Durable Peace Research Articles

Constitutional Reform in a Fragile and Conflict-Affected Environment? Outlook on Constitutional Reform Processes in Ethiopia

Abstract The Ethiopian Federal Constitution currently in force has hitherto been formally unreformed. This does not mean that there has been no societal pressure to reform; rather, the opposite is true. Since the time of its adoption, the Constitution has been a controversial document, and it has been subjected to substantial criticism both from within academic circles and from a wide range of political parties and other societal elites. Due to a lack of democratic space in the process of its development, the Federal Constitution has suffered from a legitimacy deficit, which has prevented the document from constituting the basis for a widely shared national identity or standard for common citizenship. These legitimacy problems have not benefited from the fact that the many identity-related tensions and conflicts that have ravaged the country and have prevented durable peace, stability, and sustainable socio-economic development are directly linked to the Constitution by its detractors. It seems that only a constitutional reform could offer a way out. Rather than focusing on the substance of constitutional reform, this paper concentrates on the process that should create a conducive environment for such substantive options to be debated and decided on. While the deep ethnic polarization and manifold public security problems currently afflicting Ethiopian society make such reform necessary, they simultaneously create a very challenging environment for a constitutional reform process to be adequately implemented and administered. In this regard, the paper argues that, apart from the necessity of securitization measures, the design of the constitutional reform process, which needs to be participatory and inclusive, can have a positive impact on both these security problems and on the development and drafting of a constitutional document that provides a widely agreed-upon and, hence, legitimate foundation for durable peace, stability, and sustainable socio-economic development.

Refugees as Entrepreneurs? A Challenge to HDP Programmes

ABSTRACT Protracted refugee situations in territories of war or natural hazards challenge the logic of the humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) nexus that inspires liberal humanitarianism. The organised expression of that nexus is the so-called ‘integrated approach’ in which humanitarian aid, development aid and peacebuilding are intertwined in missions aimed at promoting a durable peace. The experiences of camps for Palestinian and Syrian refugees in Jordan and of South Sudanese and Congolese refugees in Uganda question some basic assumptions of the HDP programmes. In the last two decades, the policies adopted in these locations show a two-fold reconfiguration of the HDP liberal programme: first, the aim of containing humanitarian crises locally, in the peripheries, thereby preventing their adverse effects spreading to the core of the international system; second, a focus on refugees’ capacity to become more resilient and entrepreneurial in order to overcome their vulnerable condition. Overall, this so-called neoliberal approach to humanitarianism with its focus on containment and individual entrepreneurship-inspired resilience has moved away from its liberal configuration as part of a systemic reconfiguration of local social fabric.

The European Union’s Normalisation Policies for Kosovo: Contributing to a Durable Peace?

For more than a decade, the European Union (EU) has been pursuing normalisation in Kosovo-Serbia relations. However, the EU has not focused on tackling the core issues of the conflict. Instead, EU mediators prioritised a gradual normalisation of relations based on an expectation of genuine conflict resolution to follow in the future. We argue, though, that the relationship between normalisation and conflict resolution is not straightforward. Considering the Kosovo Serb perspective, we show that the EU efforts have created a situation of managed instability in Kosovo, adding in some cases new layers to the conflict instead of resolving it.

Participatory Rebel Governance and Durability of Peace

Participatory Rebel Governance and Durability of Peace

The future of peace in Africa: complexities of local conflict(s) and liberal peace interventions.

This paper argues that a systematic understanding of local populations and their worldviews of what constitute peace – as expressed in their norms of relations holds promise for the future of peace in Africa. Africa continues to be the centre of international efforts at peacebuilding. These efforts at best have achieved mixed results, while barely addressing the root causes of violent conflicts by transforming state-society relations that breeds inclusivity and assures the progress of the collective regardless of geographic, social, economic, and political differentiations. To achieve this, it is important for actors in the peacebuilding industry to emphasise the local as fundamental to building durable peace. This stems from the knowledge that all societies embody the idea of peace with different connotations. Such worldviews are important starting points for post-conflict peacebuilding efforts that portends for the collective good. In this article, the Bimbilla case shows how local spaces that have suffered violent conflicts have inbuilt ideational and normative structures that can be used to address the anomaly of state-society relations. This is indicative of the many conflict and post-conflict spots in Africa. Emphasising the norms of the locale as a critically anchor to effective contemporary peacebuilding, and the future of durable peace in Africa.

Rebel group legitimacy, ideology and durable peace

PurposeThis study aims to explore the role of rebel group legitimacy and ideology in durable peace (DP) following peace agreements to end civil wars. It builds on earlier research showing that justice and civil society involvement are critical in achieving DP. This study adds the impacts of rebel group activities and support on DP. Activities include service delivery and mobilization. Support is gauged with outcomes of presidential and parliamentary elections held following peace agreements.Design/methodology/approachFive data sets were used to measure the key variables: DP, inclusive commissions (IC), legitimacy symmetry (electoral outcomes), service delivery and ideological mobilization. A measure of rebel group integration in the political system was also constructed. Impacts of the integration, legitimacy and ideology variables were assessed with a hierarchical regression model (HRM). This study begins with a base model drawn from earlier research showing the key predictors were procedural justice (PJ) and IC. The authors ask about the extent to which the rebel group variables contribute additional variance to the prediction of DP.FindingsThe main contributors to the prediction of DP were PJ, IC and integration in the political system. None of the legitimacy or mobilization variables added significant variance to the prediction. Only one of the mobilization variables, forced recruitment, was significant. The decision to integrate into the political system following the agreement did not mediate the relationship between PJ in the negotiation process and DP. Results of a factor analysis showed that DP, PJ, IC and integration formed a cluster with strong loadings on the first factor.Research limitations/implicationsThe negative results for the legitimacy and mobilization variables may not be the last word on rebel group influences. Lack of support for the key hypotheses spurs attempts to discover other sources that contribute to the survival of rebel group actors in the political system and, in turn, to DP.Practical implicationsThe issues raised by this study contribute to debates about ways to attain peaceful relations among competing groups following a civil war. It appears that attention to factors inside and around the negotiation process (PJ, ICs and conversion) may be more important than rebel group activities outside of these processes. The results call attention, in particular, to the important role played by political integration. From a policy perspective, it would be useful to develop levers for encouraging rebel groups to emerge as political actors in the post-agreement environment.Originality/valueDeveloping measures of the symmetry of rebel group legitimacy and integration in the context of a comparative case study are the primary original contributions of this study. Furthermore, the mode of analysis (HRM) is novel in this literature. This approach builds on and extends the earlier research on factors influencing DP.

Decolonizing the “state of nature” in political thought

The study of coloniality as a “social imaginary” (Charles Taylor) from the perspective of decoloniality invites European scholars, to “think again”, to interrogate their own traditions, including their modern political philosophical tradition. In this article, I will discuss a powerful modern political imaginary, namely the democratic narrative of the “social contract”. Such narratives or “imaginations of our origin” (Ursprungsphantasien: Philip Manow) give us answers to the enigma of our social and political existence: what does it mean to live in this political community? What does it give us, ask from us? In the modern narrative of the “social contract”, we are told that, to be a good citizen, we have/had to leave the “state of nature” (status naturalis), a state often described as a state of disorder, conflict, and war, and accept the status of citizenship (status civilis) and a powerful state as guarantee of peace and the rule of law. In this article, I will firstly give some examples of the use of this narrative in very diverse contexts: 1) in the context of the European religious civil wars in the 16th and 17th centuries (birth of the modern liberal political philosophy), 2) in the context of the transition of European nation-states to the European Union after WWII, 3) in the context of the transition of Apartheid South Africa to a non-racial democracy. Secondly, I will concentrate on one of the first philosophers who introduced the state of nature/civil state narrative, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), to discover that his political imagination is deeply influenced by the colonial experience in the “New World”, especially the meeting with the indigenous Indians in America. In several aspects, they are in Hobbes’ imagination the incarnation of the life in the “state of nature”. This raises the question, how the idea of a democratic social contract can be reformulated, without Eurocentric and racist premises, and without simply reversing the Hobbesian narrative: since the “colonizer” is the root of our conflict and controversies, to expel him will restore a durable peace.

The Special Criminal Court and the challenge of criminal accountability in the Central African Republic

States which encounter massive human rights violations usually implement various mechanisms of achieving accountability. There exists documented evidence of conflict-related international crimes in the Central African Republic (CAR). Still, the perpetrators enjoy impunity as no appropriate measures were adopted to guarantee criminal accountability. The Special Criminal Court (SCC) was established in the CAR in 2015 as a hybrid criminal accountability mechanism. This article with the aid of a qualitative method and a narrative approach aims at investigating the activities of the SCC in the fight against the culture of impunity in a country experiencing persistent human rights violations. As conflict and impunity persist in the socially and politically unstable CAR, a comprehensive synopsis of the SCC and a preliminary assessment of the court and its challenges seven years after creation constitute a domain of investigation that urgently requires a deeper investigation to halt impunity, recurrent hostilities and human rights violations. Why has impunity and violations persisted in the CAR despite the creation of the SCC? The paper identifies critical factors to the success of the SCC, based on previous experiments with hybrid courts. The outcome of this research reveal that the fragile security situation in the country and other factors significantly hinder the court’s objective of serving justice and contributing to durable peace in the CAR.

Let the People Speak! What Kind of Civil Society Inclusion Leads to Durable Peace?

Abstract In this article, building on the earlier research on procedural justice (PJ) and civil society inclusion, we assess the effectiveness of various civil society inclusion modalities based on their impact on durable peace (DP). A set of hypotheses concerning civil society inclusion is evaluated using the fifty-case peace agreement dataset assembled by Druckman and Wagner (2019). Their study showed that PJ was a key predictor of DP. We take their model as the base and add inclusion variables step by step using a hierarchical regression model. Results show that inclusive commissions (ICs) add significant explained variance to the prediction of DP. None of the other modalities add significant variance to the prediction. A possible explanation is that ICs ensure the continuation of civil society inclusion between the negotiation and implementation phases of a peace process. As well, they optimize breadth and depth in an inclusive negotiation process. The article concludes with discussions of next steps in the research and develops implications for policy makers.

Possibilities and limits of procedural and distributive justice in complex conflicts: a study of the Colombian peace process

PurposeExtensive empirical evidence suggests that procedural justice (PJ) and distributive justice (DJ) are key success factors for achieving durable peace negotiations. This paper aims to investigate how complexity affects these factors and the outcomes in negotiations.Design/methodology/approachThe qualitative study is based on an examination of the peace negotiations that led to the 2016 agreement between the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo and the Colombian Government. Based on document analysis, the authors examined in detail how and where in the process the principles of PJ and DJ were applied. The authors then examined the implementation progress after 2016 and placed the peace process in the overall context of the Colombian conflict.FindingsThe authors found that the principles of PJ and DJ were present in both the negotiation process and the agreement. The negotiations were successful and satisfactory solutions could be found for all issues. The complexity of the conflict is reflected in the limited coverage of the peace negotiations. Not all groups, interests and subconflicts could be included in the negotiations. This limits their contribution to a durable peace in Colombia. Conflicts that remain unresolved also have a negative effect on the implementation of the agreement.Practical implicationsFor conflict management, this implies that the negotiations should not be viewed as “one-and-done” but rather as a progressive, ongoing process. The agreement is only the nucleus for achieving total peace. It must be actively advanced and defended.Originality/valueThis study offers new qualitative insights into how PJ and DJ function in negotiations. It also establishes a systematic connection between PJ and DJ and complexity, introduces the notion of coverage and, thereby, opens a new perspective on the management of conflict complexity.

How Mauritius Became Africa's Avant-Garde in Sustaining Peace

This article investigates how Mauritius has been successful in sustaining peace since 2010. The Mauritian government's inclusive economic development and social security policies to combat poverty and marginalisation, both structural risk factors of violence in society, have been constitutive of a holistic approach that promotes United Nations (UN) pillars—inclusive development, human rights, and peace and security—essential to sustaining peace. This article argues that endogenous Mauritian initiatives, which predate the UN sustaining peace agenda, have generated durable peace, evidenced by the island state's constant position as the top African country on the Global Peace Index.

The justice versus amnesty approach to resolving the protracted conflict in the Central African Republic

This study aims at the debate of promoting peace and achieving justice in conflict-prone countries. The debate’s core is whether justice should be traded for peacemaking. Whether or not, justice or peace should take precedence over each other? Proponents of peace over justice contend that pursuing justice will lead to more conflict in an already precarious situation. Their counterparts hold that durable peace cannot be achieved without justice. Eight African states, including the ‘phantom’ state of Central African Republic (CAR), have applied amnesties in resolving their conflicts. The research focuses on how amnesties and criminal trials have attained the goals of sustainable peace, deterrence and political stability in CAR. This paper views justice as an essential aspect of achieving peace, not solely in retributive terms. Amnesty is analysed from the lens of international law, which obligates states to extradite or prosecute and punish perpetrators of international crimes. The research limits its analysis to accountability for international crimes and amnesty approach through negotiated post-conflict peace agreements in CAR. The study argues that justice options provide a better opportunity for a comprehensive and durable peace in CAR than amnesty, which promotes impunity and guarantees momentary peace and subsequent relapse to conflict.

Pakistan’s Policy of Social Inclusion for Making a Resilient Society to Violent Extremism

The community provides the support/links that connects the actors across the Counter Violent Extremism space. Pakistani government’s CVE initiatives regarding community resilience work are not up to the mark. In the past, policy initiatives were designed with gaps to manage or to stop the evil of violent extremism at the community level. History of Pakistan shows that lack of rule of law, social injustices at community level, inappropriate role of mosques and identity crisis had promoted violent extremism within communities. The objective of this research is to promote social inclusion by enhancing resilience capabilities within Pakistani society and to analyze the national and local policies and evaluate the programmes/practices to enhance community resilience to violent extremism. This research is qualitative in methodology and data has been collected from secondary sources. Finally, paper concludes that non- governmental organizations can play their role. Only need is the cooperation among state and nongovernmental organizations because use of the hard power through the military is not a viable solution. For durable peace and prosperity, the linkages between state policies with local level initiatives would be started in the form of bonding, bridging and linking connections across society.

A Complex Character of the Civil War in Yemen: A Perspective from Pakistan

The civil war in Yemen is a puzzling case, involving local, regional and global actors with conflicting motives. Till recent past, Yemen had not been a hotbed for sectarian strife yet, in the milieu of the ‘Gulf War-2003’ followed by the ‘Arab Spring’, the ground realities greatly changed, bringing ‘sectarian divide’ as one of the many dimensions in the conflict. While Iran continues to deny Saudi accusations of its great designs in Middle East, still we need to ascertain the facts by probing the complex interplay between drivers and actors placed at various levels. The study concludes that besides the ‘sectarian divide’, there are other dimensions of the conflict which are grounded on political, social and strategic aspects, directly influenced by the outside players. As a part of the real politick, Iran and Saudi Arabia are striving to have their grip over the Middle East including the Yemen. The study also concludes that the Yemen being its soft underbelly, Saudi Kingdom would not compromise on its stated goals of having direct influence over it, even if it has to pay a heavy cost. The study suggests that to realize a durable peace in the region, Iran and Saudi led coalition should bridge trust deficit, address perception problems and help various factions to resolve their differences by signing a ‘new social contract’. From theoretical angle, this paper adopts a realist line, focusing on security concerns of the state actors.

The Path to Atonement: West Germany and Israel after the Holocaust

Abstract Atonement is a state practice that comprises an official political apology and the offer of reparation payments to former victims of mass atrocities, war crimes, and human rights abuses. Despite being considered the moral and right thing to do, atonement has occurred only once at the state level: between West Germany and Israel in 1952. Whereas existing explanations view the West German pathway after the Holocaust as either an ethical choice or a domestic policy induced by U.S. pressure, atonement can also be a political decision. Politicians may give official apologies and pay reparations because such practices promise tangible political benefits. An investigation of the West German–Israeli case and a comparison with two non-atoning perpetrators of World War II, Austria and Japan, illustrate the plausibility of these claims. Atonement emerged as a bilateral strategy between West Germany and Israel because it represented a politically expedient option for both countries. This finding offers insights into when politicians may pursue atonement in other cases and points to a potential avenue toward long-term international stability and durable peace.

The Social Construction of Grievance and Everyday Responses to Violent Conflict: Insights from the Maoist Conflict in West Bengal, India

ABSTRACT While in the civil wars literature grievance is often considered as a cause of violent conflict, this paper investigates how grievances are meaningful to the people who experience violence, and how these meanings are expressed in everyday actions. Through the case of the Maoist conflict in India, in this paper I explore how grievance is socially constructed and related to action according to local people’s own narratives. This study reveals that perceptions of grievance are related not only to violent actions, but also to everyday strategies to resist violence and achieve durable peace and social change at the local level.

Housing and Reincorporation Strategies in post-Conflict Colombia: Mismatch of micro-level visions and macro-scale approaches

There is a consensus among scholars and policy makers that durable peace after violent conflicts is contingent upon addressing affected communities’ livelihood needs and, in particular, housing. Post-conflict reconstruction is challenging, but at the same time an opportunity to address pre-existing housing deficits. In this Update, we present the ongoing endeavours of a community of former combatants to establish a mutual aid housing cooperative in Colombia following the peace agreement of 2016 and their efforts to attain affordable and adequate housing in a context characterised by a fragile peace process and unfavourable housing policies. We focus here on the interlinkages between micro-level visions, aspirations and strategies of the communities involved in the establishment of housing cooperatives and macro-level political and institutional factors enabling or constraining their emergence in post-conflict Colombia. Attention is drawn to opportunities to contest existing housing systems and to advocate for other forms of housing.

Rebels with a cause: Introducing the Post-Rebel Electoral Parties dataset

The Post-Rebel Electoral Parties (PREP) dataset offers an important new tool to study the transformation of rebel groups into political parties. It provides longitudinal data on the electoral participation and performance in national elections of political parties formed by armed opposition groups after civil war. Post-rebel electoral parties sit at the center of overlapping research agendas that address how best to build durable peace, and how to build resilient political systems and capable states after devastating conflict. A better understanding of how and why these parties participate and perform in elections over time is critical to any assessment of liberal peacebuilding. These parties – their strategic choices, organizational development, and impact on the political systems in which they participate – are also relevant to the broader study of comparative democratization, political parties, and party systems. Our dataset follows these parties forward through up to three decades of participation in postwar electoral politics. The current version of the data consists of 78 distinct parties derived from 56 conflict actors. The data cover 322 legislative election years and 216 executive elections in 39 countries over 30 years (1990–2021). This article describes the data and articulates the need for and motivation behind the dataset. We then illustrate the relevance of the data by testing the impact of rebel participation on the long-term peace.

W.E.B. Du Bois Against U.S. Capitalist Racism: Durable Peace and the Fulfillment of People(s)-Centered Human Rights

This article argues that W.E.B. Du Bois’s struggle for a durable peace was inextricably linked to his rejection of the United States’ racialized economic order that emplaced Blacks at the bottom of society within its borders and, given its imperial ambitions, threatened perpetual war abroad, with particularly dire consequences for colonized peoples. The first section re-interprets Du Bois’s writings and speeches about “caste” as, more accurately, explicating a system of “U.S. capitalist racism” in the United States that was inexorably tied to imperialism and war. Such clarity opens up an understanding of Du Bois’s conception of peace not as the absence of conflict, but rather as a necessary condition for the eradication of political, economic, and social inequality and injustice on a world scale. The next section argues that Du Bois’s analysis and critique of U.S. capitalist racism undergirded his advocacy of “People(s)-Centered Human Rights” (PCHR). Coined by Black Alliance for Peace National Organizer Ajamu Baraka, PCHR emanate from and address the everyday realities, needs, and challenges of racialized and colonized people. For Du Bois, PCHR could only be achieved through a durable peace, and durable peace could only be maintained through the extension of PCHR to all persons irrespective of race, class, or nation. The final section explicates how this anticapitalist, antiracist, anti-imperial, and anticolonial conception of durable peace drew the ire of the U.S. government and made Du Bois, the Peace Information Center, and his fellow peace activists targets of Black Scare and Red Scare repression.

The Making of Strangers: Reflections on the Ethiopian Constitution

A constitution is an expression of a political community’s desire to establish a mode of politics for collective life. The normative underpinning of a well-designed and well-structured constitutional order is, therefore, an integrative process of association. Constitutions are meant to forge and develop a political community that enables members to see each other as co-participants in a common project. The Ethiopian Constitution seems to have adopted a model of dissociation rather than one of integrative association. Rather than bringing people together, the Constitution has set them apart. Through close examination of various provisions of the Constitution—from the preamble to the amendment process—this article shows that the Constitution has managed to fragment a people into “peoples”, a nation into “nations”, and in the process transformed neighbors into strangers who often see one another as mortal threats rather than as co-participants in a common project. In the guise of decentralizing power, the Constitution has, in fact, fundamentalized differences. Such an environment will not lend itself either to democratic governance or durable peace.