The Nordic Africa Institute

PROJECT

Warlord Democrats in Africa

Started • 01 January 2014
Ended • 01 December 2019

Democratization has been identified as a crucial mechanism when building peace after war. A by-product of such processes is that ex-military leaders often ‘reinvent’ themselves as democrats. Even if it may be necessary to embrace such ‘warlord democrats’ (WDs) to prevent them from returning to war, there are also considerable risks involved. In their quest for votes it is not uncommon that they use their electoral platforms to incite fear and cement wartime cleavages. They can either do this by using inflammatory rhetoric or engaging in confrontational electoral behavior. At worst, such actions can undermine democratic institutions and trigger new outbursts of violence.

To improve efforts to build stable and accountable democracy in post-civil war societies, it is therefore crucial to understand when and why WDs seek to (re)securitize wartime identities – held as speech acts and electoral practices that aim to keep war-affected communities polarized and in fear of each other.

This project seeks to address this puzzle by comparing six WDs in Liberia and Sierra Leone. We hypothesize that it is WDs that are unable to retain their position as brokers of patronage during transitions to democracy that attempt to (re)securitize wartime identities. To scrutinize the explanatory value of this proposition, empirical data will be gathered using social network analysis and interviews in each respective country, as well as textual analysis of statements made by the WDs in local newspapers.

Main financial support: Swedish Research Council - Uforsk.

Sjöstedt, Roxanna, Mimmi Söderberg-Kovacs, and Anders Themnér (forthcoming), “Demagogues of Hate or Shepherds of Peace? Examining the Threat Construction Processes of Warlord Democrats in Sierra Leone and Liberia,” Journal of International Relations and Development.

Söderberg Kovacs, Mimmi, and Ibrahim Bangura (2017), ” Shape Shifters in the Struggle for Survival: Post-War Politics in Sierra Leone”, in Anders Themnér (ed.), Warlord Democrats in Africa: Ex-Military Leaders and Electoral Politics. London: Zed Books.

Themnér, Anders (ed.) (2017), Warlord Democrats in Africa: Ex-Military Leaders and Electoral Politics, London: Zed Publishing.

Themnér, Anders (2017), "Warlord Democrats in Africa: Wartime Investments, Democratic Returns", in Anders Themnér (ed.), Warlord Democrats in Africa: Ex-Military Leaders and Electoral Politics, London: Zed Publishing.

Themnér, Anders (2017), "Ambiguous Peacelords: The Diminishing Returns of Democracy", in Anders Themnér (ed.), Warlord Democrats in Africa: Ex-Military Leaders and Electoral Politics. London: Zed Publishing.

Themnér, Anders and Carrie Manning (2017), "Discourses of Peace and Fear: The Electoral Navigations of Sekouh Conneh and Prince Johnson in Post-War Liberia", in Anders Themnér (ed.), Warlord Democrats in Africa: Ex-Military Leaders and Electoral Politics. London: Zed Publishing.