​​​The Role of Coercion in Peacebuilding: Insights from Africa in an Inter-Regional Perspective​​

​​The idea of peace­building has gained increasing attention since the 1990s. Multiple actors – inter­national and regional organi­zations, states and NGOs – have intervened in conflict-affected 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 way 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 organ­izations like the African Union, or rising powers like Brazil, and China are increasingly active in peace­building. Little is known so far about if and how their engage­ment differs from that of traditional (Western) peace­building partners, and what this may imply regarding the effects. 

​The project is implemented together by PRIF’s Research Depart­ments 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 edited volume currently under preparation aims at offering a theoretical and conceptual discussion on the role of coercion in peace­building and explores how coercion plays out in the increasingly important peace­building activities of actors from the Global South. It thereby contri­butes to a growing scholarship on the changing forms of inter­national peace­building and to the ambition of de-centering its study. In addition, Sophia Birchinger  developed her PhD project “Perceptions of Coercion: AU and ECOWAS Inter­ventions in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau” in the context of the project and laid the foundations for further in-depth cooperation on the topic.