Standardize Competition And Complementarity

A rising China’s increasing international aid to the developing world, especiallyto the conflict-affected countries, provokes a question about competition betweennorms: What will happen when two norms with different contents and power-basedidentities encounter? The Western literature, including the Three MainstreamParadigms and the English School, regards competition between norms as a staticrelation based on binary opposition and insists that the result must be a zero sum. Thisdissertation doubts such logic of certainty and intends to explore the competitiveinteraction between norms in a process perspective borrowed from the Golden Meandialectics.The dissertation has three assumptions. The first assumption is that differentpractice breeds different norms; the second is that the international system is ahierarchy; the third is that world politics is a dynamic process. The dissertationhypothesizes that competition between norms can result in complementation.The theoretical hypothesis is tested through an exploration into competitionbetween two peace norms, namely “liberal peace” and “developmental peace”.Peacebuilding is an important practice domain of international politics; it has longbeen dominated by a peace norm called “liberal peace”.“Liberal peace” comes fromthe practice of the Western Civilization, and its diffusion is driven and supported bythe Western hegemony. The dissertation points out that the unique practice happenedin the East Asia, especially in rising China, has bred another peace norm called“developmental peace”. The diffusion of “developmental peace” is driven andsupported by the rising of China. Peacebuiling in a post-conflict society is acomprehensive task, which has two key pillars; one is institutional building and theother economic development.“Liberal peace” focuses on institutional building while“developmental peace” attaches more importance to economic development. They aretwo peace norms with great differences in both contents and power-based identities.An in-depth analysis of the two peacebuilding processes of Haiti and Liberia shows that the effect of the peacebuilding in Liberia, where the two peace normscompete with each other, is comparatively much better than that of Haiti, where“liberal peace” dominates the whole peace building process while “developmentalpeace” does not exist at all. These facts show that competition between “liberalpeace” and “developmental peace” can help improve the effect of peacebuilding andcontribute to building sustainable peace. That the effect of peacebuilding in Liberia isbetter than that of Haiti is reflected in various areas including politics, economy,society and security. In other words, the effect of both institutional building andeconomic development in Liberia is better than that of Haiti, which shows thatcompetition between norms is helpful to norm diffusion and can result in theco-existence of the competing norms. More significantly, these facts also show thatthere appears a complementary relation between the two peace norms in thepeacebuilding process of Liberia. Their joint efforts ensure the two key pillars ofpeacebuilding be addressed and support each other. In recent years, the cooperativeinteraction between China and some Western countries shows that “liberal peace” and“developmental peace” are beginning to learn from each other and forge acomplementary and interdependent relation.The empirical study has proved the theoretical hypothesis.