Power-Sharing in Civil War: Puzzles of Peacemaking and Peacebuilding

Abstract

Syria's slide into sectarian civil war in 2011 raises a new fundamental knowledge question about the conditions under which power-sharing pacts can be clinched as an approach to war termination. When intrastate conflicts escalate into violent sectarian struggles, power-sharing is a likely basis of an eventual political settlement in situations where partition is off the table. This article contends that there remain two puzzling knowledge gaps about power-sharing as the basis for peace agreements to end civil wars: first, the specific conditions under which elites find it in their own interest to share power with bitter adversaries rather than fight on the battlefield, and second, how war-ending elite-negotiated pacts may evolve into more enduring social contracts. These puzzles, critical for policymakers and still unresolved in the scholarly literature, suggest the need to develop more contingent- and context-specific knowledge if research findings are to more capably contribute to peacemaking efforts.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Benjamin Reilly for an extensive and thoughtful critique of an earlier version of this paper, and participants at the panel ‘Institutions for Sustainable Peace: Research Gaps and Challenges,’ International Studies Association annual meeting, San Francisco, 3–6 April 2013. The author also thanks two anonymous reviewers for Civil Wars for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

^1. See the update of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, online at  < http://www.ohchr.org/en/countries/menaregion/pages/syindex.aspx>.

^2. Following Horowitz (Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles, CA: UCP 1985)), Esman (Milton J. Esman, Ethnic Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1994)), and Stavenhagen (Rodolfo Stavenhagen, Ethnic Conflicts and the Nation State (London: Palgrave MacMillan 1996)), in this article I use the term ethnic group to encompass groups mobilized on the basis of identity or shared perceptions of common origin, which includes those organized around religion, culture, language, race, and caste. Ethnic conflict is defined in terms of political, social, or military confrontation, violent or nonviolent, in which disputants describe themselves in terms of race, language, religion, culture, or nationality or some combination of ascriptive criteria. See Smith (Anthony D. Smith, ‘The Ethnic Sources of Nationalism’ in Michael E. Brown (ed.) Ethnic Conflict and International Security (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1993) pp.27–42) for a list of 10 criteria for a group to qualify as an ethnic group according to this common usage of the term.

^3. Similarly, according to the careful reporting of the International Crisis Group, the embattled Assad-led Alawite minority-dominant regime proactively stimulated sectarian attacks as a way to undermine the potentially cross-communal popularity of the pro-democracy reformist movement (and other factions, such as Islamist extremists), to retain cohesion within the disintegrating security forces. The Crisis Group reported that:

In some parts of the country, protests are taking on a progressively more sectarian tone; a prominent opposition leader in Homs – whose family members reportedly were murdered by the regime in retaliation for his earlier, more moderate stance – was caught on video participating in chants calling to ‘exterminate the Alawites.’ Sectarian intolerance is everywhere on the rise, and civil strife is spreading from central Syria to places like suburban Damascus, where a pattern of communal-based killings has been noted. At the same time, fundamentalism is becoming more pervasive, as the conflict turns increasingly desperate and deadly, the outside world passively looks on, and militant Islamist actors abroad play a more central role in abetting the opposition.

‘Syria's Phase of Radicalization,’ Crisis Group Middle East Briefing No. 33, 10 Apr. 2012, p.5, online at  < http://www.crisisgroup.org/∼/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/Iraq%20Syria%20Lebanon/Syria/b033-syrias-phase-of-radicalisation.pdf>.

^4. Anne Barnard, ‘Massacre is Reported in Homs, Raising Pressure for International Intervention in Syria,’ The New York Times 12 Mar. 2012, online at  < http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/world/middleeast/death-toll-in-homs-rises.html?pagewanted = all>, accessed 12 Jul. 2013.

^5. In the Syrian case, United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon first turned in 2011 to veteran mediator and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who had in 2008 had mediated a ‘soft landing’ to the ethnically tinged election-related violence in Kenya that cost more than a thousand lives and left hundreds of thousands displaced. In the Kenyan case, Annan had carefully brokered a power-sharing pact that led to a constitutional reform in Kenya as a pathway for preventing further escalation and to restoring the mostly harmonious relations among identity-based political factions in that country. See Elizabeth Lindenmayer and Lianna Keyes, A Choice for Peace? The Story of 41 Days of Mediation in Kenya, International Peace Academy Report, 2009, online at < http://www.ipacademy.org/publication/policy-papers/detail/221-a-choice-for-peace-the-story-of-forty-one-days-of-mediation-in-kenya.html>, accessed 30 Jul. 2013.

^6. See the report of ‘The Day After’ Project, which presents the outcome of a dialog project among Syrians in exile on a post-al Assad future in Syria facilitated by the United States Institute of Peace in early 2013. The report identifies as a key goal of the transitional process to ‘Establish citizenship and the equality of all citizens as decisive in relations between individuals and the state as opposed to sectarian, ethnic, or gender considerations.’ See the Report online at: < http://www.usip.org/publications/the-day-after-project>.

^7. Rui de Figueiredo and Barry R. Weingast, ‘The Rationality of Fear: Political Opportunism and Ethnic Conflict’ in Barbara Walter and Jack Snyder (eds) Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention (NYCUP 1999) and Demet Yalein Mousseau, ‘Democratizing with Ethnic Divisions: A Source of Conflict’, Journal of Peace Research 38/3 (2001).

^8. For an articulation of this perspective, see Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, Electing to Fight. Why Emerging Democracies Go to War (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2005).

^9. Donald Rothchild, Managing Ethnic Conflict in Africa: Pressures and Incentives for Cooperation (Washington, DC: Brookings IP 1997) p.41.

^10. Nader Hashemi, ‘Religious Leaders, Sectarianism, and the Sunni-Shi'a Divide in Islam’ in Timothy D. Sisk (ed.) Between Terror and Tolerance: Religious Leaders, Conflict, and Peacemaking (Washington, DC: Georgetown UP 2011).

^11. Phillip Roeder and Donald Rothchild (eds) Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2005).

^12. Karen Guttieri and Jessica Piombo (eds) Interim Governments: Institutional Bridges to Peace and Democracy? (Washington, DC: USIPP 2007).

^13. Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 1977) and Arend Lijphart, ‘Constitutional Design for Divided Societies’, Journal of Democracy 15/2 (2004) pp.96–109. The 1995 General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia represents in essence this type of power-sharing outcome. Critics of the BiH power-sharing institutions argue that such a formula can lead to immobilism and that institutions reify social cleavages along ethnic lines. In December 2012, in a review in the UN Security Council of Bosnia, the High Representative Valentin Inzko spoke of concern of increasing nationalist rhetoric in the country, which reflects a broader concern that Dayton incentivizes ethnic politics and creates political economies that frustration national integration. See the coverage by Security Council Report online at < http://www.whatsinblue.org/2012/11/bosnia-and-herzegovina-debate-and-adoption.php>.

^14. Horowitz (note 2).

^15. Centripetalists now have a new case-in-point in Liberia, which emerged from civil war and a conflict with identity-based organizations, through two majority-rule elections (2005 and 2011) that have been governed through cross-cutting political parties and leadership that transcends former identity labels in the country; undoubtedly, Liberia stands out as a case in which power-sharing was a best fleeting and limited to a (feeble) transitional government, which was in turn replaced by an explicit program of national integration and reconfiguring the political economy that had fueled ethnic factions in the civil war.

^16. Steven Hydemann, ‘Social Pacts and the Persistence of Authoritarianism in the Middle East’ in Oliver Schlumberger (ed.) Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in Non-Democratic Regimes (Stanford, CA: SUP 2007).

^17. Phillip Roeder ‘Has Autonomy Brought Peace with Secessionists?’ Presented at the workshop ‘Institutions for Sustainable Peace,’ German Institute for Global and Area Studies, San Diego, 31 Mar. 2012 (p.20).

^18. Andreas Mehler, ‘Not Always in the People's Interest: Power-Sharing Arrangements in African Peace Agreements’, GIGA Working Papers 83 (2008) p.37.

^19. See the International Crisis Group Report, ‘Nepal: Identity Politics and Federalism’, 13 Jan. 2011, online at < www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/nepal/199-nepal-identity-politics-and-federalism.aspx>.

^20. Jarstad Anna, ‘Power Sharing: Former Enemies in Joint Government’ in Anna K. Jarstad and Timothy D. Sisk (eds) From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2008).

^21. Caroline Hartzell and Matthew Hodie, Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars (University Park: Pennsylvania State UP 2007).

^22. In UN Security Council Resolution 1962, the Council negated endorsement of a power-sharing outcome to the electoral dispute by

Urges all the Ivorian parties and stakeholders to respect the will of the people and the outcome of the election in view of ECOWAS and African Union's recognition of Alassane Dramane Ouattara as President-elect of Côte d'Ivoire and representative of the freely expressed voice of the Ivorian people as proclaimed by the Independent Electoral Commission. (S/RES/1962 (2010), p.2)

^23. See Dorina Bekoe, ‘Côte d'Ivoire's Political Stalemate: A Symptom of Africa's Weak Electoral Institutions,’ U.S. Institute of Peace Peacebrief 80 (7 Feb. 2011). She writes that

The power-sharing arrangement settled on by five African nations in recent elections sets a dangerous precedent. Losers with a strong militia may find it easier to use threats of violence or actual violence to retain a critical power role, thus subverting the intent of the election. (p.1)

^24. Roy Licklider, ‘The Consequences of Negotiated Settlements in Civil Wars, 1945–1993’, American Political Science Review 89/3 (1995) and Roy Licklider, ‘Comparative Studies of Long Wars’, in Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall (eds) Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict (Washington, DC: USIP 2005) pp.33–46.

^25. Lijphart (Note 13) and Pierre du Toit ‘Bargaining about Bargaining: Inducing the Self-Negating Prediction in Deeply Divided Societies: The Case of South Africa’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 33/2 (1989) pp.210–30. Arend Lijphart writes that ‘elites co-operate in spite of the segmental differences dividing them because to do otherwise would mean to call forth the prophesied consequences of the plural character of the society’ (p.100).

^26. Louis Kriesberg, ‘Conclusion: Research and Policy Implications’ in Louis Kriesberg, Terrell A. Lorthrup and Stuart J. Thorson (eds) Intractable Conflicts and their Transformation (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP) and William I. Zartman, ‘Conflict Reduction: Prevention, Management, and Resolution’, in Francis M. Deng and I. William Zartman (eds) Conflict Resolution in Africa (Washington, DC: Brookings IP 1991).

^27. Roeder and Rothchild (note 11) p.13.

^28. Benjamin Reilly, ‘Democratic Validation’ in John Darby and Roger MacGinty (eds) Contemporary Peacemaking: Conflict, Violence and Peace Processes (London: Palgrave 2003).

^29. Matthias Basedau, ‘Managing Ethnic Conflict: The Menu of Institutional Engineering’, GIGA Working Papers 171 (2011).

^30. Stephen Gent, ‘Relative Rebel Strength and Power Sharing in Intrastate Conflicts’ International Interactions 73/2 (2011) pp.215-28.

^31. Du Toit has thoughtfully described such re-negotiated pacts as ‘post-settlement settlements’: Pierre du Toit, ‘Why Post-Settlement Settlements?’ Journal of Democracy 14/3 (2003) pp.104–18.

^32. Timothy D. Sisk, Statebuilding: Consolidating Peace after Civil War (Cambridge: Polity Press 2013).

^33. Donald Rothchild, Racial Bargaining in Independent Kenya: A Study of Minorities and Decolonization (New York, NY: Oxford UP 1973); Donald Rothchild, Managing Ethnic Conflict in Africa: Pressures and Incentives for Cooperation (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press 1997); Donald Rothchild ‘Settlement Terms and Post-Agreement Stability’ in Stephen Stedman, Donald Rothchild, and Elizabeth Cousens (eds) Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Press 2002).

^34. See note 22.

^35. See note 23.

^36. Sabine Kurtenbach, ‘Institutional Engineering and Violence in Post-Conflict Societies’ Paper presented at the workshop ‘Institutions for Sustainable Peace,’ German Institute for International and Area Studies, San Diego, 31 Mar. 2012, p.16.

^37. Frances Stewart, Graham Brown, and Arnim Langer, Inequalities, Conflict, and Economic Recovery, UNDP Background Paper 2007.

^38. Roland Paris and Timothy D. Sisk, The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations (London: Routledge 2009).

^39. See the report for the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, Development Assistance Committee (OECD DAC), Concepts and Dilemmas of State Building in Fragile States (2008), online at < www.oecd.org/dac/fragilestates>, accessed 30 Jul. 2013.

^40. Matthjis Boogards, ‘Electoral Systems in Peace Agreements after Civil Wars’, Paper presented at the workshop ‘Institutions for Sustainable Peace,’ San Diego, 31 Mar. 2012, p.10.

^41. Benjamin Reilly, Remarks at the Workshop ‘Institutions for Sustainable Peace,’ German Institute for Global and Area Studies, San Diego, 31 Mar. 2012.

^42. See, for example, the 2008/2009 UNDP National Human Development Report for Lebanon, Toward a Citizen State, which contains an extensive critique of the Lebanese confessional system, online at < http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/nationalreports/arabstates/lebanon/name,3303,en.html>.

^43. Timothy D. Sisk, International Mediation in Civil Wars: Bargaining with Bullets (London: Routledge 2009).

^44. Roberto Belloni, ‘Bosnia: Dayton is Dead! Long live Dayton!’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 15/2 (2009) pp.355–75.

^45. René Lemarchand, ‘Consociationalism and Power Sharing in Africa: Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo’, African Affairs 106/422 (2006).

^46. Marie-Joëlle Zahar, ‘Power Sharing in Lebanon: Foreign Protectors, Domestic Peace, and Democratic Failure’ in Philip Roeder and Donald Rothchild (eds) Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil Wars. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2005) pp.219–40.

^47. As Lakhdar Brahimi and Salman Ahmed (Brahimi writing in an earlier context) observe,

No matter how sound an SRSG's or other international mediator's proposals might be, they risk being rejected if they have not emanated from a process that enjoys the confidence of all the parties to the conflict and is considered legitimate in the eyes of the population at large. The process matters and it takes time. A particular peace conference itself might conclude an agreement in days or weeks, but rarely without the months or years of consultations prior to convening it. The failure to recognize this crucially important point can be deadly to a political process. The best way to kill a potentially viable political solution is to float it prematurely. (Lakhdar Brahimi and Salman Ahmend, In Pursuit of Sustainable Peace: The Seven Deadly Sins of Mediation (New York: New York University Center for International Cooperation 2008))

^48. Chaim Kaufman ‘Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars’ International Security 20/4 (1996) pp.136–75; Simon Chesterman, Tom Farer, and Timothy Sisk ‘Competing Claims: Self Determination and Security in the United Nations’ in International Peace Academy Policy Brief (New York, NY: International Peace Institute 2001); and Hurst Hannum and Eileen F. Babbitt (eds) Negotiating Self-Determination (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books 2006).