Extralegal Groups in Post-Conflict Liberia
Extralegal Groups in Post-Conflict Liberia
复制标题
冲突后利比里亚的法外团体
DOI：
10.1093/oso/9780199673346.001.0001
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发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Christine Cheng
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Christine Cheng
利比里亚内战结束后，一些前战斗人员控制了自然资源飞地。由于他们中的一些人威胁要重返战争，这些组织被广泛视为对利比里亚来之不易的和平的最大威胁。在田野调查和社会历史分析的基础上，这项研究显示了法外团体是如何作为生计战略和战争政治经济学的产物而出现的。它分析了利比里亚经济三个部门--橡胶、钻石和木材--的法外集团的活动轨迹。调查结果与流行的说法形成了反差，他们认为，法外团体具有双重性质，应该被视为偶然的国家建设者，被驱使提供基本的治理产品，以创造稳定的商业环境。这些集团不寻求统治；他们提供治理是因为他们需要交易--而不是作为本身的目的。这引出了该书更广泛的论点：推动当代国家建设的是贸易，而不是战争。在国家软弱、政治权威受到争夺、法治腐败、政府不信任根深蒂固的地区，法外团体可以提供秩序和争端解决，构成了国家的基本核心。法外团体还履行一系列隐藏的治理职能，建立遵守和与当地民众合作的公共规范。这为我们如何理解暴力的非国家行为者提供了新的线索，使我们能够将他们视为国家形成的进化过程的一部分，而不是简单地视为国家安全威胁。
In the aftermath of the Liberian civil war, groups of ex-combatants took control of natural resource enclaves. With some of them threatening a return to war, these groups were widely viewed as the most significant threats to Liberia’s hard-won peace. Building on fieldwork and socio-historical analysis, this study shows how extralegal groups emerge as a product of livelihood strategies and the political economy of war. It analyzes the trajectory of extralegal groups in three sectors of the Liberian economy: rubber, diamonds, and timber. The findings offer a counterpoint to the prevailing narrative, arguing that extralegal groups have a dual nature and should be viewed as accidental statebuilders driven to provide basic governance goods in order to create a stable commercial environment. These groups do not seek to rule; they provide governance because they need to trade—not as an end in itself. This leads to the book’s broader argument: it is trade, rather than war, that drives contemporary statebuilding. In areas where the state is weak and political authority is contested, where the rule of law is corrupt and government distrust runs deep, extralegal groups can provide order and dispute resolution, forming the basic kernel of the state. Extralegal groups also perform a series of hidden governance functions that establish public norms of compliance and cooperation with local populations. This sheds new light on how we understand violent nonstate actors, allowing us to view them as part of an evolutionary process of state-making, rather than simply as national security threats.