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The Evolution of Post-conflict RecoverySultan Barakat a; Steven A. Zyck aa Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit (PRDU), University of York, Heslington, York, UK

Online Publication Date: 01 September 2009

To cite this Article Barakat, Sultan and Zyck, Steven A.(2009)'The Evolution of Post-conflict Recovery',Third World Quarterly,30:6,1069 1086To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/01436590903037333URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436590903037333

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The Evolution of Post-conictRecovery

SULTAN BARAKAT & STEVEN A ZYCK

ABSTRACT Recent history has been marked by the rise of post-conict inter-vention as a component of military and foreign policy, as a form of humani-tarianism and as a challenge to Westphalian notions of state sovereignty. Theterms of debate, the history of the discipline and the evolution of scholarship and practice remain relatively under-examined, particularly in the post-9/11 period inwhich post-conict recovery came to be construed as an extension of conict and as a domain concerned principally with the national security of predominantlyWestern countries. The subsequent politicisation of post-conict recovery and entry of post-conict assistance into the political economy of conict have fundamentally changed policy making and practice. The authors argue thatresearch into post-conict recovery, which must become increasingly rigorousand theoretically grounded, should detach itself from the myriad political agendas which have sought to impose themselves upon war-torn countries. Thede-politicisation of post-conict recovery, the authors conclude, may benet froman increasingly structured architecture of integrated, directed recovery.

It would be neither tting nor efficacious for this Government to undertake todraw up unilaterally a program designed to place Europe on its feeteconomically. This is the business of the Europeans . . . The role of this country[the USA] should consist of friendly aid . . . Political passion and prejudiceshould have no part

George C Marshall, 5 June 1947 1

The sentiments underlying the Marshall Plan have unfortunately yet to berepeated or even imitated. As George C Marshall stated more than 60 yearsago, the reconstruction of war-torn Europe consisted of friendly aid givento countries, albeit with certain conditionalities, to spend on the prioritiesthat they themselves had identied. 2 Though aimed at the resumption of transatlantic trade between the USA and Europe, it also suggested animmense degree of trust in its recipients. The Marshall Plan embodied anunderstanding, missing from contemporary post-conict interventions, thatthe officials in those countries were best suited to guide their own recoveryand that recipient-country leaders, in fact, required control of substantial

Sultan Barakat and Steven A Zyck are based at the Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit(PRDU), University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK. Emails: [email protected];[email protected].

Third World Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 6, 2009, pp 10691086

ISSN 0143-6597 print/ISSN 1360-2241 online/09/06106918 2009 Third World QuarterlyDOI: 10.1080/01436590903037333 1069


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resources in order to solidify their power and relevance. 3 Yet there has been atendency to view the Marshall Plans strength as simply a function of themassive sums provided, which amount to some US$120 billion in currentequivalents. 4 While a single-donor contribution of comparable size has neveroccurred since, the annual per capita levels of assistance provided to the 17Marshall Plan recipient nations, US$129 on average, has routinely beenexceeded since then. Rather, in war-ravaged Europe, as well as in thecontemporary Balkans, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and SoutheastAsia, it is the manner in which assistance is provided, not solely the amountdisbursed, that is critical in determining the success or failure of the recoveryprocess.

A review of 11 war-torn countries shows that combined, non-militaryspending during the rst two post-conict years amounted to a net total of nearly $32 billion, or $1.45 billion per post-conict zone per year. 5 The actualspending differed widely in annual per capita terms, from a low of $24 in theDemocratic Republic of the Congo to a peak of $679or more than 28 timesas muchin Bosnia-Herzegovina (see Figure 1). 6 The amounts provided inBosnia amounted to more than ve times the amount supplied through theMarshall Plan.

What Figure 1 shows is both the importance and, paradoxically, theinsignicance of aid nancing to post-conict interventions. Many of themost successful recovery processes, in Bosnia, Eastern Slavonia and Kosovo,have seen exceptionally high levels of international assistance, and some of the least successful, such as in DR Congo and Afghanistan, have seen

F IGURE 1. Annual per capita, non-military assistance in the rst two post-conict orpost-peace agreement years.Source : J Dobbins, SG Jones, K Crane, A Rathmell, B Steele, R Teltschik & ATimilsina, The UNs Role in Nation Building: From the Congo to Iraq , Arlington, VA:RAND Corporation, 2005, p 239.


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relatively low levels. Funding would appear to be decisive; yet, paradoxesemerge. The relatively middling spending in Germany and low spending inJapan led to miraculous recoveries following the Second World War, whilehigh levels of assistance in East Timor and Iraq, in particular, gave rise toviolent are ups in the former and a protracted insurgency combined withsectarian in-ghting in the latter. High levels of aid nancing may thus beviewed as, broadly speaking, necessary but not sufficient to facilitate aneffective post-conict recovery. The manner in which that assistance isprovidedusing which modalities, through which actors, to what sectors andto what endwill prove decisive. As such, these questions ought to be theprimary occupation of post-conict recovery scholars and practitioners andwill form the basis of this article.

The authors begin by addressing the competing terminologies to describethe series of non-military interventions in post-conict countries beforeturning to an analytical history of post-conict recovery which examines thevarious transformations that scholarship and practice have undergone in thepast 30 years. Post-9/11 transformations are addressed in a separate section,given their historical uniqueness and relation to the articles nal section,which addresses likely as well as necessary future directions for bothscholarship and practice. In sum, post-conict countries have come toembody too many and frequently contradictory political and economicagendas, resulting in an increasingly imposing set of expectations andobjectives which marginalise recipient state institutions and, therefore,constitute a major threat to state sovereignty and stability. The development

of national governmental capacities, though not necessarily democracy, theauthors conclude, should be prioritised, and temporary structures should beestablished in war-torn countries to ensure an orderly and technically rootedreconstruction process as part of an architecture of integrated, directedrecovery.

Dening and labelling post-conict intervention

Post-conict recovery sits at the nexus of earlier developed subjects such asdevelopment studies and peace and conict studies while overlappingconsiderably with traditional subjects such as political science, economics,sociology, psychology and history. The varied interventions undertaken inthe name of post-conict recoveryinfrastructure rehabilitation, govern-ance, economic development, demilitarisation, security sector reform, publicadministration reform, refugee resettlement, peace building, womensempowerment, health, education and many othersfurther complicate thediscussion by involving medicine, engineering, architecture, education,gender studies and numerous other disciplines. The practice of post-conictrecovery has proven even more multifaceted. So-called mission creep andthe introduction of new activities in the post-conict period, have made theconcept difficult to dene in sectoral terms. Instead it should be dened by itsaims and objectives, namely to reactivate economic and social develop-ment . . . [and] to create a peaceful environment that will prevent a relapse

THE EVOLUTION OF POST-CONFLICT RECOVERY

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into violence. 7 Despite widespread agreement upon such a denition in theliterature, the boundaries between relief, recovery and development are inconstant ux, and a single post-conict context is likely to include severalgeographical areas and populations at varying stages of crisis anddevelopment. 8 As such, no empirical criteria for differentiating between thethree phases have been or can be established, although the authors prefer abroad denition and one which excludes basic, life-sustaining relief activitieswhile seeing itself more closely aligned with questions of local capacity,sustainability and conict-sensitivity inherent in much contemporarydevelopment theory and practice. 9

Terminology and syntax

Terminological debates, while perhaps perceived as purely rhetorical, arenecessary given their relation to broader discussions of the objectives andtheories underlying interventions in post-conict countries. 10 Although theterm reconstruction has gained considerable momentum, it has also beencriticised for suggesting a return to the status quo ante which had beenimplicated in the cause of the conict. 11 The constructive urge, it was implied,had failed to adequately deconstruct the weaknesses and vulnerability factorsevident in the pre-conict environment. In the light of such debates,recovery gained favour for its pre-existing use in economic, social, medicaland psychological realms and because of its apparent distance from theinfrastructure-oriented connotations and origins of reconstruction.

A variety of lesser and emerging terms have also been used, including, mostnotably, post-conict stabilisation. Reecting modest aims, stabilisationhas been a concept particularly endorsed by militaries and by the Britishgovernments interagency body for post-conict and fragile states, theStabilisation Unit. 12 Having emerged in the context of the war on terror andinternational military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the term expresses apreference for the establishment of basic security, with humanitarianactivities serving as force protection and public diplomacy, rather than formore comprehensive and customarily civilian domains such as governanceand socioeconomic development. In contrast, the humanitarian aid commu-nity has tended to view post-conict development as reecting the need forpost-conict activities to focus around developmental objectives, rather thanmore politically oriented concerns such as democratisation or security sectorreform. 13 The authors will primarily refer to recovery within this articlegiven the aforementioned weaknesses of reconstruction and the minimalistand militarised nature of stabilisation.

A history of post-conict intervention

Given the number and variety of actors engaged in post-conict recovery, theauthors aim to provide an analytical history of major conceptual andpractical innovations rather than a detailed account of specic events. Eachera is differentiated from the preceding and following ones based upon a


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number of criteria assessed throughout the literature. The criteria employedare: 1) the primary sectors of activity; 2) the critical or emerging actors; 3) theaims, objectives and nal beneciaries; and 4) the relative emphasis put uponrecipient state institutions and their relation to international actors. Basedupon these four criteria, the authors identify three primary phases betweenthe 1970s and 2001. It is critical to note that these phases are cumulativerather than discrete, and the latter phases include the dimensions of earlierphases, though commonly in a more muted form. The evolution of scholarship and practice since 2002 will be addressed in a separate section,since this does not reect an evolution of earlier practices but the arrival of entirely new categories of actors, objectives and activities.

Phase one: economic liberalisation (and its discontents)Much of the post-conict recovery work done since the Second World Warwas led by the state or states in which the war had occurred, frequently withfunding from the USA or USSR. 14 During the late 1970s and 1980s, inreection of the politics of democratic-capitalist nations in the throes of theCold War, reconstruction and recovery came to revolve around economicliberalisation in places such as Sudan, Egypt, Mozambique, Latin Americaand elsewhere. International actors, particularly the Bretton Woods institu-tions such as the World Bank and IMF , encouraged, through heavy-handedaid conditionalities, developing and conict-affected countries to: (a) pursuemacroeconomic stability by controlling ination and reducing scal decits;

(b) open their economies to the rest of the world through trade and capitalaccount liberalization; and (c) liberalize domestic product and factor marketsthrough privatization and deregulation. 15 These economic transformationswere based on the premise that the surest foundation for peace, both withinand between states, is market-democracy, that is, a liberal democratic polityand a market-oriented economy. 16 This agenda required close interactionwith recipient state institutions, although it fundamentally aimed to slashpublic budgets and payrolls and, in essence, to marginalise the state ineconomic and other public affairs. This frequently intrusive approach wasdriven by the same Cold War forces that mitigated it; structural adjustmentwas viewed as a sign of loyalty to liberal democracy and opposition tocommunist encroachment, although the leaders of several developingcountries were able to balance US and Soviet pressures to maximise theirnations access to foreign assistance and domestic political autonomy. 17

Macroeconomic liberalisation and democratisation often failed to providethe sorts of stability and economic growth envisioned by their proponents.Paris argued that structural adjustment programmes ( SAP s) in El Salvador,Nicaragua and Guatemala had heightened the risk of conict reversion, andJeong implicated IMF policies in the start of conicts in Sudan in 1985 andZambia in 1990, as well as in civil unrest across West and North Africa. 18

While studies demonstrated that certain implementation arrangements couldmitigate SAP s potentially harmful inuence, a backlash against the liberaleconomic model of development began to occur in developing as well as


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post-conict countries. 19 Structural adjustment was seen as privileging theelite and marginalising the most vulnerable, and international non-governmental humanitarian actors intervened to cushion the loss of subsidiesfrom previously state-controlled economies. As part of this backlash, asustainable human development or people-centred paradigm emerged. 20

These approaches reected a belief that the ultimate test of developmentpractice is that it should improve the nature of peoples lives, and . . . that itshould be founded on participation and a more equal partnership betweendeveloping countries and aid donors. 21 Particularly inuential in post-conict environments in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the new para-digm envisioned a consensual partnership between international organisa-tions, donor agencies, recipient governments and grassroots civil society. 22

The rise of social funds, which involved donor contributions being distri-buted by quasi-public agencies in small amounts to community groups ornon-governmental organisations ( NGO s) for community-improvement projects, strongly reected this trend. 23 In many ways economic liberalisationand the emergence of this sort of grassroots development provided com-plementary interventions but ones which worked at cross purposes and whichwere implemented by culturally incompatible institutions. These tensions,combined with the end of the Cold War and the onset of a series of supposedly new wars, led to calls for a more unied approach to thechallenges of developing and conict-affected countries and, hence, theemergence of a new phase.

Phase two: post-cold war challenges to sovereignty

The loss of polarising cold war tensions led to a urry of conicts as externalsupport dried up, state power weakened in many countries and calls forautonomy and self-determination proliferated. The 1990s witnessed theoutbreak of 32 wars, primarily intra-state conicts, and, globally, 56 separateconicts ended between 1989 and 2000. 24 As a result of these conicts and theestablishment of new countries from former communist monoliths, thenotion of the state was drawn into question, and post-conict interventionsexpanded both in number and scope. States which were unable, as in Rwandaand the former Yugoslavia, to prevent ethnic violence and genocide came tobe seen as unworthy of the sovereignty with which the Westphalian systemhad endowed them. This can be seen in the rise of internationaladministrations within war-torn countries and the controversial interventionin Kosovo in 1999. 25 The grassroots backlash to economic liberalisationwithered and humanitarian as well as strategically-oriented actors unitedaround an interventionist impulse.

Post-conict recovery activities during this time became increasingly broadand deep. The aforementioned international administrations and theiraccompanying peacekeeping forces introduced the disarmament, demobilisa-tion and reintegration ( DDR ) of former combatants and various other aspectsof security sector reform ( SSR ) as core activities in post-conict contexts. 26

Most activities, however, remained under the control of NGO s. According to


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records of the United Nations Economic and Social Council ( ECOSOC ), thenumber of international NGO s grew from 893 in 1990 to 1995 a decade later,an increase of 123%. The number of multi-sectoral NGO s with globaloperations increased from 36 to 120 across this same period. 27 Theseorganisations began to intervene in the social dynamics of post-conictcontexts, particularly with regard to inter-group and inter-ethnic relationsand gender in the name of peace building and social equity. Notions of justicereform, including transitional justice activities such as truth and reconcilia-tion commissions, increasingly proliferated alongside the perception that theroot causes of conict rested in the legacy of past injustices. Economicinterventions continued to focus upon liberalisation and privatisation butthey also expanded to include livelihood activities and the governance of primary exports in, for instance, mineral-rich West African contexts.Although programmes were frequently conducted in the name of peace,equitable development and justice, the rising number of NGO s, the expansionof their mandates and their nancing by international multi- and bilateralinstitutions meant that recipient states were commonly relegated to observerstatus in much of their countries recovery.

Despite the decreasing role played by recipient states, the question of goodgovernance rose in prominence. The previously assumed link betweenstructural adjustment, increased social spending, liberal democracy and goodgovernance lost much of its credibility. Leftwich, in particular, called intoquestion the presumed relationship between democratisation and economicgrowth and, in a challenge to the orthodoxy of the time, argued that non-

consensual and non-democratic measures may often be essential in the earlystages of developmental sequences in laying the foundations for growthandalso sustainable democracy in the long run. 28 Likewise Brohman as well asAhmed and Green questioned democratic approaches but saw the solution asthe empowerment of pre-conict, traditional models of governance,participatory or not, which would have greater local validity than importedWestern models. 29 As with all major paradigm shifts, the questioning of thepolitical, economic and developmental model which had dominated themajority of the late 1980s and 1990s led to a new phase of post-conictrecovery.

Phase three: humble consociationalismThe nal phase is one which emerged rst in the late 1990s and which,following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, became a primarilyacademic ideal. This phase has, thus, been a conceptual one which has yet tobe implemented in any comprehensive manner. According to authors whohelped to dene this phase, interventions need to show due caution, andthe imposition of radical modernisation agendas regarding gender, socialequity, hierarchies, governance and economics should be viewed withscepticism. 30 Rather, working with what exists and within the limits of established institutional arrangements was seen as most important,particularly in relation to governance and the state. 31 The possibility for


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on terror and invasion of Afghanistan by a US-led coalition resulted in therealignment of aid alongside counter-terrorism goals, democratisation agendasand the military. 40 While the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq reecteddivergent conceptual basesthe removal of fragile environments prone tohosting terrorist networks versus the pre-emptive overthrow of stable regimesperceived to pose a threat to international stabilitytheir post-conict periodsinvolved similar approaches.

Most signicant has been the tendency to engage in post-conict recoveryduring rather than strictly following conicts, a change which affects not onlytiming but also sectors of interventions. 41 The evolving nature of peaceagreements, which have comprised elite pacts among only a portion of relevant stakeholders has resulted in the generation of protracted insurgen-cies rather than the sort of smaller-scale spoiler violence seen at the tail end of conicts in the 1990s. 42 The early implementation of activities morecommonly associated with post -conict recovery has meant that humanitar-ian assistanceincluding relief and reconstruction spendinghas become acomponent of the political economy of the conicts. While the earlier onsetof recovery activities was widely noted to provide a peace dividend anddemonstrate the benets of eventual or maintained stability, the targeting of initial assistance towards the most violent areas has produced perverseincentives not only for the continuation of violence in those areas but alsofor peaceful regions in places such as Afghanistan to permit, attract or mimicinsurgent activity in hopes of maximising access to resources. 43 Thisdevelopment represents perhaps the most troubling evolution in post-conict

recovery if, indeed, it may be termed as such, rather than being moreappropriately labelled mid-conict stabilisation. The implications of injectinghumanitarian actors into the dynamics of ongoing conict have rarely beenrigorously examined, and more practical concerns regarding the safety of aidworkers and challenges of civilmilitary cooperation ( CIMIC ) have predomi-nated in the literature.

The aforementioned desire to insert reconstruction assistance into highlyinsecure contexts has resulted in the military taking up such duties,particularly through the sorts of Provincial Reconstruction Teams ( PRT s)established rst in Afghanistan and shortly thereafter in Iraq. 44 Thesemilitary reconstruction bodies are commonly conceived and implemented aspart of broader counter-insurgency operations aimed at winning localsupport for international military forces and newly established governments.Personnel from NGO s, in particular, have thus feared that armed elementsand insurgents may view those engaged in relief, recovery and developmentas conict actors on par with well armed, well-drilling soldiers. 45 Doubtsregarding the effectiveness of the PRT model have also been raised, andexamples of inappropriate interventions (eg schools being built in inap-propriate locations and without the benet of teachers) have proliferated. 46 Agrowing focus upon developing CIMIC capacity within the USA, UK andother Western militaries suggests, however, that the armed forces view thePRT experience (as well as the involvement of the military in post-tsunami


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operations in early 2005) as sufficiently successful to merit continuation andreplication.

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The military has been joined by the private sector as a new entrant intopost-conict stabilisation and reconstruction operations. In the post-2001period, predominantly Western companies are increasingly becoming the faceof post-conict recovery. Private security companies ( PSC s) and privatemilitary companies ( PMC s), the latter of which engage in dynamic operations,have supplemented international forces in Iraq and Afghanistan while, as inBosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere, also training newly constituted policeand military forces. The use of PSC s and PMC s raises questions, most notablyregarding accountability, given that private soldiers have largely beenimmune from prosecution when implicated in war crimes and human rightsabuses. 48 Other private companies such as Kellogg, Brown and Root, aHaliburton subsidiary, have engaged in more traditional reconstructionactivities related to infrastructure, telecommunications, energy and watersupply. Private-sector involvement in these sorts of activities is, however, lesshistorically novel, though opaque procurement procedures and sole-sourcecontracts have raised ethical questions. In particular, the management of Iraqs oil supplies and the sale of telecommunications rights in Afghanistanat well below their market value exacerbate decades-old concerns thatprivatisation in the immediate post-conict phase may be done withoutsufficient transparency and to the long-term detriment of the post-conictstate and economy. Finally, development consulting rms have taken leadingroles in the provision of technical assistance and in managing the provision of

basic services. The added costs of employing such companies have beenroutinely criticised, although little research has been conducted into theirrelative effectiveness and in their ability to develop sustainable localcapacities rather than simply replacing them. 49

Private companies played a particularly strong role in the reconstructionof Iraq, and many were engaged alongside non-governmental organisationsin the pre-war planning for post-conict Iraq. 50 The process of developingstrategies for post-invasion stabilisation and eventual recovery proved anoriginal occurrence. It has been fraught with concerns that pre-war planningand the provision of a deluge of humanitarian assistance following conictmay lead to the perceived sanitisation of warfare (and, hence, thedevelopment of a constituency in Western countries which views conict asat least a partially humanitarian activity). Equally important, however, havebeen the tangible failures of this process, which studies have shown to stemfrom the inability of civilian and military actors to co-ordinate, the initialunwillingness of the US military to play a role in post-combat peacekeepingor reconstruction operations, the absence of contingency planning and theinability of senior political gures to comprehend the challenges and nuanceof post-conict environments. 51 Pre-conict or pre-disaster planning forpost-crisis situations possesses a great deal of promise for facilitatingimproved humanitarian responses, but it may lead to the adoption of boilerplate interventions which are unable to account for the specic affectsof the individual crisis. The relative benets of a rapid as opposed to a


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slightly delayed but more appropriate response have yet to be rigorouslyinvestigated and remain primarily a topic of speculation.

Not all trends have been negative in the post-9/11 era of post-conictrecovery. The subject has risen in prominence, and the number of universitiesproviding courses and modules in related topics has soared. The number of scholars working in this eld has led to new perspectives, interdisciplinaryapproaches and methodological developments. Numerous journals beganpaying increased attention to the unique academic and practical challengesposed by post-conict recovery, and entirely new publications developed inthis eld. Media attention to post-conict recovery has never been higher,and 2008 represented the rst time in more than 60 years that the topic hadfeatured so heavily in a US presidential campaign.

As a result of the topics rising visibility and because of the concentrationof some of the worlds most protracted conicts in the Middle East andbroader Muslim world, new donor countries have emerged to great effect.These donors have the potential to increase or at least maintain globalrecovery and development spending in the face of declining contributionsfrom OECD Development Assistance Committee ( DAC ) member countries. 52

Saudi Arabia injected $600 million into Lebanon following the 2006 Julywar with Israel and has pledged $1 billion, half of the total required, forthe reconstruction of Gaza following the war which took place betweenIsrael and Hamas in December 2008 and January 2009. 53 Such gures areall the more startling considering that Saudi Arabias official, bilateraldevelopment spending amounted to only $58.1 million in 2003. 54 Neither

has assistance been provided in one-off payments intended to garnerinternational praise. From 2003 to 2007 the total annual non- DAC donorcontributions to Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq, for instance, increasedfrom $108 million to $547 million, with China and India beginning to playmajor roles. 55 In addition to bringing substantial resources, donors such asthose from the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait,bring a high degree of contextual familiarity as well as cultural and, inparticular, religious awareness. 56 Although they have yet to integratethemselves with multilateral bodies and NGO s, which they have shunned infavour of more visible bilateral contributions, non-traditional donorsapproaches, such as cash transfers for owner-driven housing reconstructionin southern Lebanon, bring the sort of simplicity, un-conditionality and lowdelivery costs which many traditional international actors abandoned longago. 57 Work will need to be done, however, to ensure that such donorsabide by basic international standards and operate in a conict-sensitivemanner. 58

Future directions

Incorporating emerging donors and compensating for many weaknesses of past interventions will require an empirically rooted theory of post-conicttransition which has thus far failed to materialise. 59 As Hasic rightly notes,the body of knowledge related to post-conict reconstruction lacks a strong


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and cohesive theory. 60 The best attempts at theorisation include Colliersempirical analysis of the factors which lower the likelihood of reversion orAddisons and Mursheds ideological claims that recovery necessitates the re-establishment of a shattered social contract through just governance andequitable economic growth. 61 Similarly but more comprehensively idealisticnotions of human security as a counter-weight to national security haverisen in popularity, although, as Paris has noted, the product speaks more of ideals than of the forces, processes and institutional arrangements which helpto determine the success or failure of interventions in developing and conict-affected societies. 62 Instead of attempting to continue the progression of ideological theories or, more appropriately termed, philosophies, of post-conict recovery, bodies of thought could be borrowed from other disciplinesand adapted for use in post-conict recovery. International relations andinternational development may provide two of the most obvious directionswhen addressing questions of intervention, sovereignty and global balancesof power; economic, sociological and psychological theories also applydirectly, for instance to collaborative governance, institutional behaviour andconict vulnerability.

The foundational theoretical work must be combined with rather thanreplace focused empirical research. As Collier noted in an address to theDonor Committee on Enterprise Development in 2006, Science is only justcatching up and policy makers have meanwhile persuaded themselves thatwhat they want to believe is true. 63 As with existing theories of post-conictrecovery, the tendency for both policy makers and scholars to justify

principled positions has hindered objective, methodologically sound inquirymore than the oft-referenced challenge of data collection in war-torncontexts. Such a challenge may be exacerbated by security and culturaldifferences in post-conict situations and it has been insufficiently tackledthrough improved data sharing and information management both amongresearchers and among recipient and donor governments, multilateralinstitutions and NGO s. To overcome data paucity, to improve the qualityof ongoing research and to enable data-driven policy making andprogramming, systems for centralising data while balancing quality andsources anonymity could be established, and all relevant stakeholders couldsign agreements to enforce their use.

Post-conict actors, those engaged in policy making and programming,must similarly aid in the development of research methods and monitoringsystems and agree to base their work upon empirical research. The role of ideologies and multiple competing political agendasgeostrategic, economic,political, social or otherwisemust be neutralised and replaced with anoverriding concern for the prevention of conict reversion which, accordingto admittedly widely contested research, affects up to 44% percent of war-torn countries. 64 All efforts must take this objective as their raison de tre anddevelop supportive interventions. Democratisation, rather than being a keypart of conict prevention as is commonly assumed, may be, at least in theinitial phase of recovery, detrimental to stabilisation and long-termrecovery. 65 The delayed onset of democratisation, for instance, may allow


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it to develop naturally and in a locally owned manner, if at all, rather thanbeing enforced according to predominantly Western models.

Conclusion: towards an architecture for integrated, directed recovery

Allowing time for democracy to develop organically or, at least, through thegradual promotion and expansion of relevant social, economic, politicaland administrative institutions, would require that initial post-conictrecovery be conducted in an undemocratic, which is not to say dictatorial,context. Such a development is, in the authors opinion, welcome. Whilefully developed democracies may be able to partially overcome challengespertaining to intra-state co-ordination and implement complex processesfrom the local to the national and even international level, fragiledemocracies rarely, if ever, can. Attempting to build, reconstitute or reforman entire system of governance and service delivery is a long-term processand one which cannot necessarily occur soon enough to manage the vastmajority of post-conict recovery operations. Concurrently the internationalcommunity has repeatedly proven incapable of building effective stateinstitutions across war-torn countries during even protracted recovery phasesin places such as Afghanistan. International actors have also provenunwilling to co-ordinate or co-operate, and each brings agendas associatedwith its domestic constituency, with the ideologies of its rulers and with itsdesire for recognition and relevance.

As a result of these factors, the humility and consociational ideals of the

previously discussed third phase, which the authors have helped to developand promote, are unlikely to be implemented in any comprehensive manner.Co-ordination will remain chaotic, and the inux of actors with distinct andoften contradictory agendas will signicantly inhibit effective recovery. Anew paradigm is thus needed for the post-post-9/11 phase which, in theauthors opinion, should focus upon an architecture of integrated, directedrecovery. Such a paradigm would involve centralised planning, the establish-ment of an overarching recovery framework and the direction of donors,international organisations, NGO s, civil society and others to integrate theiractivities and contributions within this framework.

The notion of architecture here represents the need to approach post-conict recovery according to a single design and sequencing of interventionsrather than, to continue the metaphor, attempting to construct a buildingwithout blueprints, without a foreman, without a technically determinedorder of activities, without any agreed upon measures of progress and,fundamentally, without any shared vision of what type of building is beingconstructed.

Co-ordination and participation would not be discarded. The developmentof the plan during the conict and in its immediate aftermath would be acritical and highly participatory process which would aim to gather the inputof all relevant stakeholders, particularly those from within the war-torncountry itself. However, once the overarching architecture for the country orregion has been established, actors must integrate themselves into the


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framework and engage in interventions according to the parameters of therecovery plan, while retaining the right to suggest improvements in theoverarching design. To ensure compliance among the range of actors engagedin post-conict recovery, a single director would be empowered to enforcethat plan.

This director would require a highly capable and temporary agency ratherthan a permanent ministry to oversee the post-conict recovery process, inmuch the same manner that the Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi(Bureau of Rehabilitation and Reconstruction for Aceh and Nias BRR ) didin Indonesia following the December 2004 tsunami. Rather than engaging inrecovery activities itself, this agency would identify the most appropriateimplementing partners, ensure compliance with the overarching architecture,monitor corruption and waste and assess the impact of interventions on anongoing basis. This agency would be provided a great deal of autonomy withregard to salaries, pay scales and dismissal procedures in order to ensure thatit is able to recruit the most qualied individuals, who are often hesitant toenter the civil service, and remove under-performing staff members. Uponcompletion of its mandate, which would be strictly time limited, the ad hocagency would be disbanded, although its staff members would be ensuredpublic sector employment and could help to form a technocratic elite withinline ministries.

Despite the degree of autonomy envisioned for the director and the agencyhe or she heads, accountability would be required. A representative councilcomprised of members of all relevant social and political factions could

provide legitimacy to the director and agency while monitoring compliancewith any applicable peace agreements. Such a representative council could,furthermore, establish patterns of productive collaboration between formeror would-be adversaries which could eventually be transferred intodemocratic political institutions. In addition, a steering committee comprisedof major donor and civil society representatives would engage in periodicperformance reviews based upon pre-established, technical criteria, includingaid effectiveness and control of corruption, in order to provide qualityassurance and accountability to the citizenries of donor countries.Simultaneously, the establishment of community-level feedback mechanismswhich measure development indicators, conict vulnerability and overallsatisfaction would allow for objective feedback and the ne-tuning of thepost-conict recovery architecture. Such community-based monitoringboards would help the country to bolster appreciation for participation,accountability, inclusivity and development methods over an extended periodof time, thus aiding in the eventual emergence of local governance andcommunity-driven, self-help projects.

An architecture of integrated, directed recovery would not amount tominimising expectations or aiming strictly for stability. Rather, a blueprintmodel of post-conict recovery would be far more effective than the sort of participatory chaos which continues to reign in places such as Gaza,Afghanistan, southern Lebanon, Somalia, DR Congo and elsewhere.Democratic and liberal economic institutions, according to their local


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interpretation and adaptation, would be established, but only once thesociety is sufficiently developed and stable to incorporate them effectively. Sooften post-conict countries have been asked to transition from war andauthoritarianism into the sorts of liberal, democratic and free-market systemswhich took centuries to develop in much of the West. The outcomes havebeen less than promising, with only ve out of 11 non-European post-conictcountries found to be even nominally democratic. 66 Economic liberalism has,similarly, resulted in unseemly practices such as the purchasing of our forfood-insecure southern Afghanistan not from farmers within their owncountry but from cheaper suppliers in neighbouring Pakistan and elsewhere.Likewise privatisation has crowded out local entrepreneurs and allowedcriminals, as in the now-infamous case of Aluminium Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina, to seize control and pilfer previously state-owned enterprises. 67

Fundamental changes in the political and economic systems of war-torncountries, while desirable, should also be reective of internal readiness andability to manage such changes rather than of the international communitysdictates and inated expectations. Following these prescriptions will lead to afar more effective recovery and decreased likelihood of conict reversion.

Notes1 GC Marshall, The Marshall Plan Speech, Harvard University, 5 June 1947, at http://www.oecd.org/

document/10/0,2340,en_2649_201185_1876938_1_1_1_1,00.htm, accessed 13 December 2008.2 S Barakat, Post-war reconstruction and development: coming of age, in Barakat (ed), After the

Conict: Reconstruction and Development in the Aftermath of War , London: IB Tauris, 2005, pp 1316.3 I Wexler, The Marshall Plan Revisited: The European Recovery Program in Economic Perspective ,

Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983.4 P Duignan & LH Gann, The Marshall Plan: history and culture, Hoover Digest , 4, 1997.5 Figures were extrapolated from data available in J Dobbins, SG Jones, K Crane, A Rathmell, B Steele,

R Teltschik & A Timilsina, The UNs Role in Nation Building: From the Congo to Iraq , Arlington, VA:RAND Corporation, 2005. Given that the authors calculations were based on population statistics,which are notoriously unreliable in post-conict environments, these and the following gures shouldbe viewed as approximations.

6 Ibid , p 239. Numbers in the gure are found from the same source.7 Barakat, Post-war reconstruction and development, p 10.8 P White & L Cliffe, Matching response to context in complex political emergencies: relief,

development, peace-building or something in-between?, Disasters , 24 (4), 2000, pp 314342.9 A similar approach is taken, albeit with the specic use of the term regeneration, by Michael Pugh,

The ownership of regeneration and peacebuilding, in Pugh (ed), Regeneration of War-Torn Societies ,London: Macmillan, 2000, pp 114.

10 S Barakat & M Chard, Theories, rhetoric and practice: recovering the capacities of war-torn societies,Third World Quarterly , 23 (5), 2002, pp 817836.

11 K Kumar, The nature and focus of international assistance for rebuilding war-torn societies, inKumar (ed), Rebuilding Societies after Civil War: Critical Roles for International Assistance , London:Lynne Reinner, 1997, p 2.

12 Stabilisation Unit, UK Concepts of Stabilisation , London: Stabilisation Unit, 2007, at http://www.stabilisationunit.gov.uk/resources/factsheets/Stabilisation%20Unit%20UK%20Concept%20of%20Stabilisation%20Factsheet.doc, accessed 10 December 2008.

13 J Barbara, Rethinking neo-liberal state building: building post-conict development states,Development in Practice , 18 (3), 2008, pp 307318.

14 Barakat, Post-war reconstruction and development.15 C Gore, The rise and fall of the Washington Consensus as a paradigm for developing countries,

World Development , 28 (5), 2000, pp 789790.16 R Paris, Peacebuilding and the limits of liberal internationalism, International Security , 22 (2), 1997,

p 56.


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17 A Singh, Aid, conditionality and development, Development and Change , 33 (2), 2002, p 298.18 R Paris, Peacebuilding in Central America: reproducing the sources of conict?, International

Peacekeeping , 9 (4), 2002, pp 3968; and H-W Jeong, Managing structural adjustment, SAIS Review,16 (2), 1996, pp 155167.

19 For information regarding implementation of SAP s, which appears to have strengthened post-conictrecovery and development, see P Collier, Aid, policy and peace: reducing the risks of civil conict,Defence and Peace Economics , 13 (6), 2002, p 435. See also S Michailof, M Kostner & X Devictor,Post-Conict Recovery in Africa: An Agenda for the Africa Region , Washington, DC: World Bank,2002, p 9.

20 Gore, The rise and fall of the Washington Consensus as a paradigm for developing countries, p 795.21 Ibid .22 M ul Haq, Reections on Human Development , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.23 N Leader & P Colenso, Aid Instruments in Fragile States , Working Paper 5, London: Department for

International Development, 2005, pp 3031; and J Shaw, A World Bank intervention in the SriLankan welfare sector: the National Development Trust Fund, World Development , 27 (5), 1999,p 830.

24 R MacGinty, The role of symbols in peacemaking, in J Darby & R MacGinty (eds), ContemporaryPeacemaking: Conict, Violence and Peace Processes , Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, p 602.

25 R Caplan, International Governance of War-torn Territories: Rule and Reconstruction , Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2005.

26 N Colletta, M Kostner & I Wiederhofer, Case Studies in War-to-Peace Transition: The Demobilizationand Reintegration of Ex-combatants in Ethiopia, Namibia and Uganda , Washington, DC: World Bank,1996; and K Kingma, Demobilisation and Reintegration of Ex-combatants in Post-war and TransitionCountries: Trends and Challenges of External Support , Eschborn: Deutsche Gesellschaft fu r TechnischeZusammenarbeit, 2001. In addition to DDR , other SSR activities included police reform, intelligencereform, defence reform, small and light weapons control, heavy weapon cantonment and several othersectors of activity less associated with peacekeepers, such as judicial and penal reforms.

27 Data up to 1996 can be found in P Willetts (ed), The Conscience of the World: The Inuence of Non-Governmental Organisations in the UN System , Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1996,p 38. Data since 1996 were compiled by Willetts and published online. See P Willetts, Growth in theNumber of ECOSOC NGO s, London: City University of London, 2002, at http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/p.willetts/NGOS/NGO-GRPH.HTM#data, accessed 13 November 2004.

28 A Leftwich, Governance, democracy and development in the Third World, Third World Quarterly , 14(3), 1993, p 616.29 J Brohman, Universalism, Eurocentralism and ideological bias in development studies: from

modernisation to neoliberalism, Third World Quarterly , 16 (1), 1995, pp 121140; and I Ahmed &R Green, Rehabilitation, sustainable peace and development: towards reconceptualisation, Third World Quarterly , 20 (1), 1999, pp 193196.

30 L Cliffe & R Luckham, Complex political emergencies and the state: failure and the fate of thestate, Third World Quarterly , 20 (1), 1999, pp 2750; and S Barakat, Setting the scene forAfghanistans reconstruction: the challenges and critical dilemmas, Third World Quarterly , 23 (5),2002, pp 801816.

31 A Suhrke, Reconstruction as modernisation: the post-conict project in Afghanistan, Third World Quarterly , 28 (7), 2007, pp 12911308.

32 Barakat, Setting the scene for Afghanistans reconstruction.33 S Barakat, The failed promise of multi-donor trust funds: aid nancing as an impediment to effective

state building in post-conict contexts, Policy Studies , 30 (2), 2009, pp 107126. Interestingly theheavy-handed, donor-driven implementation of trust funds has led Uganda and Sri Lanka to rejectthem, despite the likelihood that the use of alternative aid modalities could result in their governmentsreceiving less external assistance.

34 Barakat, Setting the scene for Afghanistans reconstruction, p 10.35 Barakat & Chard, Theories, rhetoric and practice, p 818.36 J Goodhand, Aiding violence or building peace? The role of international aid in Afghanistan, Third

World Quarterly , 23 (5), 2002, pp 837895.37 S Barakat & G Wardell, Exploited by whom? An alternative perspective on humanitarian assistance to

Afghan women, Third World Quarterly , 23 (5), 2002, pp 909930.38 Barakat et al , Understanding Afghanistan , p 3.39 SA Zyck, Former combatant reintegration and fragmentation in contemporary Afghanistan, Conict,

Security & Development , 9 (1), 2009, pp 111131.40 Barakat, Post-war reconstruction and development, pp 2830.41 The Australian government and military have been the most willing to consciously consider the

challenges of intervening with traditionally post-conict operations while violence and insurgency


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remain widespread. See Reconstruction during conict, a special issue of the Australian Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Engineering , 6 (2), 2008.

42 P Middlebrook, J Goodhand, C Cramer, A Patterson & S Foot, Understanding Afghanistan: Political Economy Analysis , London: Department for International Development, 2008.

43 The three most insecure provinces in Afghanistan receive three times more assistance on a per capitabasis than relatively more secure provinces such as Takhar and Sar-I Pul. See M Waldman, FallingShort: Aid Effectiveness in Afghanistan , Kabul: Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief ( ACBAR ),2008. See also S Barakat, A Giustozzi, C Langton, M Murphy, M Sedra & A Strand, UnderstandingAfghanistan: Strategic Conict Assessment , London: Department for International Development,2008.

44 M Jackson & S Gordon, Rewiring interventions? UK provincial reconstruction teams andstabilization, International Peacekeeping , 14 (5), 2007, pp 647661.

45 Save the Children, Provincial Reconstruction Teams and Humanitarian Military Relations inAfghanistan , London: Save the Children, 2004.

46 B Stapleton, The Provincial Reconstruction Team Plan in Afghanistan: A New Direction? , Bonn: BonnInternational Centre for Conversion, 2003.

47 See, for instance, the speech of the NATO Secretary-General at the Microsoft BBC NATO DefenceLeaders Forum, Noordwijk aan Zee, 23 April 2007, at http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2007/s070423a.html, accessed 4 April 2008.

48 K Bjork & R Jones, Overcoming dilemmas created by the 21st century mercenaries: conceptualisingthe use of private security companies in Iraq, Third World Quarterly , 26 (4), 2005, pp 777796.

49 Waldman, Falling Short .50 N Bensahel, O Oliker, K Crane, RR Brennan, Jr, HS Gregg, T Sullivan & A Rathmell, After Saddam:

Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq , Arlington, VA: RAND Corporation, 2008. See also RMacGinty, The pre-war reconstruction of post-war Iraq, Third World Quarterly , 24 (4), 2003, pp 601 617.

51 Bensahel et al , After Saddam .52 From 2005 to 2007, OECD DAC spending declined by 3.35%, although the inuence of non-DAC donor

spending meant that global ODA disbursements in fact rose by 0.38%. Data compiled from the DACQuery Wizard for International Development Statistics ( QWIDS ), at http://stats.oecd.org/qwids/,accessed 14 January 2009.

53 Information regarding Saudi post-conict spending in southern Lebanon is based upon personal

communications with representatives of the Saudi Popular Committee, 5 December 2008, Beirut;information concerning Saudi contributions to the reconstruction of Gaza is from Saudis offer $1billion to repair Gaza, Washington Times , 19 January 2008.

54 A Harmer & L Cotterrell, Diversity in Donorship: The Changing Face of Official Humanitarian Aid ,London: Overseas Development Institute, 2005, p 17.

55 See note 52, QWIDS .56 Islamic donors are more able to understand the importance of rebuilding mosques, which allow a

semblance of normalcy and a site for community organisation, in the aftermath of conict. So-calledtraditional donors such as the USA and European Union had forbidden their funds being used tosupport religious institutions, although such regulations were reportedly sidestepped by listing thebuildings as community centres in official documentation.

57 Information regarding the reconstruction of southern Lebanon and the role of, primarily, Gulf statedonors can be found in S Barakat & SA Zyck, Housing, Compensation and Emergency Preparedness inthe Aftermath of the 2006 July War in Southern Lebanon , Beirut: Norwegian Refugee Council, 2008.

58 Harmer & Cotterrell, Diversity in Donorship , pp 3335.59 J Welsh & A Gheciu, The imperative to rebuild: assessing the normative logics for post-conict

reconstruction, a publication of the Centre for International Studies, 2008.60 T Hasic, Reconstruction Planning in Post-Conict Zones: Bosnia and Herzegovina and the International

Community , Stockholm: Royal Institute of Technology, 2004, p ix.61 P Collier, VL Elliott, H Hegre, A Hoeffler, M Reynal-Querol & N Sambanis, Breaking the Conict

Trap: Civil War and Development Policy , Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford UniversityPress, 2003; P Collier, A Hoeffler & M Soderbom, Post-conict risks, Journal of Peace Research , 45(4), 2008, pp 461, 469; P Collier, A Hoeffler & D Rohner, Beyond Greed and Grievance: Feasibility and Civil War , Oxford: Centre for the Study of African Economies, 2007; and T Addison & SM Murshed,From Conict to Reconstruction: Reviving the Social Contract , Helsinki: United Nations University/WIDER , 2001.

62 R Paris, Human security: paradigm shift or hot air?, International Security , 26 (2), 2001, pp 87 102.

63 P Collier, Private sector development and peacebuilding, transcript of keynote address at the DonorCommittee on Enterprise Development conference, Berlin, 14 September 2006, p 1.


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64 Colliers widely adopted conclusion that conict reversion affects between 40% and 50% of post-conict countries has been convincingly challenged by Suhrke and Samset. See Collier et al , Breakingthe Conict Trap ; and A Suhrke & I Samset, Whats in a gure? Estimating recurrence of civil war,International Peacekeeping , 14 (2), 2007, pp 195203.

65 P Collier & D Rohner, Democracy, development and conict, Journal of the European EconomicAssociation , pp 531540.

66 Dobbins et al , The UNs Role in Nation Building , p xxvii.67 United Nations, Strengthening Conict-Sensitive Business Practices in Vulnerable and Conict-Affected

States , New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2004.

Notes on Contributors

Sultan Barakat is Professor of Politics and Director of the Post-warReconstruction and Development Unit (PRDU) at the University of York.He has published widely on post-conict reconstruction and numerousrelated topics such as economic development, aid nancing and governance.Professor Barakat is the editor of, among other volumes, ReconstructingPost-Saddam Iraq (2008) and After the Conict: Reconstruction and Develop-ment in the Aftermath of War (2005). He has acted as a guest editor for issuesof Third World Quarterly and is currently series editor of the InternationalLibrary of Post-war Reconstruction and Development, published by I.B.Tauris. Steven A Zyck is a Research Fellow in the Post-war Reconstructionand Development Unit (PRDU) at the University of York. His currentresearch focuses upon metrics for evaluating reconstruction and theattainment of legitimacy by states in post-conict environments. Mr Zycksrecent publications include a report, The Reconstruction of Gaza (January

2009), with Sultan Barakat, and Former Combatant Reintegration andFragmentation in Contemporary Afghanistan, Conict, Security & Devel-opment (April 2009).


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