The limits to statebuilding for peace in Africa

Abstract

Much of the scholarship on peacebuilding in Africa assumes that building Á or reconstructing Á the state is a critical task. Competition over state resources was often an element fuelling hostilities and typically countries emerging from conflict have a weak or fractured state apparatus. It is therefore not surprising that peacebuilding programmes and initiatives have focused on state reconstruction and governance. The peacebuilding as statebuilding template, however, faces severe limitations in Africa. Key questions and tensions emerge over issues of legitimacy, sovereignty, effectiveness and agency, which cannot be resolved though standard approaches to peacebuilding. This article shows that, while the call for statebuilding serves important purposes for external and internal audiences, the practice of statebuilding is a contested project born out of specific historical circumstances. International statebuilding practices are subjected to a thorough reworking as they play out in different African locales, with a variety of consequences. Statebuilding therefore cannot constitute a clear pathway to peace, even when promoted by African institutions such as the African Union. Alternatives like illiberal statebuilding and localised statebuilding also face important limits, with implications for the notion of 'Emerging Africa'.

Transforming State Visions: Ideology and Ideas in Armed Groups Turned Political Parties – Introduction to Special Issue

“…For instance, in many post-conflict contexts international actors play prominent roles in promoting projects and initiatives that reflect their own views about the requirements of state-building. From the late 1990s the prevailing international orthodoxy was that peacebuilding and state-building went together (Chandler 2017; Curtis 2013), and thus significant donor funds went towards realizing a particular vision of state-building which did not necessarily correspond to the vision articulated by former rebels. More recently, international state-building programmes are increasingly being questioned and reconsidered, in part due to their failure in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and elsewhere.…”

Towards More People-Centric Peace Operations: From ‘Extension of State Authority’ to ‘Strengthening Inclusive State-Society Relations’

“…To avoid these consequences, missions should develop contingency plans to mitigate dilemmas that might arise. The drive to include the extension of state authority among the core tasks of UN peacekeeping missions does in part stem from a conclusion that state fragility is a main cause of conflict (Curtis 2013). Missions should avoid a 'kneejerk' inclusion of state building with the goal of peacebuilding, and acknowledge that support to the extension of state authority can also often be a conflict driver (Leonardsson and Rudd 2015).…”

Everyday Resistance, Peacebuilding and State-Making

“…Operations such as those in Bosnia, East Timor, Afghanistan and Kosovo heralded an era in which peacebuilding is statebuilding, by whatever other name it is called (Chesterman 2004). Current policy indicates that statebuilding has survived other aspects of the liberal peace agenda (Bliesemann de Guevara 2010; Hameiri 2014), and, in fact, it has a wide consensus from Western and non-Western governments (Curtis 2013).…”