Violence in the post-conflict state
The ending of wars is often followed by continued or new forms of violence in the affected states. Such violence, whether associated with ex-combatants, organized crime, disaffected warlords, recriminating agents of the state or marginalized groups, seems widespread but poorly understood. The example of El Salvador is notorious: on average, more persons died a violent death in the first four years of peace than during the civil war itself.
This project aims to increase our theoretically informed knowledge about the causes, manifestations and scale of such violence, as well as patterns of transformation. How widespread is such post-war violence, and what forms does it take? Which conditions and strategies are likely to reduce post-war violence?
The project has three main aims:
- To establish a typological understanding of post-war violence;
- To explore "warlordism" as a constructed socio-political category, with a focus on Afghanistan and Lebanon; and
- To analyse incentive structures designed to reduce post-war violence, with a focus on Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway under its program Poverty and Peace. It is part of CMI's program on peacebuilding and entails collaboration between scholars from CMI, the London School of Economics and Political Science, King's College London and the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo.
Working paper:
Armed politics and political competition in Afghanistan
Antonio Giustozzi
