Marina Ottaway

Promoting Democracy after Conflict: The Difficult Choices

This article examines the democratic reconstruction model advocated by western countries for postconflict societies. It finds that the model has not been implemented successfully, in part because of a lack of international political will and financial resources, in part because the model has grown too complex. As the international community learned from successive experiences with postconflict reconstruction, the model grew in sophistication and complexity. While this is good in theory, in practice it widens the gap between the ideal and what can actually be accomplished with limited international resources and weak local governments. Even in Bosnia, where international commitment has been large, this maximalist approach to state reconstruction has met with only limited success. The international community must rethink its approach to postconflict reconstruction and scale it down to something that can realistically be achieved.

Chan Stephen and Venâncio Moisés, with contributions from Alden Chris and Barnes Sam. War and Peace in Mozambique . New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. xvii + 207 pp. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index.

Preface List of Abbreviations Introduction War and Gropings Towards Peace M. Ven?io and S. Chan Interview with Matteo Zuppi, Community of Santo Egidio R. Chartroux Roman Talks M. Ven?io and S. Chan The United Nations, Elections, and the Resolution of Conflict in Mozambique C. Alden Can Peacekeeping Be Said to Have Worked in Mozambique? (Bye Bye Onumoz) M. Ven?io Humanitarian Assistance as a Factor in the Mozambican Peace Negotiation: 1990-1992 S. Barnes Towards a Future M. Ven?io and S. Chan General Peace Agreement for Mozambique Results of the Mozambican Elections Mozambiques Post Election Government Select Bibliography Index

65.00. Cloth.

The un-banning of the African National Congress and the release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990 cleared the way for negotiations from which a new post-apartheid political order could emerge. But three years later, the main parties have made little progress towards a compromise, while violence has escalated in the townships. Marina Ottaway explains that the transition is likely to take an unprecendented form, influenced not only by internal forces, but also by the international climate of the 1990s - which, she contends, rejects apartheid but is unsympathetic to black demands for redistribution, and which has condemned the white governments vision of separate development but also accepts ethnic nationalism as inevitable. Ottaway also shows how South Africa stands at the confluence of a number of internal and extenal currents working against each other. The black-on-white conflict that has made the country a pariah in the past has evolved into a much more complex state of affairs.