Peace Parks and global politics

1. Peace Parks and global politics Dr Rosaleen Duffy Centre for International Politics Manchester University

2. Peace parks and globalisation • Changes in the global system in 21st Century • International co-operation for transnational environmental problems • Key backing from a network of international actors

3. Global governance • Commission on Global Governance 1995 • Shift away from state centric system • Sum of rules and regulations • Liberal project • There are examples of global governance in the environment eg Peace Parks

4. Do Peace Parks work? • Scientific rationale provides a technical and politically neutral justification • But they are highly political interventions eg land registration for buffer zones

5. rationale • Neoliberal rationale through appeals to making conservation and community development pay its way through tourism development • Highly problematic

6. Partnerships? • Local communities identified as participants, partners and stakeholders • Such depoliticised language may mask important power dynamics

7. Global networks • Local communities expected to negotiate with networks of external actors • Can mean that communities are then ‘partners’ in a top down and market oriented approach – does that fit with their interests?

8. Conflict resolution? • Peace parks justified in terms of environmental co-operation as a pathway to wider conflict resolution • But Peace Parks can produce new forms of conflict over access to and control over natural resources (violent and non violent)

9. Illicit networks • Borderlands are often already used by illicit networks: drugs, cars, human trafficking, trade in endangered species • An analysis of the importance of these interest groups is often lacking

10. Conclusion • They are not neutral, technical and scientific interventions • Peace Parks are inherently political interventions and there is a need to recognise the complex networks of actors involved and the power relations among them if they are to succeed.