Civil Wars In Africa Research Articles

“A Different Creature, Not So Human”: Globalgothic Shapeshifting and Weaponzed Rape in Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death

Abstract This essay explores Nnedi Okorafor’s engagement with the traumatic consequences of a civil war in Africa through the shapeshifting motif in her novel Who Fears Death (2010). It argues that the interaction between Africanjujuism and globalgothic allows her to transcend the specificities of the conflict and address the transgenerational effects of ethnic violence as a global problem. Okorafor employs Africanjujuism to describe the protagonist’s shapeshifting as a means of healing, empowerment, and knowledge. In contrast, she uses Gothic tropes to depict extreme violence. Representing a girl born of wartime rape as the trickster god Eshu, who adds hope to a dark moment in history, constitutes a strong critique of a society in which women victims of war rape are often ignored and their children stigmatized.

Civil Wars in Africa, edited by Kelechi A. Kalu and George Klay Kieh, Jr.

Civil Wars in Africa, edited by Kelechi A. Kalu and George Klay Kieh, Jr.

Backgrounds With Benefits? Rebel Group Origins and Concessions During Civil Wars in Africa

Why do governments make concessions to some rebels but not others? We argue that the origins of rebel groups influence the bargaining process, and the government’s willingness to make concessions in particular. Rebel groups inherit different resource endowments – community ties and military expertise – from pre-existing “parent” organizations. These resource endowments are visible to the government, and they provide critical information about the likely durability of the rebellion. We expect that rebel group origins facilitating these endowments are associated with the state offering concessions earlier in the conflict. Employing original data on rebel group origins, as well as information on government concessions during post-Cold War African conflicts, we find general support for our expectations, although not all types of parent organizations are equally beneficial to rebel groups when it comes to extracting concessions from the state.

Analysis of Africa's Great Green Wall Project in the Context of Climate and Water Policies

İklim değişiklikleri son yıllarda, özellikle ağır hasar yaratan meteorolojik olaylar, yaz aylarında aşırı ısı artışları ile yaşanan ölümler, yangınlar, tarım ürünlerindeki azalma, verimsizleşme ve su sorunları gibi etkileri neticesinde dünya genelinde daha fazla küresel tehdit olarak kabul edilmeye başlamıştır. İklim değişiklerinin etkileri bütün dünyada görülürken, bu süreçten Afrika daha fazla etkilenmiştir. Afrika’da iç savaşların önemli nedenleri arasında temiz suya ulaşım sorunları gelmektedir. İşsizliği, savaşları, hastalıkları, susuzluk ve kuraklığı getiren iklim koşulları Afrika’dan dünyanın diğer bölgelerine büyük kitlesel göç dalgalarını tetiklemektedir. Afrika’nın en yoğun düzensiz göç veren Sahel Bölgesi çatışma, kuraklık, çölleşme ve aşırı yoksulluğun yaşandığı ülkeleri içine alan bir alandır. Mevcut koşullar böyle devam ederse bu göçler, dünya genelinde gelişmiş ülkelerin yaşam kalitesini oldukça etkileyecektir. Halen bu durum yaşanmakla birlikte yakın gelecekte bu sorunların katlanacağı öngörülmektedir. Afrika Birliği tarafından 2007 yılında Büyük Afrika Yeşil duvarı projesi başlatılmıştır. Bu proje Sahra çölünü ağaçlandırarak, tarıma, yaşama ve istihdama verimli hale getirme projesi olarak tanımlanabilir. Afrika Büyük Yeşil Duvarının en önemli etkileri, iklim ve su politikalarına bağlı sürdürülebilir gelecek ile birlikte kadın istihdamı, yöre halkları için yaşam alanlarına sahip çıkma ve aidiyet duygularını güçlendirmesidir. Bu çalışmanın amacı küresel ölçekte iklim ve su sorunlarının çözümünde uluslararası büyük çaplı yeniden ormanlaştırma projelerine dikkat çekmektir. Bu yaklaşımla Büyük Afrika Yeşil Duvarı Projesi literatür taraması yöntemi ile incelenmektedir.

English

Conflicts in Africa are increasingly becoming violent and endemic. Many of these conflicts are related to crises of identities, struggles for resources and power contestations. A few of these conflicts escalate to self-determination, separatist movements, and secession. These conflicts mostly transcend national borders and trigger the alteration and redesigning of national borders, which itself becomes a source of continued violent conflicts across borders. For instance, the attainment of independence by South-Sudan in 2013 has raised hope in achieving peace and stability after one of the prolonged civil wars in Africa. Nevertheless, the new state of South Sudan has turned to a devil’s domain. The internal conflicts in South Sudan have further aggravated the tensions in the region; in addition to the border disputes with Sudan. After the three years of political independence from Sudan, there is still no agreement over the 2,010-km border that divides the two nations. This paper thus examines the nature of border disputes between Sudan and South Sudan and the extent to which the border conflict influences the dynamics of internal conflicts in South Sudan and the implications for peace and stability in the region.   Key words: Independence, border, conflict, violence.

Combating Civil Wars in Africa

The Twentieth and twenty first centuries have been described as the age of anxiety. This is largely due to the many civil wars and conflicts that have been prevalent in our contemporary world, and especially with special reference to Africa which is the worst hit. In particular, armed conflicts been witnessed in Angola, Ethiopia Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia and Sudan among others. Equally, civil wars have been witnessed in Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan. Sadly, some of these States are at the verge of collapse due to the effect of these unfortunate civil wars and conflicts. Other countries that were affected by civil or ethnic conflicts, albeit at lower levels include: Burundi, Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Togo, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Malawi, Senegal, and South Africa. The latter has witnessed xenophobic attacks, especially in May 2008. Terrorism activities have also Increased, as it continues to create tensions among nations, religions, tribes and so on. To this end, this article seeks to explore the causes of civil wars and conflicts in Africa, that bleeds poverty on a mass scale. How can the church participate in curbing these wars and conflicts, and eventually usher-in sanity in these troubled waters? In its methodology, this article strives to redefine war and discusses the characteristics of modern warfare. Through an extensive review of relevant literature, the article has also attempted to explore the place of individual persons, the nation-states and the international network systems in combating civil wars; and lastly, it has endeavored to show the contribution of the church in wrestling out all forms of conflicts in the Sub-Saharan Africa.

Review: Build: The Power of Hip Hop Diplomacy in a Divided World, by Mark Katz

Review: <i>Build: The Power of Hip Hop Diplomacy in a Divided World</i>, by Mark Katz

Corpos femininos em tempos de guerra

This article discusses the female presence in the artivist dramaturgy of Togolese Gustave Akakpo, using the play La Mere Trop Tot (2004) as a cut-out that addresses the drama of children and adolescents surviving a civil war in Africa. The text is organized in three sections, according to: analysis of the structure of the play La Mere Trop Tot (2004) in supported by the studies of Jean-Pierre Sarrazac (2017); analysis of Gustave Akakpo's poetics based on the theoretical production of Sylvie Chalaye (2017) and discussion of the work focusing on the objectification of bodies and memories of violence from the perspective of Feminist Studies in dialogue with Michael Pollock (1989). The collective memory of war is located in between, as it amplifies Afro-contemporary dramaturgy beyond Africa, by focusing on the contradiction and complexity of the female bodies that are re-signified in the work.

African Solutions to African Challenges: The Role of Legitimacy in Mediating Civil Wars in Africa

AbstractThe current scholarly literature on the international mediation of civil wars draws predominantly on a rationalist-materialist perspective. This perspective suggests that the ticket to mediation success is the material manipulation of the bargaining environment by third parties with a high degree of economic and military resources. I argue that legitimacy also determines outcomes of mediation because if a mediator has legitimacy, it can continue to look for a mutually satisfactory outcome and try to pull the conflict parties toward compliance. I show that legitimacy matters by systematically comparing the effectiveness of African and non-African third parties. African third parties are typically considered ineffective because of a low degree of economic and military capacity. However, they effectively mediate civil wars in Africa because of a high degree of legitimacy, which is a result of a strong conviction within the African society of states that African mediation is the most desirable type in conflicts there. Drawing on data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program supplemented with unique data, which together cover all mediation efforts in Africa between 1960 and 2017, I find quantitative evidence supporting the effectiveness of African third parties. Compared to non-African ones, African third parties are far more likely to conclude negotiated settlements that are more likely to be durable. African third parties are especially effective if the conflict parties are highly committed to the African solutions norm. Theoretically, this study deviates from much of the literature that puts forward solely rationalist-materialist explanations of mediation success. By bringing legitimacy to the forefront, this article supplements the current mediation literature that emphasizes material sources of power and ignores social structures.

In the Streets and at the Table: Civil Society Coordination during Peace Negotiations

Abstract When bringing armed conflicts to a peaceful end, the inclusion of civil society in peacemaking is a vital task. However, whereas previous research on civil society inclusion has made significant advancements, surprisingly little attention has been paid to analyzing how civil resistance and mass action may interact with more elite-driven approaches during peace processes. This study addresses this research gap by examining the interplay between elite and mass-based civil society approaches in three different peace processes in civil wars in Africa in the post-Cold War period: Liberia, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Burundi. We advance the literature by developing a framework that focuses on coordination of these different efforts and we explore this interplay empirically. With this study, we aim to broaden the research agenda, allowing for future synergies at the research frontier of mass action and the inclusion of civil society in peace processes.

Society and Civil War in Africa During the Tetrarchy: The Rebellion of Lucius Domitius Alexander (308–310 CE)

AbstractIn the year 308 CE, the African army raised to the purple theagens vices praefectorum praetorioLucius Domitius Alexander. This rather unique case of avicariusbecoming emperor is deserving of investigation. Scholarly interest on the matter has traditionally focused on the broader political significance, treating Alexander as a traditional usurper. This paper argues that, contrary to traditional studies, the regime of Alexander focused on very local, African tropes. The uniqueness of the advertisement suggests that this African usurpation was the product of discontent internal to Africa; in other words, it is a departure from the usurpations of the third century. The achievements of Diocletian, who supposedly stabilized the Empire, ended when he withdrew, and the rebellion of 308–310 demonstrates that there remained unaddressed tensions between the provinces and the remaining tetrarchs.

He who pays the piper, calls the tune? Non-African involvement in Sudan’s African-led mediation processes

ABSTRACTIn spite of a strong preference for African solutions to African conflicts within the African system of states, non-African third parties are frequently involved in mediation in Africa, most frequently in cooperation with African third parties. Yet, the factors that explain the outcomes of non-African involvement remain largely understudied. This article addresses this gap in research through employing a comparative case study between the Naivasha peace process between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement that led to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 and the Abuja peace process between the Government of Sudan and the Darfurian rebels that led to the Darfur Peace Agreement in 2006. These cases suggest that non-African leverage coordinated by African third parties enhances the prospects for mediation success, while uncoordinated non-African leverage seems to supplant efforts of African third parties. The phrase African solutions to African challenges should therefore be understood as a division of labour, rather than an excuse for non-African third parties to ignore Africa’s problems or African third parties acting on their own. While African third parties should take the lead in resolving civil wars in Africa, non-African third parties should support these processes by lending additional strength.

Introducing the Nonviolent Action in Violent Contexts (NVAVC) dataset

Scholarship on civil war is overwhelmingly preoccupied with armed activity. Data collection efforts on actors in civil wars tend to reflect this emphasis, with most studies focusing on the identities, attributes, and violent behavior of armed actors. Yet various actors also use nonviolent methods to shape the intensity and variation of violence as well as the duration of peace in the aftermath. Existing datasets on mobilization by non-state actors – such as the Armed Conflict Events and Location (ACLED), Integrated Conflict Early Warning System (ICEWS), and Social Conflict Analysis Database (SCAD) – tend to include data on manifest contentious acts, such as protests, strikes, and demonstrations, and exclude activities like organizing, planning, training, negotiations, communications, and capacity-building that may be critical to the actors’ ultimate success. To provide a more comprehensive and reliable view of the landscape of possible nonviolent behaviors involved in civil wars, we present the Nonviolent Action in Violent Contexts (NVAVC) dataset, which identifies 3,662 nonviolent actions during civil wars in Africa between 1990 and 2012, across 124 conflict-years in 17 countries. In this article, we describe the data collection process, discuss the information contained therein, and offer descriptive statistics and discuss spatial patterns. The framework we develop provides a powerful tool for future researchers to use to categorize various types of nonviolent action, and the data we collect provide important evidence that such efforts are worthwhile.

Mediating Solutions to Territorial Civil Wars in Africa: Norms, Interests, and Major Power Leverage

Abstract:This article draws on the concept of “identity interests” to explain why commitment to the territorial integrity norm in the context of African peace processes has persisted over such a long period of time, even as continental and international contexts have changed. One major implication of this commitment to the territorial integrity norm is that third parties involved in peacemaking in Africa have consistently refrained from promoting a negotiated settlement that might pave the way for independence; they have only pushed for a territorial revision in a few instances. The role of major powers has been crucial with regard to the few successful territorial changes in Africa since 1960. An overview of all outcomes of mediation in territorial intrastate conflicts in Africa—as well as seven case studies—support this argument.

Zones of peace and local peace processes in Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone

ABSTRACTThis article examines the issue of peace and restraint within ongoing conflicts. While the vast majority of the literature on civil wars in Africa concentrates on drivers of conflict and instances of violence, there are zones of peace where locally peace processes have developed despite conflicts around them. These spaces have been neglected in both the academic literature and the major data sets on conflict and war, which mostly focuses on the belligerent, or sometimes the victims. The literature that does exist is concentrated in Latin America (especially Colombia) rather than Africa. This paper records six different episodes in Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone and seeks to understand the reasons why these spaces were able to maintain some level of peace. The paper discusses the practicalities of exercising peace on the ground and the implications for subsequent peacebuilding, along with drawing conclusions about differences in the nature of warfare regionally.

Leadership Changes and Civil War Agreements: Exploring Preliminary Links

Abstract The emergence of civil wars as the predominant type of conflict in the twenty-first century has prompted scholars to reformulate and revisit many of the questions treated in the interstate conflict literature. One of these questions concerns the impact of leadership changes on policy decisions within the realm of war and peace. Studies have suggested that in interstate disputes, the coming to power of new leaders in one or both of the disputing governments increases the prospects of war termination. We argue that within the context of intrastate disputes this relationship is more complex and multilayered due to factors that are characteristic of rebel groups and civil wars. We suggest that leader overturns in rebel groups are likely to lead, under certain conditions to more, rather than less, hardline conflict positions, at least in the short term, thus hindering possible negotiation processes. We test our hypothesis on a dataset of leadership changes and agreements ending civil wars in Africa, 1975–2007.

Peace from the past

Research on the relationship between political institutions and civil war has paid insufficient attention to the role of traditional institutions in developing countries. This study presents large-N evidence showing that traditional ethnic institutions with origins prior to Western colonization are associated with the prevalence of civil wars in Africa after independence. Matching ethnographic data on the pre-colonial political organization of African indigenous groups to contemporary data on ethnic groups in conflict, I investigate the relationship between the traditional organization of ethnic groups and ethnic civil wars in Africa after decolonization. Specifically, I argue that excluded groups with centralized traditional institutions can rely on these institutions to more credibly bargain with the state, and that this reduces their risk of conflict. Accordingly, I find that excluded groups with centralized pre-colonial institutions are less likely to be involved in civil wars.

Victorious rebels and postwar politics

Why do victorious rebels sometimes form powerful postwar political parties and other times collapse into weak, factionalized organizations? This paper examines cases of rebel victories in civil wars in Africa and traces the links between war duration, the extent of external intervention, and whether or not the war was fought in a compact area with the nature of the postwar political parties. It argues that protracted wars in confined territory with little external assistance have different organizational legacies than quick wars fought over expansive territory with significant international involvement. Four cases – Uganda, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Libya – are used to illustrate the argument.

Nigerian Foreign Policy: a Fourth Republic Diplomatic Escapade

Foreign policy is unpredictable and has no specific domestic or international boundary. The scope is not static; issues in foreign policy are continuous. Therefore, no government consciously design her foreign policy outlook, the focus of any foreign policy would depend heavily on events in and around the nation and Nigeria is not an exception. The concept of Africa as the centre-piece of Nigerian’s foreign policy has emerged as the most consistent theme that runs through her foreign policies in all the various regimes. Foreign policy of Nigeria could be called a three concentric circle, this concentric circle clearly puts Nigeria’s interest first, West African Sub-region second and then the rest of Africa. It is very crucial to note that between 1960 and 1990, eighteen civil wars in Africa resulted in about 7 million deaths and spawned 5 million refugees. Nigeria cannot ignore Africa’s problems rather she must maintain the principle of Afrocentrism. This is so because; one out of every five Africans is a Nigerian. This paper therefore seeks to critically analyze the core issues in Nigerian foreign policy and challenges facing Nigerian foreign policy in the fourth republic, some recommendations will also be suggested.

Political and Economic Causes of Civil Wars in African Countries Based on Econometric Findings

Political and Economic Causes of Civil Wars in African Countries Based on Econometric Findings Jean-Noel BEKA BE NGUEMA Abstract This paper argues whether civil wars in Africa have economic and political impacts. The approach is based on theory in which rebels will carriage a civil war. Using legit approaches the propositions were tested empirically. In particular, six variables, GDP per capita growth rate in the preceding period, the amount of natural resources, peace period, democracy, social fractionalization, and population size are significant and strong determinants of the duration and the probability of civil wars. The role of policy is the combination of economic diversification, starvation and population deflate, and political reforms so as to avoid emulation situations in African countries. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jppg.v4n2a4