Challenges of Local Ownership: Understanding the Outcomes of the International Community's 'Light Footprint' Approach to the Nepal Peace Process. Issue 2 (3rd April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Westendorf, Jasmine-Kim
• Is Part Of: Journal of intervention and statebuilding. Volume 12:Issue 2(2018)
• Page Start: 228
• Page End: 252
• Publication Date: 2018-04-03
• Subjects: United Nations -- peace process -- local ownership -- DDR -- Nepal -- constitutional reform; Intervention (International law) -- Periodicals; Nation-building -- Periodicals; Economic assistance -- Periodicals; Postwar reconstruction -- Periodicals; International cooperation -- Periodicals; 320
• DOI: 10.1080/17502977.2018.1472963
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1750-2977

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article investigates whether a 'light footprint' approach to peacekeeping and peacebuilding by the international community more effectively addresses local drivers of conflict than the dominant model of large, multidimensional peace operations. It considers international engagement in the Nepalese peace process through the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), and argues that the international community's approach to local ownership became more focused on non-imposition and therefore less politically engaged over time as a result of both local and international factors. This facilitated local elite ownership of the process, which fundamentally undermined the international community's capacity to support peace consolidation as elites moved away from key transformational pledges of the peace settlement.