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UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 33 (Octubre / October 2013) ISSN 1696-2206allows for a subjective and short term evaluation of the performance limited to the creation ofthe institutions provided for in the agreement i.e. the Weberian State, despite theireffectiveness. 25Quantitative research carried out at the beginning of this century revealed the weaknessof the liberal peacebuilding approach. Research conducted with a longer timeframe showedthat while there has been a decline in conflicts since the Cold War, the manifestation of armedconflicts in 2006 was still roughly twice as it was in 1946. 26 The wave of positivism wasfurthermore tempered by the realization of the fact that conflicts that terminate with anegotiated settlement are generally more prone to failure. A study on peace agreements signedbetween 1989 and 2005 reveals that 40% of conflicts ended through a negotiated settlementrestored to violence within five years. More so, within the range of peace agreements theliberal type is more failing. 27The literature of conflict resolution started acknowledging that the determination ofsuccess of an agreement is often short-termed and focuses on the technical implementation ofprovisions rather than the internal social dynamics (security reform, market liberalization andelectoralism i.e. a timely conduction, the formation of ad hoc institutions regardless of theirfunctioning). 28 The de-politicization of ‘peace’ and ‘conflict’ under liberal assumptionsallows for the reproduction of universal and technical solutions, disregarding local powerrelations, politics and history – reproducing what Adorno called the ‘administrated state’ in avacuum – hence missing the goal of sustainable peace and democracy. 29 Heathershaw showsthat the peace sought for in liberal peacebuilding is no longer a social event but the result ofconflict practices and therefore is not sustainable. 30Evidence coming from Africa corroborates those finding; the number of conflicts in thecontinent increased since the 1990 and conflicts mainly emerged from a failed resolution ofthe previous ones. 31 Peace agreements in fact tend to freeze local dynamics to force socialconflict into those patterns that are easily understood through liberal codes; instead as mostAfrican states are trapped in a circle of underdevelopment which stimulates societal conflicts,studied by Sisk, T. and Paris, R (eds.) (2009): The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions ofPostwar Peace Operations, London/New York, Routledge. See also Chandler, D.: “The Responsibility toProtect? Imposing the ‘Liberal Peace’”, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring 2004), pp. 59-81.25 De Alessi, op.cit. Kriger, N. (2003): Guerrilla Veterans in Post-war Zimbabwe, Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press, studied the long-term disastrous effects of the Lancaster agreement in Zimbabwe, at firstconsidered successful, when the veterans’ war emerged a decade later. Cramer, C. (2006): Civil War is not aStupid Thing: Accounting for violence in developing countries, London, Hurst & Co, questioned the idea ofsuccess of Mozambique agreement of 1992 based on recent development of the local economy. Reilly, C. A.(2009): Peace-Building and Development in Guatemala and Northern Ireland, New York, Palgrave Macmillan,emphasized the weakness of the temporary dimension of peacebuilding.26 The UCDP/PRIO data base is available at http://www.prio.no/CSCW/Datasets/Armed-Conflict/UCDP-PRIO/;the changes in the last annual update are in Harbom, L. and Wallensteen P.: “Armed Conflict, 1946 - 2010”,Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 48, No. 4 (July 2011), pp. 525-536.27 Harbom, L. and Wallensteen P.: “Armed Conflict, 1989 – 2006”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 44, No 5(September 2007), pp. 623-634.28 On the limits of DDR see Berdal, M. (1996): Disarmament and demobilization after civil wars: Arms,soldiers, and the termination of conflict, Adelphi paper no. 303, Oxford, Oxford University Press.29 The point is elaborated by Darby, J. and Mac Ginty, R. (eds.) (2003): Contemporary Peacemaking: Conflict,Violence and Peace Processes, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.30 Heathershaw, J.: “Unpacking the Liberal Peace: The Dividing and Merging of Peacebuilding Discourses”,Journal of International Studies, Vol. 36, No. 3 (May 2008), pp.597-621.31 De Waal, A. (ed.) (2002): Demilitarizing the mind. African agendas for peace and security, Justice Africa,Africa World Press.90
UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 33 (Octubre / October 2013) ISSN 1696-2206the liberal agenda confronts ‘massive challenges to its successful realization’. 32 Externalattempts to export replicas of Western liberal democratic states can repress popularaccountability thus state legitimacy in the eyes of their citizens with the adverse effect ofundermining sustainability of peace and the democracy sought for. 33The case of Sudan’s CPA proves the findings of recent scholarship on the flawless ofliberal peacebuilding applied to the African context. The CPA was a complex agreementbased on the predicaments of liberal democracy that were de-contextualized from the situationin Sudan after two decades of civil war. The CPA failed to address the issue of uneven powerand wealth sharing in the country, while urging the Parties to deliver democracy through theconduction of General Elections in the mid interim period (the NCP and the SPLM did notwant Elections but were convinced by the mediators). The full CPA implementation, for thedemocratic transition of Sudan, was based on the commitment of the NCP and the SPLM thatat the time of signing the Agreement were not national democratic political parties. Thesignatories of the CPA used the Agreement to their interest: the deal is in fact fore andforemost a bilateral deal between the ruling party and the SPLM/A to ensure peace betweenthe north and south Sudan and the development of the two regions based on the oil economy.It came in fact in a moment in time when the Parties had reached what Zartman defined ‘ahurting stalemate’ and neither could defeat the enemy militarily. Given the little commitmentof both Parties to the transformative idea enshrined in the Agreement, more so after the deathof the SPLM/A Chairman, John Garang, its implementation became a technical and selectivematter conducive to the realization of the Referendum for the self-determination of theSouthern Sudanese, at the expenses of the democratization of the country. Peace anddemocracy became dichotomist ideals, contravening the liberal peacebuilding theory.5. ConclusionThe conflict in the Two Areas emerged in the aftermath of the Referendum for selfdeterminationthat led to the separation of South Sudan from Sudan, shows that a result of theCPA neither peace nor democracy were reached in Sudan (and also in South Sudan andbetween the two countries but that was not analyzed in this article). The conflict in the TwoAreas was triggered on June 2011 by security matters unresolved by the CPA but it has itsroots in the Sudan’s history of socio-economic imbalances of the peripheries originated fromthe time before the independence of the largest African country, and that the peace deal couldnot correct. After the transitional period, the military regime in Khartoum was reinforced andthe marginalized peripheries that had not gained from the CPA, resurrected the use of armsagainst marginalization, pushed by the same reasons that had triggered the first and secondcivil war in Sudan.32 Luckham, R. (2004) quoted in Taylor, I.: “What Fit for the Liberal Peace in Africa?”, Global Society, Vol. 21,No. 4 (October 2007), pp. 553-66, p. 559.33 Francis, D. J.(ed.) (2008): Peace and Conflict in Africa, London, Zed Books, pp. 12-16.91
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Juan Emilio CheyreDirector, Center
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