Power-sharing in Africa's war zones: how important is the local level?

Abstract: Research on power-sharing in Africa remains silent on the effects of national peace agreements on the sub-national level. Conversely, most armed conflicts originate and are fought in (or over) specific areas. A plausible hypothesis would be that for power-sharing to have the desired pacifying effect throughout the national territory, it needs to be extended to the local level. Based on fieldwork in six former hotspots in Liberia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) we find that there is hardly any local content, including local power-sharing, in national agreements. However, contrary to our hypothesis, neither local content (inclusion of actors or interest) nor local-power-sharing (either introducing a local power balance or monopoly) are indispensable to effectively bring about local peace, at least in the short-term. On the contrary, it might even endanger the peace process. The importance of the sub-national level is overestimated in some cases and romanticised in

Angaben zum Objekt

• Standort: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Umfang: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: Englisch
• Anmerkungen: Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: The Journal of Modern African Studies ; 51 (2013) 4 ; 681-706

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Politik

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wo): Mannheim
• (wann): 2013
• Urheber: Mehler, Andreas ; Tull, Denis ; Zanker, Franzisca ; Simons, Claudia

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X13000645
• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-383339
• Rechteinformation: Open Access unbekannt; Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 15.08.2025, 07:31 MESZ