Continuity and Change in War and Conflict in Africa (original) (raw)
Related papers
2014
The collapse of the Cold War in 1991 did not usher in the eradication of global conflicts. Instead, a new pattern of conflicts emerged globally in the post-Cold War period after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Africa for example, conflicts unprecedentedly increased throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, affecting and severely impacting on several countries in the continent. This study based on data from secondary sources retrospectively examines the various post-Cold War internal, regional and internationalized conflicts in Africa. It further highlights the conflicts that have ended, those that have greatly de-escalated and some that have witnessed undue prolongation. Finally, the article extrapolates the possible reasons for the continuation of postCold War conflicts in Africa till date.
Changing Patterns of Civil War in Sub Saharan Africa
Ritsumeikan International Affairs, 2016
This article elucidates trends of civil wars in sub-Saharan Africa (thereafter ʻAfricaʼ) from the 1960s to the 2000s. For this purpose, this article uses the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset. The UCDP/PRIO dataset provides a numerical definition of ʻarmed conflict.ʼ This definition enables an objective selection of cases. From the cases selected from the UCDP/PRIO, I uncover trends of the civil wars in Africa. First, majority of civil wars in the 1990s were newly broken. Among countries that experienced civil wars in the decade, more than half countries had not been involved in civil war before (if they were, not intense), while the rest of the countries faced with continuations of armed conflicts from the 1960s. This tells that the 1990s are the decade in which more new armed conflicts broke out than other decades. Second, the civil wars in the 1990s have a precursor. Coups erupted in several countries in the 1980s. Most of the countries that experienced the coups were not involved in civil wars in the following decade. The probable reason is that the coups provided an opportunity for national reforms, while countries that experienced civil wars in the 1990s missed the chances. Third, the larger part of new civil wars in the 1990s broke out not only because of domestic factors, but also because of influence from neighboring countries. Several zones were observable, in which armed conflicts of respective countries affected each other.
Understanding contemporary conflicts in Africa: a state of affairs and current knowledge
Defense & Security Analysis, 2014
Understanding contemporary conflicts in Africa remains directly dependent on the approaches employed to decipher or interpret them. This article first examines the bias of conventional approaches (inherited from the Cold War) and then those of a series of supposedly “newer” approaches. Relying primarily on West African examples, it offers a brief overview of current knowledge, issues, and avenues for research, based on three apparent characteristics of a “new generation” of conflicts: the regionalization of wars, the privatization of violence and security, and the recourse to extreme forms of brutality. These three major trends bear witness to a rapid transformation of war and armed violence over the past 20 years, but they are not sufficient to establish a radical historical break between “old” and “new” conflicts in Africa. By concealing elements of continuity a priori, the most influential “new” approaches actually make it impossible to ponder their own limits. To that end, fashionability and struggles for influence within the Africanist field play a major role in perpetuating dominant, sensationalistic, or simplistic (and invariably incorrect) portrayals of African conflicts.
Violent Conflicts and Civil Strife in West Africa: Causes, Challenges and Prospects
Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 2014
The advent of intra-state conflicts or ‘new wars’ in West Africa has brought many of its economies to the brink of collapse, creating humanitarian casualties and concerns. For decades, countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea- Bissau were crippled by conflicts and civil strife in which violence and incessant killings were prevalent. While violent conflicts are declining in the sub-region, recent insurgencies in the Sahel region affecting the West African countries of Mali, Niger and Mauritania and low intensity conflicts surging within notably stable countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal sends alarming signals of the possible re-surfacing of internal and regional violent conflicts. These conflicts are often hinged on several factors including poverty, human rights violations, bad governance and corruption, ethnic marginalization and small arms proliferation. Although many actors including the ECOWAS, civil society and international community have been making efforts, conflicts continue to persist in the sub-region and their resolution is often protracted. This paper posits that the poor understanding of the fundamental causes of West Africa’s violent conflicts and civil strife would likely cause the sub-region to continue experiencing and suffering the brunt of these violent wars.
Examining the root causes of armed conflict in Africa
Examining the root causes of armed conflict in Africa, 2019
This study analyses the root causes of armed conflict in Africa. this study examines why there was an increase in armed conflict after the end of the Cold War.
Conflict Trends (NO.1): Real-Time Analysis of African Political Violence, April 2012
2012
ACLED is a publicly available database of political violence, which focuses on conflict in African states. Data is geo-referenced and disaggregated by type of violence and a wide variety of actors. Further information and maps, data, trends and publications can be found at www.acleddata.com or by contacting acledinfo@gmail.com. This conflict trend report from ACLED is the first of our monthly reports that focus on regional conflict trends within Africa. We concentrate our analysis on recent political violence emanating from the Sahel belt and East Africa, due to the rise in instability there. Focus countries include Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, and Somalia. A brief summary of conflict activity elsewhere on the continent is provided for Burundi, DR-Congo and Niger. Real-time data on select Sahelian and Central African cases is available for review, and will be expanded to the entire continent.