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  • article

    1 July 2021 / Maryam Rokhideh

    Leveraging the Peacebuilding Potential of Cross-border Trader Networks in Sub-Saharan Africa
    Cross-border trade plays a prominent role in economic, social, and political life in Sub-Saharan Africa, contributing significantly to development, poverty reduction, and job creation. Across the continent, cross-border trade accounts for 43 percent of the entire population’s income. As actors embedded in licit and illicit networks at local and regional levels, cross-border traders have the potential to fuel conflict or mitigate it. They can act as spoilers, supporting armed groups and war economies, or as peace intermediaries, negotiating peace deals and bridging conflict divides across communities. Given that most armed conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa are shaped by cross-border dynamics, cross-border traders present an underexamined yet critical point of entry for analyzing and addressing conflicts and should be included in new and ongoing peacebuilding programming. This policy note provides recommendations on how policymakers can leverage the untapped peacebuilding potential of cross-border traders and decrease their spoiling power.   Suggested citation: Rokhideh, Maryam. Leveraging the Peacebuilding Potential of Cross-border Trader Networks in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2021. https://doi.org/10.37805/pn2021.17.lpbi.
  • article

    15 June 2021 / Michael Niconchuk

    Whose Vulnerability? Trauma Recovery in the Reintegration of Former Violent Extremists
    Violent extremism has a trauma problem. Psychological trauma plays a role in the genesis, perpetration, and resolution of violent extremism. Despite evidence attesting to the positive effects of trauma-informed rehabilitation programs and trauma recovery support for armed combatants and criminal offenders, there has been limited donor interest or coordinated policy effort to meaningfully integrate trauma recovery into the design of rehabilitation and reintegration of violent extremists specifically. Research in global mental health confirms trauma is not only relevant to the emergence of violent extremism but is also a consequence of participation in violent extremism. While there is a general dearth of data on the psychobiological markers of trauma among extremist populations specifically, the limited data we have from child recruits, as well as from other conflict-affected populations calls for a more prominent role of psychological rehabilitation and trauma recovery in the reintegration of violent extremists.   Suggested citation: Niconchuk, Michael. Whose Vulnerability? Trauma Recovery in the Reintegration of Former Violent Extremists. Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2021. https://doi.org/10.37805/pn2021.16.vedr.
  • article

    2 June 2021 / MaryAnne Iwara

    Hybrid Peacebuilding Approaches in Africa: Harnessing Complementary Parallels
    Many of the most pressing conflicts across sub-Saharan Africa today—including violent extremism, sexual and gender-based violence, pastoralist/farmer conflicts, and criminal banditry—are shaped by local, community-level drivers. Despite these local drivers, however, international peacebuilding approaches often ignore or neglect bottom-up, grassroots strategies for addressing them. Often, international efforts that contribute to the prevention and management of local conflicts depend heavily on large-scale, expensive, and external interventions like peacekeepers, while under-investing in or bypassing traditional/customary mechanisms and resources that uphold locally defined values of peace, tolerance, solidarity, and respect. Recognizing that these traditional and customary practices themselves sometimes have their own legacies of violence and inequality, this policy note emphasizes the possibility of combining aspects of traditional peacebuilding mechanisms with international conflict management approaches to harness the benefits of both.   Suggested citation: Iwara, MaryAnne. Hybrid Peacebuilding Approaches in Africa: Harnessing Complementary Parallels. Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2021. https://doi.org/10.37805/pn2020.15.lpbi.
  • article

    16 April 2021 / J.M. Berger

    A Paler Shade of White: Identity & In-group Critique in James Mason’s Siege
    Discussions of extremist ideologies naturally focus on how in-groups criticize and attack out-groups. But many important extremist ideological texts are disproportionately focused on criticizing their own in-group. This research report will use linkage-based analysis to examine Siege, a White nationalist tract that has played an important role in shaping modern neo-Nazi movements, including such violent organizations as Atomwaffen Division and The Base. While Siege strongly attacks out-groups, including Jewish and Black people, the book is overwhelmingly a critique of how the White people of its in-group fall short of Nazi ideals. Siege’s central proposition—that the White in-group is disappointing, deeply corrupt, and complacent—shapes its argument for an “accelerationist” strategy to hasten the collapse of society in order to build something entirely new. Finally, this report briefly reviews comparable extremist texts from other movements to draw insights about how in-group critiques shape extremist strategies. These insights offer policymakers and law enforcement tools to anticipate and counter violent extremist strategies. They also highlight less-obvious avenues for potential counter-extremist interventions and messaging campaigns.   Suggested citation: Berger, J.M. A Paler Shade of White: Identity & In-group Critique in James Mason’s Siege. Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2021. https://doi.org/10.37805/remve2021.1.
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  • Research Report
    Dr. Rahmane Idrissa & Bethany McGann
    |
    21 April 2021
    Mistrust and Imbalance: The Collapse of Intercommunal Relations and the Rise of ...
    The border area of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso is a site of endemic violence. The area is punctuated by anti-state attacks, the targeted killing of traditional chiefs, and attacks on markets and other socioeconomic convening locales that otherwise serve as central mechanisms for the preservation of normalized intercommunal interactions. In addition, foreign military interventions and asymmetric insurgent warfare pits multiple state and non-state actors equipped with heavy weaponry against one another, adding another level of insecurity and threat to local communities. Community-based armed groups (CBAGs) of Fulani and Tuareg ethnicity have aligned themselves with outside actors carrying out operations in the region out of choice, coercion, or in some cases both. Building on other research reports in RESOLVE’s Community-Based Armed Groups Series, this report explores local perceptions regarding the nature and impact of the violence in southwestern Niger. The report provides a summary of understanding of ongoing conflict dynamics from the most impacted communities and an insight on the knowledge and attitudes around actors participating in the violence. It hopes to inform efforts to bring an end to the violence and increase understanding of participating actors.   Suggested citation: Idrissa, Rahmane, and Bethany McGann. Mistrust and Imbalance: The Collapse of Intercommunal Relations and the Rise of Armed Community Mobilization on the Niger-Mali Border. Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2021. https://doi.org/10.37805/cbags2021.2.
              
  • Research Report
    Mary Beth Altier
    |
    22 March 2021
    Violent Extremist Disengagement and Reintegration: Lessons from Over 30 Years of...
    Recent questions surrounding the repatriation, rehabilitation, and reintegration of those who traveled to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the reintegration of violent extremists in conflict zones including Somalia, Nigeria, Libya, and Mali, and the impending release of scores of homegrown violent extremists from prisons in the United States and Europe have heightened policymaker and practitioner interest in violent extremist disengagement and reintegration (VEDR). Although a number of programs to reintegrate violent extremists have emerged both within and outside of conflict zones, significant questions remain regarding their design, implementation, and effectiveness. To advance our understanding of VEDR, this report draws insights from a review of the literature on ex-combatant disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR). The literature on DDR typically adopts a “whole of society” approach, which helps us to understand how systemic factors may influence VEDR at the individual level and outcomes at the societal level. Despite the important differences that will be reviewed, the international community’s thirty-year experience with DDR—which includes working with violent extremists—offers important insights for our understanding of VEDR.   Suggested citation: Altier, Mary Beth. Violent Extremist Disengagement and Reintegration: Lessons from Over 30 Years of DDR. Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2021. https://doi.org/10.37805/vedr2021.1.
              
  • Research Report
    Jakana Thomas
    |
    01 March 2021
    Duty and Defiance: Women in Community-based Armed Groups in West Africa
    This desk report explores how West African community-based armed groups (CBAGs) facilitate women’s engagement with politics, create avenues for female expressions of anger, commitment to community values and national identity, and enable women to push for change in their communities by opening spaces for female participation. Assessing the formal and informal contributions women make to armed community mobilization and hybrid security reveals opportunities for gender-specific engagement and cautions that unidimensional considerations of where and how women intersect with conflict and security have the potential to undermine violence reduction and post-conflict peacebuilding efforts.   Suggested citation: Thomas, Jakana. Duty and Defiance: Women in Community-based Armed Groups in West Africa. Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2021. https://doi.org/10.37805/cbags2021.1.
              

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