Coercion in Peacebuilding

The idea of peacebuilding has gained increasing attention since the 1990s. Multiple actors – international and regional organisations, states and NGOs –  have intervened in conflict-affected and fragile states with the aim of contributing to sustainable peace. The project “Coercion in Peacebuilding” analyses peacebuilding interventions with a view to uncover the coercive character of such interventions. It focuses on the manner in which different types of peacebuilding practices are perceived as coercive by state and societal actors. The role of coercion in peacebuilding is rarely investigated and hence still poorly understood in current research. It is, however, likely that coercion influences both local reactions towards external peacebuilding interventions – e.g. cooperation vs. resistance - as well as their legitimacy. 

One empirical phenomenon that deserves systematic attention is the fact that Non-Western partners, be they regional organisations like the African Union, or rising powers like Brazil, and China are increasingly active in peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Little is known so far about if and how their engagement differs from that of traditional (Western) donors, and what this may imply regarding the effects.

The project is implemented together by PRIF’s research departments II, IV and V and includes collaboration with the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center (KAIPTC) in Accra, Ghana, and the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. An international workshop held jointly in Accra in 2022 explored peacebuilding insights from Africa in an interregional perspective. It served to develop a joint conceptualization and identified different types of coercion in peacebuilding. This resulted in a joint book project, for which all authors met for an authors' workshop in November 2023. The book poses the question of the role of coercion in peacebuilding in Africa and examines in particular strategies and practices of “new” actors in peacebuilding. In addition, Sophia Birchinger developed her PhD project “Perceptions of Coercion: AU and ECOWAS in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau” in the context of the project and laid the foundations for further in-depth cooperation on the topic.