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32. Police Reform in Post Conflict Societies: What We Know and What We Still Need to Know
- Author:
- William G. O'Neill
- Publication Date:
- 04-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- Police reform is one of the most important and complex challenges in any environment. It is particularly challenging, however, in post-conflict situations where the police have often perpetrated serious human rights violations. Often cut off from the populations they are meant to serve and protect, many operate more like military contingents than public security officers. Transforming such police forces into rights-respecting police services that simultaneously provide protection and fight crime has challenged local and international reformers.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Security, Development, and United Nations
33. Beyond Greed and Grievance: Policy Lessons from Studies in the Political Economy of Armed Conflict
- Author:
- Heiko Nitzschke and Karen Ballentine
- Publication Date:
- 05-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- This policy report provides a synopsis of the key findings from case studies on the political economy of armed intra-state conflicts, commissioned by the International Peace Academy's program on Economic Agendas in Civil wars (EAC W ). These findings offer lessons for improved policies for conflict prevention and resolution. Combatants' incentives for self-enrichment and/ or opportunities for insurgent mobilization created by access to natural and financial resources were neither the primary nor sole cause of the separatist and non-separatist conflicts analyzed. Nevertheless, extensive combatant self-financing complicated and prolonged hostilities, in some cases creating serious impediments to their resolu-tion. In all cases, however, these factors interacted to varying degrees with long-standing socio-economic and political grievances, inter-ethnic disputes, and security dilemmas brought about by weak and unaccountable systems of governance. Conflict analysis should avoid "resource reductionist" models in favor of comprehensive approaches that not only account for the complex interrelationship between economic and political dynamics, but also incorporate the political economy of both rebellion and state failure. Improved understanding is required of the role that combatant access to resources can play in shaping a permissive opportunity structure for separatist and non-separatist conflicts relative to other socio-political factors. Different resource endowments affect different sorts of conflicts and benefit combatant parties in distinct ways, depending, inter alia, on the mode of exploitation and how proceeds are managed by the state. "Lootable" resources, such as alluvial diamonds and illegal narcotics are more likely to be implicated in non-separatist insurgencies. They prolong conflict by benefiting rebels and conflict-dependent civilians, compromising battle disci-pline, and by multiplying the number of peace spoilers. "Unlootable" resources, such as oil, gas, and deep-shaft mineral deposits tend to be associ-ated with separatist conflicts, which are often caused by ethno-political grievances over inequitable resource revenue-sharing and exclusionary government policies. Given the importance of lootable natural resources and easily captured diaspora remittances in sustaining many of today's armed conflicts, improved international regulatory efforts to curtail these resource flows are both warranted and necessary. Commodity control regimes need to be strengthened and also complemented by more comprehensive efforts that address the financial flows connected with those resources. However, even the most robust resource control regimes are unlikely to have a decisive or even fully positive impact. Where conflicts are motivated by a mix of political, security, ethnic, and economic factors, curtailing resource flows to combatants may weaken their military capacity but not their resolve to continue fighting. In addition, regulatory regimes may have adverse humanitarian effects by increasing civilian predation by rebels or by stifling civilian incomes. When designing and implementing regulatory regimes, policy-makers need to distinguish between those who exploit armed conflict for profit and power and those who participate in war economies to sustain their civilian livelihoods. The offer of "economic peace dividends" may co-opt belligerents into ceasefires or more formal peace processes. Critically, however, economic inducements are unlikely to achieve these results in the absence of a credible military threat and may risk the creation of "negative peace," where justice and sustainability are deeply compromised and the threat of renewed conflict remains high. Policy-makers need to identify and adequately integrate economic incentives of combatants into a wider set of political and strategic inducements for conflict resolution and peace-building. Today's insurgents increasingly engage in illegal economic activities either directly or through links with international criminal networks. However, insurgency groups have not equivocally transformed into mere criminal organizations as they retain- albeit to varying degrees- military and political goals. While improved interdiction and law enforcement are important policy tools, casting rebellion as a criminal rather than a political phenomenon may risk mischaracterizing legitimate grievances, thereby foreclosing opportu-nities for negotiated resolution, and may lend de facto legitimacy to state actors, regardless of their behavior and role in the conflict. Poor economic governance and state weakness are the critical mediating factors between resource abundance and vulnerability to armed conflict; the first engenders popular grievances, the second makes separatist and non-separatist insurgencies politically and militarily feasible. Policy responses need to focus on structural conflict prevention efforts by, inter alia, designing and supporting tools and strategies for more effective, equitable, and accountable systems of resource management, complemented by longer-term strategies of economic diversifica-tion and poverty reduction. Contemporary intra-state conflicts have strong regional and even global linkages. By increasing the number of potential war profiteers and peace-spoilers and multiplying the points of conflict, these broader dimensions not only affect the character and duration of hostilities, but also complicate the prospects for conflict resolution and post-conflict stability. Both conflict analysis and policymaking need to address these regional dimensions by strengthening the economic management capacities of formal regional organi-zations and ad hoc alliances, complementing- and thus strengthening- national and global conflict management strategies.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, and Political Economy
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