How do election processes contribute to stability after civil war? This book chapter from ‘The Dilemmas of Statebuilding’ compares statebuilding in Cambodia, South Africa, Afghanistan and Liberia. It argues that electoral processes are necessary in moving beyond violence. However, the way elections are carried out is critical. Sequencing, design and the extent of international oversight are the key variables that determine the extent to which electoral processes contribute to capable, responsive states or to captured, fragmented and weak states.
Most civil wars end in negotiated settlements. An essential part of such treaties is agreement on a defined political pathway through which a transitional process to consolidate peace is to unfold. These transition paths often feature the formation of transitional governments, sometimes constitution-making processes, and an electoral process and an event to give post-war governance a new sense of legitimacy.
Cambodia is an example of how initially problematic elections set up conditions for a weak, captured state. South Africa’s 1994 polls are an example of elections that empowered the state by rearranging the relationship of the state to its society. In Afghanistan, the inclusion of warlords in electoral processes may undermine the ability of the new state to wield monopolistic authority. In Liberia, the choice for a presidential election with a runoff raised concerns about whether the loser in the poll would foment civil war. In fact, a newly empowered state has emerged following voluntary power sharing.
The experience of these countries shows that the political pathway of transition and especially the initial, post-war electoral process matters significantly for statebuilding:
- The transition sequences and institutional choices made in war settlement negotiations often determine the nature and timing of initial post-war elections.
- Elections are the principal means by which war-terminating peace agreements are democratically legitimated by the affected population.
- Elections determine initial control of state institutions by either affirming existing patterns of power or ushering in new elites and by rearranging state-society relations.
- Processes that are broadly inclusive, and that pair proportionality with accountability, create legitimacy for effective post-war governance. They create the conditions for mutually empowering state-society relations.
- When states have the support of their societies, they can address social challenges (such as providing security or facilitating development), thereby strengthening society’s capacity to participate in governance.
The success of the statebuilding enterprise itself is predicated on several key factors:
- The electoral process should generate broad legitimacy for the immediate, post-war ruling coalition.
- All parties with the military capacity and ideological or power-seeking interest to spoil the post-war peace should consent to the process.
- The international community must confront the difficulties, contradictions, and dilemmas that post-war electoral processes pose and see them as the principal instrument for defining new mutually empowering relations between states and societies.
- The task for effective statebuilding is not whether or even when to have elections to build effective states for sustainable peace after civil war, but how and how long to stay engaged once the first election has passed.
