This article argues that inconsistencies in Western political engagement, as well as a shift in international attitudes towards insurgent groups, have affected domestic power struggles across Africa. In particular, Western efforts to resolve conflicts through power-sharing agreements (providing rebels with a share of state power) have created incentives for politically ambitious leaders to start insurgency warfare. Power-sharing agreements may therefore contribute to the cycle of insurgent violence and undermine conflict prevention.
While economic interests and weak state capabilities undoubtedly contribute to the rise in insurgent-related conflict, two external factors are also important. First, uneven and inconsistent donor support for democratisation has hindered extensive domestic reform. Second, Western powers’ increasing willingness to deal with insurgent groups for the sake of ‘peace’ has shifted the domestic power balance away from incumbent governments and civilian opposition parties. The interplay of these factors encourages would-be leaders to seek state power through violence.
Throughout the 1990s, reform-minded states received little reward from donors for democratic engineering, and the quality of democratic governance had no measurable impact on aid levels. Donors demanded electoral procedures, but did not address the superficiality or fraudulence of elections in which dominant incumbent regimes and the blending of state and ruling party restricted citizens’ political choice. Non-violent opposition leaders find their path to potential state power through elections effectively blocked, and incumbents claiming international legitimacy under the guise of electoral democracy.
Power-sharing agreements have become the West’s preferred instrument of conflict resolution. In almost every country in which insurgent leaders mustered sufficient military power to attract the attention of foreign states, they were included in ‘governments of national unity’.
- Insurgents have expanded their efforts to seek formal international recognition, hiring lobbying firms to represent them and visiting Western capitals even in the early stages of insurrection.
- This focus on international diplomacy further marginalises domestic political agendas.
- Not only do power-sharing agreements seem to encourage insurgencies elsewhere, they are also arguably ineffective in promoting peace within war-torn states:
> Strategies of shifting between peaceful and violent opposition have succeeded in proving nuisance capacity as the basis for attracting rents of violence (inclusion in government)
> Some faction leaders do not seem interested in achieving peace, but perpetuate negotiations for material benefit
> Power-sharing formulas may enable rebel leaders to behave similarly in office as in war time, exploiting both the revenues of peace and the economies of war.
> The principle of inclusion that underlies power-sharing agreements runs the risk of generating ever more insurgent groups, as factions break away and use violence to seek the accommodation of their demands.
In order to ensure that conflict resolution strategies do not undermine conflict prevention, it is important to pay more attention to the complex links between internal and external factors that affect domestic power struggles and insurgent-related conflicts. International actors need to:
- Recognise that the short-term resolution of conflict through power-sharing is not a guarantee of long-term peace.
- Raise the standards that insurgents must reach in order to gain a place at the negotiating table. Armed groups preying on local communities and committing serious human rights abuses should be disqualified as negotiating partners. Rebels providing some measure of order to collective goods should receive a political premium in negotiations.
- Institutionalise criminal investigation by internationally-backed judicial bodies in the aftermath of (and even during) every internal conflict. This would send a message that raw power is not sufficient for international recognition, and might limit severe human rights abuses.
- Emphasise democracy and mutually acceptable forms of accessing power. Governments and civilian opposition parties should receive credit for respecting accepted rules.
- Move from technical approaches to more substantive political engagement. A long-term vision is needed to overcome the inconsistencies and contradictions of Western approaches to conflict resolution and democratisation.
