Complexity theory and systems thinking are increasingly popular in both academic and practitioner discourses to “improve” peacebuilding. Recently, they have also been considered to make peacebuilding interventions more bottom-up and less exclusive. Contributing to the debate in international political sociology on the role of (professional) knowledge in shaping interventions, I examine this claim with an analysis of professional peacebuilding discourse. Drawing on an extensive corpus of operational guidance, policy documents, and interview material, I situate the emerging uses of concepts of complexity in peacebuilding against the backdrop of the power struggles of its actors and institutions. Against the introduction of measures of managerial control, professional peacebuilding discourse has cast its interventions as exceptional and in need of different methods. Thus, learning replaces donors’ standardized measures of accountability. However, the peculiar conflation of accountability as learning that emerges from these struggles legitimizes self-referential expert rule and learning, and marginalizes debates on peacebuilders’ accountability. Rather than “de-colonizing” or making peacebuilding more inclusive, the way complexity concepts have emerged in peacebuilding discourse reproduces—rather than questions—the power structures of international interventions, and denies the people targeted by interventions the status of subjects to be accountable to.

中文翻译：

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捐助者的爱将使我们分崩离析：复杂性和学习如何边缘化建设和平干预中的问责制

复杂性理论和系统思维在学术和实践者的讨论中越来越流行，以“改善”和平建设。最近，它们还被认为可以使建设和平干预更加自下而上，减少排他性。为了促进国际政治社会学关于（专业）知识在塑造干预中的作用的辩论，我通过对专业建设和平话语的分析来检验这一主张。借助大量的操作指南、政策文件和采访材料，我将复杂概念在建设和平中的新兴应用置于其参与者和机构权力斗争的背景下。反对引入管理控制措施，专业的建设和平话语将其干预视为例外，需要不同的方法。因此，学习取代了捐助者的标准化问责措施。然而，从这些斗争中产生的将问责制作为学习的特殊合并使自我参照的专家规则和学习合法化，并使关于和平建设者问责制的辩论边缘化。复杂性概念在建设和平话语中出现的方式不是“去殖民化”或使建设和平更具包容性，而是再现了（而不是质疑）国际干预的权力结构，并否认干预目标的对象地位对. 从这些斗争中产生的将问责制作为学习的特殊混合使自我参照的专家规则和学习合法化，并使关于和平建设者问责制的辩论边缘化。复杂性概念在建设和平话语中出现的方式不是“去殖民化”或使建设和平更具包容性，而是再现了（而不是质疑）国际干预的权力结构，并否认干预目标的对象地位对. 从这些斗争中产生的将问责制作为学习的特殊混合使自我参照的专家规则和学习合法化，并使关于和平建设者问责制的辩论边缘化。复杂性概念在建设和平话语中出现的方式不是“去殖民化”或使建设和平更具包容性，而是再现了（而不是质疑）国际干预的权力结构，并否认干预目标的对象地位对.