The Environment and Peace - Environmental Policies in Peace Processes and their contribution to Building Peace

Does peacebuilding in the environmental sector influence perceptions of popular legitimacy of post-conflict authorities? Guided by this question this research plan addresses a gap in the literature on peacebuilding and environmental studies. Only limited research has been conducted on the link between the environment and peacebuilding. Generally, scholars and practitioners assume addressing environmental issues during peacebuilding processes contributes to the success of peace (Conca & Dabelko, 2002; Conca & Wallace, 2009; Ejigu, 2006; Kostić, Krampe, & Swain, 2012; Machlis & Hanson, 2008; Matthew, Barnett, & McDonald, 2009a; Matthew, Brown, & Jensen, 2009b; A. Swain & Krampe, 2011). Yet, findings in the peacebuilding literature show that externally driven peacebuilding often leads to a lack of popular legitimacy of governing authorities and the creation of new substructures of legitimacy, a development that has been termed hybrid or post-liberal peace (Kappler, 2012; Kostić, 2007; MacGinty, 2010; Richmond, 2011). These adverse effects of peacebuilding have been identified and studied in many sectors, but are they similarly present in the environmental sector? Or do environmental peacebuilding activities contribute in fact to more popular legitimacy? This study contributes knowledge and understanding about peacebuilding in the environmental sector and its influence on local perceptions of legitimacy. The focus is specifically on projects of renewable energy production that utilize manageable natural resources (i.e. water and biomass). If and how these project influence popular legitimacy will be assessed through within and cross case comparisons of four case studies in the peacebuilding process of Nepal through data based on fieldwork.