Abstract
In considering the role of religious institutions in post-conflict statebuilding it is not unreasonable to ask whether this line of enquiry remains relevant. The prescriptive nature of Western foreign policy towards developing countries and its recurring liberal agenda suggests that it isn’t. Built upon the foundations of modernization theory from the 1950s and 1960s international development and statebuilding policies are largely efforts aimed at replicating Western modes of progress in which there was no formal role for religion. Lant Pritchett et al. refer to this phenomenon in the development context as ‘isomorphic mimicry’, in that aid agencies replicate Western institutions without allowing unique indigenous systems to develop organically.1 Religion, as understood through modernization theory or isomorphic mimicry, is seen as unnecessary or even an inhibitor to progress.
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Lant Pritchett, Michael Woolcock and Matt Andrews, “Capability Traps? The Mechanisms of Persistent Implementation Failure,” in Working Paper234 (Center for Global Development, 2010).
Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
See for example Rodney Stark and Laurence R. Iannaccone, “A Supply-Side Reinterpretation of the ‘Secularization’ of Europe,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 33, no. 3 (1994).
Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). 384. This view coincides with my own personal experience while living in Iraq through this period.
Ana Hacic-Vlahovic, “(De)Secularization in Bosnia-Herzegovina: An Examination of Religiosity Trends in a Multi-Ethnic Society,” Amsterdam Social Science 1, no. 1 (2008).
Gerald B. Helman and Steven R. Ratner, “Saving Failed States,” Foreign Policy, no. 89 (1992): 5.
Robert I. Rotberg, “The New Nature of Nation-State Failure,” Washington Quarterly 25, no. 3 (2002): 1.
Nicolas Lemay-Hébert, “Statebuilding Without Nation-Building? Legitimacy, State Failure and the Limits of the Institutionalist Approach,” Journal of Intervention & Statebuilding, 3, no. 1 (2009).
Bruce Gilley, “The Meaning and Measure of State Legitimacy: Results for 72 Countries,” European Journal of Political Research 45, no. 3 (2006): 502.
Jack Snyder, ed. Religion and International Relations Theory, Religion, Culture and Public Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 1.
Jonathan Fox and Shmuel Sandler, Bringing Religion into International Relations, Culture and Religion in International Relations (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). 9–10.
In 2000, in a search of papers published in three leading development studies journals between 1982 and 1998, ver Beek found very few references to the role of spirituality or religion in development, which led him to refer to ‘spirituality’ as a ‘development taboo’. Quoted in Carole Rakodi, “Working Paper 66: Inspirational, Inhibiting, Institutionalized: Exploring the Links between Religion and Development,” in Religions and Development Research Programme (Birmingham: University of Birmingham, 2011).
Anne-Marie Holenstein, Role and Significance of Religion and Spirituality in Development Co-operation (Bern: Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, 2005). 5.
Alina Rocha Menocal, “State Building for Peace: A New Paradigm for International Engagement in Post-Conflict Fragile States?” Third World Quarterly 32, no. 10 (2011): 1720.
Sarah Cliffe and Nigel Roberts, “World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development,” ed. Bruce Ross-Larson (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2011), 131.
This revival largely began with the publication of Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson, eds., Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). Since then the academic spotlight has sharpened on the need to find a place for religion within scholarly research on international affairs. These efforts have included
Fabio Petito and Pavlos Hatzopoulos, eds., Religion in International Relations: The Return from Exile, 1st ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). Thomas, The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations: The Struggle for the Soul of the Twenty-first Century. Snyder, Religion and International Relations theory.
Timothy Fitzgerald, Religion and Politics in International Relations: The Modern Myth (New York: Continuum, 2011).
Timothy Samuel Shah, Alfred C. Stepan, and Monica Duffy Toft, eds., Rethinking Religion and World Affairs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Alternatively, some scholars have opted to suggest that religion does not fit easily into existing international relations theories because of their non-political ends and as such new constructs need to be developed. See for example Timothy Samuel Shah and Daniel Philpott, “The Fall and Rise of Religion in International Relations: History and Theory.” In Religion and International Relations Theory, ed. Jack Snyder (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 52.
For example see Beate Jahn, “The Tragedy of Liberal Diplomacy: Democratization, Intervention, Statebuilding (Part I),” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 1, no. 1 (2007).
References to the decline of legitimacy as a favoured concept can be found in Bruce Gilley, The Right to Rule: How States Win and Lose Legitimacy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). xii.
Lipset does add a second element, political system’s effectiveness, alongside legitimacy, which closely resembles Beetham’s ‘common interest’ component of the justification aspect of legitimacy. Seymour Martin Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” The American Political Science Review 53, no. 1 (1959): 86.
Paddy Ashdown, Swords and Ploughshares: Bringing Peace to the 21st Century (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007) 44.
Caleb Elfenbein, “Establishing Religion in Iraq: Islam and the Modern State,” Comparative Islamic Studies 3, no. 1 (2007).
Haider Ala Hamoudi, “Religion and Law in Iraq: A Noteworthy Federal Supreme Court Opinion,” JURIST 2011.
For a summary of scholarship on how these social mores arise, whether biological or social, rational or arational, see Francis Fukuyama, The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstruction of Social Order (London: Profile Books, 1999).
Utilitarianism has been expanded upon in the context of legitimacy recently by Lasswell and McDougal. Legitimacy through this view is based upon the extent to which it serves the greatest good for the greatest number of people. For a summary of this perspective see Bart M. J. Szewczyk, The EU in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Powers, Decisions and Legitimacy (Paris: Institute for Security Studies, 2010). 15.
Susan L. Woodward, “Do the Root Causes of Civil War Matter? On Using Knowledge to Improve Peacebuilding Interventions,” Journal of Intervention & Statebuilding 1, no. 2 (2007).
V. Rao and R. Ban, “The Political Construction of Caste in South India,” Development Research Group (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007), 7.
Hamza Hendawi, “Egypt’s Army Chief Seeks Mandate to Fight Violence,” Huffington Post, 30 July 2013.
Francis Bown, “Influencing the House of Lords: The Role of the Lords Spiritual 1979–1987,” Political Studies 42, no. 1 (1994): 119.
For a more extensive discussion on this topic with case studies see Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, The Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
C. J. Beck, “State Building as a Source of Islamic Political Organization,” Sociological Forum, 24, no. 2 (2009): 341.
Jack A. Goldstone, “Pathways to State Failure,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 25, no. 4 (2008): 285.
A New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States, 1 December 2011; Jennifer Milliken and Keith Krause, “State Failure, State Collapse, and State Reconstruction: Concepts, Lessons and Strategies,” Development and Change 33, no. 5 (2002): 760; Goldstone, “Pathways to State Failure,” 285.
Stuart E. Eizenstat, John Edward Porter and Jeremy M. Weinstein, “Rebuilding Weak States,” Foreign Affairs 84, no. 1 (2005).
United States Institute of Peace and Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2009). 9.
Leila Chirayath, Caroline Sage and Michael Woolcock, “Customary Law and Policy Reform: Engaging with the Plurality of Justice Systems,” Background Paper for the “World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development” (2005), http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2006/Resources/477383-1118673432908/Customary_Law_and_Policy_Reform.pdf.
Some argue that an exceptionally large and well equipped intervention force can fully replace an indigenous policing effort. See James Dobbins et al. The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2007), http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG557. 25. East Timor could be argued to be one such case in which the police contingents were substantial and dispersed throughout the country but based upon personal experience, having lived in East Timor during this period, I would suggest that their effectiveness in enforcing pubic security was limited and instead it fell upon non-state actors to maintain law and order.
An example of such a system can be found in Ethiopia as described by Daniel Mekonnen, “Indigenous Legal Tradition as a Supplement to African Transitional Justice Initiatives,” African Journal on Conflict Resolution 10, no. 3 (2010), http://www.accord.org.za/downloads/ajcr/ajcr_2010_3.pdf.
For a review of the literature comparing the two systems see R. B. G. Choudree, “Traditions of Conflict Resolution in South Africa,” African Journal on Conflict Resolution 1, no. 1 (1999), http://www.accord.org.za/downloads/ajcr/ajcr_1999_1.pdf.
Meron Zeleke, “Ye Shakoch Chilot (the court of the sheikhs): A Traditional Institution of Conflict Resolution in Oromiya Zone of Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia,” African Journal on Conflict Resolution 10, no. 1 (2010), http://www.accord.org.za/downloads/ajcr/ajcr_2010_1.pdf.
Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Nonviolence and Peace Building in Islam: Theory and Practice (Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 2003). 92.
R. B. Serjeant, Customary and Shari’ah law in Arabian Society (Hampshire: Variorum, 1991) III 12.
Brett Morash, “Union of Islamic Courts…An Opportunity Lost for Stability in Somalia,” in 43rd Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Political Science Association (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Northeastern Political Science Association, 2011).
Ioannis Mantzikos, “An African Version of the Taliban? The Islamic Courts Union in Somalia (2006) and the Taliban Afghanistan (1996),” Comparative Islamic Studies 4, no. 1–2 (2008): 118.
Morash, “Union of Islamic Courts… An Opportunity Lost for Stability in Somalia.” It is also worth noting that there is little evidence that law and order was restored through extreme punitive measures. See Ted Dagne, “Somalia: Current Conditions and Prospects for a Lasting Peace” (2010), http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/139249.pdf.
Paolo Buonanno, Daniel Montolio and Paolo Vanin, “Does Social Capital Reduce Crime?” Journal of Law and Economics 52, no. 1 (2009): 163. Note that the type of crime considered in this research was property crime (car theft, robbery and common theft) as opposed to violent crime.
I Semih Akcomak and Bas ter Weel, “The Impact of Social Capital on Crime: Evidence from the Netherlands,” Regional Science and Urban Economics 42, no. 1–2 (2012): 324.
Kraig Beyerlein and John R. Hipp, “Social Capital, Too Much of a Good Thing? American Religious Traditions and Community Crime,” Social Forces 84, no. 2 (2005).
Ara Norenzayan, “The Idea That Launched a Thousand Civilisations,” New Scientist, 17 March 2012, 42–44.
Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).
See Jesse Graham and Jonathan Haidt, “Beyond Beliefs: Religions Bind Individuals Into Moral Communities,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 14, no. 1 (2010).
See John R. Bradley, After the Arab Spring: How the Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts (New York City: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) 34.
In the Hanafi school of jurisprudence dar al-Islam is considered a territory in which certain regulations and observances are practised. These include for example, Friday prayers, Eid prayers, application of Islamic law at the very least on personal matters. Fikret Karčić, The Bosniaks and Challenges of Modernity: Late Ottoman and Hapsburg Times (Sarajevo: El-Kalem, 1999) 113. Alternatively, in a more radical reading of the divisions is Sayyid Qutb’s in which he sees only two types of societies, ‘the Islamic society and the jahili [wilfully ignorant of Islam] society’. Esposito notes that in this perspective, the wilful ignorance or active opposition to true Islam ‘surrounds’ the true Muslim, and for that person, ‘the battle is continuous and jihad continues until the Day of Judgement’.
John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, “Islam and the West: Muslim Voices of Dialogue.” In Religion in International Relations: The Return from Exile, ed. Fabio Petito and Pavlos Hatzopoulos (Washington, DC: Palgrave MacMillon, 2003), 240.
Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994). no. 842.
Tone Bringa, Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central Bosnian Village, Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
See for example Ronald G. Musto, The Catholic Peace Tradition (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1986). For Islam, see
Qamar-ul Huda, Crescent and Dove: Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2010).
Muhammad Abdel Haleem, “Interpreting the Qur’an; Qur’an 3:7, 2:106, 16:101, 31:20.” In Communicating the Word: Revelation, Translation, and Interpretation in Christianity and Islam, ed. David Marshall (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011). To aid in the understanding of the breadth of scholarly perspectives on Islam and conflict Mohammed Abu-Nimer has identified three distinct groups: those who focus on the study of war and jihad; those who study war and peace; and those who study peace building and non-violence. Each of these three places a different emphasis upon aspects of the Qur’an leading to different interpretations of normative inter-religious relations. Abu-Nimer, Nonviolence and Peace Building in Islam: Theory and Practice: 11–47.
Jane E. Stromseth, David Wippman, and Rosa Brooks, Can Might Make Rights?: Building the Rule of Law After Military Interventions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 310. Their work on this topic comprising a hefty chapter in their book is a worthy contribution to the field written from the perspective of foreign intervention.
Others suggest that it is the result of a lack of knowledge by donors who are responsible for funding. Piron sees donors as ‘blind to their [traditional non-state authorities] existence and relevance.’ See Laure-Helene Piron, “Time to Learn, Time to Act in Africa,” in Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: In Search of Knowledge, ed. Thomas Carothers (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 291.
Quoted in Heather Marquette, “Corruption, Religion and Moral Development,” in Religions and Development Research Programme (Birmingham: University of Birmingham, 2010), 9.
Nasr, The Islamic Leviathan: 110. See also Kikue Hamayotsu, “Islam and Nation Building in Southeast Asia: Malaysia and Indonesia in Comparative Perspective,” Pacific Affairs 75, no. 3 (2002).
For an explanation of a disciplinary revolution see Philip S. Gorski, “The Protestant Ethic Revisited: Disciplinary Revolution and State Formation in Holland and Prussia,” American Journal of Sociology 99, no. 2 (1993).
Gregory Starrett, Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics and Religious Transformation in Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998) 62.
Maia Green, Claire Mercer, and Simeon Mesaki, “The Development Activities, Values and Performance of Non-Governmental and Faith-Based Organizations in Magu and Newala Districts, Tanzania,” in Religions and Development Research Programme (Birmingham: University of Birmingham, 2010).
Richard Batley and Claire Mcloughlin, State Capacity and Non-State Service Provision in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States (Birmingham: Governance and Social Development Resource Centre, 2009), 15.
Ildephonse Fayida et al., Christians and Muslims Promoting Maternal and Infant Health: A Sermon/Khutbah Guide Based on the Holy Bible and the Holy Qur’an, ed. Sarla Chand, Ignace Singirankabo, and Kathy Erb (IMA World Health, 2009), vii.
Matthew Clarke, Development and Religion Theology and Practice (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2011). See also
Gerrie ter Haar, ed. Religion and Development: Ways of Transforming the World (London: Hurst & Co., 2011).
For a critique of Clarke’s book regarding the difference between stated goals and theology see Denis Dragovic, “Development and Religion: Theology and Practice,” Australian Journal of International Affairs 66, no. 3 (2012).
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Dragovic, D. (2015). Religion and Post-Conflict Statebuilding. In: Religion and Post-Conflict Statebuilding. Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137455154_2
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