Roberto Belloni
What role does civil society play in peace processes and how does critical theory contribute to the understanding of such a role? Drawing from Gramsci, this research project conceptualizes civil society as an arena where political and social actors struggle to advance competing hegemonic values and worldviews and, by so doing, strive to develop and achieve forms of cultural, social and political ascendancy. Accordingly, it theorizes peace processes as characterized by contestation and competition that is not limited to access to economic resources and political institutions but is carried out within civil society and involves identity, values, and norms.
It examines three cases of hegemonic/counter-hegemonic competition involving both domestic and so-called “global civil society”: Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina and, with regard to global civil society, France. Together, they are representative of the main types of struggles found in peace processes: in Northern Ireland the key actors are domestic civil society groups holding and advancing alternative nationalist agendas; in Bosnia-Herzegovina the focus is on the counter-hegemonic struggle of non-nationalist groups challenging the ethnocracy established by the peace agreement; in France the analysis concentrates on global civil society and its contestation of the emerging Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. These cases provide a dynamic picture of what hegemonic struggles entail, and assess whether agonism represents a realistic alternative to destructive conflictuality. In sum, drawing from Gramsci, this research project expands on the conceptual and empirical scope of existing critical peace and conflict studies.
Field Research has been made possible by the Jean Monnet Chair The European Union and the Western Balkans: Enlargement and Resilience, held by prof. Belloni at the University of Trento (2018-2022).
Jean Monnet Chair (2018-2022) "The European Union and the Western Balkans: Enlargement and Resilience"