The democratic credentials of a hybrid institutional framework

Based on a historical assessment of conflict management interventions in the Philippines, Jeroen Adam argues that the establishment of hybrid institutions in peace building and post-conflict reconstruction has often followed an authoritarian rationale. It is therefore suggested that NGOs and practitioners carefully examine the democratic credentials of some of the hybrid institutions through which they work and critically interrogate untested assumptions about their supposedly socially legitimate qualities

Fighting for peace? The strange contradictions in the current Zamboanga standoff

Mindanao – When 200 MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) fighters attempted to raise their flag of independence in the city hall of the city of Zamboanga on September 10, a standoff began which not only hit the headlines of the Philippine newspapers but also received considerable international attention. While this attempt was thwarted by the Philippine security forces, the MNLF fighters retreated into nearby neighborhoods

'If you are in government, you can still implement traditional law' : hybridity and justice in Lanao, the Philippines

This article discusses the emergence of hybrid institutional arrangements in the field of security and justice delivery in the provinces of Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte in the Philippines. It will be argued that these hybrid institutions cannot be explained by pointing at a weak or fragile state. Rather, over the past few decades, the Philippine state has demonstrated an exceptional capacity to incorporate a range of informal practices of justice delivery within formal state institutions. In the type of hybridity that is emerging, formal state institutions serve as avenues through which highly flexible practices of justice and security delivery are being performed. As a result, control over justice and security provision has been transferred from traditional authorities to elected politicians. Rather than being a process of legitimate and sustainable state formation, this has reinforced an authoritarian political order under which access to justice and security is unevenly distributed. Based on these observations, this article puts forward some questions about a defining axiom within the current hybrid political order literature that views the interaction of informal and formal types of public authority as a prime avenue to enable post-conflict reconstruction and state formation

Armed actors and the fallacy of the state: non-state dichotomy: State-mediated networks of coercive power in Mindanao

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Informal conflict management in exclusivist political orders: some observations on Central Mindanao

"In the past decade, a range of international and national NGOs have pointed to the need to complement national-level negotiations with a support for alternative, informal institutions of conflict management in order to reach a sustainable peace in the conflict-affected regions of Central and Western Mindanao. This argument is based on emerging insights into the multi-layered conflict ecology in the region and the fact that classic statist diplomacy can only deal with this complexity to a limited extent. Based on an analysis of existing conflict management practices in the region, we would like to challenge some of the basic premises underlying this ‘alternative’ and informal approach. Our core argument is that in the case of Mindanao, assuming a rigid distinction between formal and informal actors and practices of conflict mediation is flawed and may actually be counterproductive, as it obscures how informal practices dominate purportedly formal mediation procedures. Moreover, it tends to underestimate how the local executive embodying state power plays a key role in allegedly ‘informal’ conflict management mechanisms." (author's abstract)"In den letzten Jahren hat eine Reihe von internationalen und nationalen NROs darauf hingewiesen, dass Verhandlungen auf nationalstaatlicher Ebene durch alternative, informelle Institutionen des Konfliktmanagements unterstützt werden müssen, um nachhaltigen Frieden in den Konfliktregionen von Zentral- und West-Mindanao zu erreichen. Dieses Argument basiert auf jüngsten Einsichten über die Vielschichtigkeit der Konfliktdimensionen in der Region und dem Faktum, dass klassische nationalstaatliche Diplomatie im Umgang mit dieser Komplexität begrenzt ist. Basierend auf einer Analyse von bestehenden Praktiken des Konfliktmanagements in der Region möchten wir einige der grundlegenden Prämissen, die diesem 'alternativen' und informellen Ansatz zu Grunde liegen, in Frage stellen. Unser zentrales Argument ist, dass die Annahme einer rigiden Trennung zwischen formellen und informellen AkteurInnen und Praktiken der Konfliktmediation im Fall von Mindanao mangelhaft und möglicherweise sogar kontraproduktiv ist, weil sie verschleiert, wie informelle Praktiken vorgeblich formelle Mediations- prozesse dominieren. Zudem unterschätzt eine solche Trennung, wie die lokale Exekutive als Verkörperung von Staatsmacht eine Schlüsselrolle darin spielt, welche scheinbar 'informellen' Mechanismen des Konfliktmanagements geltend gemacht werden." (Autorenreferat

Conflict mediation and traditional authority in the province of Lanao del Sur, Mindanao

This paper elaborates on the concept of hybridity as deployed by The Asia Foundation (TAF)in their conflict management interventions in the province of Lanao del Sur, the Philippines. This analysis starts from a critical reading of one specific Theory of Change (ToC) that has been formulated by The Asia Foundation under the UK Department for Interna tional Development Programme Partnership Arrangements (DfID PPA) Component 5 and is entitled: ‘Community-level efforts to improve local security in Mindanao’. Two broad research questions have been derived from this ToC. First, an empirical analysis of the ‘weak state and strong traditional authority’ hypothesis that underpins the formulation of this ToC and conflict management strategy. Second, the question of whether the institutions through which TAF is working can be understood as hybrid institutions, in the sense that they reflect an interaction of the formal and the informal. The paper is then concluded by relating these major empirical findings to the broader Hybrid Political Order (HPO) literature. The main arguments from this paper can be divided into two major parts. A first, empirical part and a second part which deals more explicitly with the ToC and the place of hybridity therein