International support for state building in war-torn Africa: Are there alternative strategies?

ABSTRACT

This article demonstrates that there are multiple strategies for state building, peace building, and security for civilian populations. In five cases of ongoing conflict, the liberal model of top-down state building and elections has caused considerable loss of lives and resources and could be considered to have failed. There are no long-term prospects for success in any of the five countries where the liberal model is being implemented with international assistance. The liberal model of power sharing followed by democratic elections has not provided greater protection from internal and external threats than would have one or more of the alternatives in four of the cases. In three of the cases, where there has been considerable bloodshed and displacement, freezing the conflict, separating the factions, and providing protection for civilian populations is an option that is less costly than the liberal model. Where conflicts are frozen, there can be international assistance for building the state in two or more sections. Where long-term prospects in building a unitary state are not good, freezing the conflict, protecting civilians, and sealing borders, as well as building the state from below, are less costly than the liberal model.

Notes on contributor

Stephen F. Burgess ([email protected]) has been a professor of international security studies, U.S. Air War College, since June 1999. His three books are South Africa's Weapons of Mass Destruction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), Smallholders and Political Voice in Zimbabwe (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2002), and The United Nations under Boutros Boutros-Ghali, 1992–97 (Lanham: University Press of America, 1997). He has published numerous articles, book chapters, and monographs on Asian and African security and strategic issues. He holds a doctorate from Michigan State University (1992) and has been on the faculty at the University of Zambia, University of Zimbabwe, Vanderbilt University, and Hofstra University.

Notes

1. Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014). Herbst found that the governing capacity of most post-colonial states did not extend far beyond the capital city and that the territories they had to govern were too vast to be managed.

2. Jaimie Bleck and Kristin Michelitch, “The 2012 Crisis in Mali: Ongoing Empirical State Failure,” African Affairs, vol. 114, no. 457 (2015): 598–623. The article uses Afrobarometer data to demonstrate that state building to serve rural populations has a long way to go, even in some of the more advanced African countries.

3. Pierre Englebert, “The ‘Real’ Map of Africa,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 94, no. 6 (2015).

4. Michael Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).

5. Doyle and Sambanis, Making War, 66.

6. Alina Rocha Menocal, “State Building for Peace: A New Paradigm for International Engagement in Post-Conflict Fragile States?” Third World Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 10 (2011): 1715–1736. This article analyzes the convergence of peace building and state building.

7. Alex Bellamy and Paul D. Williams, eds. Peace Operations and Global Order (Routledge, 2007), 233.

8. United Nations General Assembly Security Council, “Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations,” A/55/305, S/2000/809, available at http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/55/305 (accessed November 1, 2015).

9. Roy Licklider, New Armies from Old: Merging Competing Militaries after Civil Wars (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2014), 1–12. Research finds that there is little sign that military integration generally leads to sustainable peace. Military integration is popular because it is compatible with the liberal peace-building model. Like liberal peace building in general, promoting military integration in the wake of civil war risks violating the first rule of international intervention: first, do no harm.

10. Pierre Englebert, Unity, Sovereignty and Sorrow (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2009), 243–261.

11. Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa.

12. Thania Paffenholz, “What Civil Society Can Contribute to Peacebuilding,” in Thania Paffenholz, ed., Civil Society in Peacebuilding: A Critical Assessment (Boulder, CO.: Lynne Rienner, 2010), 381–403.

13. Englebert, Unity, Sovereignty and Sorrow, 174–178. In the first three decades (1961–91) of Somalia as a sovereign state, Somalilanders were excluded from ruling circles. Given the record of the past five decades, one would expect that Somaliland will not reunite with a reconstituted Federal Republic of Somalia (FRS).

14. Séverine Autesserre, The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 84–125; Andre Le Sage, “Somalia's Endless Transition: Breaking the Deadlock,” Strategic Forum, no. 257 (June 2010): 1, available at http://www.ndu.edu/inss/docuploaded/SF%20257.pdf (accessed August 20, 2015).

15. Autesserre, The Trouble with the Congo, 84–125.

16. Ibid., 84–125. Holistic security includes human security, in which individuals and communities are protected from violence of various forms, and from diseases and disasters.

17. Paffenholz, “What Civil Society Can Contribute.”

18. Edward Luttwak, “Give War a Chance,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 78, no. 4 (1999): 36–44.

19. James Fearon and David Laitin, “Neo-Trusteeship and the Problem of Weak States,” International Security, vol. 28 (2004): 5–43.

20. Doyle and Sambanis, Making War, 332.

21. Roland Paris, At War's End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

22. In Mozambique, part of the success story was an internationally negotiated peace agreement between the government and the rebels that was backed by substantial international assistance. The ruling party (FRELIMO) maintained control of the state throughout the civil war and there was only one rebel movement (RENAMO). International backing for both sides evaporated in 1990. Party-building funds provided by the UN enabled RENAMO to come out of the bush, become a political party, and compete in the 1994 elections. Trust funds and the threat of withdrawal kept RENAMO committed to the peace process. FRELIMO maintained control of the government after 1994 and led in the reconstruction of the country. However, in recent years, conflict has broken out in the same areas of Mozambique that suffered so terribly in the 1980s.

23. China has been reportedly providing Sudan with assistance to develop the capabilities of its security forces to conform to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle.

24. It is unlikely that Liberia will return to conflict after 12 years of a UN peacekeeping and peace-building mission (UNMIL). In contrast to Sierra Leone, Liberia has a sufficiently weak government and civil society that has required UN peacekeepers to stay on three times as long. Although the likelihood of another civil war is low, there is the possibility that ethnic and other divisions will give rise to a new wave of warring factions. The difference from Sierra Leone is that there were more factions and a longer duration of bloodshed (1990–97 and 2002–2003). Cote d'Ivoire (2004–present) could be a success which can be partly attributed to state-building assistance.

25. Le Sage, “Somalia's Endless Transition,” 4.

26. Ken Menkhaus, “Somalia: Civil Society in a Collapsed State,” in Paffenholz, ed., Civil Society, 321–350.

27. Matt Bryden and Jeremy Brickhill, “Disarming Somalia: Lessons in Stabilisation from a Collapsed State,”, Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform, 2010, available at http://www.ssrnetwork.net/document_library/detail/5440/disarming-somalia-lessons-in-stabilisation-from-a-collapsed-state (accessed October 11, 2015).

28. Brian Hesse, “Where Somalia Works,” Journal of Contemporary African Studies, vol. 28, no. 3 (July 2010): 343–362. Hesse demonstrates that Somali entrepreneurship and commerce have thrived in both anarchic south-central Somalia and in more orderly Somaliland, where maturing governance has played a significant role.

29. Peter Leeson, “Better off Stateless? Somalia before and after Government Collapse,” Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 35, no. 5 (December 2007): 689–710.

30. Rossella Marangio, The Somali Crisis: Failed State and International Interventions, Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), Working Papers 1215, May 2012, 1–15, available at http://www.iai.it/pdf/DocIAI/iaiwp1215.pdf (accessed October 12, 2015).

31. Le Sage, “Somalia's Endless Transition,” 1.

32. “Why Less Haste Would Be Progress for Statebuilding in Somalia,” Saferworld, ISN ETH Zurich, International Relations and Security Network, June 8, 2012, available at http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Security-Watch/Articles/Detail/?lng=en&id=143168 (accessed October 14, 2015).

33. Hussein Solomon, “Somalia's Clans and the Need to Go beyond the Nation-State,” paper presented at the African Studies Association annual general meeting, November 19–21, 2015.

34. Interviews with U.S. Somalia expert and U.S. Defense Official, U.S. Embassy, Nairobi, Kenya, June 12, 2012. By June 2012, advocates of the top-down “security” approach were claiming that bottom-up “stability” proponents had been proven incorrect and needed to revise their views.

35. South Sudan: A Civil War By Any Other Name, International Crisis Group Africa Report, no. 217, April 10, 2014, 35 pages.

36. International Crisis Group, “Central African Republic: The Roots of Violence,” Africa Report no. 230, available at https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/central-african-republic/central-african-republic-roots-violence (accessed November 1, 2015).

37. Ibid. The conflict between armed groups is now compounded by a conflict between armed communities. The roadmap to end the crisis, including elections of late 2015, presents only a short-term answer and risks exacerbating existing tensions. The transitional authorities and their international partners must address crucial issues by implementing a comprehensive disarmament policy and reaffirming that Muslims belong within the nation.

38. International Crisis Group, “Mali: An Imposed Peace?” Africa Report no. 226, available at https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/west-africa/mali/mali-imposed-peace (accessed September 11, 2015). Fighting recently resumed in Mali, while a peace accord remains a façade. Both sides, with help from international mediators, are faced with the challenge of reopening negotiations, moving beyond security, and including all belligerents (including some of the extremists). The civilian population is demanding improved access to basic social services, jobs, and justice.

39. Bleck and Michelitch, “The 2012 Crisis,,” 598–623.

40. International Crisis Group, “Congo: Is Democratic Change Possible?” Africa Report no. 225, available at https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/democratic-republic-congo/congo-democratic-change-possible (accessed September 11, 2015). The eastern DRC remains unstable as the 2016 presidential elections approach and as tension in the DRC increases. President Kabila is nearing the end of his second term and political maneuvering within the government to create conditions for a third term is mobilizing popular opposition, testing the country's fragile democratization and stability, especially in the eastern DRC.

41. “Corruption Risks Mean the IMF Was Right to Halt Congo Loan Programme,” Global Witness, December 5, 2012, available at http://www.globalwitness.org/library/corruption-risks-mean-imf-was-right-halt-congo-loan-programme (accessed October 15, 2015).

42. Transparency International in 2012 in its corruption index ranked the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 160 (with Somalia at 176, rated the most corrupt country). See http://www.transparency.org/country#COD (accessed October 15, 2015).