Global Governance and Local Peace: Accountability and Performance in International Peacebuilding
Shortlisted for the 2020 Conflict Research Society Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the Chadwick F. Alger Prize of the International Organization Section, International Studies Association
One of the “Top Picks for Engaged Scholarship Reads of 2018” in Political Violence @ A Glance
Available for purchase directly from Cambridge University Press or through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers.
Why do international peacebuilding organizations sometimes succeed and sometimes fail even within the same country?
Bridging the gaps between the peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and global governance scholarship, this book argues that international peacebuilding organizations repeatedly fail because they are accountable to global actors, not to local institutions or people.
International peacebuilding can succeed only when country-based staff bypass existing accountability structures and empower local stakeholders to hold their global organizations accountable for achieving local-level peacebuilding outcomes.
In other words, the innovative, if seemingly wayward, actions of individual country-office staff are necessary to improve peacebuilding performance. Using in-depth studies of organizations operating in Burundi over a fifteen-year period, combined with fieldwork in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nepal, South Sudan, and Sudan, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of international relations, African studies, and peace and conflict studies as well as policymakers.
"Susanna P. Campbell has written a fantastic book. It is one of the very few studies of on-the-ground peacebuilding that helps us to actually understand – and, hopefully, replicate – successful efforts. It is theoretically innovative, and draws on incredibly rich ethnographic material from 14 years of involvement in peacebuilding, both in the field and in the headquarters. All of these make Global Governance and Local Peace essential reading for scholars and practitioners alike."
—Séverine Autesserre, Columbia University
Book Reviews
“Campbell argues that, if organizations can develop local trust and legitimacy while maintaining connection with international norms, they can be effective in achieving whatever they define as peace building…Campbell is very eloquent in discussing organizations and NGOs that are involved in peace-building processes. She very insightfully discusses how some are directly involved in peacemaking activities, whereas others are only indirectly involved.”
—Gary Goertz, Perspectives on Politics
“Campbell’s first hand knowledge of the political dynamics among diplomats, aid bureaucrats, and multilateral officials in Burundi is evident in the quality and nuance of the analysis…Campbell’s timely monograph offers a thoughtful account of the ways in which institutional characteristics and political dynamics combine with personal incentives and leadership techniques to create, on rare but significant occasions, a productive synthesis of the global and the local in the service of peace.”
—Rob Jenkins, Political Science Quarterly
“Susanna Campbell’s Global Governance and Local Peace: Accountability and Performance in International Peacebuilding pushes the frontier of knowledge forward on both international efforts at peacebuilding, and the internal functioning of bureaucracies in international organizations.”
—Dan Honig, H-Diplo/ISSF Roundtable
“The book is steeped in the language of public administration and organizational theory, and Campbell is cautious in her conclusions, so it is easy to miss how devastating her account really is. She shows that the core organizational logic of peace-building agencies undermines their ability to help the people they are trying to reach.”
Policy Debates
“International Peacebuilding Really Can Build Peace—But Perhaps Not How You Expect,” The Monkey Cage. The Washington Post, December 11, 2018.
Peacebuilding, Prevention, and Sustaining Peace: Q&A with Susanna Campbell, IPI Global Observatory, October 16, 2018.
“What Burundi’s Crisis Says about UN Capacity to Build Peace,” The Monkey Cage. The Washington Post, May 18, 2015.
Podcast Interviews
New Books Network, July 1, 2019
Council of the United Nations (ACUNS), June 26, 2019
The War Studies Podcast from King’s College London, May 16, 2019
Alice Evans’ Rocking Our Priors Podcast, May 12, 2019
Book launch at the US Institute of Peace (USIP)
As part of the SIS Bookshelf series, I talk about why “bad behavior” can mean successful peacebuilding.
Contents
Local Peacebuilding and Global Accountability
The Country Context—Burundi from 1999 to 2014
The INGOs in Peacebuilding—Globally Unaccountable, Locally Adaptive
International Organizations in Peacebuilding—Globally Accountable, Locally Constrained
Bilateral Development Donors—Accountable for Global Targets, Not Local Change
Conclusion
Endorsements
"Susanna P. Campbell has written a major contribution to our knowledge of peacebuilding. She has some good and bad news. The good news is that there are instances when peacebuilding does succeed. The bad news is that the odds are against it doing so. Why? Because it requires peacebuilders' willingness to be accountable to local populations. To do so, though, they need to work against a peacebuilding apparatus that gives incentives to country offices to take the path of least resistance and listen to those who are higher up on the food chain. Because it is unlikely that the apparatus is going to change, the message is for country offices to use their discretion in ways that give local populations a voice. A rare combination of theoretical sophistication and intensive fieldwork, this is the sort of book that both scholars and policymakers must read."
—Michael Barnett, George Washington University
“Campbell's book breaks new ground with a fine grain analysis of how international peacebuilding actors operate in a local context. Going beyond the usual broad brush generalisations to focus on processes of organizational learning and interaction, this book will be important reading for scholars and practitioners alike. Highly recommended.”
—David Chandler, University of Westminster
“At the core of Susanna P. Campbell's book is a profound insight: for peacebuilding to succeed, both peacebuilders and locals have to alter their understandings. Her focus on country offices in Burundi provides strong support for the value of this insight. How to encourage more peacebuilding learners should be at the center of thinking about transnational efforts to promote peace. It will also hopefully inspire more micro-level study of the mutual adjustment that is a necessary part of governance more generally.”
—Deborah Avant, University of Denver
“This is a very important contribution to the debate on who owns peacebuilding, and how its complex relationships are configured. It helps us understand more clearly the organisation of power relations and the role and relationship of different sites of legitimate authority in peacebuilding, and brings some much needed conceptual and empirical nuances.”
—Oliver Richmond, University of Manchester