Borderlands, Brokers and Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka and Nepal: War to Peace Transitions viewed from the margins

对主流文献关于国家建设和冲突后重建的政治经济学批评，突出了其非历史、功能主义和技术官僚的取向（Cramer, 2006; Migdal & Schlichte, 2005; Roxborough, 2012; Pugh et al, 2008）。这种批判强调了国家形成/建设的历史分歧和争议轨迹，以及研究国家实际存在而不是作为理想类型的重要性。由此推论，需要通过联盟分析来分解国家，认识到强制和租金分配在形成政治（无序）秩序中的作用，以及支撑正式国家结构和制度的非正式网络、经纪人和权力关系的至关重要性（North et al 2012, De Waal 2009, Mac Ginty 2010）。然而，尽管这些政治经济学见解很重要，但它们很少明确处理与权力的领土化或稀缺、丰富和依赖的空间维度相关的问题（Le Billon, 2012）。隐含的空间假设是，战后的国家建设和发展涉及到中心机构的创建或重建，随后是权力向外扩散或辐射到国家的边缘。本研究挑战了这种叙述，借鉴了政治地理学、政治生态学和边界研究的见解，这些研究考察了领土、空间、规模、资源和政治过程之间的相互作用（Agnew, 2008； Jessop等人，2008；Korf等人，2009;Nugent, 2003; Paasi, 2011; Watts, 2004）。研究重点是冲突和战后国家建设的具体历史，连接中心和外围的网络，经纪人和机构，以及战争到和平过渡的不断发展的地理位置。从这个角度来看，边缘不仅反映了中心的权力关系，而且实际上可能是这些权力关系的组成部分（Scott, 2009; Goodhand, 2008, 2013）。本研究旨在打开地方治理的黑箱，研究不同类型的边缘和不同的中介关系如何定义国家层面的制度安排和政治进程。边缘可能是决定战后如何建立和平的关键领域。该研究包括对南亚两个受冲突影响的国家——斯里兰卡和尼泊尔——的边境地区从战争到和平过渡的空间动态进行结构化、重点比较。比较两种不同类型的边缘地带——边界地带，跨越国际边界，如尼泊尔，以及位于岛国边缘的内部边界，如斯里兰卡——在揭示冲突、经纪和战后巩固的不同动态方面将特别富有成效。这些案例也代表了两种截然不同的战后解决方案：斯里兰卡战争以军事胜利结束，导致了胜利者的和平；尼泊尔战争以协商解决结束，随后在中部和边境地区进行了一段时间的旷日持久的讨价还价。这些对比鲜明的特征将有助于我们理解不同的背景特征如何塑造边境地区和经纪人在战后转型中的作用，并将这些发现的适用性扩大到南亚及其他地区更广泛的案例。这项研究将分为三个部分（国家地图研究、基于地区的研究和项目/经纪人研究），这将使我们能够获得不同层次的分析，并探索连接结构、机构和代理人的联系和途径。为了揭示复杂的国际/国家/地方界面，该研究采用了多地点的研究设计，混合了各种方法，包括访谈、调查、生活史和历史背景分析。

Political economy critiques of the mainstream literature on statebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction, highlight its ahistorical, functionalist and technocratic orientation (Cramer, 2006; Migdal & Schlichte, 2005; Roxborough, 2012; Pugh et al, 2008). This critique emphasises the historically-divergent and contested trajectories of state formation/building, and the importance of studying the state as it actually exists rather than as an ideal type. The corollary to this is the need to disaggregate the state through coalitional analysis, to appreciate the role that coercion and the distribution of rents play in shaping political (dis)order and the critical importance of informal networks, brokers and power relations that underpin formal state structures and institutions (North et al 2012, De Waal 2009, Mac Ginty 2010). However, important though these political economy insights are, they rarely deal explicitly with questions related to the territorialisation of power, or the spatial dimensions of scarcity, abundance and dependence (Le Billon, 2012). The implicit spatial assumption is that post-war statebuilding and development involves the creation or rebuilding of institutions at the centre, followed by the diffusion or radiation of power outwards to the margins of the state. This research challenges this narrative, drawing upon insights from political geography, political ecology and border studies which examine the interactions between territory, space, scales, resources and political processes (Agnew, 2008; Jessop et al, 2008; Korf et al, 2009; Nugent, 2003; Paasi, 2011; Watts, 2004). The research focuses on the specific histories of conflict and post-war statebuilding, the networks, brokers and institutions which link centre and periphery, and the evolving geographies of war to peace transitions. From this perspective, the margins are not merely reflective of power relations at the centre, but may actually be constitutive of those power relations (Scott, 2009; Goodhand, 2008, 2013). The research aims to open up the black box of subnational governance and study how different kinds of peripheries and differing brokering relationships may define institutional arrangements and political processes at the national level. The margins may be crucial arenas which determine how peace is built in the aftermath of war. The research consists of a structured, focused comparison of the spatial dynamics of war to peace transitions in the borderlands/frontier regions of two conflict-affected states in South Asia - Sri Lanka and Nepal. The comparison between two different types of peripheries - borderlands, which span an international border as in the case of Nepal, and internal frontiers which lie on the margins of an island state as in Sri Lanka - will be particularly fruitful in revealing differing dynamics of conflict, brokerage and post-war consolidation. These cases also represent two contrasting post-war settlements: while Sri Lanka's war ended with a military victory leading to a victor's peace; Nepal's war concluded with a negotiated settlement and a subsequent period of protracted bargaining between the centre and borderland regions. These contrasting characteristics will help us to develop an understanding of how different contextual features shape the role of borderlands and brokers in post-war transitions, and broaden the applicability of these findings to a wider set of cases in South Asia and beyond. The research will have three strands (national mapping study, district-based studies, and programme/broker studies), which will allow us to capture different levels of analysis and explore the connections and pathways linking structures, institutions and agents. In order to shed light on the complex international/national/local interface, the research deploys a multi-sited research design that mixes methods, including interviews, surveys, life histories and historically-informed contextual analysis.