CIAO DATE: 04/05

From Warlords to Peacelords - Local Leadership Capacity in Peace Processes

Abstract

The starting point for the research upon which the report is based has been our interest in the phenomenon of political leaders in conflict and peace building. In particular, this report has considered leadership in three countries that have attracted infamy for the protracted nature of their brutal conflicts - Afghanistan, Kosovo and Sierra Leone. Each country is now considered to have emerged from conflict and to be at formal ‘peace’.

The research sought to explain something of a bitter irony that holds true of many conflicts: why many of the local political leaders who played such a central part in perpetuating conflict remain a public feature in the subsequent peace processes. How does such a transformation from ‘warlord’ to ‘peacelord’ take place? What influences can be attributed to their apparent changes of heart and willingness to engage in processes of reconciliation and renegotiated constitutional arrangements? Is it the influence of constituents or followers? Is it the influence of other local leaders? Or is the true source of pressure more exogenous in nature?

The study aimed to explore how these leaders emerge, how they are sustained and what sparked their change from a seemingly negative to a more seemingly positive style of leadership. The research showed that while leaders were adroit at dragging their countries and followers into conflict they were not so adept at pulling them out of it. The key force for change was not so much local leadership per se, but instead international leaders and their states and organisations which are ever increasingly becoming a fixed part of the transition process.

Full text (PDF format, 78 pages, 1.28 MB)