of distinguished and rather senior economists – makes at the end of the book. Their priorities tend to be quick-fixes of problems that might, at least partly, be caused by some other challenge. More importantly, the panellists tend to disregard some of the evidence assembled by the authors. The reactions to the excellent chapter on armed conflict by Collier & Hoeffler illustrate that Nobel awards are no protection against bias. One member of the panel dismisses the economic sources of war that the Oxford economists analyse and points out that free trade is the main pacifying force, while another famous panellist mentions ethnic or religious hatred as a source of conflict. Gerald Schneider

At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict:

Filmed lecture with Assistant Professor Severine Autesserre in the NAI - FOI Lecture Series on African Security 2011. 2 November 2011 at Sida, Stockholm. 50 min.

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The trouble with the Congo : local violence and the failure of international peacebuilding

This book suggests a new explanation for why international peace interventions often fail to reach their full potential. Based on several years of ethnographic research in conflict zones around the world, it demonstrates that everyday elements - such as the expatriates' social habits and usual approaches to understanding their areas of operation - strongly influence peacebuilding effectiveness. Individuals from all over the world and all walks of life share numerous practices, habits, and narratives when they serve as interveners in conflict zones. These common attitudes and actions enable foreign peacebuilders to function in the field, but they also result in unintended consequences that thwart international efforts. Certain expatriates follow alternative modes of thinking and acting, often with notable results, but they remain in the minority. Through an in-depth analysis of the interveners' everyday life and work, this book proposes innovative ways to better help host populations build a sustainable peace.

Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention

Proposals for power-sharing constitutions remain controversial, as highlighted by current debates in Iraq, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sudan. This book updates and refines the theory of consociationalism, taking account of the flood of contemporary innovations in power-sharing institutions that have occurred worldwide. The book classifies and compares four types of political institutions: the electoral system, parliamentary or presidential executives, unitary or federal states, and the structure and independence of the mass media. The study tests the potential advantages and disadvantages of each of these institutions for democratic governance. Cross-national time-series data concerning trends in democracy are analyzed for all countries worldwide since the early 1970s. Chapters are enriched by comparing detailed case studies. The mixed-method research design illuminates the underlying causal mechanisms by examining historical developments and processes of institutional change within particular nations and regions.

Driving Democracy: Do Power-Sharing Institutions Work?

This article, which forms the introduction to a collection of studies, focuses on processes of state construction and deconstruction in contemporary Africa.Its objective is to better understand how local, national and transnational actors forge and remake the state through processes of negotiation, contestation and bricolage. Following a critique of the predominant state failure literature and its normative and analytical shortcomings, the authors identify four key arguments of the scholarly literature on the state in Africa, which concern the historicity of the state in Africa, the embeddedness of bureaucratic organizations in society, the symbolic and material dimensions of statehood and the importance of legitimacy. A heuristic framework entitled ‘negotiatingstatehood’ is proposed, referring to the dynamic and partly undetermined processes of state formation and failure by a multitude of social actors whocompete over the institutionalization of power relations. The article then operationalizes this framework in three sections that partly conceptualize, partly illustrate who negotiates statehood in contemporary Africa (actors, resources and repertoires); where these negotiation processes occur (negotiation arenas and tables); and what these processes are all about (objects of negotiation). Empirical examples drawn from a variety of political contexts across the African continent illustrate these propositions.

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Negotiating Statehood: Dynamics of Power and Domination in Africa

China's vastly increased involvement in Africa over the past decade is one of the most significant recent developments in the region. It appears to contradict the idea of international marginalisation of Africa and brings significant economic and political consequences. China's Africa interest is part of a recently more active international strategy based on multipolarity and non-intervention. Increased aid, debt cancellation, and a boom in Chinese-African trade, with a strategic Chinese focus on oil, have proven mutually advantageous for China and African state elites. By offering aid without preconditions, China has presented an attractive alternative to conditional Western aid, and gained valuable diplomatic support to defend its international interests. However, a generally asymmetrical relationship differing little from previous African-Western patterns, alongside support of authoritarian governments at the expense of human rights, make the economic consequences of increased Chinese involvement in Africa mixed at best, while the political consequences are bound to prove deleterious.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022278X06001856

China's engagement in Africa: scope, significance and consequences

Postconflict state reconstruction has become a priority of donors in Africa. Yet, externally sponsored reconstruction efforts have met with limited achievements in the region. This is partly due to three flawed assumptions on which reconstruction efforts are predicated. The first is that Western state institutions can be transferred to Africa. The poor record of past external efforts to construct and reshape African political and economic institutions casts doubts on the overly ambitious objectives of failed state reconstruction. The second flawed assumption is the mistaken belief in a shared understanding by donors and African leaders of failure and reconstruction. Donors typically misread the nature of African politics. For local elites, reconstruction is the continuation of war and competition for resources by new means. Thus their strategies are often inimical to the building of strong public institutions. The third flawed assumption is that donors are capable of rebuilding African states. Their ambit...

Postconflict Reconstruction in Africa: Flawed Ideas about Failed States

This article analyzes some factors underlying the spread of insurgent violence in Africa. It focuses on the impact external factors have on power struggles on the continent. The first of these is the unsteady support for democracy from Western donors, which has impeded more far-reaching domestic changes in much of Africa. Second are wider changes in the international setting that dramatically enhanced the international standing of armed movements in the post-1989 period. The article argues that the interplay of both factors has induced would-be leaders to conquer state power by violent rather than non-violent means. This becomes particularly evident in regard to Western efforts to solve violent conflict through power-sharing agreements. The hypothesis is put forward that the institutionalization of this practice for the sake of 'peace', i.e. providing rebels with a share of state power, has important demonstration effects across the continent. It creates an incentive structure would-be leaders can seize

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The hidden costs of power-sharing: Reproducing insurgent violence in Africa

This paper argues that warlord or 'non-state' politics have not brought about as fundamental a political transformation as recent discourses about violent 'state collapse' in Africa seem to suggest. In the context of the territorial break-up of the central state in the DR Congo, it examines the reconfiguration of political power in North Kivu in the extreme weakness of formal state structures and looks at the strategies of local actors to deal with the violent transformation of the state. It demonstrates that the strategies of the ruling rebels and other strongmen reveal significant continuities with regard to the Mobutu era as the marketing of minerals provides the resources for the revisiting of time-tested political strategies such as the construction of patronage-based clientelistic networks. Similarly, the limited ambitions of 'non-hegemonic rule' provide current rulers with powerful incentives to exercise power by drawing on the support of intermediary actors such as traditional authorities. Far from indicating the 'end of politics', these strategies mimic President Mobutu's political set up and thus contribute to the reproduction of the postcolonial state despite its institutional erosion.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/3518745

A Reconfiguration of Political Order? The State of the State in North Kivu (DR Congo)

The UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) has been derided as one of the world's least effective peacekeeping forces This article assesses its performance by using two indicators: mandate implementation and the reduction of human suffering The analysis shows that effective peacekeeping in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been hampered by two major problems First, MONUC has had a struggle with, and inconsistent approach to, the vague concept of ‘robust peacekeeping’ During key moments of the peace process, it tried to wage peace when it should have used force Second it failed to adapt to a dynamic conflict environment Both problems were underpinned by flawed assumptions about the peace process, the behaviour of local actors and the presumed benefits of ‘post-conflict’ elections

Denis M. Tull

Papers

China's engagement in Africa: scope, significance and consequences

Postconflict Reconstruction in Africa: Flawed Ideas about Failed States

The hidden costs of power-sharing: Reproducing insurgent violence in Africa

A Reconfiguration of Political Order? The State of the State in North Kivu (DR Congo)

Peacekeeping in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Waging Peace and Fighting War