Dr Claire Smith
Small Group Project 2016-17
Political Economies of Illiberal Peacebuilding in Asia
With Lars Waldorf
This project aims to increase our understanding about how to bring about peace after violent conflict. Peacebuilding policy and practice is dominated by efforts to build liberal democracies and free markets, despite mixed results in places like Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste. Peacebuilding scholarship is also very normative and overly focused on this liberal paradigm. What is mostly overlooked is how some post-conflict states have taken a very different route to peace, using illiberal means to achieve political stability, physical security, and economic growth over the medium-term. The pressing questions are whether illiberal methods can create durable peace and openings for future liberalization. These questions can best be answered using a political economy approach that draws on recent scholarship on political settlements and political marketplaces.
More informationResearch outcomes
Illiberal peace-building in Asia: a comparative overview. Conflict, Security & Development, 20(1), 1–14.
Liberal and illiberal peace-building in East Timor and Papua: establishing order in a democratising state. Conflict, Security & Development, 20(1), 39–70.
Areas of interest
Cohort
Biography
Claire's research interests lie in the comparative politics of conflict management, international intervention and peacebuilding in the context of democratic transition - especially in Southeast Asia. Her main focus is on the politics of illiberal peacebuilding and post-war governance in contested states, as well as understanding ethno-religious violence and mass atrocities. Her geographical expertise is Southeast Asia, in particular Indonesia and Myanmar. She has been working in the region since 1997, with professional research experience in Indonesia, Myanmar, Timor-Leste, Cambodia and Lao PDR.
Claire co-founded and co-convened the GCRF Strategic Network on ‘Comparative Peacebuilding in Asia’, with co-funding from the Asia Foundation and the ISRF. This international network was co-led by scholars from LSE, ANU, and Gadja Mada University, and partnered with scholars and practitioners from South and Southeast Asia, including NUS, NTU, University of Colombo, University of Yangon, and Prince of Songkla University. The network supported novel, policy-relevant and interdisciplinary research on liberal and illiberal transitions from ethnic conflict and authoritarianism, and included guided field visits in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Indonesia.
Claire’s research also covers the political impacts of and responses to mass atrocities in illiberal contexts, in collaboration with the Norwegian Centre for Holocaust and Minority Studies; and on the enduring legacies of illiberal peacebuilding in Southeast Asia, with collaborators at Umeå University, Sweden. Claire’s research has appeared in leading conflict and peace journals such as Conflict, Security and Development, Third World Quarterly, Global Responsibility to Protect and Peacebuilding. Her research has been funded by the ESRC, The Asia Foundation, and The World Peace Foundation.
Biographical details correct as of 14.05.26