Subjective Representation

The second feature from the heuristic model is subjective representation. As part of the feature, which is drawn from the participation in the public sphere argument, symbolic and descriptive forms of representation are considered by interpreting ways in which representation was spoken of and legitimation strategies of CSAs themselves. This time the comprehensive process-tracing encompasses two analytical steps. Firstly, an interpretive overview of subjective representation reveals that feeling representing and recognised guarantors of legitimacy constitute two further components of legitimisation. Secondly, the context factors that play a role for the constitutive analysis are discussed.

There is no causal analysis as epistemologically this is not plausible for something as perception-related like the feature of subjective representation.

Most of the interviews and discussion in the focus group from the first fieldwork trip in Liberia do not indicate outright feelings of inclusiveness in relation to the negotiations (apart from some exceptions, including the Senior Senator of Bong County, Jewel-Howard Taylor, who commented “no one was excluded ... everyone was there” L42; see also L5). Nonetheless, there was still the idea that participation is important, as it is the ‘duty and responsibility of the people of a country to determine their own destiny, to resolve their own problems’ (L43). Theoretically it has been argued that participation or inclusion is guaranteed through representation (e.g. Chabal 1994, 142), which is the subject of the

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analysis in this section. It is shown that feeling represented and recognised guarantors of legitimacy both constitute components of process legitimisation.

4.3.1 Constitutive Process-Tracing: Feeling Represented and Guarantors of Legitimacy

The interpretation of the constitutive components related to subjective representation is carried out in three sub-sections, considering the interpretation of representation, the perceived importance of CSAs and the legitimation strategies or narratives of CSAs.

4.3.1.1 Interpretations of Representation in Liberia

Focusing especially on the example of the religious leaders as part of the CSAs, it is shown that two major interpretations of ‘legitimate’ representation were the understanding of suffering and shared experiences as well as neutrality. Together these two elements show that feeling represented (according to the specific interpretation this took) constitutes a component of legitimisation. This is also shown by the fact that feeling represented is reduced by a sense of exclusion, to the detriment of the legitimisation process.

According to a news report at the time ‘civil society representatives, who said they represent the views and aspirations of the about 3.5 million Liberia's [sic], were said to be conferring among themselves’

(emphasis added, UN IRIN 2003; see also L1_14). But how do we know they represented the Liberian population? A starting point is to look at the own definitions of representation from the point of view of the CSAs. One of the civil society activists who took part in the negotiations said “we had the people in the back of our minds … we knew what was needed” (L13). To take a more specific example, the IRCL, combining both important Muslim and Christian leaders, felt that they were adequately representative of the general population because of their independence and travelling throughout the country. Passing on information and grievances through networks of religious leaders to the higher echelon based in Monrovia gave them a unique position in being able to represent the population (e.g. L41). Expanding on this idea, Sheik Konneh explains:

“Are we ignorant of what was going on so we could not represent the civilians? No we were affected by the war the same way as … the civilians. We knew the problems of our people … we never had the time to go to mosque and church anymore. Women had no time to go to the market to get food; the business leaders could not open their business. So we were all affected, maybe not in the same way, but still affected” (L41).

For the CSAs at the very least, they claim to be in a position to represent the population because of shared experiences. The Mass Action Campaign for example was interpreted as so successful because it was ‘central in bringing a human face to the crisis’ (Alaga 2011a, 16) or ‘a human face to the conflict’

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(Ekiyor and Gbowee 2005, 138). Whether this interpretation of representation was in fact perceived as relevant depends on the audience or beneficiaries of legitimacy. In the focus group discussion conducted with teachers in Ganta in 2011, the group concluded that religious leaders and women groups had addressed their major grievances, and that “they were in the best position to know how we felt and suffered” (LGT). Teachers in Gbarnga similarly explained that ‘CSOs’ had addressed local grievances at the talks, since “they know what was happening here before they went [to Ghana]” (LGbT). Thus, the focus group participants accept the interpretation of representation by the religious actors, as sharing their experience or understanding their suffering. Accordingly, the beneficiaries of legitimacy felt represented because of shared experience and understanding of suffering, of those at the peace talks representing them.⁷⁶ As a result, feeling represented constitutes (one part) of the legitimisation process.

Empirical confessions from both civil society actors and focus group discussants ‘from below’ have confirmed this.

This interpretation of understanding or shared experience of suffering contrasts with other civil society actors, who were deemed to be much more out of touch, such as the diaspora civil society ‘who did not suffer like the rest of Liberians who lived through the civil war’ (Antwi-Boateng 2011, 19–21). On this point, one of the diaspora representatives, Nohn Kidau, explains, “of course we didn’t know what they had gone through, but they also didn’t know what we had gone through either. We sent money, millions of dollars, we also went through hardships” (L5_13). It is arguable, that the diaspora were able to understand the suffering or offer shared experiences, just from a different perspective, considering the large diaspora residing especially in the USA. This has not been the subject of further research for the time being however, and thus stands only on the account of the individual CSA.

A further interpretation to support the representativeness of the CSAs (and because of this feeling represented constituting a part of the legitimisation process) was their own neutrality. Thus, the involvement of the Mass Action campaign was ‘perceived to be genuine and neutral’ (Alaga 2011a, 2).

This is explained by members of the Mass Action to have been the case because their ‘intentions were pure and selfless’ (Ekiyor and Gbowee 2005, 139). Returning to the religious groups, the Church in Liberia specifically had become more critical throughout the 1990s, though historically they had been a defender of all government regimes, holding on to status quo (Kieh Jr 2009, 6–7). Over time however, all religious leaders (mainly Christian or Muslim - the two prevalent religions in the country) became to be held in very high regard (Toure 2002, 15–16). The focus groups discussions appear to support this. A series of questions that were asked are relevant in that respect. Firstly, discussants were asked to list the most powerful actors in their local area (today and during the war). A follow-up question then considered whether these actors were positive or negative for local peace. In a separate section of the

76 In the framing literature, it is also argued that frames must be empirically credible (e.g. Benford and Snow 2000, 620).

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focus groups, after listing perceived local concerns and whether they had been addressed (see Table 4.1 above), participants were asked who had addressed these concerns at the talks.

Most of the groups mentioned religious leaders as powerful actors in their area. Whilst this was slightly more often referencing to Christian than Muslim leaders, this is not surprising considering that the latest census in Liberia find 85.5% of the population to be Christian, compared to 12.2% being Muslims (Republic of Liberia 2009, 85 Appendix 4). Furthermore, all these religious actors mentioned were seen to be positive for local peace. The only exception was for a Muslim youth leader, who was considered as disputed in his contribution towards local peace. Nonetheless, the primary characteristic given to him was his youth leadership rather than religious affiliation, which is why he was not included in the Table 4.2, see below. Lastly, both the teachers and youth in Ganta mentioned religious leaders as specifically having addressed their concerns at the peace talks (more is said on this below).

Table 4.2: The Importance of Religious Leaders according to the Focus Group Discussants (Liberia 2011)

Gbarnga (LGbM) No n/a Market Women Association; UN;

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Pastor) Positive UN, warring factions, Council of

Churches claim to neutrality and independence. Working both to mediate between conflict groups and negotiate when possible from 1990 onwards, IRCL and its predecessor organisations stayed neutral by talking to everyone and anyone. They also showed this by turning down any positions in the interim government, which many other civil society groups accepted. Their proven impartiality gave them more confidence in

77 “Who are the most powerful actors in Gbarnga/Ganta?”

78 “Which actors are positive or negative with regard to local peace?”

79 Following on from “What were the most important local issues during the war? Were these issues addressed in the negotiations of the peace agreement?” (see Table 4.1) the next question was “Who addressed them?”

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their abilities to be fair representatives.⁸⁰ Whilst some commentators have continued to criticise the close association between the state and the church, questioning their independence (Kieh Jr 2009; Pham 2004b, 56), other sources support the idea of a more balanced role being played by the religious leaders (see for example Sengbeh 2013 commenting on the recent funeral proceedings for Archbishop Francis in June 2013). At the very least, the active role held by the IRCL throughout the 1990s (as documented by Conciliation Resources see Armon and Carl 1996) and their efforts together with ECOWAS to conduct preliminary talks in 2002 and 2003 supports the idea of their independence. This independence, alongside the view that religious actors are powerful, positive with regards to local peace and at least by some of the focus groups interpreted as addressing their grievances during the talks, further supports the that feelings of representation constitute an important aspect of the legitimisation process and that this is related to the characteristics of neutrality.

The constitutive nature of feeling represented is also shown by the fact that a sense of exclusion was perceived as detrimental to the legitimisation process. Asking interviewees if they felt like anything was left out from the peace negotiations, and if yes then what, this response is particularly illustrative (if scathing): “…they never asked the local people what they wanted, (there was) no local representation.

What they said there it was all right for them but not all right for some of us. It was not a genuine peace agreement” (L27). This lack of voice or representation of ‘the local people’ or ‘ordinary people’ at the negotiations was mentioned by many.⁸¹ One interviewee went as far as to state that whilst civil society was represented, locals were not (Interview L17), clearly questioning the ability of CSAs to represent the local. All these feelings of not being represented come from interviews conducted in Gbarnga and Ganta.

Admittedly, this self-identifying nature of the local - which surely is a rather obscure conceptualisation – comes at least partially from the emphasis of the research methods (in ‘local arenas’). Moreover, a critique of liberal peacebuilding models focusing on emphasising local agency and ownership is underlined as lacking by many agencies in the Liberian context (Bøås and Stig 2010; Mac Ginty 2010;

Richmond 2009a). Whilst using the ‘local’ is arguably essentialising, homogenising and belittling to diversity amongst and within individuals and groups, it is accepted as an analytical category, referring to inhabitants of certain geographic areas (see Hirblinger and Simons 2014). Especially in the context of Liberia, where the neglect of the so-called hinterlands plays a significant role in explaining the conflict, the local can thus be pretty much anywhere outside Monrovia, including the peri-urban areas of Gbarnga and Ganta.⁸²

80 Mary Brownell of LWI also urged her members never to take “a cent from the warlords, if we take a bribe the respect is gone” (L7_13).

81 LGT; LGbM; LGbT; L2; L7; L9; L11; L13; L20

82 Though parts of Monrovia are also neglected by government authorities and could therefore express similar

‘local’ concerns

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Interviewees went on to mention certain groups of people that they felt out were excluded from negotiations, but should have been included. This included women (L2; L13), traditional leaders (L6;

L20; L25; L32; L40), and lastly local chiefs.⁸³ The chiefs were the most frequently mentioned actors seen as having excluded, by a wide-range of persons interviewed. This is perhaps at odds with the outside perspective of chiefs being historic instruments of the oppressive governments. Reasons given for proposing their inclusion are their knowledge of locally relevant grievances, e.g. “I think John Gbatu should have been there, he was the Chief who knew everything about the history of this place” (L37). As for the authority and related legitimacy of traditional leaders - this is relatively unknown because of the secrecy of the organisations they run and the inability to talk to outsiders about them, though the loss of their authority due to their incapacitation during the war years is documented (Moran 2008, 155;

Richards et al. 2005). Ethnicity played an insignificant part in perceptions of exclusion, being mentioned only by one government official, who happened to belong to the Mandingo minority group (L8).

Interestingly, one of the youth leaders interviewed lamented that there had been no representation of youth, despite “their driving force in the war” (L14, see also L13, L20). Someone else noted that the youth representative only represented his or her own position (L2). This side-lining of youth is according to some commentators still a problem in the post-war era (McKeown and Mulbah 2007, 34; see also Moran 2008, 143).⁸⁴ As such, there is a perceived exclusion, to the detriment of the legitimisation process as the confession “it was not a genuine peace agreement” [because of] “no local representation”

underlines.

Reiterating that “feeling represented” constitutes a component of legitimisation, it also raises the fact that when this only incorporates national organisations this may lead to a sense of exclusion at the local level. This contradicts the earlier finding that the exclusion of local concerns were not detrimental to the peace process overall, showing that local representation may be important for constituting the legitimisations process as regards subjective representation. This is discussed in more detail in the chapter on the theory of legitimate peace negotiations. The next section shows that the acknowledgement of the importance of certain groups also contributes to the component of feeling represented as well as for recognised guarantors of legitimacy.

4.3.1.2 The Acknowledgement of Importance

The feature of subjective representation in the heuristic model is also made up of descriptive representation. Nonetheless, the Liberian case shows that there was no descriptive representation, rather

83 L2; L7; L11; L15; L17; L18; L24; L36; L37. An NPP Party member also complained that warring factions were also left out of the negotiations and that it was merely the highest echelons that were present, leaving the foot soldiers behind (L3).

84 Moran argues that youth and women have always supported each other. For example when student leaders were arrested by Doe, the Market Women’s Association in Monrovia, threatened to shut down the food supply of the entire city, if ‘our children were harmed’, related to a recognition amongst structural subordinates, she argues, that they need to support each other (2008, 50).

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there was the acknowledgement of the importance of CSAs as grassroots representatives and other actors more generally, confirming feeling represented as well as a recognition of guarantors of legitimacy in constituting a part of the legitimisation process.

Distinguishing between the two groups of WIPNET and MARWOPNET adds further analytical value to the interpretation of representation. Though members of MARWOPNET made sure they briefed the WIPNET women after every negotiation day (L43), accusations of elitism (discussed below) were voiced against MARWOPNET. WIPNET counted more than 5,000 members from all the counties, and claimed to represent the ‘ordinary Liberians’ or ‘common women’, mobilizing women from all levels of society including students, doctors, lawyers, disabled women, rural women, girls and security officers (Ekiyor and Gbowee 2005, 135; Fuest 2009, 119, 132; Pedersen 2008, 7). Thus, participants cut across all categories of age, class, education etc. One CSA remembers: “… back then there was unity [amongst the women groups]. There was no race, there was no poor, there was no literate or illiterate - it was a matter of life and death.” (L9_13). The grassroots organizational structure of WIPNET rejected a hierarchical structure, adopted a collective decision making approach (via phones for those groups outside of Monrovia) and discouraged the use of ‘big English’ (Alaga 2011b, 80–81; Fuest 2009, 119). Identifying collectively to show their solidarity across social divisions the women peace activists all wore white t-shirts and lappas (material worn as skirts) from the same fabric. They refrained from wearing make-up or jewellery. Ecoma Alaga argues that the campaign was a ‘culturally specific grassroots-based strategy’

(2011b, 73). Not only was this movement therefore culturally organic, and inclusive by both its membership and decision-making processes, it is also widely admired for its activism during the war.

“The women very very clearly represented the grassroots”, explains one peacebuilding practitioner (L1_13).⁸⁵ The image of the women in white sitting at the Fishmarket with their banners and public praying across religious divides brought them international recognition (e.g. Clinton 2011). Closer to home, the Mass Action Campaign was widely appraised by a range of persons including members of civil society organizations (L6; L20; L22; L46), government officials (L10; L40; L15; L21), and the focus groups participants (e.g. LGT). A decade after the signing of the peace agreement their role was celebrated once again in a Liberian newspaper, under their daily photo caption of ‘This, too, is Liberia,’

see Image 4.1 below.

The support for ‘the women’ and WIPNET especially was so prevalent that one confession or statement from a Woman Muslim Leader stands out: “The women at the peace agreements did not represent me because they only looked at Christian women, they did not represent me. No Muslim woman was there”

(L12). This is so surprising because it is factually untrue, considering WIPNET was built on a platform of interreligious cooperation, not least illustrated by the fact that one of the key leaders was Asatu Bah

85 C.f. also “Leymah Gbowee and the WIPNET were representing the voiceless” (L3_13).

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Kenneth, a Muslim police officer. Though if we contextualise this statement (acknowledging also that it was the only one of its kind) it can be interpreted in light of the perception of many Muslims in Liberia who feel discriminated against, for example by living in a country that might be secular but still celebrates Christian holidays (Shilue 2011).

Mostly, there is widespread support and appreciation for WIPNET and not only from women but also men. Many of those who brought up and discussed the role of WIPNET with regard to bringing the peace talks closer to them and being symbolically attached to them (and thereby constituting a part of the legitimisation process) were also men. In fact the majority were men, though this must be put into context of most elites in government and civil society positions still being male, hence most interviews were conducted with men. This suggests that symbolic attachment to the women groups, especially WIPNET, is not on the basis of descriptive representation of womanhood per se. In fact, it can be related back to their grassroots nature, which is shown in the following.

Mostly, there is widespread support and appreciation for WIPNET and not only from women but also men. Many of those who brought up and discussed the role of WIPNET with regard to bringing the peace talks closer to them and being symbolically attached to them (and thereby constituting a part of the legitimisation process) were also men. In fact the majority were men, though this must be put into context of most elites in government and civil society positions still being male, hence most interviews were conducted with men. This suggests that symbolic attachment to the women groups, especially WIPNET, is not on the basis of descriptive representation of womanhood per se. In fact, it can be related back to their grassroots nature, which is shown in the following.