Pub Date : 2022-07-04DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2121916
Liam O’Shea
ABSTRACT The Georgian police reforms of 2004–2006 provide a rare case of rapid, large-scale, successful security reform. Lessons from Georgia challenge mainstream approaches to democratic police reform, security-sector reform, and elements of prominent critiques. These often emphasise democratisation of police and security sectors to include multiple actors in policing and reform. By contrast, the Georgian process was top-down and state-led. Failure to democratise the police has meant the reforms have not curtailed political interference in policing and have only partially reduced police impunity but the reforms vastly reduced corruption, improved security and trust in the police and have been sustained. This was achieved by the government strengthening executive power, consolidating its control over the security sector, firing corrupt police, and cracking down on organised crime. The Georgian case indicates that successful democratic police reform and security-sector reform depend on a concentration of state power to tackle such domestic spoilers and institutionalising before democratising control of the police, factors that are largely absent from policy and academic debates on these topics.
{"title":"Democratic police reform, security sector reform, anti-corruption and spoilers: lessons from Georgia","authors":"Liam O’Shea","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2121916","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2121916","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Georgian police reforms of 2004–2006 provide a rare case of rapid, large-scale, successful security reform. Lessons from Georgia challenge mainstream approaches to democratic police reform, security-sector reform, and elements of prominent critiques. These often emphasise democratisation of police and security sectors to include multiple actors in policing and reform. By contrast, the Georgian process was top-down and state-led. Failure to democratise the police has meant the reforms have not curtailed political interference in policing and have only partially reduced police impunity but the reforms vastly reduced corruption, improved security and trust in the police and have been sustained. This was achieved by the government strengthening executive power, consolidating its control over the security sector, firing corrupt police, and cracking down on organised crime. The Georgian case indicates that successful democratic police reform and security-sector reform depend on a concentration of state power to tackle such domestic spoilers and institutionalising before democratising control of the police, factors that are largely absent from policy and academic debates on these topics.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"37 1","pages":"387 - 409"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74827390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-04DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2097776
Niagalé Bagayoko
ABSTRACT In response to the crisis in the Sahel, myriad programmes have been set up with the aim of improving the performance of the defence and security forces in the region. These programmes are often run or supported by international partners. Yet, as the security situation in the region worsens, questions have been raised about whether these programmes are relevant and effective. In this article, we will argue that most of the programmes designed to build the capacities of, restructure or reform the armed forces in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have failed to grasp that these security systems function on a fundamentally hybrid basis, with a combination of – and often a clash between – legal and rational approaches, on the one hand, and informal dynamics, on the other, and that this can often hinder implementation of reforms.
{"title":"Explaining the failure of internationally-supported defence and security reforms in Sahelian states","authors":"Niagalé Bagayoko","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2097776","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2097776","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In response to the crisis in the Sahel, myriad programmes have been set up with the aim of improving the performance of the defence and security forces in the region. These programmes are often run or supported by international partners. Yet, as the security situation in the region worsens, questions have been raised about whether these programmes are relevant and effective. In this article, we will argue that most of the programmes designed to build the capacities of, restructure or reform the armed forces in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have failed to grasp that these security systems function on a fundamentally hybrid basis, with a combination of – and often a clash between – legal and rational approaches, on the one hand, and informal dynamics, on the other, and that this can often hinder implementation of reforms.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"13 1","pages":"243 - 269"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85583863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-04DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2084283
Ian Madison
ABSTRACT Counter-state actors often supply services to foster civilian support. Yet little work explores the civilian ‘demand-side’ of this interaction. This paper examines how civilians navigated between overlapping state and counter-state services during a case of non-violent competitive statebuilding. Between 1989 and 1998, a Kosovar-Albanian ‘parallel state’ provided education, healthcare, and justice as part of a strategy to secede from Serbia. It finds that two factors are key: the level of group solidarity individuals are subject to, and the unique characteristics of the services they are receiving. Increased group solidarity constrains how individuals decide between providers, yet the extent to which this impacts choice depends on the characteristics of different services. Education is collectively delivered and tied to nation-building; decisions depend on social norms. Healthcare is individual and immediate; decisions are rooted in trust. Justice varies between discreet civil cases where people can ‘shop around’, and criminal cases, which can comprise highly visible, collective events with significant social pressure. Understanding how solidarity and service characteristics intersect is key to understanding the demand-side of competitive statebuilding.
{"title":"Competitive statebuilding from the demand-side: counter-state services and civilian choice in Kosovo, 1989-1998","authors":"Ian Madison","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2084283","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2084283","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Counter-state actors often supply services to foster civilian support. Yet little work explores the civilian ‘demand-side’ of this interaction. This paper examines how civilians navigated between overlapping state and counter-state services during a case of non-violent competitive statebuilding. Between 1989 and 1998, a Kosovar-Albanian ‘parallel state’ provided education, healthcare, and justice as part of a strategy to secede from Serbia. It finds that two factors are key: the level of group solidarity individuals are subject to, and the unique characteristics of the services they are receiving. Increased group solidarity constrains how individuals decide between providers, yet the extent to which this impacts choice depends on the characteristics of different services. Education is collectively delivered and tied to nation-building; decisions depend on social norms. Healthcare is individual and immediate; decisions are rooted in trust. Justice varies between discreet civil cases where people can ‘shop around’, and criminal cases, which can comprise highly visible, collective events with significant social pressure. Understanding how solidarity and service characteristics intersect is key to understanding the demand-side of competitive statebuilding.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"27 1","pages":"297 - 319"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84600172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-04DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2084284
R. Islam, Susanne Schech, U. Saikia
ABSTRACT The 1997 Peace Accord in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) promised to bring an end to decades of violence in the region. However, 25 years later, the region is still experiencing social conflict between indigenous Pahari people and Bengalis, who have migrated and settled in large numbers since the 1970s. This paper examines the reasons for the continuation of social conflict through a survey on community attitudes and relations. The survey findings show that the legacy of migration and conflict in the CHT is still evident in starkly different views on resources, conflict, and community relations. These findings support the argument that the migration of people with different ethnic backgrounds into regions inhabited by ethnic minorities causes competition for resources that may generate conflict and violence with long-lasting consequences.
{"title":"Violent peace: community relations in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh after the Peace Accord","authors":"R. Islam, Susanne Schech, U. Saikia","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2084284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2084284","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The 1997 Peace Accord in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) promised to bring an end to decades of violence in the region. However, 25 years later, the region is still experiencing social conflict between indigenous Pahari people and Bengalis, who have migrated and settled in large numbers since the 1970s. This paper examines the reasons for the continuation of social conflict through a survey on community attitudes and relations. The survey findings show that the legacy of migration and conflict in the CHT is still evident in starkly different views on resources, conflict, and community relations. These findings support the argument that the migration of people with different ethnic backgrounds into regions inhabited by ethnic minorities causes competition for resources that may generate conflict and violence with long-lasting consequences.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"32 1","pages":"271 - 295"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75072657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-04DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2056389
Eliane Giezendanner, Bert Ingelaere
ABSTRACT Academic literature on post-conflict peace-building and democratisation has established the important relevance of rebel-to-party transformations on the one hand, and of the political engagement of individual former combatants on the other hand. Yet, little is known about the interrelation between these two dimensions. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap, by proposing a framework to scrutinise former rebel parties’ ways of mobilising their former combatants politically. Based on a review of theoretical and empirical literature, we suggest three broad mobilisation strategies: the employment of material incentives, control and coercion, and strategies to nurture a sense of identification or even groupness. Given that this last dimension is less tangible than the first two, we further explore and conceptually dissect it, by discussing – what we argue to be – three of its main inherent components: ideology, emotions and patronage. By doing so, we hope to conceptually guide and inform future empirical research on the topic.
{"title":"What structures ex-combatants’ political participation? Exploring the dynamics of identification and groupness in rebel-to-party transformations","authors":"Eliane Giezendanner, Bert Ingelaere","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2056389","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2056389","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Academic literature on post-conflict peace-building and democratisation has established the important relevance of rebel-to-party transformations on the one hand, and of the political engagement of individual former combatants on the other hand. Yet, little is known about the interrelation between these two dimensions. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap, by proposing a framework to scrutinise former rebel parties’ ways of mobilising their former combatants politically. Based on a review of theoretical and empirical literature, we suggest three broad mobilisation strategies: the employment of material incentives, control and coercion, and strategies to nurture a sense of identification or even groupness. Given that this last dimension is less tangible than the first two, we further explore and conceptually dissect it, by discussing – what we argue to be – three of its main inherent components: ideology, emotions and patronage. By doing so, we hope to conceptually guide and inform future empirical research on the topic.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"1084 1","pages":"165 - 189"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88998009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-04DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2059935
Sayra van den Berg
ABSTRACT This article empirically deepens understandings of the relationship between everyday ex-combatants and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Sierra Leone. It asks, what are the agentic implications of this victim-centred model of justice among its designated perpetrators (everyday or ordinary ex-combatants)? This article advances criticisms against the participatory limitations of the victim-centred model of justice in truth commissions. It applies the concept of friction to analyse the theft of agency produced by Sierra Leone’s TRC among everyday ex-combatants. It analyses the contradictions between everyday ex-combatant hopes for the TRC against institutional expectations set for this population to reveal the agentic effects of this sticky engagement. In so doing, this article exposes the agentic theft produced by compound frictions which interact to deny agency among those designated as perpetrators by the material engagement and frictional travels of transitional justice. It argues that the primacy placed on the restoration of victims’ dignity within truth commissions comes at a particularly heavy cost for the population of everyday ex-combatants, who experience multiple processes of exclusion as a result.
{"title":"Between hope and expectation: understanding ordinary ex-combatant agency in Sierra Leone’s TRC","authors":"Sayra van den Berg","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2059935","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2059935","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article empirically deepens understandings of the relationship between everyday ex-combatants and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Sierra Leone. It asks, what are the agentic implications of this victim-centred model of justice among its designated perpetrators (everyday or ordinary ex-combatants)? This article advances criticisms against the participatory limitations of the victim-centred model of justice in truth commissions. It applies the concept of friction to analyse the theft of agency produced by Sierra Leone’s TRC among everyday ex-combatants. It analyses the contradictions between everyday ex-combatant hopes for the TRC against institutional expectations set for this population to reveal the agentic effects of this sticky engagement. In so doing, this article exposes the agentic theft produced by compound frictions which interact to deny agency among those designated as perpetrators by the material engagement and frictional travels of transitional justice. It argues that the primacy placed on the restoration of victims’ dignity within truth commissions comes at a particularly heavy cost for the population of everyday ex-combatants, who experience multiple processes of exclusion as a result.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"8 1","pages":"119 - 141"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78263205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-04DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2056394
Daisy Muibu, Ifeoluwa M. Olawole
ABSTRACT How can we improve public confidence in the legitimacy of recently instituted police forces in a divided society affected by violent conflict? And can public perceptions of clan representation within the police force encourage public engagement with law enforcement? It is generally understood that public confidence in domestic security sector institutions is integral for stability and consolidation of states affected by prolonged warfare. However, in deeply divided societies, building such confidence can be difficult. Accordingly, advocates argue that improved demographic representation within domestic security institutions can help improve residents’ engagement and cooperation with security forces. The current study tests this prediction relying on community survey data collected in Kismayo, Somalia. The authors find that residents who perceive the local police to be representative of local clans are more likely to believe the force is legitimate. In turn, residents who believe the force has more legitimacy are more willing to cooperate with and empower police with greater discretionary authority, while perceptions of clan representation maintains an indirect and significant impact on residents’ willingness to empower officers.
{"title":"Does representation matter: examining officer inclusion, citizen cooperation and police empowerment in a divided society","authors":"Daisy Muibu, Ifeoluwa M. Olawole","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2056394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2056394","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT How can we improve public confidence in the legitimacy of recently instituted police forces in a divided society affected by violent conflict? And can public perceptions of clan representation within the police force encourage public engagement with law enforcement? It is generally understood that public confidence in domestic security sector institutions is integral for stability and consolidation of states affected by prolonged warfare. However, in deeply divided societies, building such confidence can be difficult. Accordingly, advocates argue that improved demographic representation within domestic security institutions can help improve residents’ engagement and cooperation with security forces. The current study tests this prediction relying on community survey data collected in Kismayo, Somalia. The authors find that residents who perceive the local police to be representative of local clans are more likely to believe the force is legitimate. In turn, residents who believe the force has more legitimacy are more willing to cooperate with and empower police with greater discretionary authority, while perceptions of clan representation maintains an indirect and significant impact on residents’ willingness to empower officers.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"372 1","pages":"191 - 220"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76608455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-04DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2056390
Surulola Eke
ABSTRACT In extant scholarship on intergroup conflict, perceived threat is portrayed as either positively linked with conflict occurrence or neutralizable by individuals’ internal psychological inhibitors, such as feelings about a past experience or encounter or pre-existing dovish disposition. Yet, conflict avoidance is possible even in the absence of such internal guardrails against destructive responses to threat. This comparative qualitative study of two similarly structured communities in Jos, Nigeria’s ethnic conflict hotbed, reveals that while perceived threat may create aggressive dispositions, as established in extant scholarship on intergroup conflict, conflict avoidance remains possible in the absence of both internal inhibitors and external coercion. The compared Jos communities, Angwan Doki and Dadin Kowa, are similar in terms of widespread fear of the outgroup and significant willingness to respond aggressively to threat. Yet, conflict avoidance was possible in the latter because its community leaders both wittingly and unwittingly confronted the underlying threat that drove people’s violent dispositions. Past variability analyses omit this dynamic of external malleability of perceived threat outcomes – aggression and violence. Generally, the findings show that low-tech threat management interventions are more effective at mitigating intergroup conflict in weak states than interventions that seek to forcefully suppress the threat.
{"title":"Understanding the spatial variation of perceived threat outcomes in intergroup conflict: a case study of the ethnic and religious conflicts in Jos, Nigeria","authors":"Surulola Eke","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2056390","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2056390","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In extant scholarship on intergroup conflict, perceived threat is portrayed as either positively linked with conflict occurrence or neutralizable by individuals’ internal psychological inhibitors, such as feelings about a past experience or encounter or pre-existing dovish disposition. Yet, conflict avoidance is possible even in the absence of such internal guardrails against destructive responses to threat. This comparative qualitative study of two similarly structured communities in Jos, Nigeria’s ethnic conflict hotbed, reveals that while perceived threat may create aggressive dispositions, as established in extant scholarship on intergroup conflict, conflict avoidance remains possible in the absence of both internal inhibitors and external coercion. The compared Jos communities, Angwan Doki and Dadin Kowa, are similar in terms of widespread fear of the outgroup and significant willingness to respond aggressively to threat. Yet, conflict avoidance was possible in the latter because its community leaders both wittingly and unwittingly confronted the underlying threat that drove people’s violent dispositions. Past variability analyses omit this dynamic of external malleability of perceived threat outcomes – aggression and violence. Generally, the findings show that low-tech threat management interventions are more effective at mitigating intergroup conflict in weak states than interventions that seek to forcefully suppress the threat.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"31 1","pages":"143 - 164"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78065298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-04DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2059934
Abdul Karim Issifu, K. Bukari
ABSTRACT The protracted chieftaincy conflict in Dagbon in the Northern Region of Ghana was recently resolved through an interplay of formal and informal resolution mechanisms, where the latter dominated the peace-making process with home-grown peace mechanisms. In the past, the state through formal liberal peace mechanisms like the law courts, committees and commissions of inquiry, interventions by NGOs/CSOs and peacekeeping operations failed to resolve the conflict. However, through the state support in the use of indigenous peace mechanisms by a Committee of Eminent Chiefs (CEC), a resolution of the conflict was made possible by the adoption of this hybrid dispute resolution mechanism. This article examines how the Dagbon conflict was resolved using a home-grown peace mechanism, the eminent peace approach. Drawing on related secondary data, we argue that empowering traditional leaders and strengthening home-grown conflict resolution mechanisms can play a pivotal role in resolving non-state conflicts. This article contributes to the hybrid peace literature that centres around the call for local-state collaboration in conflict resolution.
{"title":"(Re)thinking homegrown peace mechanisms for the resolution of conflicts in Northern Ghana","authors":"Abdul Karim Issifu, K. Bukari","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2059934","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2059934","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The protracted chieftaincy conflict in Dagbon in the Northern Region of Ghana was recently resolved through an interplay of formal and informal resolution mechanisms, where the latter dominated the peace-making process with home-grown peace mechanisms. In the past, the state through formal liberal peace mechanisms like the law courts, committees and commissions of inquiry, interventions by NGOs/CSOs and peacekeeping operations failed to resolve the conflict. However, through the state support in the use of indigenous peace mechanisms by a Committee of Eminent Chiefs (CEC), a resolution of the conflict was made possible by the adoption of this hybrid dispute resolution mechanism. This article examines how the Dagbon conflict was resolved using a home-grown peace mechanism, the eminent peace approach. Drawing on related secondary data, we argue that empowering traditional leaders and strengthening home-grown conflict resolution mechanisms can play a pivotal role in resolving non-state conflicts. This article contributes to the hybrid peace literature that centres around the call for local-state collaboration in conflict resolution.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"27 1","pages":"221 - 242"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87472172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2034367
A. Kuperman
ABSTRACT This article examines how the conflict since 2011 in Sudan’s ‘Two Areas’, the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, has been prolonged by a well-intentioned but counter-productive international response. The United States and other western countries, motivated by humanitarianism, imposed sanctions against Sudan’s regime and provided aid to rebel regions. This western response was fostered partially by disinformation – about the genesis of the conflict, the regime’s use of force, and the causes and extent of the humanitarian crisis. Western support incentivized the rebels to perpetuate their hopeless military campaign, which prolonged the displacement of an estimated one-third of civilians in the Two Areas. Only after the United States lifted some sanctions in 2017, and a popular revolution overthrew the regime in 2019, did U.S. officials belatedly identify rebel leader Abdelaziz al-Hilu as an obstacle to peace. The article concludes with lessons for ending the conflict in Sudan’s Two Areas and mitigating such civil wars elsewhere.
{"title":"Moral hazard in Sudan’s ‘Two Areas’ – humanitarianism that perpetuates civil war","authors":"A. Kuperman","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2034367","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2034367","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article examines how the conflict since 2011 in Sudan’s ‘Two Areas’, the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, has been prolonged by a well-intentioned but counter-productive international response. The United States and other western countries, motivated by humanitarianism, imposed sanctions against Sudan’s regime and provided aid to rebel regions. This western response was fostered partially by disinformation – about the genesis of the conflict, the regime’s use of force, and the causes and extent of the humanitarian crisis. Western support incentivized the rebels to perpetuate their hopeless military campaign, which prolonged the displacement of an estimated one-third of civilians in the Two Areas. Only after the United States lifted some sanctions in 2017, and a popular revolution overthrew the regime in 2019, did U.S. officials belatedly identify rebel leader Abdelaziz al-Hilu as an obstacle to peace. The article concludes with lessons for ending the conflict in Sudan’s Two Areas and mitigating such civil wars elsewhere.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"111 1","pages":"47 - 77"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76727729","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}