![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
Much of the scholarship on peacebuilding in Africa assumes that building – or reconstructing – 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’.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Harry Verhoeven, and to the editors and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this article.
Notes
1. See for instance ‘The hopeful continent: Africa rising’, The Economist, 3 December 2011; Perry A, ‘Africa rising’, Time Magazine, 3 December 2012; Robertson C et al., The Fastest Billion: The Story Behind Africa's Economic Revolution. London: Renaissance Capital Securities Limited, 2012. For an alternative perspective see Rowden R, ‘The myth of Africa's rise’, Foreign Policy, 4 January 2013.
2. United Nations, An Agenda for Peace, 17 June 1992, A/47/277-S/24111, II. 21.
3. Zaum D, The Sovereignty Paradox: The Norms and Politics of International Statebuilding. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007; Zaum D, ‘Statebuilding and governance: The conundrums of local ownership’, in Curtis D & G Dzinesa (eds), Peacebuilding, Power and Politics in Africa. Columbus, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012.
4. Fearon JD & DD Laitin, ‘Ethnicity, insurgency and civil war’, American Political Science Review, 97, 1, 2003, pp. 75–90; See also Greenhill K & S Major, ‘The perils of profiling: Civil war spoilers and the collapse of intrastate peace accords’, International Security, 31, 3, 2006/2007, pp. 7–40.
5. There are examples, however, of strong states in Africa that have prompted rebellion by excluded groups, for instance the Juvenal Habyarimana regime in Rwanda and the Mengistu Haile Mariam regime in Ethiopia. Many thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this point.
6. Azar E, ‘Ten propositions on protracted social conflict’ in Azar E and J Burton (eds), International Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice. Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1986; Berdal M & D Malone (eds), Greed vs Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000; Nathan L, ‘The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse: The structural causes of crisis and violence in Africa’, Peace and Change, 25, 2, 2000, pp. 188–207; Stewart F, ‘Horizontal inequalities as a source of conflict’, in Hampson F & D Malone (eds), From Reaction to Conflict Prevention: Opportunities for the UN System. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner: 2002.
7. United States National Security Strategy, September 2002. For more examples of this national security formulation see Carment D, ‘Assessing fragility: Theory evidence and policy’, Politorbis, 42, 2007; Fukuyama F, State-building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004; Rotberg R, ‘Failed states in a world of terror’, Foreign Affairs, 81, 4, July–August 2002, pp. 127–40.
8. See Yabi G, ‘Au Mali: Privilégier la restauration de l'Etat’, Le Figaro, 31 January 2013. In February 2013 the Malian government and National Assembly approved the creation of a negotiating commission to address northern grievances. France is remaining discreet, but is encouraging the government in these efforts. See ‘Mali: Crisis in the command’, Africa Confidential, 54, 4, 15 February 2013.
9. See for instance, Call CT with V Wyeth (eds), Building States to Build Peace. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008; Fukuyama F, State-building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004; Ghani A & C Lockhart, Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008; Paris R, At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
10. Paris R & T Sisk, ‘Introduction: Understanding the contradiction of postwar statebuilding’, in Paris R & T Sisk (eds), The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations. London: Routledge, 2009, p. 3.
11. See for instance, World Bank, World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World. Washington, DC: World Bank, 1997; World Bank, World Development Report 2002: Building Institutions for Markets. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002; UK Commission for Africa Report, March 2005; OECD, Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations, 2005.
12. The World Bank developed the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment measures, a rating used for loan decisions.
13. Woodward S, ‘State-building for peace-building: What theory and whose role?’, in Kozul-Wright R & P Fortunato (eds), Securing Peace: State-building and Development in Post-conflict Societies. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011.
15. Nugent P & AI Asiwaju, ‘Introduction: The paradox of African boundaries’, in Nugent P & AI Asiwaju (eds), African Boundaries: Barriers, Conduits, and Opportunities. London: Pinter 1996, pp. 1–14; Adebajo A, The Curse of Berlin: Africa after the Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.
16. Curtis D, ‘The international peacebuilding paradox: Power sharing and post-conflict governance in Burundi’, African Affairs, 112, 446, January 2013, pp. 72–91.
17. Sorensen JS, ‘The failure of statebuilding: Changing biopolitics and the splintering of societies’, Development Dialogue, 58, April 2012, pp. 49–65.
18. Gegout C, ‘The West, realism and intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1996–2006)’, International Peacekeeping, 16, 2, April 2009, pp. 231–244.
19. Krasner S, ‘Sharing sovereignty: New institutions for collapsing and failing states’, International Security, 29, 2, 2004, pp. 85–120.
20. Fearon J & DD Laitin, ‘Neotrusteeship and the problem of weak states’, International Security, 28, 4, 2004, pp. 5–43.
21. Bickerton CJ, ‘State-building: Exporting state failure’, in Bickerton CJ, Cuncliffe P & A Gourevitch (eds), Politics without Sovereignty. London: University College Press, 2005, pp. 93–111; see also Branch A, Displacing Human Rights: War and Intervention in Northern Uganda. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
22. Bilgin P & A Morton, ‘Historicizing representations of “failed states”: Beyond the Cold War annexation of the social sciences’, Third World Quarterly, 23, 1, 2002, pp. 55–80; Shilliam R, ‘What the Haitian revolution might tell us about development, security, and the politics of race’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 50, 3, 2008, pp. 778–808; Chandler D, International Statebuilding: The Rise of Post-Liberal Governance. London: Routledge, 2010; Bickerton CJ, ‘State-building: Exporting state failure’, in Bickerton CJ, Cuncliffe P & A Gourevitch (eds), Politics without Sovereignty. London: University College Press, 2005, pp. 93–111.
23. Mamdani M, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
24. The 1997 World Development Report discussed the ways in which the state is necessary for markets, and the 2002 report developed these ideas further. World Bank 1997 and World Bank, World Development Report 2002: Building Institutions for Markets. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002.
25. Harrison G, The World Bank and Africa: The Construction of Governance States. London: Routledge, 2004.
26. There are, however, a number of countries in Africa with strong multiparty democratic systems, such as Ghana. See Gyimah-Boadi E, ‘The rebirth of African liberalism’, Journal of Democracy, 9, 2, 1998, pp. 18–31.
27. See Young C, ‘The African colonial state and its political legacy’, in Rothchild D & N Chazan (eds), The Precarious Balance: State and Society in Africa. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988.
28. Rotberg R, ‘Failed states in a world of terror’, Foreign Affairs, 81, 4, July–August 2002, pp. 127–40.
29. Médard JF, ‘The underdeveloped state in Africa: Political clientilism or neo-patrimonialism’, in Christopher Clapham (ed.), Private Patronage and Public Power: Political Clientelism in the Modern State. London: Pinter, 1982; Chabal P & JP Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument. London: James Currey, 1999; Ekeh P, ‘Colonialism and the two publics in Africa’, in Lewis P (ed.), Africa: Dilemmas of Development and Change. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998; see also Bach D & M Gazibo (eds), Neopatrimonialism in Africa and Beyond. London: Routledge, 2012.
30. Englebert P & DM Tull, ‘Postconflict reconstruction in Africa: Flawed ideas about failed states’, International Security, 32, 4, Spring 2008, pp. 106–39.
31. See Bayart JF, ‘Africa in the world: A history of extraversion’, African Affairs, 99, April 2000, pp. 217–67.
32. See Barnett M, Kim H, O'Donnell M, & L Sitea, ‘Peacebuilding: What is in a name?’ Global Governance, 13, 2007, pp. 35–58.
33. For a discussion of these conflicting priorities and tensions see Call CT with V Wyeth (eds), Building States to Build Peace. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008; Paris R & T Sisk, ‘Introduction: Understanding the contradiction of postwar statebuilding’, in Paris R & T Sisk (eds), The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations. London: Routledge, 2009, p. 3; Pugh M, Cooper N & M Turner (eds), Whose Peace?: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2008; Newman E, Paris R & OP Richmond (eds), New Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding. New York: United Nations University Press, 2009.
34. See for instance the discussions in Campbell S, D Chandler and M Sabaratnam (eds), A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding. London: Zed Books, 2011; James Mayall and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira (eds), The New Protectorates: International Tutelage and the Making of Liberal States. London: Hurst, 2011.
35. Mehler A, ‘Peace and power sharing in Africa: A not so obvious relationship’, African Affairs, 108, 2009, pp. 453–473; Sisk TD & AK Jarstad (eds), From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
36. Call CT with V Wyeth (eds), Building States to Build Peace. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008.
37. Ghani A & C Lockhart, Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
38. Zaum D, ‘Statebuilding and governance: The conundrums of local ownership’, in Curtis D & G Dzinesa (eds), Peacebuilding, Power and Politics in Africa. Columbus, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012.
39. For instance, in a speech at the launch of the Thabo Mbeki Foundation, former Ghanaian president John Kufuor said that ‘The AU, NEPAD, APRM, is ample evidence that the African Renaissance is here. It is the clearest statement yet of Africa's determination to chart its own course of development while meeting internationally accepted principles of governance’ (Johannesburg, 13 October 2010).
40. For discussions of aspects of the AU peacebuilding framework see, Murithi T, ‘Towards a symbiotic partnership: The UN Peacebuilding Commission and the evolving African Union/NEPAD post-conflict reconstruction framework’, in Adebajo A & H Scanlon (eds), A Dialogue of the Deaf: Essays on Africa and the United Nations. Johannesburg: Jacana, 2006, pp. 243–60; Khadiagala G, ‘The role of the African Union, New Partnership for Africa's Development and African Development Bank in postconflict reconstruction and peacebuilding’, in Curtis D & G Dzinesa (eds), Peacebuilding, Power and Politics in Africa. Columbus, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012. Tadesse M, The African Union and Security Sector Reform: A Review of the Post-conflict Reconstruction and Development Policy. Addis Ababa: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2010.
41. For a discussion, as well as examples of specific cases, see Vandeginste S, ‘The African Union, constitutionalism and power-sharing’, Working Paper 2011.05. University of Antwerp Institute of Development Policy and Management, June 2011.
42. Khadiagala G, ‘Two moments in African thought: Ideas in Africa's international relations’, South African Journal of International Affairs, 17, 3, 2010, p. 381–2.
43. Weinstein J, ‘Autonomous recovery and international intervention in comparative perspective’, Working Paper 57. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development, April 2005; Jones W, Soares de Oliveira R & H Verhoeven, ‘Africa's illiberal state-builders’. Refugee Studies Centre Working Paper Series No. 89. University of Oxford, January 2013.
44. For discussion of the developmental state and its possibilities in Africa, see Mkandawire T, ‘Thinking about developmental states in Africa’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 25, 3, 2001, pp. 289–314. For a discussion of the developmental state in East Asia, see Woo-Cumings M (ed.), The Developmental State. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
45. See for instance Booth D & F Golooba-Mutebi, ‘Developmental patrimonialism? The case of Rwanda’, African Affairs, 111, 444, 2012, pp. 379–403.
46. Soares de Oliveira R, ‘Illiberal peacebuilding in Angola’, Journal of Modern African Affairs, 49, 2, 2011, pp. 287–314.
47. Weinstein J, ‘Autonomous recovery and international intervention in comparative perspective’. Working Paper 57. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development, April 2005.
48. Clapham C, ‘Peacebuilding without a state: The Somali experience’ in Curtis D & G Dzinesa (eds), Peacebuilding, Power and Politics in Africa. Columbus, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012.
49. Autesserre S, ‘Dangerous tales: Dominant naratives on the Congo and their unintended consequences’, African Affairs, 111, 442, April 2012, pp. 202–22.
50. Soares de Oliveira R, ‘Illiberal peacebuilding in Angola’, Journal of Modern African Affairs, 49, 2, 2011, pp. 287–314.
51. See Borzel TA & T Risse, ‘Governance without a state: Can it work?’, Regulation and Governance, 4, 2010, pp. 113–34; and Scott JC, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009; Raeymackers TK, Menkhaus K & K Vlassenroot, ‘State and non-state regulation in African protracted crises: Governance without Government?’, Afrika Focus, 21, 2, 2008, pp. 7–21.
52. Hönke J, ‘Transnational pockets of territoriality: Governing the security of extraction in Katanga (DRC)’. Working Paper. Graduate Centre Humanities and Social Sciences of the Research Academy, Leipzig, 2009.
53. Leonard DK and MS Samantar, ‘What does the Somali experience teach us about the social contract and the state?’ Development and Change, 42, 2, 2011, pp. 559–84.
54. Clapham C, ‘Peacebuilding without a state: The Somali experience’ in Curtis D & G Dzinesa (eds), Peacebuilding, Power and Politics in Africa. Columbus, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012; see also Menkhaus K, ‘Governance without government in Somalia: Spoilers, statebuilding and the politics of coping’, International Security, 31, 3, 2007, pp. 74–106.
55. Albert I, ‘Understanding peace in Africa’, in Francis D (ed.), Peace and Conflict in Africa. London: Zed Books, 2008.
56. Scott J, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.
57. Titeca K and T de Herdt, ‘Real governance beyond the “failed state”: Negotiating education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’, African Affairs 110, 439, 2011, pp. 213–31.
58. Sabaratnam M, ‘Avatars of Eurocentrism in the critique of the liberal peace’, Security Dialogue, 44, 3, 2013.
59. Meagher K, ‘The strength of weak states?: Non-state security forces and hybrid governance in Africa’, Development and Change, 43, 5, 2012, pp. 1073–1101.
60. Duffield M, Development, Security and Unending War. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007; Sorensen JS, ‘The failure of statebuilding: Changing biopolitics and the splintering of societies’, Development Dialogue, 58, April 2012, pp. 49–65.
61. Straus S, ‘Wars do end! Changing patterns of political violence in sub-Saharan Africa’, African Affairs, 111, 443, April 2012, pp. 179–201.
62. Reno W, Warfare in Independent Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
63. See Call CJ, ‘Beyond the “failed state”: Toward conceptual alternatives’, European Journal of International Relations, 17, 2, 2010, pp. 303–26.