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Book Details
Abstract
Nowhere in the world is the demand for peace more prominent and challenging than in Africa. From state collapse and anarchy in Somalia to protracted wars and rampant corruption in the Congo; from bloody civil wars and extreme poverty in Sierra Leone to humanitarian crisis and authoritarianism in Sudan, the continent is the focus of growing political and media attention.
This book presents the first comprehensive overview of conflict and peace across the continent. Bringing together a range of leading academics from Africa and beyond, Peace and Conflict in Africa is an ideal introduction to key themes of conflict resolution, peacebuilding, security and development. The book's stress on the importance of indigenous Africa approaches to creating peace makes it an innovative and exciting intervention in the field.
'This is a welcome and pioneering attempt, conducted overwhelmingly by Africans, to integrate the insights both of academic conflict and peace analysis, and of indigenous African approaches to conflict resolution, and apply them to the needs of peace-building in modern Africa.'
Christopher Clapham, The Journal of Modern African Studies
'Peace and Conflict in Africa is a significant contribution to our understanding of the conflicts which have characterized post-colonial Africa. This book sets in train the debate about how Africa-centric solutions for peace will begin to look, by seeking to valorise African traditional peace strategies through forgiveness, healing, reconciliation and restorative justice in order to build social trust. Essential reading for students of Africa, policy makers and the NGO communities'
Professor Alfred Tunde Zack-Williams, University of Central Lancashire
David Francis is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Bradford, where he established and directs the Africa Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies. He has published extensively on the economics and politics of security in Africa. He is the author of Uniting Africa: Building Regional Peace and Security Systems (2006)
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acknowledgements | viii | ||
| About the authors | ix | ||
| Abbreviations | x | ||
| Part One: Understanding concepts and debates | 1 | ||
| 1 | Introduction: understanding the context of peace and conflict in Africa | 3 | ||
| Africa: context of peace and conflict | 3 | ||
| Table 1.1 | 6 | ||
| Outline of the book | 12 | ||
| 2 | African indigenous and endogenous approaches to peace and conflict resolution | 16 | ||
| Contextualizing the indigenous and the endogenous | 17 | ||
| The global preponderance of indigenous and endogenous approaches | 18 | ||
| Selected indigenous and endogenous conflict resolution processes in Africa | 18 | ||
| Ubuntu and culturally inspired reconciliation | 26 | ||
| The strengths of indigenous processes | 27 | ||
| The limitations of indigenous and endogenous peace processes | 28 | ||
| Complementing official state and international peace processes | 29 | ||
| Conclusion | 30 | ||
| 3 | Understanding peace in Africa | 31 | ||
| Understanding peace ‘globally’ | 33 | ||
| A philosophical framework of peace in Africa | 35 | ||
| The practice of peace in Africa | 40 | ||
| Towards integrating the African and the global | 43 | ||
| Conclusion | 44 | ||
| 4 | The mainstreaming of conflict analysis in Africa: contributions from theory | 46 | ||
| Practice and method: the mainstreaming of conflict analysis | 48 | ||
| Conclusions: challenges and dilemmas of application in Africa | 56 | ||
| Final words | 66 | ||
| 5 | Understanding conflict resolution in Africa | 68 | ||
| Theoretical discussions on conflict resolution | 68 | ||
| The nature of conflicts in Africa: some conceptual perspectives | 71 | ||
| A critique of dominant explanatory theories | 73 | ||
| Conflict resolution practice in contemporary Africa | 75 | ||
| State-centred conflicts and dominant approaches to conflict management | 75 | ||
| Elite co-optation | 78 | ||
| Third-party intervention in large-scale armed conflicts and wars | 81 | ||
| Traditional African approach to conflict resolution | 88 | ||
| Conclusion | 91 | ||
| 6 | Context of security in Africa | 92 | ||
| A historical sociology of the state, security and colonialism | 92 | ||
| Colonial roots of Africa’s security problematic | 96 | ||
| Figure 6.1 World population by region 2007 | 97 | ||
| The security problematic in post-colonial Africa | 100 | ||
| Figure 6.2 Deaths from conflict 1994–2006, world regions | 103 | ||
| Africa’s security problematic: the challenge ahead | 104 | ||
| Figure 6.3 Increase in proportion hungry 1990–2006, global | 105 | ||
| Table 6.1 Africa’s external debt, 1970–2006 | 109 | ||
| Conclusion | 112 | ||
| 7 | Peace-building in Africa | 113 | ||
| The concept of peace-building | 114 | ||
| Approaches to peace-building | 117 | ||
| Figure 7.1 Reconciliation: the instruments | 119 | ||
| Figure 7.2 Basis of reconciliation | 121 | ||
| Non-governmental organizations and peace-building | 122 | ||
| Peace-building and DDR | 124 | ||
| Challenges to peace-building in Africa | 125 | ||
| Prospects for peace-building in Africa | 128 | ||
| Conclusion | 130 | ||
| Part Two: Issues in peace and conflict in Africa | 131 | ||
| 8 | Understanding transitional justice in Africa | 133 | ||
| Pursuing retribution through court procedures in post-genocide Rwanda: restorative justice and reconciliation | 133 | ||
| Seeking reconciliation through commission hearings in post-apartheid South Africa | 136 | ||
| Addressing transition as a comprehensive process | 139 | ||
| Putting the possibilities of transitional justice into practice | 144 | ||
| Promoting transformational transitional justice | 147 | ||
| 9 | Democracy and democratization in Africa | 148 | ||
| Discussing democracy | 149 | ||
| Quality of governance as a benchmark for the quality of democracy | 154 | ||
| Challenges to democratization in Africa | 158 | ||
| Successes and failures in the African democratization process | 162 | ||
| Conclusion | 169 | ||
| 10 | Poverty and human security in Africa: the liberal peace debate | 171 | ||
| A synopsis of African poverty and human insecurity indicators | 172 | ||
| Table 10.1 | 173 | ||
| Poverty–human insecurity nexus | 175 | ||
| Table 10.2 | 178 | ||
| The liberal peace connection | 180 | ||
| Conclusion | 184 | ||
| 11 | Africa and globalization | 185 | ||
| Globalization | 187 | ||
| African states, globalization and development | 190 | ||
| Conclusion | 195 | ||
| 12 | Conclusion: future of peace and conflict in Africa | 197 | ||
| Notes | 201 | ||
| 1 Introduction | 201 | ||
| 2 African approaches to peace and conflict resolution | 202 | ||
| 4 The mainstreaming of conflict analysis in Africa | 202 | ||
| 6 Context of security in Africa | 205 | ||
| 7 Peace-building in Africa | 206 | ||
| 11 Africa and globalization | 207 | ||
| Bibliography | 209 | ||
| Index | 233 |