In the name of ‘local sovereignty’ : peace from below through a leadership lens. A lesson from Côte d’Ivoire

Abstract

In the past three decades, the world has experienced the peacebuilding dilemma, which is the relapse into conflict despite the investment of millions of dollars every year, in international peacebuilding. This highlights how the United Nation’s top-down approach to peace has failed to establish sustainable peace in post-conflict countries. This has resulted in an increased interest by, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in peacebuilding who have however, only focussed on what international and regional actors such as the United Nations and ECOWAS are doing. The existing literature on peacebuilding has very few empirical studies which help to identify who the ‘local are or acknowledge the value of non-traditional actors in the process of peace. Subsequently, in this research, the study of ‘local’ actors having agency is offered as a new perspective to the study of peace and reconciliation, through the case study of Côte d’Ivoire. The study applies a novel conceptual framework of local sovereignty and the use of process-based leadership to deepen the understanding of local agency. The use of leadership as an entry point to understanding peacebuilding offers the space to explore relationships existing between local actors and the Ivoirian communities in a context where peacebuilding actions are taking place. Thus, the core question guiding this research is how process-based leadership gives prominence to local sovereignty in peacebuilding in Côte d’Ivoire. Thanks to empirical data collected through semi-structured interviews, this study can make meaning of the relationships and interactions already existing in the local space and understand their impacts on the wider peacebuilding apparatus. Secondly, the study helps to identify who the emerging leaders are, that seek to create mutuality with the population and are driven by the sole purpose of establishing sustainable peace. Thirdly, the research identifies and analyses six ways ‘local-local’ are contributing to peace: by amplifying the idea of a shared mission; reoccupying the spaces by repairing past relationships and forging new ones; connecting the formal and informal spaces and actors; creating a culture of peace; training a new generation of young leaders; and fashioning the emergence of a citizen’s conscience. In this regard, local actors are both following the ‘local turn’ paradigm facilitated by Ouattara’s government, while simultaneously bringing it further to respond to the needs and realities of the Ivoirians, in areas where the government has failed to do so. Through transformational leadership, local actors are proposing a new alternative to peace by seeking to change mentalities to break the years of political manipulation and the cult of the personality around political elites. Therefore, they are training a new generation of youth leaders and bringing back people to the centre of the peace process, seeking to influence the development of their followers by raising their follower’s level of consciousness; helping their followers to transcend personal interest; and raising their follower’s needs. Most of their peace approaches are however unnoticed by the Ivoirian government. Their efforts towards peacebuilding are under threat because of the contradictory interests, the disengagement and ‘out of touch’ attitude of the government and political leaders, and the lack of financial and technical support that threaten the sustainability of their work, and therefore their impact. It is however imperative that this engagement is examined and factored in the larger peacebuilding discourse as it presents a more holistic way of understanding the activities and processes undertaken towards achieving sustainable peace.