Beyond the liberal peace: Latin American inspirations for post-liberal peacebuilding

Abstract

Critics of liberal peacebuilding have started to move beyond mere criticism and think about what hybrid or post-liberal peacebuilding might mean. This article aims at contributing to this debate by bringing contemporary experiences in that are usually not reflected in the peacebuilding literature. Since the turn of the century, political changes in a series of South American countries, including most notably in the case of Bolivia, have led scholars to identify trends towards post-liberal ways of organising and exercising political rule. The context in which these processes occur is, of course, very different from the so-called post-conflict societies usually studied by peacebuilding scholars. Yet, precisely because of these differences, conditions for a locally driven search for post-liberal democracy are much better in Latin America. In this sense, while the attempt to move beyond liberal peacebuilding does certainly not need yet another template to be implemented worldwide, these experiences might well serve as important inspirations in the ongoing search for locally grown, hybrid variants of a post-liberal peace.