CFP: Reassessing Critiques of Liberal Peace - BISA 09‏

Call for Papers: ‘Reassessing Critiques of the Liberal Peace’ From Meera Sabaratnam (LSE) and David Chandler (Westminster) Panel proposal for annual BISA conference, University of Leicester, 14-16December 2009. The ‘liberal peace’ is regularly bandied around as a critical indictment ofinternational intervention and frameworks of statebuilding: subject tocritiques from advocates of extended intervention (such as Roland Paris) andthose critical of intervention (such as Roger MacGinty, Oliver Richmond andMichael Pugh). Apparently intervention is structured around the needs of power, capital,and ideology, and articulated through demands for democratisation andopening up to market relations and legitimised through classical liberalassumptions about progress and individual autonomy. We are seeking toorganise one or perhaps two panels at BISA in order to discuss the validityof the liberal peace critique both empirically and theoretically. Empirically, we seek papers which might problematise the assumptions of theliberal peace in practice: does this critique fit the practices and concernsof interveners and 'subjects' on the ground? Theoretically, we seek papers which might engage with the assumption thatthis ‘liberal’ framing of policy and practice is indeed what is at stake,and the direction in which critical research in this area should bedeveloped. Abstracts and full participant details should be sent to the panel convenersMeera Sabaratnam (LSE) M.Sabaratnam@lse.ac.uk and David Chandler(Westminster) D.Chandler@wmin.ac.uk by Friday 24 April at the latest.