Global Governance and the Causes of Conflict
Mahim

An analysis of the above-mentioned chapter from Mark Duffield’s
Global Governance And The New Wars

Duffield analyzes the Northern project of global liberal governance discourse and causes of conflict as dictated by this discourse. The causes of conflict that this discourse dictates serve to justify the “need” for “liberal” aid in conflict-ridden areas and hence formulation of aid policies voicing out political rhetoric and free market propaganda as articulated through the “structural adjustments” they impose on receiving countries.
There are two causes of conflict dictated by two different discourses. The first is New Barbarism, which is rooted in the neo-racial or bio-cultural discourse of the 1960s. New Barbarism, like multiculturalism recognizes racial and ethnic diversity and concurs with multiculturalism over the non-superiority or non-inferiority of any race. However, unlike multiculturalism, it does not understand these differences as being a source of richness and vibrancy, but as a reason for conflict and antagonisms. New Barbarism thrives on primordialization of the “other”, thereby presenting them as traditionally harboring antagonistic and hate-producing feelings towards each other. Duffield gives a lot of examples to hammer this point down (Chechen wars, Balkan mentality of Yugoslavia, Bosnia conflict, Rwanda genocide etc.) and refers to Kaplan, Goldberg and obviously, though importantly, Huntington, with the latter’s thesis on Clash of Civilizations asserting civilization as the ultimate human tribe and the clash of civilizations, therefore, as a global tribal conflict. Huntington clearly mentions how cultural and civilizational identities are increasingly shaping patterns of cohesion and conflict, with civilizations sharing similar values or characteristics realizing cohesion and those having contradictory values producing conflict, what he calls fault line wars. Further, Duffield underscores the emergence of disease perceived as being as great a security threat by the North, as terrorism or arms proliferation (do they view it as bio-terrorism of a different kind?). The “remedy” to anarchy and disease prevailing in Africa as articulated through Goldberg’s argument, lies not with the state or assistance, but with the free market, as it would provide “astute” leaders “encouragement” to keep primordial animosities in check. The second cause of conflict is Underdevelopment, which draws fuel from the free market discourse and advocates multiculturalism as promoting vibrancy and vitality, provided free market forces are allowed to exercise their benevolence. The association of underdevelopment with a high risk of conflict is the core assumption within the developmentalist discourse, which by implication would mean “development” as resolving conflict and there is of course no debate on the model of development ! Further the changes that have occurred in the nature of conflict and the institutional adaptations that these changes spur shape the emergence of global liberal governance. The disappearance of former constraints in liberal economic governance make the task of global liberal governance easier by presenting new policy measures as undoing the “damage” done by inappropriate governance of the 1980s, which rendered that decade “lost” for many countries. In the context of this, the repackaging of development aid as effecting structural conflict prevention has been the major emphasis of the liberal governance regime. This also means that poverty, which has no doubt been central to even past developmental discourses, is rearticulated as intertwined with underdevelopment and a cause as well as effect of conflict, though this causality may or may not be direct as evident in case of middle-income Balkan countries. Causality, therefore, in this case, would lie in probability i.e. poor countries carry within their structures a high risk of conflict but not necessarily a definite cause for conflict. By implication, conflict itself is seen as deepening poverty as it destroys developmental assets and social capital e.g. the 15 year civil war in Mozambique which led to the declaration of it being the poorest country in the world. However, Duffield says, it’s difficult to trust the validity of such assertions as they are seldom backed by reliable statistical evidence. Citing, Nordstrom (2000) he says the UN claim of Mozambique being the poorest country was made during the war and not following it. A cause effect relationship in this case is therefore skewed and unsubstantiated by empirical evidence. This is further supported by the fact that neighboring countries like Zambia and Malawi, which haven’t suffered any major conflict, have similar poverty levels. This makes it clear that even under dearth of empirical data, the mere idea that conflict deepens poverty helps mobilize support for liberal peace. Taking this rhetoric to ridiculous levels, former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz asserts that the persistence of traditional values and cultures in conflict ridden poor countries is a sign of past developmental failures, thereby providing liberal governance an excuse for systematic destruction of indigenous cultures and value-systems and replacing them with “modern” pro-developmental and “progressive” institutions. Interestingly, conflict is utilitarian for the cause of liberal peace as it is seen as eroding traditional cohesion, culture etc. which would mean an opportunity for the new radicalized developmental discourse to transform entire societies, including popular beliefs and attitudes. [Given this argument, what would stop even the most ignorant observer, from believing that the contractors of liberal peace would not create and sustain conflicts, in order to simplify their cause?] According to Duffield, conflict may actually have the opposite effect; in making social groups more dependent on their resources, coping strategies and social networks, it often acts to reaffirm or even strengthen socio-cultural cohesion [I see an example of exactly this in the form of community based security groups in the Shias of Iraq]. Moving ahead, the destructive effects of conflict, both on development and culture, cast the poor as victims, thereby providing liberal peace an opportunity to intervene. However, besides just justifying intervention, the liberal peace project also intends to make the poor allies to its cause, casting them as self-acting agents. Conflict is thus portrayed by liberal peace as a reaction by the poor against the oppressive regime of underdevelopment. This, however, hits a roadblock due to the fact that the poor already have their own local non-liberal leaders and liberal peace resolves this by delegitimizing previously existing local leadership by problematizing the very basis of their leadership as something leading to violent, oppressive and underdevelopmentalist conflict. The developmental discourse uses two approaches for this- the first fuelled by New Barbarism, depicting traditional leadership as being anarchic and fragmented, lacking any clear political purpose; and the second, more recent approach, which goes a step further and criminalizes conflict and leadership (Rwanda and Bosnia), rather than calling them just anarchic and un-political. The first approach, as I see it, was more innocent in that it saw leadership and conflict lacking motive and going nowhere; the second approach, however sees a criminal motive that would definitely lead to destruction, thereby separating people from their leaders. The project for designer peace therefore uses aid to buy-off leaders and if that fails, creating linkages between those who oppose violent conflict and constructing spaces for peace.