| Summary/Abstract |
International peacebuilding is no longer dominated by Western actors and their liberal peace framework, neither there is a full-fledged alternative formulated by emerging peacebuilding actors. In this paper, I first establish the relationship between the liminality of emerging powers and their mimicry of the liberal peace. Secondly, I distinguish three forms of mimicry in peacebuilding that stem from emerging power liminality: a discursive mimicry, a complete mimicry and a substantive mimicry. In the case of the discursive mimicry, there is a liberal peacebuilding discourse which is rarely substantiated with policies. The complete mimicry is when both the liberal discourse and the policies are mimicked, and the substantive mimicry is a genuine adaptation of the liberal peacebuilding by the emerging power. The case of Turkish peacebuilding is analysed to illustrate the tripartite distinction. I demonstrate that Turkey mimics solely the discourse of the democratic peace thesis, while there is a complete mimicry of the Western model in security sector reform. However, the Turkish civil society peacebuilding and Turkey’s approach to economic development substantively mimic their liberal peace counterparts. This article contributes to the critical literature on liberal peacebuilding by identifying the different forms of emerging actors’ mimicry of the liberal peace.
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