders who must often practitioners involved in peacebuilding, offering choose between supporting State institutions key considerations and suggested approaches as key actors in conflict prevention, while also to planning future interventions. recognizing that authoritarian governments may instrumentalize the same institutions It should be noted at the outset that this paper to consolidate power. Moreover, it offers an is primarily focused on UN-led peacebuilding evidence base for policymakers and major efforts, though it analyses a broad range of donors hoping to understand how to translate international peacebuilding support and elite bargains into more sustainable forms of provides recommendations that can be applied peace.7 to bilateral donors and international financial institutions (IFIs) as well as the UN. This project not only explores the relationship between peacebuilding and authoritarianism, 2 © UN Photo/UNAMA CHAPTER 1 How Peacebuilding Enables Authoritarianism What is authoritarianism? institutions that appear to foster open political space, while in fact instrumentalizing such This paper defines authoritarianism as a political institutions to consolidate power in a small system in which power and resources have central elite.15 The presence of parliaments, been centralized in a person or elite group in elections, ministries, and courts does not a manner that limits meaningful political and necessarily indicate an open system, but may economic inclusion and instrumentalizes key in fact point to deeply entrenched forms of State institutions towards concentrations of authoritarianism.16 power.9 This aligns with much of the scholarship defining authoritarianism largely on the basis Authoritarian systems have proven of a combination of a lack of political space for extraordinarily resilient, often outlasting elections and the consolidation of power in a predictions of their demise by decades and small elite.10 For example, Bartusevičius and resisting external efforts to transform them. To Skaaning have proposed that political systems persist, such regimes must overcome significant be classified in terms of their relationship to challenges, including