Peacebuilding and “Virtual Peace”: Examining a Critical Turn in Peacebuilding Research through Police Reform

Abstract

While some calls for a success in institutionalizing the term “peacebuilding” since its appearance in An Agenda for Peace, others point out the challenges faced during peacebuilding efforts and the agendas that need to be addressed. One critique is that, in borrowing from the words of Oliver P. Richmond, current peacebuilding is creating a virtual peace that “looks far more coherent from the outside than from the inside [of the recipient country] and [is] effectively [building] the empty shell of a state.” Focusing on the term “virtual peace,” this paper will analyze its meanings and implications to peacebuilding research. First, the paper will place the term “virtual peace” within the so-called “peacebuilding debate” and will perceive it as a critical turn in peacebuilding research. Second, the paper will examine its implications with reference to police reform in Sierra Leone. While each case is unique, Sierra Leone is a typical post-conflict country that experienced peacebuilding following the end of the Cold War, and, thus, lessons can be shared among other cases around the globe that are going through the peacebuilding process. In short, the paper explains that virtual peace implies the necessity to recognize the subjective aspect of the concept of peace and calls for the acknowledgement of new agendas for peacebuilding: i. e. exploring potential alternatives for a state-centric model through the interplay of different actors’ perceptions of peace, paying attention to each context. It is not the intent of this paper to deny peacebuilding and/or a state-centric framework; rather the point is that peacebuilding that is confined to the state-centric framework is not as multidimensional as advocates would like to think. This paper illustrates this by referring to a turning point in police reform in Sierra Leone: i.e. a decision to assist a customary organization known as the Chiefdom Police.