Beyond Peacebuilding

This book uses the concept of empowerment as a means to understand peacebuilding in Mozambique. In order to do this, it first traces the different discourses on ‘empowerment’ and proposes an analytical framework based on multiple levels of analysis and a dialectical view of power. Second, it examines how the process of state formation and, later, peacebuilding have shaped the spaces for local empowerment to occur in Mozambique. Finally, it offers a detailed analysis of a national policy called the District Development Fund (the ‘7 million’), designed in the context of decentralization and aimed at reducing poverty in this country. This case study helps reflecting on the long-term and derivative effects of peace both in institutional terms as well as at the level of the everyday. The holistic approach to empowerment offered in this book and its application in the case of Mozambique will be of interest to both academics as well as practitioners of peacebuilding and development.

“Maschietto manages to combine a sophisticated analysis of theoretical debates on emancipation and empowerment with a rich level of empirical detail to produce a study that will be of interest to academics and practitioners alike. She not only interrogates the now standard tropes about empowerment, emancipation and local ownership rolled out by both liberal peacebuilders and critics (albeit in different ways) but offers an analysis that provides challenges for all sides in the debate about the best way to build peace and development in societies recovering from conflict.” (Professor Neil Cooper, Director of the Rotary Peace Centre, Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK)

“A detailed study of Mozambique’s district development fund - the '7 million’ - shows that ‘empowerment’ is not something that can be imposed from above by donors or governments.” (Dr Joseph Hanlon, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, The Open University,UK)

“This book has great relevance for all readers interested in post-conflict civil society. Roberta Maschietto's peacebuilding research is original and critically engaged, filling a glaring gap in English language coverage of Lusophone Africa. It offers a fine balance between extending the conceptual boundaries of civil society empowerment and her empirical fieldwork in Mozambique.” (Michael Pugh, Emeritus Professor University of Bradford & Visiting Professor Radboud University Nijmegen)

Roberta Holanda Maschietto is a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, at the University of Coimbra. She has a PhD in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford, and previously was a Lecturer of International Relations at the Institute of Superior Education in Brasília.