Quasi-inclusive Institutions And The Internationalization Of Civil Violence

Conflicts and wars are by nature part of human establishment.However,some states are better able to mitigate issues that lead to conflicts and wars with their own internal structures,institutions and mechanisms than others.Different countries have different domestic governance institutions.These are the various pattern of practices by which states values are shaped and shared.In broader perspective they are state agencies and functionaries that set rules and techniques on states pattern of activities to shape expectations and values for the basic goals of the society.These different institutions create varied forms of incentives for their respective states and their citizens.In situations where political and economic institutions are broadly distributed among the people,determine how the government is chosen,who has the right to do what and when,creates constraints against the usurpation of power,and encourage mass participation in economic and political activities;positive behaviour and incentives are elucidated and high human resource capabilities,economic development and domestic peace become the norm.Such institutions are referred to as inclusive institutions.In other situations where political and economic institutions are narrowly distributed and absolutely gripped in the hands of a narrowly based elites,place no constraints on the exercise of their power due to elite's fear of creative destruction,give major gains of the society to the elites and cliques,and restraint or create barriers to prevent new entrants into their ranks;the behaviour and incentives such institutions elucidate in the public are usually negative and underdevelopment and conflict become the norm.Post-colonial Africa saw the gradual drive towards democratization and inclusiveness on one hand and at the same time the drive by some leaders to weld control over their states.For leaders to strengthen their hands on their states,domestic governance institutions needed to be altered to make them unable to serve limitations on their power and at the same time not disturb their license for international recognition.This mixture rather created a phenomenon of autocracy in disguise where inclusive institutional structures were seemingly adopted but in a loose approximation.Varied forms of domestic institutions were instituted with duties to fight corruption;generate revenue and utilize resources and ensure their allocation and distribution;ensure security and protection;solve issues of conflicts and disagreements;provide basic essentials;provide justice;among others.Features of inclusive domestic governance institutions have existed but mostly exhibited and operated imaginary inclusive principles in what I refer to here in this research as quasi-inclusive institution.That is,state institutions that resemble inclusive ones but in reality a loose approximation that are actually flawed and favoured certain parochial social and political groups and elites who often use them as a smokescreen to establish authority to satisfy themselves and group.They are quasiinclusive institutions because they only exist in theory and superficially but actually they do not do or have the power and capacity to do what they are supposed to do but at the same time render public impotent to mount any significant challenge to the system.These quasi-inclusive institutional structures in Africa engendered repression;corruption;inadequate human security including food,accommodation,healthcare;competition and conflict for state power.Domestic governance institutional structures rather than promoting development engendered levels of domestic grievances,contestation and discontent that led to various forms of conflicts and wars between rival groups of ethnic,religious and political background.These institutions are neither purely inclusive nor authoritarian enough to be able to use strong control to prevent civil dissent and agitation of grievances.When disagreements break out over the allocation of state resources;outcome of national elections;the provision of essential commodities and services;the application of the law;accessibility of political offices;among others,these African quasi-inclusive domestic governance institutional structures are not able to deal with them and thus escalate into larger conflicts and wars.The premise was that civil conflict or war may occur when there are dissatisfactions with the general state of affairs which are usually borne out of the general domestic institutional performance and capacities including government's social,economic and political agencies as well as bodies that are not directly controlled by government but their services play important roles in shaping people's perception on the conditions of the state.One noticeable feature of African civil conflicts and wars is their contagious effects.The consensus is that conflicts and wars sometimes spill over across national boundaries either through combatants directly taking the war to the other country or arid neighbours graciously learns and adopt the war,or through other indirect means.This dissertation used primary data gathered through a field survey to examine the onset and spill over of African civil violence through domestic governance institutions.The broader goal of the study was to test the strength of African domestic governance institutions in relation to civil conflict and war in the grand scheme of finding their causes and spread.The hope was to develop a useful tool capable of developing a deeper understanding of the civil conflicts or wars in Africa;identify events that engender them;and develop alternative mechanisms and explanations of studying wars of the developing world.To what extend does domestic governance institutions impact on the onset and transfer of civil conflict and wars from one country to another? How do these institutions shape conflict diffusion? Why do similar countries in similar spatial environment produce different levels of proneness to civil war and conflict onset and contagion? In other words,why do conflicts transfer from one country to another and not to another? Under what condition would war and conflict contagion matter? The dissertation explored issues surrounding these questions with empirical data collected on domestic governance institutions of Ghana,Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2019.To answer these questions,the research established the following hypotheses: H1: The chances of civil violence onset and contagion are likely to increase or decrease with the demeanour and orientation of an attracting state's domestic governance institutions in relation to those of the state in conflict.H2: The internationalization of civil conflict and war may not be limited to geographical contiguity but rather a function of existing groups such as warmongering characters across contiguities engendered by domestic institutional demeanour.H3: A correlation between quasi-inclusive institutions and civil violence contagion might be a function of the degree of institutional quasi-inclusive naturei.A higher level of institutional quasi-inclusive nature is likely to aid conflictcontagionii.A lower level of institutional quasi-inclusive nature is less likely to promoteconflict contagionDrawing on the behaviours of African state systems and governance structures,the research generally shared a theme that the likelihood of civil violence – broadly defined here as conflict and war – onset in one country and probability of such violence infecting other countries depends on the capacity and nature of domestic governance institutional structures of both the country experiencing the civil violence and the other countries who are likely to attract.Domestic institutional capacities could mitigate first,the onset of the conflict and second,the flow of the conflict into other countries if these institutions have the necessary capacities.The research found that differences in domestic institutional wellness and capacities would cause different countries within the same geographical region to have different levels of proneness to civil war and conflict onset and contagion.Countries that took conscious efforts to restructure and reform domestic institutions even during military rule,although did not achieve a perfect system developed a just enough institutional capacities that shaped people's perception towards peace in the midst of economic difficulties as in the case of Ghana.On the other hand,Liberia and Sierra Leone produced similar levels of proneness to civil conflict and war onset and contagion because they shared similar unreformed institutional demeanour and characteristics that motivated or persuaded sufficiently large numbers of people that a resort to fighting was justified,profitable and transformational.I argued that States with stronger(less quasi-inclusive)domestic institutions would be able to avert or prevent attracting conflict from neighbours while those with weaker(more quasi-inclusive)domestic governance institutions would be prone to conflict infestation.The argument and analysis in this research work demonstrated that the higher the degree of a state's quasi-inclusive institutional structures,the more likely it is to produce warmongering characters for conflict or war onset and for a state to infect or be infected with war whiles states with less quasi-inclusive institutions would have a just enough capacity to prevent conflict and war onset and contagion by shaping interests and perspectives away from warmongering.Ghana's institutions were equally quasi-inclusive.However,the degree of quasi-inclusiveness was important.Whiles,Ghana was able to develop a just enough capacity to avoid conflict onset and contagion,Liberia and Sierra Leone developed higher level quasiinclusive institutions that permitted a direct contagion of war from Liberia to Sierra Leone.To able to study the onset and internationalization nature of African civil violence in relation to domestic governance institutions,the dissertation used the social,economic and political governance institution of these three countries – Ghana,Sierra Leone and Liberia – from the period of 1989 to 2004 as cases because these countries are similar in many respects and there is little difference among them especially in terms of institutional structures.The research was conducted under the theoretical framework of the theory of contagion which stipulates that civil wars and conflicts can infect neighbouring states in either direct way where dissatisfied groups of another state can emulate war from their neighbours or indirect way where the ramification of the civil conflict or war in the region would have adverse effects on the economic,political and social organization of another country leading to civil conflict.The research adopted a mixed research method where qualitative data collection and analysis of interviews,ethnographic and observation were supplemented with a limited IBM SPSS descriptive quantitative analysis of questionnaires and survey data gathered from the general public across the streets of Accra,Monrovia and Freetown to achieve triangulation.On data collection,the research employed purposive sampling in the selection of the various domestic governance institutions and personnel for interviews.The administration of questionnaire took random sampling technique.For research instrumentation,I used face-to-face unstructured interviews,questionnaire and direct institutional observation.The data were analysed with content,narrative as well as descriptive statistical analysis using IBM SPSS Version 23.Research on contagion of civil war has gained tremendous grounds in the conflict literature but its theories far outpace empirical researches that ascertain the theoretical claims.Importantly,the application of domestic governance institutions to the contagion of civil conflict and wars has not gained much traction in the literature.This research bridged these gaps identified in the literature as well as developed alternative approach to the study of African civil wars.The research is organised into eight chapters.The introductory chapter with the title “Exploring Domestic Governance Institutions in Africa” established the general tone and overview of the research through the various research questions,associated hypotheses,findings and importance.It explored domestic governance institutions in Africa and established the general picture of work on the field,presenting a vivid mind-eye picture of the physical institutional environments of Ghana,Sierra Leone and Liberia.The chapter further explained the definitional underpinning of quasiinclusive institution and the context in which quasi-inclusive institutions are associated with civil violence and peace.In chapter two,the research examined the contagion theory of civil conflict and war expansion as the framework of study.I argued that a civil violence contagion framework that places domestic governance institutions at the centre is a useful tool to examine civil conflicts and wars in Africa.It set off with an explanation and examination of civil conflict and war from a general perspective before narrowing in on the academic definitions set forth by UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset upon which I derived civil violence – conflict and war – definition for this work.It discussed various strands of the contagion theory and the preconditions under which contagion of civil conflict and war could occur.It was argued that the presence of same ethnicity,ideology,religious,cultural,security ties,and resources across geographical boundaries makes it relatively easier for conflict in one country to infect others.This was juxtaposed with quasi-inclusive African domestic institutions.In the third chapter,I explained the methodology – the processes and procedures that guided the research – and their justifications.It generally provided the work plan and described the activities needed and went through for the completion of the research work including data collection and analysis,strengths and limitations.Chapter four titled “The State,Domestic Governance Institutions and Civil Wars and Conflicts” discussed the concept of state showing why some states are stronger than others under the framework of domestic governance institutions.The chapter looked at the state from the point of view of its governance shaped by its institutional capabilities.Situating the state and its institutional demeanour,enabled the discussion on the state of affairs and the engenderment of peace,and how the issues of grievances and greed motivate civil violence onset and contagion.In the fifth chapter titled “Africa: From a Glorious Beginning to a Warring End” I used historical analysis to trace the African past to show its past glory from its precolonial era through to the colonial period;extending to the post-colonial era to the point of many civil wars and conflicts.The chapter also discussed some theories believed to be drivers of African civil conflicts and wars and how such theories have attained a significant level of ad nauseam.Explaining and understanding what happened in the past through records was a good way to situate the African context to assess some of the causal mechanisms underlying the domestic institutional explanation of African conflict onset and contagion.I presented the research findings from chapter six.Chapter six concentrated on the peace of Ghana as the limited institutional threshold for Liberia and Sierra Leone to avoid conflict.It discussed why Ghana,quite similar to its neighbouring countries produced different outcomes and level of proneness to civil war and conflict onset and contagion.Results indicated that reforms and gradual growth of institutions in Ghana increased peace while simultaneously decreasing the likelihood of full-scale conflict and war onset or contagion with time because although quasi-inclusive,institutions established a state-civil society bond through publicity,consciousness and enlightenment that positively shaped public perception and trust.Institutional development although quasi-inclusive shaped the Ghanaian body politic and system against conflict.This means that a correlation between quasi-inclusive institutions and civil violence onset or contagion is a function of the degree of the quasi-inclusive nature of the institutions.Ghana's conscious institutional strengthening reduced their quasi-inclusive level and thus not only could it prevent internal conflict onset,it could equally prevent attracting conflict from a country experiencing conflict.Chapter seven discussed the Liberian trajectory.I argued that in order to understand the Liberian trajectory,we must pay special attention to the roles domestic governance institutions played in shaping the interests and perspectives of the intelligentsia,urban youth and the general masses.The general theme of this chapter was that Liberia's quasi-inclusive institutions,unlike Ghana's failed to establish a bond between the state and the people.Thus institutional development could not address popular dissatisfaction.The results from the field showed that mass dissatisfaction resulting from the nature of institutional functioning and lack of reforms made conflict inevitable.This suggests that,although Liberia had also developed a kind of quasi-inclusive institutions,its nature of quasi-inclusive was of a different breed from Ghana's.In Liberia,war became most likely because a variety of incentives converged to persuade a larger body of the Liberian population that a resort to fighting was significantly justified,profitable and transformational.The study dedicated chapter eight to the domestic institutional interplay of Sierra Leone and how such processes could be compared with the Liberian and Ghanaian trajectories.The chapter emphasised how Sierra Leone's elites purposely exploited and manipulated domestic governance institutions and created a huge gap between civil society and the state due to the fear of creative destruction that shaped public perspective towards violence.Like Liberia,decay and lack of reforms produced higher level quasi-inclusive institutions in Sierra Leone.The chapter showed that,although all three countries started out with quasi-inclusive institutions,whiles Ghana continuously reformed to shape public interests and perspectives towards peace by decreasing the level of quasi-inclusive institutions,Liberia and Sierra Leone produced similar domestic institutional outcomes by increasing the level of quasi-inclusive nature of the institutions that produced warmongering characters,shaped public perspective towards violence and missed out on developing a just enough capacity to avoid conflict.Sierra Leone attracted civil war from Liberia because both shared similar domestic institutional interplay that had shaped public perspective that war was justified and profitable.The research summarised its findings and argument in the conclusion section.Generally,I made a point that conflict and war are common human phenomenon but peace can be established and many African civil conflicts and wars could be mitigated if conscious efforts are made to grow domestic governance institutions to play their rightful role.The study ended with some recommendations.For example,the regional insecurity a civil violence causes in a specific geographical area means,the need to think regional measures and management responses to conflicts and wars is imperative.