Andreas Mehler
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
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Featured researches published by Andreas Mehler.
Archive | 2008
Andreas Mehler; Ulf Engel; Lena Giesbert; Jenny Kuhlmann; Christian von Soest
The concept of “structural stability” has been gaining prominence in development policy circles. In the EU’s and the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s (OECD DAC) understanding, it describes the ability of societies to handle intra-societal conflict without resorting to violence. This study investigates the preconditions of structural stability and tests their mutual interconnections. Seven dimensions are analyzed: (1) long-term economic growth, (2) environmental security, (3) social equality, (4) governmental effectiveness, (5) democracy, (6) rule of law, and (7) inclusion of identity groups. The postulated mutual enhancement of the seven dimensions is plausible but cannot be proven. The most significant positive relationship appears between “democracy” and “rule of law,” respectively, on the one hand and the dependent variable “violence/ human security” on the other hand. This points to the usefulness of the political concept of structural stability to promote development policy agendas in this area at least. Applications that reach beyond these initial findings will, however, require further research.
Armed Forces & Society | 2012
Andreas Mehler
Little attention has been paid to the factual contribution of the state’s security forces to the physical security of African citizens. Reports about security forces adding to a widespread insecurity are frequent: the protectors become violators, and their appearance causes fear, not security. In many African crisis countries the realization of better security forces appears to be an elusive goal, either because violent conflicts are not definitively settled and therefore do not allow for decent reform or because a lack of capacity as a result of material constraints is not easy to remedy. Above all, the political will of governments to reform their security forces, including their composition and structure, is often limited. This contribution compares the security provision by official forces in Liberia and the Central African Republic, two extreme cases of strong and weak international involvement, respectively, in postconflict security-sector reform. Blueprint models for such reforms that do not take into account local expectations and experiences are bound to fail.
Archive | 2009
Andreas Mehler
Little attention has been paid to the factual effect of the state’s security forces on the security of African citizens. Reports about security forces’ contribution to widespread insecurity are frequent: the protectors become violators and their appearance causes fear, not security. In many African crisis countries the realization of better security forces appears to be an elusive goal, either because violent conflicts are not definitively settled and therefore do not allow for decent reform or because a lack of capacity as a result of material constraints is not easy to remedy. The self-help mechanisms used to compensate for the lack of state-sponsored security need more attention. However, it has to be acknowledged that the ideal of a neutral and effective force loyal to the state is shared by a great majority of the population. This contribution compares the experiences of Liberia and the Central African Republic, two extreme cases of strong and weak international involvement, respectively, in post-conflict security-sector reform.
Economic History | 2005
Andreas Mehler
Current thinking on African conflicts suffers from misinterpretations (oversimplification, lack of focus, lack of conceptual clarity, state-centrism and lack of vision). The paper analyses a variety of the dominant explanations of major international actors and donors, showing how these frequently do not distinguish with sufficient clarity between the ‘root causes’ of a conflict, its aggravating factors and its triggers. Specifically, a correct assessment of conflict prolonging (or sustaining) factors is of vital importance in Africa’s lingering confrontations. Broader approaches (e.g. “structural stability”) offer a better analytical framework than familiar one-dimensional explanations. Moreover, for explaining and dealing with violent conflicts a shift of attention from the nation-state towards the local and sub-regional level is needed.
Archive | 2009
Andreas Mehler
This paper analyzes the declining importance of political parties in the Central African Republic (CAR). It argues that the problematic attitude of elites who are fluctuating between violent and peaceful behavior in order to further their own careers is jeopardizing both peace and democracy. The author hypothesizes that both political parties and rebel movements are failing to adequately represent (ethnoregional) interests, but that parties are suffering more in the course of the enduring war and the peace process. Patterns of elite behavior are presented as the main explanation for the resulting crisis of representation, with international actors’ preference for inclusionary power-sharing deals seen as the main aggravating factor.
African Security | 2012
Andreas Mehler
ABSTRACT In its resolution 1975 (2011), the United Nations security council opened the way for the provision of decisive support to the forces close to Alassane Ouattara to win the Ivorian power struggle. The deployed peacekeepers had a mandate “to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence.” A second reason frequently given was the necessary enforcement of the popular will expressed during the presidential elections in 2010. Ever since a low-intensity civil war broke out in September 2002, the different military engagements by various international players were justified by (1) protection concerns and/or (2) the preservation of democratic achievements. In the end, the justification of intervention by the “protection of civilians” argument received a larger consensus than the democratic norm. This article compares changing justifications for intervention with real achievements.
Ethnopolitics | 2014
Andreas Mehler
Abstract This study argues that Philip Roeders ‘segmental-institutions thesis’ does not provide a compelling explanation for the development of a separatist movement among the Anglophone community in West Cameroon. West Cameroon is not a case where the creation of a segment state had brought about secessionist aspirations. Instead, it was the abolishment of federalism that had the long-term effect of fostering secessionism when oil was detected and a political crisis later unfolded in the course of a flawed democratization process. This case suggests that more complicated dynamics are associated with both the institutionalization and abolishment of segment states than is proposed in Roeders original thesis.
Journal of Modern African Studies | 2013
Claudia Simons; Franzisca Zanker; Andreas Mehler; Denis M. Tull
Research on power-sharing in Africa remains silent on the effects of national peace agreements on the sub-national level. Conversely, most armed conflicts originate and are fought in (or over) specific areas. A plausible hypothesis would be that for power-sharing to have the desired pacifying effect throughout the national territory, it needs to be extended to the local level. Based on fieldwork in six former hotspots in Liberia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) we find that there is hardly any local content, including local power-sharing, in national agreements. However, contrary to our hypothesis, neither local content (inclusion of actors or interest) nor local-power-sharing (either introducing a local power balance or monopoly) are indispensable to effectively bring about local peace, at least in the short-term. On the contrary, it might even endanger the peace process. The importance of the sub-national level is overestimated in some cases and romanticised in others. However, the history of spatial-political links, centralised policies, and the establishment of local balances or monopolies of power ultimately play an important role.
Civil Wars | 2013
Andreas Mehler
Why have some countries adopted consociational constitutions after civil wars, while others have not? This contribution analyses the advent of constitutional provisions and their rationale in the five deeply divided societies that adopted the most ‘radical’ constitutional reforms in 2001–10 (Burundi, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nepal and Sudan). In places where norm-diffusing external actors played a major role in ending an intra-state war, constitutional change was particularly profound. It appears that strong outside mediators have followed a blueprint approach to constitutional engineering in post-war societies with power sharing as a guiding principle, more often than not of the consociational type. There is reason to believe that the strong outside involvement in turn depends on a relative weak bargaining position of sitting governments.
Civil Wars | 2013
Sabine Kurtenbach; Andreas Mehler
What are the effects of particular institutional arrangements on sustainable peace? And do specific characteristics of peace processes affect institutional choices? Both questions have been of equal importance for the ‘Institutions for Sustainable Peace’ network ever since it started towork (in 2011). The debate on the role of institutions for the participation and inclusion of different sectors of society has been at the core of the study of democratisation processes. In peace and conflict studies, institutional engineering is discussed as an option to prevent conflicts either from escalating into armed encounters or from recurring after a war has been terminated. As the current international approach topeace-building relies on the promotionofdemocratisation and statebuilding, the question which designs of formal state institutions might help to mitigate conflicts in the future is relevant not only academically, but is of utmost importance also in policy circles. Policymakers across the globe stick to the idea that negotiatedwar settlements can lead tomore inclusive,more democratic and less violent societies. International proposals to end the Syrian war have mostly opted for some form of power-sharing and inclusion of hitherto excluded or marginalised groups. However, the balance sheet of such efforts remains mixed and the academic debate is inconclusive as to what works and what does not. Regarding the prevention of violent ethno-political conflict, a recent quantitative study by Andreas Wimmer finds no relationship between different features of institutional designs and ethnic conflict. In practice, examples of successful institutional engineering are rare while failures abound. Two main challenges arise when dealing with questions of the effect of institutional designs on the prospects of peace: first, scholars typically focus on one type of institution instead of engaging in integrative analyses of the interaction of the whole set of institutions, and there is little exchange between specialists on various institutions and their impact. Second, there has been little effort to identify how specific contexts such as the respective character of divisions or the traumatic experience of violence condition the prospect of successful institutional engineering. The Institutions for Sustainable Peace (ISP) network was thus established to enhance knowledge on the reasons for success or failure of institutional designs in highly divided societies. The main idea of the ISP network is to bring the debate forward by focussing on