IPSS Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing IPSS Theses and Dissertations by Author "Berisso, Taddesse (Ass.pro)"

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    Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding in Gambella Regional State, Ethiopia
    (AAU, 2020-03) Teshome, Gizachew; Berisso, Taddesse (Ass.pro)
    The various levels of inter-communal violent conflicts in the Gambella regional state of Ethiopia have their root in the process of state formation, state-society interaction, sociopolitical, socioeconomic, sociocultural factors and state policies spanning over a century. The conflicts have intensified over the past 28 years. This is attributed mainly to the political transformation in Ethiopia in the early 1990 and the civil war in the Sudan and the South Sudan. In response to these violent conflicts that have occurred in the region, a number of attempts at peacebuilding were made at different times. This study investigates the conflict transformation efforts, their marked features and the processes and outcomes of the peacemaking activities as well as the challenges and prospects surrounding the overall process of peacebuilding in post-1991 Gambella. Following an interpretivist approach and using qualitative methods of inquiry, data gathered from members of the local community, experts and officials at regional and federal levels, were critically analyzed. The analysis is situated in the context of intra-state and inter-communal conflict, conflict transformation and peacebuilding within Ethiopia’s post-1991 sociopolitical conditions and current policy framing and understanding of conflict and peace, taking the case of Gambella. The study shows that the conflict transformation effort in Gambella is a reactive one, containing violence after its occurrence, and often transient. The activities are focused on giving short-term solutions, treating the symptoms rather than addressing the underlying problems. The use of compensation as a conflict settlement procedure, intervention schemes coming at variance along ethnic lines and levels of conflict in the region and apathy as well as the tendency of complicating issues with politics have been noted as the defining characteristics of the peacemaking schemes. The peacebuilding process in Gambella, it is argued, is not effective both in terms of its response to the immediate peacebuilding needs and in working on the broader, systemic issues that foster and enhance the containment of violence sustainably. The process has not created a mutually beneficial sense of interdependence among the communities and groups involved in conflict in the region and embedded peacemaking activities into institutions that reinforce and sustain them. No fair, coherent and systematic procedures implemented and/or used to guide the process. Actions are governed by arbitrary rules and decisions are made based on undue pressures or emotions, rather than on their merit. As such, the findings of this study revealed that the conflict transformation efforts have been less successful, if not a total failure. And a range of factors militated against the process of peacebuilding in post-1991 Gambella, not least, the approach adopted in building peace; the nature and/or manner of third-party interventions; the nature of the political opportunity structure; the nature of the conflicts and the socioeconomic conditions in the region; leadership problems; the spillovers from the neighboring South Sudan as well as weak normative and institutional frameworks.
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    Towards Building Peace Infrastructures at the Local Level in Southern Ethiopia: Actors, their Potentials and Limits
    (AAU, 2020-03) Cheka Hidoto, Yacob; Berisso, Taddesse (Ass.pro)
    This dissertation investigates the contributions and limitations of local peace infrastructures in communal conflict transformation in southern Ethiopia. The research is conceived and justified against the backdrop of the growing contemporary emphasis on the need to proactively rely on local peace infrastructures to mitigate and transform violent communal conflicts that ravage a plethora of grassroots communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Further justifications of the instrumental power of local peace infrastructures are based on the recognition that grassrootsbased communal conflicts are essentially driven by local contents and actors, and therefore the most effective sustainable remedies for these conflicts would be achieved by having relevant local actors as key drivers of any conflict mediation, resolution and peacebuilding initiatives. Over the past 20 – 30 years, local peace infrastructures have proved quite effective in resolving varying levels of violent conflicts and building peace in many African countries. Some of the most outstanding success stories have been recorded by the Local Peace Committees (LPCs) known as ‘Local Peace Council’ in Ghana, and ‘Village Peace and Development Committees’ in Kenya. Many regional and international civil society organisations have mounted strong advocacy campaigns aimed at replicating the success stories of Ghana and Kenya elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa where violent communal conflicts are rife. The fieldwork data collection was carried out in the profoundly multi-ethnic and heterogenous Ethiopia’s southern region (Southern Nations, Nationalities' and Peoples' Regional State – SNNPRS) which has seen series of violent communal conflicts in the past two decades and where leading initiatives have been taken to establish local peace infrastructures to prevent and resolve recurrent communal violence. The study was specifically initiated with a motivation to bridge the gaps between constructive potential of local peace infrastructures and risk of their manipulation by those who monopolize power. Hence, the familiar local peace infrastructures, namely, state initiated local peace committees and customary elders as well as their respective rival or critical local peace infrastructures were selected and empirically analyzed. The study employed a mix of qualititative methods using a comparative case study strategy as a research design especially to facilitate collection of necessary data and conduct analyses. Relevant data therefore were collected from both primary and secondary sources using data collection methods such as interviews, focus groups discussion, observations and informal consultations. Over 95 participants (key informants and FGDs members) comprising local authorities, elders, women, young people, members of various local peace actors offered information in face-to-face interviews and dialogues. The study found that local peace infrastructures that were co-owned by the primary conflict parties delivered essential contributions to communal conflict transformation while at the same time indicating a potential for further impact if some of their limits were addressed. The councils of elders and state initiated peace committees specifically in the frontier areas between the Sidama and Oromo have been serving as essential platform for local peace-building even though they have limited potentials to deal with conflicts arising in the asymmetric contexts. In the asymmetric contexts where women and social and community groups have been exposed to violent attacks and discriminations by those who monopolize power, the use of critical engagement by the victims offered a better platform for non-violent change as evident in Wondo Genet and Konso. The study generally found that the prevailing violence, power asymmetry between conflict parties and ineffective organizational characteristics of local peace actors limit their peace potentials. Based on the findings and analyses thereof, the study suggests a necessity to adapt context-specific mechanisms, invest adequate time and financial resources and offer legal supports to enrich potentials of local peace actors to deal with actual and potentially violent communal conflicts.