State Policy Final

Week 7: character and intensity of African civil wars

1. National Liberation Movements (anticolonial rebels)

   1. Anticolonial narratives

   2. Socialist ideology

      1. Often went hand in hand with nationalism

   3. All of them preserved colonial boundaries

   4. International support

   5. Were successful in achieving their goals

2. Majority Rule Freedom Fighters

   1. Rebelled against “independent regimes”

      1. Often fighting against the government because it was still ruled by a white minority

   2. Rhodesia and South Africa

      1. South Africa was the only ‘peaceful’ case

   3. Had difficulty in coordinating the struggle

      1. The military and security capacity of the regimes forced rebels to rely on external support

         1. Ex: the ANC (South Africa) had difficulty organizing actions against the apartheid regime

   4. Links with socialist ideology

   5. International support

      1. Global rejection of white minority power helped to strengthen the basis of patronage and financial support 

3. Secessionist Civil Wars

   1. Successful

      1. Eritrea (1993)

         1. Independence from Ethiopia

      2. South Sudan (2011)

   2. Unsuccessful

      1. Katanga, Congo (1960)

      2. South Kasai Congo (1960)

         1. Both unsuccessful secessionist provinces of Kongo were primarily driven by the political and economic interests of Congolese political elites and in the case of Katanga, the foreign business associates

      3. Nigerian-Biafran (eastern region of Nigeria) War (1967-1970)

   3. Recent or ongoing secessionist attempts

      1. Senegal: Casamance conflict

      2. Ethiopia: the Oromo and Ogaden rebellions

      3. Niger and Mali: the Azward movements

      4. Angola: The Struggle over Cabinda

      5. Somalia: the unilateral withdrawal of Somaliland since 1991

   4. ✰ Overall, separatist warfare is relatively rare across Africa compared to other parts of the world (from 1960-2002). Why?

      1. Rules for territorial integrity adopted by the OAU

         1. Accepted everywhere but the Horn of Africa (Somalia and their Greater Somalia Agenda, Ethiopia, Sudan)

      2. National feelings due to colonialism

         1. Fighting together against the colonial power helped create a unified people

      3. Reciprocal assimilation of the elites

         1. The elite wanted to maintain power rather than fight for succession

      4. Thus, the benefits of staying together outweighed the benefits of separation

4. Insurgency Conflicts (Reform Rebels)

   1. Why do we call them reform rebel groups?

      1. They fought against repressive governments

      2. Another form of looking for state reform

      3. They adopted the anticolonial rhetoric of national emancipation and a more ___societal order

      4. Accepted existing borders

   2. What makes them different from the other types of rebel groups?

      1. The leaders were graduates of African universities unlike the leaders of liberation fronts

      2. Unlike the other rebel groups, they lacked international support

         1. The main priority of the OAU liberation committee was to expel minority rule in southern countries

         2. No African government was interested in overthrowing an existing government → didn’t want to be dragged into the conflict

            1. Unless it was a proxy war → neighboring states supported other rebel groups who could undermine the ideologically driven rebel groups

      3. Unlike secessionists, guerilla insurgencies were largely waged to attain power within the existing state

      4. Implemented new governance ideas in the areas they controlled → unlike warlord insurgencies which have no real political agenda

   3. ✰Important examples to know:

      1. National Resistance Army in Uganda (1986)

      2. Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF) in Rwanda (1994)

      3. Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in Ethiopia (1991)

      4. The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) (1991)

5. Warlord Insurgencies

   1. Neither reformist, secessionist, nor liberationist

   2. Fight to control power and resources

   3. They do not want to make any changes to the system → usually use the existing means of political power

   4. Do not have mass domestic or foreign support

      1. Some get support from communities

6. Parochial Rebels (militias)

   1. Groups that grew out of local communities to organize and defend themselves from the disorder of state collapse and predations of warlord rebels

   2. Some protect communities/ organize relations with commercial networks

   3. Others join warlord rebels as partners

7. ✰What are the characteristics of current conflicts?

   1. Low intensity of conflict → Livelihood and post-election conflicts

      1. Tend to be internally divided, poorly structured, and trained

      2. Lack of access to heavy weapons

      3. Transnational → Insurgents move between states, fighting on the periphery

      4. Livelihood clashes: farmer-herder conflict over access to land, water, and other local resources

Week 8: Civil War Termination in Africa

• Peace

  • Negative Peace: the absence of violence of all kinds

    • Direct violence: verbal or physical harm to the body, mind, or spirit 

    • Cultural violence: attitudes and values that encourage or tolerate harm

    • Structural violence: damage embedded in and instantiated by routine or mandated of doing things)

  • Positive Peace: a cooperative system beyond passive peaceful coexistence, one that can bring forth positive synergistic fruits of harmony

    • Must be: absence of violence, prevalence of non-violence, harmonious coexistence

• Methods of Conflict Resolution

  • Negotiation: 

    • One of the most frequently used means for handling international disputes

    • Search for common interests and explore minimally acceptable positions for both sides

      • Each side seeks to attain agreement as close to its own preferred position as possible

    • The outcomes should be acceptable to all the concerned parties

    • Negotiation process and strategies:

      • an agreement on the agenda for discussion is a precondition

      • concessions are made reluctantly/ only when necessary to keep the negotiation moving

      • Stalemates are common

      • The international community may use coercion, threat, and negotiation in the process to help settle the case

    • Negotiation becomes effective: 

      • when disputing parties agree upon norms and procedures

      • When there are shared interests

      • Sharing benefits and losses: 

        • helps to compromise because interests are generally seen as interdependent or compatible

      •  Each side acknowledges the other side’s legitimate concerns

  • Good Offices (third party)

    • The intervention of a third party to break the impasse created by deep mistrust

    • In situations where adversaries do not recognize the legitimacy of the other

    • It can be used if the two sides want to avoid direct contact despite the need to resolve a serious dispute

    • Provides secure channels for communication using shuttle diplomacy

  • Mediation

    • Defined as a process in which parties to a dispute attempt to reach a mutually agreeable solution under the auspices of a third party

    • Main objectives: bring mutual agreements between the opposing parties

    • Process:

      • Establish or re-establish good communication between conflicting parties

      • Requires face-to-face discussion

      • Changing parties’ images and attitudes toward one another is necessary to help adversaries communicate

      • Participants should accept the rules of the process suggested by the third party

      • The trust of both sides can be gained by the impartiality of an intermediary

      • Proposals suggested by mediators do not have any binding power; mediators attempt to bring about a mutually acceptable solution and persuade parties that compromise is inevitable

  • Arbitration

    • Applied when parties are not willing to engage in dialogue and when the issues do not manifest deeper underlying conflicts

    • Disputants agree beforehand to the procedure and the scope of authority of the arbitration courts

    • Involved an adjudication procedure by which disputants agree to submit controversy to judges of their choosing

    • Third-party makes a decision based on evidence presented and legal judgment rather than political negotiation

    • An arbitration tribunal’s decision is binding

  • Judicial Settlement

    • Formal and institutional in many ways

    • Rely on international law that consists of treaties, conventions, and other formal agreements

    • Customary law and norms respected by international practice

    • The International Court: the principal judicial organ of the UN

  • Actors

    • Third parties should not have a direct interest in the disputed issues (geo-strategic interests)

    • National governments, international organizations, private intermediaries, NGOs, the UN or states

• Negotiated Peace Settlement and Victory (give war a chance)

  • Civil war can be ended through negotiated peace settlements or victories

  • Give war a chance: advocates allowing belligerents to continue fighting until one side achieves a military victory

  • Civil Wards ended by Victory

    • Rebel victories tend to result in more stable governments

    • Less likely to be autocratic regimes

  • Civil Wars ended by Negotiated Settlement

    • More likely for civil war to recur

    • Increased likelihood of saving lives in the short term, but an equally increased likelihood of costing even more lives in the long run

    • Negotiated settlements are no more likely to lead to democracy than other types of termination

  • Spoilers pose a significant challenge to negotiated peace settlements 

    • Spoilers are created by the peace process itself (do not come from outside factors)

    • For this reason, the process requires management

• Spoilers: leaders and parties who believe that peace emerging from negotiations threatens their power, worldview, and interests and use violence to undermine attempts to achieve it

  • Peace creates spoilers because it is rare in civil wars for all leaders and factions to see peace as beneficial

• Spoilers Management → 3 types of spoilers that differ on their goals and commitment to achieving its goals

  • Limited spoilers

    • Goals: limited

      • Ex: recognition or redress of a grievance, the basic security of followers, etc.

  • Greedy spoilers

    • Goals: can expand or contract based on calculations of cost and risk

      • May have limited goals that expand when faced with low costs and risks or vice versa

    • Lies between limited spoilers and total spoilers on a spectrum

  • Total spoilers

    • Goals: pursue total power and exclusive recognition of authority

    • Commitment: immutable- their opinions are not subject to change

      • Often espouse radical ideologies

  • Strategies of Spoiler Management 

    • 1) inducement: giving the spoiler what it wants

      • Can only succeed with limited spoilers

    • 2) socialization: changing the behavior of the spoiler to adhere to a set of established norms 

    • 3) coercion: punishing spoiler behavior or reducing the capacity of the spoiler to destroy the peace process

  • Some spoilers can be managed and made part of the peace process but some spoilers can not be managed

Week 9: Post-Conflict State Building

• 4 possible approaches to state building centered around the organizing goals

1. Realist State Building: shared interest and emphasis on security

   1. Goal: enforcing order → using force to create stability

   2. For the success of state building, the relationship between allied states and other actors must rely on shared interests

      1. Cooperation → actors believe that cooperation increases their chances of survival and power growth

      2. Most likely when the actors face a common perceived threat

2. Institutionalist State Building: constitutions, bureaucracy, and legal codes

   1. Goal: building institutions

   2. Focuses on establishing institutions and garnering support from the international community

3. Liberal State Building: commitment to human liberty

   1. Goal: spreading liberty

   2. Meant to prevent future wars

4. Constructivist State Building: persuading people

   1. Goal: winning converts

   2. Focuses on persuading people → establishing collective beliefs and perceptions of the people; helps to prevent future conflicts

• Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR)

  • Process of demilitarization (DDR = the means of implementing demilitarization)

    • Disarmament: the removal of HOW civil wars are executed (arms)

    • Demobilization: breaking the command and control structures under which rebel fighters operate, making it difficult to return to organized armed rebellion

    • Reintegration: reintegrating combatants back into society; when people are reintegrated, it makes it much harder to go back to war

      • Reintegration support programs require a lot of funding

  • The success of DDR depends on two factors

    • Understanding the motivations and character of the various militias involved

      • A one-size-fits-all approach does not work here

      • Different kinds of militias have different motivations

    • Recognizing the contextual realities

      • The government’s position on reintegrating former combatants

      • Electoral politics

      • Economic context

      • Identity politics

      • Regional dynamics

Case Studies

1. Mozambique

   1. The difference between the main actors (FRELIMO and RENAMO)

      1. FRELIMO

         1. Established in 1961

         2. Marxist-Leninist ideological stance that played a uniting role among the ethnic divisions in the country

         3. Helped to create closer collaborations with other anti-colonial rebels in Africa

         4. Supported cooperative agricultural production that caused a lack of support from local elders

         5. Became the new government upon independence in 1975

         6. Rural support

      2. RENAMO

         1. Not an anti-colonial rebel group

         2. Not socialist, had no state-building vision

            1. Result of rebel fragmentation and had relied on foreign backers

         3. Collaborated with local chiefs and spiritual mediums 

         4. Defined itself as an organization that aimed to protect traditions and traditional rulers

   2. Why did RENAMO become a main challenger to FRELIMO?

      1. Domestic factors

         1. Forced villagization

         2. Attacks on traditional authorities

      2. External factors

         1. Support from South Africa and Rhodesia

         2. Soviet Union, Cuba, and other Eastern block intervention

   3. War termination: negotiation

2. Angola

   1. MPLA and UNITA

      1. Both

         1. Support for rebel groups

            1. Ethnic-based domestic support

            2. External support

         2. The factions changed into warlords, mainly after the end of the cold war

         3. The collapse of the soviet union → a competition to control natural resources

            1. MPLA: oil, UNITA: diamonds

         4. Initially, both groups fought for independence

            1. But they continued to fight after independence as warlords for control over resources

      2. MPLA

         1. Strong diplomatic relationship with Socialist countries → the OAU decided to give it support in 1965

         2. Financed by oil

      3. UNITA

         1. Maoist tactic to expand its liberated areas

         2. Financed by diamonds

   2. Reasons for war: Cold War proxy war

   3. War termination: victory

3. Zimbabwe

   1. Reasons for war: minority rule

      1. ZAPU and ZANU were both nationalist movements that fought against the government but also each other

   2. War termination: negotiation

      1. The white minority regime conceded to organize elections in April 1980

   3. Factors that contributed to state building: authoritarian state– using wartime institutions for state-building

      1. The incumbent regime (ZANU) used its war tie institutions to strengthen its power

      2. ZANU’s wartime experience paved the way for centralized state power

      3. Top-down control over local associations they created during the armed struggle → created local committees and youth associations

         1. Worked through these groups to support the armed struggle

         2. Local institutions promoted loyalty to politicians

      4. ZANU’s authoritarian tendencies began during the fight for independence, not after 

4. South Africa

   1. Reasons for war: minority rule

      1. The National Party

      2. The apartheid system became the official policy of the government 

   2. War termination: negotiation

      1. Change in the international system during the 1980s → end of the Cold War, the US and others no longer supported the apartheid regime (they were anti-communist)

   3. Factors that contributed to state building: Truth and Reconciliation

      1. The ANC’s strategy in fighting apartheid– peaceful protest and the freedom charter → helped lead towards the democratization of South Africa post-apartheid 

      2. The main issue for the new government was how to reconcile black and white communities

      3. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission

         1. Non-partisan

         2. Focused on restorative justice (not retributive)

         3. People were granted amnesty

         4. Recognizing the human rights atrocities were committed on both sides

         5. Gave victims a voice

         6. Created a collective memory that contributed to unity

   4. Challenges to state building: inequalities

      1. Consequence of apartheid → Communities are still very segregated 

      2. Income inequality → Highest Gini coefficient in the world

5. Rwanda

   1. Reasons for war: reform

   2. War termination: victory

   3. Contribution to state building: reconciliation, issues of ethnicity, history teaching, and memory-authoritarian state

      1. ✰Issues of ethnicity/ ethnic identification

         1. Defining yourself as a member of one ethnic group has been officially banned

         2. Historically, one could shift identities

            1. Hutus were farmers

            2. Tutsi were cattle herders

         3. However, there are some biological differences between the two groups

         4. Two main arguments surrounding Hutu and Tutsi identities

            1. They are ethnic groups

            2. They are social groups/ classes (Tutsi = upper class)

      2. ✰Memorialization: memorialization has been pursued as a means of legitimating authoritarian rule rather than honoring the genocide deaths

         1. The RPF does not allow for public discussion about the genocide

         2. The government encourages collective memory pf the genocide through memorial sites and mass graves to show the result of ethnic division

         3. Adopted new national symbols (flag, anthem, emblem), changed names of places

      3. ✰Teaching history: those in power decide how to teach history

         1. A means of creating unity among the people → solidarity comes because of indoctrination from those who occupy the office (blame the Hutu)

6. Ethiopia

   1. Reasons for war: reform

      1. The TPLF: formed in response to the marginalization of ethnic groups by the government (didn’t just represent the Tigrayans) established to fight against the brutal military regime 

   2. War termination: victory

      1. Of the TPLF

   3. Contribution to state building: building of an authoritarian state

      1. The TPLF generated a lot of public support and loyalties for their discipline and ability to provide aid during the first civil war

      2. Centralized federalized state (through party structure, military, and security)

      3. Exclusionary politics

         1. Attempted to organize elections, but they were designed to maintain one-party rule

      4. Economic development

         1. Although the government practices exclusionary politics, since it was highly centralized, it was able to use public expenditure to improve the economy

7. Liberia

   1. Reasons for war: warlord rebels

      1. Charles Tylor’s desire to win power and profit from extracting natural resources led him to foster relationships among the civilians

      2. After controlling some territories, he paid the top leaders and those in the rank and file well to maintain good performance in the armed movement

      3. Tylor’s armed group, NPFL, controlled almost 90% of Liberia, started and continued networking, invited timber firms to come to the territories, and asked other companies to work in Diamond mining → enabled the commanders to use the resources for their benefit and to finance the war

   2. War termination: victory

      1. Tylor’s NPFL took the offensive into Monrovia in 1992, marking the end to the First Liberian Civil War

   3. Contribution to state building: violence, then democratization

      1. The war ended in a military stalemate, leading to bargaining and post-war elections in 1997 as part of a peace settlement

      2. Under the National Patriotic Party (NPP) banner, Tylor won the presidency with an 80% turnout rate

         1. But, after 1992, new rebel groups who relied on ethnic identity challenged Tylor, and he used violence to drive away the new rivals

         2. In the end, he could not even control Monrovia and fled in 2003

8. DRC

   1. Reasons for war: warlord rebels

      1. Causes of the war: ethnic groups crave political power to access the state’s income and resources

      2. The government, rebel groups, and external actors desire to control the natural resources in the country

      3. Lack of control over government security services

   2. War termination: not terminated yet; continues to exist in a cycle of violence

   3. Contribution to state building: fragmentation and increasing level of violence

      1. When the multiparty system was introduced in the 1990s, local actors used local grievances for their benefit, which also caused more fragmentation

      2. Mobutu sponsored local opposition groups to weaken opposition → Groups started operating as protectors of the communities

         1. They raised their own militias when the central government was weakened

      3. DDR: disarmament becomes difficult because of the availability of weapons and the benefits they get from being armed

      4. State building is connected to ‘militarized’ peace

Takeaways from the case studies

• What is more conducive to democracy? Civil wars settled by victory or negotiated settlement?

  • Victory often creates authoritarianism → one group is put in power over another

    • Angola and Zimbabwe

  • Negotiated settlements are more conducive to democracy → ensures that both sides have a voice

    • South Africa

• Overall:

  • Civil wars terminated by negotiated settlements have resulted in democratic societies

  • Civil wars terminated by victory have led to authoritarianism

• Economic growth

  • Highly centralized regimes have been able to create more economic growth → able to use public expenditure to improve the economy

    • Rwanda and Ethiopia are good examples of economic growth following conflict

• Rebel groups with reformist agendas

  • Ethiopia and Rwanda

    • Both the Tigray and the Rwandan cases were resolved by victory

    • In Africa, war and victory haven’t contributed much to positive state-building/ democratization

      • The TPLF was victorious, created authoritarian, exclusionary politics → led to another civil war 

      • In both countries, the economies are growing, but under authoritarian governments