before institutional development (liberalization before institutionalization), the emphasis on stability over freedom, and the failure to incorporate civil society into peacebuilding efforts all may serve to undermine and reduce the quality of peace.16 Additionally, critics argue that this basic formula has been applied in countries as diverse as Bosnia, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mozambique, and Rwanda without respect to local cultures or realities. In each of these cases, the peace processes envisioned peace through democratization, focusing primarily on creating a climate conducive to holding free and fair elections as quickly as possible. The emphasis on elections was based on the underlying assumption that elections would create participatory democracy, which presumably would yield peace dividends. Given the failure of most transitions to produce liberal democracies, critics charge that electoral competition and neoliberal economic policies have undermined prospects for peace in most postconflict societies. According to Paris, such “Wilsonianism” is potentially destabilizing and may even reproduce the sources of conflict in postconflict societies.17 While the causes of recurrence of civil war (and peace failure) are more complicated than some of the critical literature suggests, it does succeed in highlighting the gaps between the stated intentions of peacebuilding and actual outcomes.18
The Importance of Local Actors in Peacebuilding
Both traditional peacebuilding literature and critical theory focus heavily on the ideologies, actions, and policies of outside actors (the peacebuilders). But peacebuilders do not bear the sole responsibility for the outcomes of peacebuilding. In his critique, Ole Jacob Sending argues that the focus on external actors largely ignores the extent to which these practices are shaped by the principle of sovereignty and the role of local actors.19 In fact, local actors are integral to the outcomes of every aspect of the peace process, from agenda setting through implementation. Peacebuilders are involved at the will of local actors and, by necessity, must work within the constraints set forth by them. As noted by Miles Kahler, “their [peacebuilders’] programs become part of an intricate set of political calculations on the part of existing elites and their rivals. Whatever the asymmetries in power, local actors possess bargaining power and often use it effectively.”20 This bargaining power may occur through either formal or informal power at the negotiating table. As Roman Krznaric demonstrates in the case of Guatemala, the Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial, and Financial Associations (CACIF), the country’s most important business organization, wielded significant influence over the socioeconomic content of the accords despite not being a direct party to the negotiations.21
While local peacebuilding actors may include the state, armed opposition forces, civil society, and other political actors, elites often have the most influence on peacebuilding. Depending on the case, local elites may include economic elites, political elites, military elites, or some nexus of the three.22 The preferences, or desired outcomes, and capacity of local elites engaged in peacemaking and peacebuilding have been long neglected in both peacebuilding literature and the critical responses to it. Yet local elite preferences have a significant impact on peace processes and peacebuilding, more specifically. The two most obvious ways that elite preferences shape peace processes are through their desire to maintain the status quo and their control of state resources and patronage networks. It is, perhaps, not surprising that elites seek to preserve their interests during peace processes, which often seek to alter the status quo. As David Roberts notes, elite entrenchment is a characteristic of many postconflict societies.23 While one result of this entrenchment may be institutional reform, patterns of patronage and clientelism continue to dominate political culture in these countries. In its most benign form, elite entrenchment can result in increased polarization and may undermine democratic governance. At its worst, elite entrenchment may result in the resuscitation of conflict as elites attempt to retain power and fight proposed reforms.24
Far from being impotent actors at the mercy of international institutions, local elites often find ways to use the peacebuilding process to (re)consolidate or establish their control. Elites may feign interest in reforms to appease peacebuilders in order to gain or maintain access to resources without ever intending to undertake liberalizing reforms or by undermining reforms through informal structures.25 Michael Barnett and Christoph Zürcher argue that the interactions between state elites, who seek to maximize their own interests, and peacebuilders shape the content of negotiations and determine the outcomes of peacebuilding.26 The authors describe a range of potential outcomes of this interaction, as defined by the extent of the antagonistic relationship between peacebuilders and local elites. The authors argue that most cases result in “compromised peacebuilding,” where “state elites accept the legitimacy of the peacebuilders’ reforms in exchange for international assistance and legitimacy but seek to preserve their self-interest.”27 Under this model, state elites work with peacebuilders to jointly determine policies. The result is an outcome that promotes reform while protecting the interests of the status quo.28 In a more recent work, Barnett, Songying Fang, and Zürcher elaborate on compromised peacebuilding by employing a game-theoretic model to examine the outcome of bargaining between peacebuilders, elites, and secondary elites. Not surprisingly, divergence between the peacebuilders’ ideal outcome and elites’ preference toward the status quo leads to compromised peacebuilding and, as such, contributes to illiberal democracy.29 That said, the authors do not argue that compromised peacebuilding is necessarily detrimental to future democratic development but may create the basis for it.
One result of this bargaining between local elites and peacebuilders may be hybridity, a condition “where liberal and illiberal norms, institutions, and actors coexist, interact, and even clash.”30 The literature on hybridity and hybrid governance seeks to explain peacebuilding outcomes as the by-product of the liberal peacebuilding agenda and local actors and culture.31 It can also, as Richmond demonstrates, serve as a critique about peacebuilding’s failure to engage the local.32 Hybridity is useful in explaining the wide variety of outcomes seen in postconflict peacebuilding, as most cases exist on the continuum between liberal and illiberal.33 In its most illiberal form, hybrid governance may result in state capture by economic elites while still possessing some features of democracy.
Elites and Capture
The literature on state capture yields interesting insights for our understanding of the role of elites in peacebuilding. Derived from the literature on regulatory capture, which deals with the influence of firms (or interest groups) on policy outcomes, capture theory has recently been applied by theorists to examine corruption in transitional states and economies.34 State capture occurs when powerful individuals or firms are able to influence the content and application of public policy in accordance with their own interests in exchange for bribes to public officials.35 It is a system of corruption characterized by a “perversion of the rules of the game, through corruption, to the benefit of the captors, rather than for society as a whole.”36 Recent studies on state capture indicate that it can affect a wide range of institutions, including the legislature, executive judiciary, ministries, and security. But elites do not just capture the state through bribes or special-interest groups; they occupy positions within the government. This capture may be facilitated by the overlapping economic and political interests of elites, or when “preexisting networks and new economic elites have secured positions of dominance in the transition environment creating a new fusion of economic and political power.”37 Because states in transition and newly democratic states may be particularly vulnerable to capture, it may also help to illuminate obstacles in peacebuilding.38
There is relatively little literature exploring elite capture in peacebuilding, though recent scholarship on corruption and peacebuilding helps illuminate many of the same challenges.39 In addition to compromised peacebuilding, “captured peacebuilding” is one of the outcomes identified by Barnett and Zürcher. In captured peacebuilding, state and local elites are able to redirect the distribution of assistance so that it maximizes their interests.40 Beyond merely protecting the status quo, this scenario allows elites to direct resources
