'Power-sharing' in Post-Conflict Situations: institutional prerequisites for sustainable peace

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Andreas Mehler
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2011 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 200000538

The proposed follow-up project is based on preliminary findings of the initial project. While we have found compelling evidence that post-conflict power-sharing reduces the likelihood of renewed civil conflict, we have also found that this relationship is moderated by rebel group characteristics. We have found that relatively strong rebel groups and the existence of additional rebel groups within a conflict make a civil conflict recurrence more likely. Moreover, findings from our fieldwork in Aceh (Indonesia) indicate that a proper analysis of power-sharing arrangements must take into account the developments within a rebel group. For example, the positive effect of the territorial power-sharing arrangement between the government of Indonesia and the Acehnese rebel group GAM is partly due to internal divisions within GAM. Since the end of the conflict, GAM has splintered and the ensuing competition between the former rebel group factions has replaced the centre-periphery conflict as the main political conflict in Aceh. Given these findings, we have come to the conclusion that it is imperative to analyse rebel group characteristics in greater detail; we especially need to explore which parts of a rebel group benefit from what kind of a power-sharing arrangement and how this affects post-conflict peace. Such research will provide more detailed answers to the question of the inclusiveness of post-conflict power-sharing that was raised in the original project application. We therefore want to further elaborate on the range of actors that should be incorporated in a power-sharing agreement to secure durable post-conflict peace. Specifically, we want to go a step beyond the original project application and take the dynamic organizational setting of rebel groups in a post-conflict situation into account. We thus ask the following: How does rebel fragmentation moderate the impact of power-sharing institutions on durable post-conflict peace?Against this background, the proposed follow-up project builds on recent research on fragmentation in rebel groups. The project team intends to theoretically model the relationship between rebel groups and post-conflict peace. To this end, the researchers also plan to code new variables on fragmentation of rebel groups. The methodological focus will be quantitative, but it is intended to integrate the insights from the case studies of the current project.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants