Description
How is it possible for interveners on the ground to keep working on stabilisation interventions that they know have repeatedly failed to improve conflicts across the world? Interveners “hop” from one conflict to another—moving from Congo to Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Mali—inhabiting what Autesserre calls ‘Peaceland.’ At each new conflict, they attempt to apply the same capacity-building and security sector reform policies that they saw fail in previous postings. Based on document analysis and 65 in-depth interviews with EU staff working on the Sahel conflict in Mali and Niger, this paper is a micro-level examination of what makes intervention meaningful for interveners, who are all too aware of their poor track record at building long-term peace. Using relational and psychoanalytically informed theories of meaning making, I find that their complex and ambivalent relationships with local counterparts play a crucial role. On one hand, these relationships provide a sense of purpose, as interveners find meaning in the bonds they form and the recognition they receive from local partners. On the other hand, they express frustration with their counterparts, blaming them for the intervention’s failures—citing a lack of political will, incompetence, or indifference. The effects of this double-sided relationship are permissive: by framing failures as the responsibility of local partners, they avoid fully confronting the ineffectiveness of their interventions while preserving meaningful relationships with Sahelian counterparts. This dynamic enables them to continue their work, despite the dearth of 'success stories' of the policies they implement worldwide.
