scott gates and kaare strøm
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Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
Centre for the Study of Civil War
Scott Gates and Kaare Strøm
Fragile Bargains:Civil Conflict and
Power-sharing in Africa
Scott Gates Center for the Study of Civil War, PRIO and
Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU)
and Kaare Strøm
University of California, San Diego andCenter for the Study of Civil War, PRIO
Fragile Bargains:Civil Conflict and Power-
sharing in Africa
The Challenge of Postconflict Institutional Design
• Good Governance & Sustainable Civil Peace
Good governance – effective and fair provision of public goods and services
Credible commitments to uphold conflict resolution agreements
Power Sharing as a Postconflict Institutional Solution
• Involve all potential spoilers in government decision-making
• Give all parties a stake in cooperation and provide mutual guarantees of security and basic interests
• Reduces the threat of conflict
The Logic of Power Sharing
• Focus on ex post certainty and fairness–Fair division of the political pie –Counters perceptions of bias and
exclusion–Entice warring parties to cease
fighting
Is Power-sharing Democratic?
• Przeworski’s (1991) conception of democracy:• ex ante uncertainty and • ex ante openness of democratic
contestation• Strøm (1992) adds• procedural performance sensitivity
• Ex post guarantees run counter to all three characteristics of democracy
Essence of Power-sharing
• Ex post fairness over• Ex ante uncertainty and • Procedural Performance
Sensitivity
• Importance of fairness in post-conflict environments
Expanding the Notion of Power Sharing
• Inclusive Power sharing – mandate inclusion
• Dispersed Power sharing – mandate constraints
Inclusive Power-sharing Arrangements
• Grand (cabinet) coalitions• Inclusive executive or advisory councils, such
as electoral commissions• Mutual veto arrangements• Proportional or broadly inclusive rules for civil
service and other administrative appointments• Reserved executive offices for particular parties
or social groups• Proportional representation (PR) electoral
systems, especially closed-list
Dispersed Power-sharing Arrangements
• Autonomous sub-national levels of government
• Independent institutions that ban partisan representation (e.g. Judicial appointments)
• Non-partisan electoral commissions• Restrict civil servants from membership
in political parties• Separation of religious communities and
the state• Electoral systems featuring primary
elections, personal preference votes, or transferable votes
Problems with Power Sharing• Spoilers• Rigidity• Transaction costs• Inclusion squeezes out civil society
Power-sharing and Ex Post Fairness
Spoiler Problems
•Military leaders – credible outside option
•Splinter groups• Incumbents unwilling to leave office
Problems with Dispersed Power Sharing
• Implementation–Trust issues–Weak civil society
–need to work to foster and develop indigenous NGOs
Power-sharing in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Problems of patrimonial societies
• Perceptions of procedural bias and exclusion
• Role of civil society
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