Norm Transmission in Peace- and State-building: Lessons from Democracy Promotion in Sudan and Lebanon

Abstract

This article examines the transmission and reception of democratic norms in the context of liberal peace interventions. It identifies two reasons for the failure to promote democracy: the strategies favored by liberal peace actors and the agency of local elites. Drawing on field research in Lebanon and Sudan, the article argues that liberal peace projects systematically provide opportunities for local elites to overcome the apparent asymmetry of power between them and liberal peace actors. It identifies two strategies of resistance to the promotion of democracy—disengagement and recuperation— and suggests that, of the two, disengagement is more likely to produce a relapse into violence. democracy promotion, hybrid peace governance, norm transmission and recuperation, Sudan, Lebanon.