Frictions and hybridity in Mozambique’s post-war peacebuilding: From civil war to precarious peace

ABSTRACT It has been about three decades since Mozambique transitioned from a brutal civil war and one-party rule to peace and democracy. Although Mozambique has not relapsed into another large-scale civil war, sustainable peace and democracy in the country have become ever more elusive. In 2013, military clashes between Renamo and the Frelimo-led government resumed and prompted a new peace process, whilst poverty and inequalities are rampant, authoritarianism is on the rise, and an Islamic insurgency erupted in the northern region. Accordingly, while some scholars still praise Mozambique’s post-war peacebuilding as successful, others have claimed that peacebuilding failed. This article evades the binary of successful or failed liberal peacebuilding in Mozambique. Instead, it applies the concepts of friction and hybridity to offer an alternative way of reading the 30 years of peace (building) in Mozambique. The article argues that frictions in values and interests between the international/liberal peacebuilders and local (non-liberal) elites have resulted in a negative and unstable hybrid peace, that is, a precarious peace in Mozambique.