Post-war Regimes and State Reconstruction in Liberia and Sierra L

Authors

Amadu Sesay
Charles Ukeje
Osman Gbla
Olawale Ismail
DOI: https://doi.org/10.57054/codesria.pub.136

Synopsis

The shocks of the unexpected outbreak of violent internal armed conflicts in post Cold War West Africa continue to linger in policy and academic circles. While considerable attention is devoted to explaining the civil wars, there is little understanding of the delicate and unpredictable processes of reconstruction. Post-war reconstruction programmes in Africa have become, by and large, externally driven processes; and while externalization may not be negative per se, it is important to interrogate how such intervention recognizes and interacts with local dynamics, and how it manipulates and conditions the outcomes of post-conflict reconstruction agenda. Investigating the interface between power elite, the nature of post-war regimes and the pattern which post-war reconstruction takes is important both for theory and practice.

This original study, by some of West Africa’s leading scholars, interrogates post-war reconstruction processes in the twin West African countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone, focusing on the effects of regime types on the nature, scope, success or failure of their post-war reconstruction efforts.

Political scientists, diplomats, the international community, donor and humanitarian agencies, advocacy groups, the United Nations and its agencies, would find it an important resource in dealing with countries emerging from protracted violence and civil war.

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Author Biographies

Amadu Sesay

Professor of International Relations at the Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, attended the London School of Economics and
Political Science. He was Director of the CODESRIA Child and Youth Institute
in 2003; Claude Ake Visiting Professor, Department of Peace and Conflict
Research, University of Uppsala, 2005; and Visiting Professor, Centre d’Etudes
Afrique Noire, Bordeaux, October-November 2006. Professor Sesay headed
the Department of International Relations, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-
Ife, Nigeria, from July 2000 to August 2006. His research interests include African
politics, security and conflict studies and he has authored several books,
monographs, book chapters and journal articles in these areas. His most recent
publications are: Small Arms and Light Weapons Proliferation and Collection in the
Niger Delta, Nigeria (2006), edited with Antonia Simbine, and Does One Size Fit
All? The Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission Revisited (Nordic Africa
Institute 2007).

Charles Ukeje

is a Reader in International Relations at Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He won the Mary Kingsley Zochonis Lecture Award
of the Royal African Society in 2004 and, the following year, was the Leventis
Cooperation Visiting Research Scholar at the Centre for African Studies, SOAS,
UK. He was on sabattical, from September 2007, as Lecturer in African Politics
and Development at the Department of International Development, Queen
Elizabeth House, University of Oxford. His most recent major work is a coedited
book titled The Crisis of the State and Regionalism in West Africa: Identity,
Citizenship and Conflict (CODESRIA 2005).

Osman Gbla

holds a doctorate from Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra
Leone, where he also served as Head of the Department of Political Science
and Acting Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law. He is also the
founder of the Centre for Development and Security Analysis (CEDSA) in
Freetown, Sierra Leone. Dr Gbla was one of the lead consultants that prepared
the Sierra Leone Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) and the Sierra Leone
Vision 2025. His research interests include conflict and post-conflict peace
building, governance, regional security and security sector reform, focusing
prelim.pmd especially on West Africa. He has published extensively in these areas and is a
member of many research networks, including the Nordic Africa Institute
Programme on Post-Conflict Transitions in Africa, and the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) project on Military Expenditures.

Olawale Ismail

Studies at the University of Bradford, UK, after receiving a Masters degree in International
Relations from Cambridge University (2001) and a Bachelors degree from Obafemi Awolowo University,
Ile-Ife, Nigeria (1999). He is cur- rently a Research Associate of the Project on Youth
Vulnerability and Exclusion in Africa with the Conflict, Security and Development Group,
International Policy Institute at King’s College, London. Dr. Ismail’s research interests and
expertise include DDR and post-war reconstruction, security sector reform, youth and child
soldiers, political violence and terrorism, conflict and security
analysis, and military expenditure.

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November 7, 2009

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Copyright (c) 2009 CODESRIA Books Publication System

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