Quid Ethical Retreat? A Decolonial Critique of Pragmatic & Liberal Peace- & Statebuilding

Pragmatic approaches to peace- and statebuilding, cf. some strands of resilience thinking, are by some seen to herald a significant alternative to their liberal variants; respectively: respectful organic grassroots vs. hubristic external-internal, top-down approaches. In the critical tradition of those challenging the fundamental differences of pragmatic and liberal strands of peace- and statebuilding rationales and practices, this paper seeks to develop a decolonial critique to both strands of peace- and statebuilding, without necessarily lumping them together. Decoloniality in the context of this paper is understood as a research strategy that seeks to de-mythologise, de-silence and anti-colonially de-colonise knowledge production, in this case on peace- and statebuilding efforts. Building on fieldwork in 2012-3 with political, civil society and academic elites in Somaliland and the diaspora, the paper focuses on postcolonial notions of self-determination as an alternative contribution to pragmatic thinking in peace- and statebuilding via the concept of ethical retreat. Whereas both pragmatic and liberal peace-and statebuilding approaches do not seem to include a fundamental challenging of the mere idea of external involvement, through the concept of ethical retreat , the paper seeks to propose an alternative, decolonial pragmatic approach, one in which external engagement is – at least analytically - not taken as a given.