Post-Conflict Tajikistan

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Post-Conflict Tajikistan

The politics of peacebuilding and the emergence of legitimate order

Peace studies and conflict resolution International relations

Author: John Heathershaw

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Collection: Central Asian Studies

Language: English

Published by: Routledge

Published on: 7th May 2009

Format: LCP-protected ePub

Size: 926 Kb

ISBN: 9781134014170


Post-Soviet, post-conflict Tajikistan

is an under-studied and poorly understood case in conflict studies literature. Since 2000, this Central Asian state has seen major political violence end, countrywide order emerge and the peace agreement between the parties of the 1990s civil war hold. Superficially, Tajikistan appears to be a case of successful international intervention for liberal peacebuilding, yet the Tajik peace is characterised by authoritarian governance.

Discourse analysis and fieldwork

including participant-observation with international organizations, the author examines how peacebuilding is understood and practised. The book challenges received wisdom that peacebuilding is a process of democratisation or institutionalisation, showing how interventions have inadvertently served to facilitate an increasingly authoritarian peace and fostered popular accommodation and avoidance strategies. Chapters investigate assistance to political parties and elections, the security sector and community development, and illustrate how transformative aims are thwarted whilst ‘success’ is simulated for an audience of international donors. At the same time the book charts the emergence of a legitimate order with properties of authority, sovereignty and livelihoods.

Contribution to literature

Providing a challenge to the theoretical literature on peacebuilding and concentrating on an under-studied Central Asian state, this book will be of interest to academics working on Peace Studies, International Relations and Central Asian Studies.

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