Planting Seeds In Dry Places : The relationship between legitimacy and peace-building

Sammanfattning: It is indisputable that in order for an organization to act within a society, legitimacy is needed. A peace-building organization in a post-war society this might be even truer. This thesis attempt to answer how it is possible to understand legitimacy in relation to peace-building. By participating observational study and semi-structured interviews I have collected empirical material from a peace-building organization in Georgia, in the South Caucasus. I have asked the question how a peace-building organization create and perceive legitimacy in a context that identify it as traitors, anti-nationalistic, don’t trust them or work against them. The findings points at that the legitimacy exists within the relationship between the organization and different stakeholders and therefor is evolving and changeable. The mandate for peace-building is ad hoc and vague as different actors tries to influence what the organization should work for. Legitimacy becomes something hard to come by as the different actors have different views and goals that not necessarily correspond with each other.