What explains the range of nonvictorious outcomes experienced by rebel groups in civil wars? Varying combinations of two structural factors produce different types of rebel groups, whose organizational configurations predict their outcomes. These factors are the external resources provided by cross-border support networks found within regional state systems, and the status reversal grievances produced by the politics of fragmented authority in weak states. Insurgent types are then associated with a given level politico-military effectiveness and a corresponding fate. Eight Ugandan insurgencies illustrate variation in outcomes across groups within a context of contentious domestic and regional politics that controls for the state, regime, and time period.
Transition from war to peace in Sub-Saharan Africa
Several devastating conflicts have persisted in Sub-Saharan Africa for the past 20 years or more. Some countries are still emerging from the era of cold war politics, while debilitating internal struggles continue to plague others. Ethiopia, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda, and more recently, Angola and Mozambique are examples of the former. The latter is illustrated by the situation in countries such as Liberia, Somalia and the Sudan. This study, the transition from war to peace in Sub-Saharan Africa, offers practical guidance and examples of good practice for improving the design and implementation of programs for demobilization, reinsertion, and reintegration of ex-combatants and their dependents in client countries. It also provides a list of early warning signals that indicate whether the demobilization and reintegration programs (DRPs) process is not going according to plan and suggests preventive actions. Work on the ground, as well as case analysis in countries such as Ethiopia, Namibia, Uganda, Angola, Mozambique, and Rwanda form the basis of the suggested good practice in DRPs.
This Is How We Survived: Civilian Agency and Humanitarian Protection
A future disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process in Sudan: lessons learned from Ethiopia, Mozambique and Uganda
The conflict that broke out in Sudan on the eve of its independence from Britain in 1956 has devastated the country, retarded developmental progress, drained human resources and damaged the social fabric of the entire nation. However, the Protocol of Machakos which was signed by the Government of the Republic of the Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Sudan People’s Liberation Army on 20 July 2002, states the commitment of the parties to a negotiated, peaceful and comprehensive resolution to the conflict within the unity of the country. With peace now in sight, the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants is essential to avoid the mistakes made in 1972. It is crucial to build a new future for the generations that have suffered so much in five decades of war. This paper examines the challenges that might confront DDR in post-conflict Sudan. It draws on past experience following the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement between the regime of President Gaffar Mohammed Nimeiri and the Anya-nya rebels, and on the experiences of countries that have gone through similar situations, such as Ethiopia, Mozambique and Uganda.
Civil War, Reintegration, and Gender in Northern Uganda
What are the impacts of war on the participants, and do they vary by gender? Are ex-combatants damaged pariahs who threaten social stability, as some fear? Existing theory and evidence are both inconclusive and focused on males. New data and a tragic natural quasi-experiment in Uganda allow us to estimate the impacts of war on both genders, and assess how war experiences affect reintegration success. As expected, violence drives social and psychological problems, especially among females. Unexpectedly, however, most women returning from armed groups reintegrate socially and are resilient. Partly for this reason, postconflict hostility is low. Theories that war conditions youth into violence find little support. Finally, the findings confirm a human capital view of recruitment: economic gaps are driven by time away from civilian education and labor markets. Unlike males, however, females have few civilian opportunities and so they see little adverse economic impact of recruitment.
Securing the Peace: The Durable Settlement of Civil War
Timely and pathbreaking, Securing the Peace is the first book to explore the complete spectrum of civil war terminations, including negotiated settlements, military victories by governments and rebels, and stalemates and ceasefires. Examining the outcomes of all civil war terminations since 1940, Monica Toft develops a general theory of postwar stability, showing how third-party guarantees may not be the best option. She demonstrates that thorough security-sector reform plays a critical role in establishing peace over the long term. Much of the thinking in this area has centered on third parties presiding over the maintenance of negotiated settlements, but the problem with this focus is that fewer than a quarter of recent civil wars have ended this way. Furthermore, these settlements have been precarious, often resulting in a recurrence of war. Toft finds that military victory, especially victory by rebels, lends itself to a more durable peace. She argues for the importance of the security sector–the police and military–and explains that victories are more stable when governments can maintain order. Toft presents statistical evaluations and in-depth case studies that include El Salvador, Sudan, and Uganda to reveal that where the security sector remains robust, stability and democracy are likely to follow. An original and thoughtful reassessment of civil war terminations, Securing the Peace will interest all those concerned about resolving our world’s most pressing conflicts.
Security and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Dealing with Fighters in the Aftermath of War
This book provides a critical analysis of the changing discourse and practice of post-conflict security-promoting interventions since the Cold War, such as disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), and security-sector reform (SSR). Although the international aid and security sectors exhibit an expanding appetite for peace-support operations in the 21st Century, the effectiveness of such interventions are largely untested. This book aims to fill this evidentiary gap and issues a challenge to ‘conventional’ approaches to security promotion as currently conceived by military and peace-keeping forces, drawing on cutting-edge statistical and qualitative findings from war-torn areas including Afghanistan, Timor Leste, Sudan, Uganda, Colombia and Haiti. By focusing on specific cases where the United Nations and others have sought to contain the (presumed) sources of post-conflict violence and insecurity, it lays out a new research agenda for measuring success or failure.
A significant number of countries worldwide are described as entering a phase of `post’-conflict transition. Drawing on the experience of the health sector, this paper argues that the nature of the rehabilitation task is often misunderstood. In particular, it is often equated with reconstruction of war-damaged infrastructure and assets. Such an approach derives from a misconception of the origins and nature of contemporary warfare. It also serves to reinforce a linear approach to the transition from relief to development. This paper attempts to redefine the rehabilitation task in situations of `post’-conflict transition, drawing on examples from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Uganda. It argues that the direct effects of military action on the social sector are less significant than the indirect effects of political, economic and social changes which both underlie and are precipitated by conflict. Therefore, rehabilitation needs to go beyond reconstruction and tackle the root causes of instability. Such a reinterpretation of the rehabilitation task raises a number of dilemmas, particularly for international actors concerned to contribute to a sustainable peace. These dilemmas are rooted in both the uncertainty about the legitimacy of incoming governments in transitional situations, and in the organisation of the aid system itself. The paper concludes that confronting these dilemmas implies a fundamental change in the orientation and delivery of aid in `post’-conflict situations.
The Liberal Peace and Post-War Reconstruction: Myth or Reality?
International Justice After Conflict: Outreach, Legacy and Accountability
This book critically examines the role of outreach within the application of international justice in post-conflict settings. The assumption that justice brings peace underpins much of the thinking, and indeed action, of international justice, yet little is known about whether this is actually the case. Significant questions surrounding the link between peace and justice remain: do trials deter would-be war criminals; is justice possible for the most heinous crimes; can international justice replace local justice? This book explores these questions in relation to recent developments in international justice that have both informed and shaped the creation of the hybrid tribunal in Sierra Leone. This was the first hybrid tribunal to be based in situ, equipped with a dedicated Outreach office. Outreach was seen as essential to ensuring that expectations were managed for what was ultimately a limited judicial mechanism. Yet, there is little evidence to support the claim that Outreach garnered wide-spread acceptance of the Special Court. This book explores the challenge and tensions in communicating the role of international justice in a post-conflict setting. The goals of international justice after conflict are clear: hold fair and transparent trials of alleged perpetrators under the strict adherence to international judicial procedures in order to establish accountability for the worst crimes against humanity. The assumption being that this will contribute to peace by firmly drawing a line under the past in order to move forward peacefully. This has been evident with the recent drive towards international judicial intervention after conflict in places such as the former Yugoslavia, Uganda and Afghanistan. But so far these assumptions remain largely untested. Few empirical studies examine how justice contributes to peace and within these instances, how the complexity of international justice mechanisms have been communicated to their respective audiences in order to foment wide-spread knowledge and understanding of the processes. This book addresses this deficit by testing these assumptions on the ground in a post-conflict setting in West Africa.
Peace and the Public Purse: Economic Policies for Postwar Statebuilding
The Role of International Law in Rebuilding Societies after Conflict
International law can create great expectations in those seeking to rebuild societies that have been torn apart by conflict. For outsiders, international law can mandate or militate against intervention, bolstering or undermining the legitimacy of intervention. International legal principles promise equality, justice and human rights. Yet international law’s promises are difficult to fulfil. This volume of essays investigates the phenomenon of post-conflict state-building and the engagement of international law in this enterprise. It draws together original essays by scholars and practitioners who consider the many roles international law can play in rehabilitating societies after conflict. The essays explore troubled zones across the world, from Afghanistan to Africa’s Great Lakes region, and from Timor-Leste to the Balkans. They identify a range of possibilities for international law in tempering, regulating, legitimating or undermining efforts to rebuild post-conflict societies.
The Challenge of DDR in Northern Uganda: The Lord’s Resistance Army
Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have been fighting in northern Uganda for the past two decades in conflict which has devastated the region. The group is notorious for abducting children and young people. Over 20,000 have been taken since the war began and turned into soldiers and rebel “wives”. This is the context of Uganda’s informal disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme. Rather than being an organised process set up to help consolidate peace at the end of war, it has largely been a necessary response to a flow of escaping former abductees, taking place within an on-going conflict. In 2006, the government of South Sudan began mediating peace talks between the LRA and the Ugandan government. Although the talks have yet to deliver, they have focused attention on managing an end to the conflict, including a formal programme of DDR to deal with those rebels remaining in the bush. Based on primary research- undertaken in Gulu, Kitgum, Kira and Apac Districts of northern Uganda in August and September 2005 and March 2006- this paper lays out the problems that have marred earlier attempts to reintegrate former LRA combatants- and looks at the challenges that lie ahead.