IPSS Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing IPSS Theses and Dissertations by Author "Cheka Hidoto, Yacob"

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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.