Post-liberal, hybrid peace, a new model of peacebuilding, aims to step away from the top-down imposition of liberal peace. In order to recognise the local, the new model considers the interaction between the international and the local as a dynamic power interaction, through which the means and ends of peace can be mediated. Yet, it has already been criticised for its theoretical underpinnings which would, ultimately, impede it to achieve its objectives. This thesis aims to determine the concrete impacts of the elements pinpointed by the critiques. It adopts an alternative focus on both the programme itself and the affected population’s perspectives. Through an instrumental case study of the EU Peace III Fund’s peacebuilding in Northern Ireland and the Border Region, the thesis highlights that these critiques can take different, practical forms. It enables to unveil the importance of exploring the affected population’s perspectives, of the initial context as well as the external peacebuilder’s belief that it knows, still, what is best over the affected populations.

The liberal peace framework has in the past two decades experienced an increased amount of criticism for its uniform strategies, with several alternatives being presented as a response. One such an alternative is the framework of the post-liberal peace. Although researched in multiple articles by various scholars, Richmond’s (2011) book A Post-Liberal Peace is the most extensive piece on the subject and has therefore chiefly been used in the analysis of this paper. While previous studies and literature has examined different aspects of the post-liberal peace, none had considered a country’s foreign policy both in general and specific to one country. The prior neglection of Sweden and Afghanistan led to a focus of the two countries in this study. The aim of this paper was to fill the gap in the literature on the post-liberal peace framework as applied to a country’s foreign policy, thereby illuminating whether Sweden’s foreign policy adheres to the post-liberal peace framework. Text analysis was employed so as to critically examine the Swedish foreign policy by looking at certain concepts, in addition to implicit and explicit statements made relating to values inherent to the post-liberal peace framework. The hypothesis of this study claimed that Sweden’s social democratic feminist foreign policies adhere to the post-liberal peace framework and therefore would illustrate the proposed likeness between Sweden’s social democratic foreign policy and the post-liberal peace framework. The results from the data analysis displayed several qualities that adhered to the above-stated framework, while also exhibiting a number of inconsistencies and indubitably contrasting values. In sum, the study provides evidence that the social democratic feminist foreign policy of Sweden to a certain extent share similarity with the post-liberal peace framework, thereby partly confirming the hypothesis.

This thesis critiques liberal peacebuilding in Africa, with a particular focus on Sierra Leone. In particular, it examines the interface between the liberal peace and the “local”, the forms of agency that various local actors are expressing in response to the liberal peace and the hybrid forms of peace that are emerging in Sierra Leone. The thesis is built from an emerging critical literature that has argued for the need to shift from merely criticising liberal peacebuilding to examining local and contextual responses to it. Such contextualisation is crucial mainly because it helps us to develop a better understanding of the complex dynamics on the ground. The aim of this thesis is not to provide a new theory but to attempt to use the emerging insights from the critical scholarship through adopting the concept of hybridity in order to gain an understanding of the forms of peace that are emerging in post-conflict zones in Africa. This has not been comprehensively addressed in the context of post-conflict societies in Africa. Yet, much contemporary peace support operations are taking place in these societies that are characterised by multiple sources of legitimacy, authority and sovereignty. The thesis shows that in Sierra Leone local actors – from state elites to chiefs to civil society to ordinary people on the “margins of the state” – are not passive recipients of the liberal peace. It sheds new light on how hybridity can be created “from below” as citizens do not engage in outright resistance, but express various forms of agency including partial acceptance and internalisation of some elements of the liberal peace that they find useful to them; and use them to make demands for reforms against state elites who they do not trust and often criticise for their pre-occupation with political survival and consolidation of power. Further, it notes that in Sierra Leone a “post-liberal peace” that is locally-oriented might emerge on the “margins of the state” where culture, custom and tradition are predominant, and where neo-traditional civil society organisations act as vehicles for both the liberal peace and customary peacebuilding while allowing locals to lead the peacebuilding process. In Sierra Leone, there are also peace processes that are based on custom that are operating in parallel to the liberal peace, particularly in remote parts of the country.