Social Capital Made Explicit: The Role of Norms, Networks, and Trust in Reintegrating Ex-combatants and Peacebuilding in Liberia

ABSTRACT

Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) is fundamental in remaking post-war relationships. This article draws on two sets of field research data from Liberia to highlight the role of social capital in shaping DDR outcomes. The way reintegration is communicated and implemented can have a direct impact on all three elements of social capital: promoting norms, developing social networks, and building (or undermining) relationships and trust. These components of social capital are directly influenced by reintegration, while also feeding back into how reintegration progresses and is experienced. More specifically, new and existing networks used by ex-combatants as a way to navigate the post-war environment are an important element of social capital, as it goes through all kinds of distortions and transformations. These networks are important for the survival strategies at work, especially when there are shortcomings in the DDR process. Finally, a further layer is suggested: that social capital is a factor mediating how reintegration contributes (or not) to peacebuilding as a whole.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by scholarships from the Conflict Resolution Unit of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ireland, and from the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

About the authors

Walt Kilroy PhD is Associate Director of the Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction (IICRR), at Dublin City University (DCU). His PhD on reintegration of ex-combatants was awarded the Basil Chubb Prize for the best thesis in political science by the Political Studies Association of Ireland (2012). His study of DDR in Sierra Leone and Liberia is published by Palgrave Macmillan (2015). His research interests include post-war peacebuilding, and the interaction between development and conflict. He previously worked in development and in journalism.

Helen S. A. Basini PhD is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Peace and Development, University of Limerick. She was awarded funding by the Conflict Resolution Unit of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Ireland), the Irish Research Council, and the Folke Bernadotte Academy in Sweden. Her research interests include feminist peacebuilding, post-conflict reconstruction, gender security studies, security sector reform, and conflict resolution.

ORCID

Walt Kilroy http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2247-5288

Helen S. A. Basini http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4246-640X

Notes

1 The minimalist–maximalist spectrum is discussed in Kingma and Muggah, “Critical Issues in DDR”; Cartagena Contribution to DDR; Muggah, “Reflections on DDR”; Muggah, “Critical Perspective on DDR”; and Muggah, “Emperor’s Clothes.”

2 The concept of ‘conflict capital’ (social capital created under conditions of violent conflict) is described by Cheng, “Private and Public Interests,” 70.

3 UN Secretary-General, “DDR,” 8.

4 Sometimes integration into state armed forces is an option. For a comprehensive overview of DDR, see Knight, “Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration”; for a review of early programmes, see Rolston, “Demobilization and Reintegration.”

5 For example: Jennings, “Struggle to Satisfy”; Integrated DDR Standards; Stockholm Initiative on DDR, “Final Report.”

6 Specht, “Reintegration of Ex-Combatants”; UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, “Second Generation DDR”; Colletta and Muggah, “Context Matters.”

7 Gilligan, Mvukiyehe, and Samii, “Reintegrating Rebels.”

8 Berdal, Disarmament and Demobilisation, 73.

9 Kingma, “Impact of Demobilization,” 241.

10 For example, Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace.

11 Enloe, “Feminist Thinking,” 538; Pankhurst, “Feminist Approach to Peace Building”; Anderlini, Women at the Peace Table, 10; Hudson, “Gender Lens,” 260.

12 McMullin, “Integration or Separation?”

13 McEvoy and Shirlow, “Re-Imagining DDR.”

14 Maclay and Ozerdem’s study of ex-combantant youth in Liberia found that motorcycle unions were very important to ex-combatants for employment, peer support, and membership of an association which helped them reconnect with civilian society. Maclay and Ozerdem, “‘Use’ Them or ‘Lose’ Them,” 353.

15 Utas, “Bigmanity”; Themnér, “Former Commanders”; Themnér, Violence in Post-Conflict Societies.

16 Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 167.

17 Cox, “Dissent and Militancy”; Micolta, “FARC.”

18 Paffenholz, “Social Capital in Peacebuilding.”

19 Nussio and Oppenheim, “Anti-social Capital.”

20 Putnam, Bowling Alone.

21 Colletta, “World Bank,” 212.

22 Integrated DDR Standards, 23.

23 Cartagena Contribution to DDR, 5.

24 Leff, “Social Capital and Reintegration,” 14. For a detailed examination of social reintegration and DDR, see Özerdem, “A Re-conceptualisation.”

25 Bowd, “Burning Bridges and Breaking Bonds.” He notes that the strengthening of bridging social capital in particular can offset the strong bonding capital within those groups which were antagonistic to each other.

26 Knight and Özerdem, “Guns, Camps and Cash,” 504.

27 The focus groups took place in Monrovia, Red Light, Amagashi, Bannersville, Buzzi Quarter, Logan Town, Tumatu, Duala, Waterside, and Tubmanburg.

28 While the second dataset focused primarily on female ex-combatants, it is beyond the scope of this article to conduct a full gender analysis. For an account of gender mainstreaming of DDRR, see Basini, “Gender Mainstreaming Unraveled.”

29 This was the ‘Reintegration Assistance to the Liberian DDRR Residual Caseloads’, or the residual caseload program, for short.

30 Tamagnini and Krafft, “Strategic Approaches to Reintegration.”

31 These non-combatants who entered DDR were termed proxy cases and resulted from relaxed entry restrictions in 2004. They were not in fact entitled to take part.

32 Figures for the DDRR programme as a whole are given by Escola de Cultura de Pau, DDR 2008, 121–2.

33 Participant 2, Focus Group H, Gbarnga.

34 Unidentified participant, Focus Group J, Lawalazu, Lofa County.

35 Participant 3, Focus Group J, Lawalazu.

36 Participant 4, Focus Group K, Lawalazu.

37 Participant 6, Tubmanberg, Bomi County.

38 Participant 3, Focus Group J, Lawalazu.

39 Focus Group, main programme, Tubmanberg.

40 Basini, “Gender Mainstreaming Unraveled,” 552.

41 Here, we refer to governance of the state in general, rather than specific institutions like UNMIL or the NCDDR.

42 Söderström, “Ex-Combatants at the Polls.”

43 Participant 7, Focus Group M, Monrovia.

44 Participant 12, Tubmanberg.

45 Participant 2, location 4, Monrovia.

46 Participant 11, Tubmanberg.

47 Focus Group H, Gbarnga.

48 Focus group, main programme, Tubmanberg.

49 There were some examples of women who were contesting these social norms, however, most expressed the view that they were glad that they had more rights now.

50 Participant 1, location 1, Monrovia.

51 Selected responses to question H5 in survey.

52 Participant 1, location 10, Monrovia.

53 Themnér, “Former Commanders”; Utas, “Bigmanity.”

54 90.5% said that they felt trusted by the community. This mirrors comparable studies with ex-combatant women: Annan et al., “Civil War in Northern Uganda’; Pugel, “What the Fighters Say.”

55 Participant 14, Tubmanberg.

56 Focus group, community, location 1, Monrovia.

57 Focus group, WAFF, Monrovia, Feb. 2010.

58 Kilroy, Reintegration of Ex-Combatants, 196.

59 UN Secretary-General, “DDR,” 8.

60 Definition of peacebuilding as proposed by Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace, 22.

61 Transformative reintegration is described by Jennings, “Struggle to Satisfy.”

62 Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means, 31–3.