The international dynamics of counter-peace

Peace processes and international order are interdependent: while the latter provides the normative framework for the former, peacemaking tools and their underlying ideology also maintain international order. They indicate its viability and legitimacy partly by meeting local claims as well as though the maintenance of geopolitical balances. In the emerging multipolar order, the international peace architecture (IPA), dominated by the liberal international order (LIO), is contested through counter-peace processes. These processes contest the nature of the state, state-society relations and increasingly international order itself. This paper investigates the tactics and strategies of regional actors and great powers, where they engage in peace and order related activities or interventions. Given the weakness and inconsistency of the IPA and the LIO, such contestation leads to challenges to international order itself, often at the expense of the claims of social movements and civil society networks

As culturas de desenvolvimento e o local em Timor‑Leste

In a reversal of previous policies, development agencies are increasingly adjusting their interventions to local cultures. This paper analyses how Timorese culture has been interpreted, processed and factored into UN development programmes. Which types of concessions do agencies make? Where are the red lines in this hybridization process and does it entail a renegotiation of development approaches or just unilateral concessions? The paper argues that UN agencies’ efforts to become more culturally sensitive in their operations in Timor‑Leste has clear limitations and fails to reflect local culture in its diversity. In this complex interplay of co‑existing variations of local culture, power asymmetries and international orthodoxy, development agencies are both: always one step behind in understanding local culture, but one step ahead regarding their power to define the rules of engagement