Understanding inclusive peace agreements in Africa: The problems of sharing power

Power sharing has increasingly been seen as a way out of otherwise intransigent conflicts in multi-ethnic African societies. Yet power sharing has obvious problems: power sharing agreements are difficult to arrive at, even more difficult to implement, and even when implemented, such agreements rarely stand the test of time. Indeed, there are relatively few historical examples of successful, formalised power sharing in Africa which would warrant its advocacy. Drawing primarily on the cases of Angola, Somalia, Ethiopia and Rwanda, this paper seeks to explain why a method of conflict resolution so appealing in theory fails so often in practice. The paper will outline general theoretical approaches to power sharing, examine the practical problems associated with its implementation, and suggest ideas for how some of these problems can be overcome.