Localized political violence between communal groups or militias has become an increasingly recognized threat to internal peace and democratic development in post-conflict and fragile states. Communal conflicts have caused significant numbers of fatalities and led to substantial internal displacements in countries such as Kenya, where violence escalated in the aftermath of the general elections of 2007. In Nigeria, approximately 800 people lost their lives in communal conflicts that reached more than 25 battle-related deaths in the year 2014. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank as well as various national governments recognize the prevention and mitigation of violent conflicts at the local level among the key efforts in eradicating poverty and strengthening development. Yet, while recent years have seen a growth in studies that clarify the dynamics of local political violence and examine the factors expected to induce communal conflicts in specific subnational regions, the issue of peacebuilding responses to these conflicts has received considerably less attention. Simultaneously, systematic research on peacebuilding has largely neglected local and domestic peacebuilding efforts while preserving its focus on the international peacekeeping interventions and intra-state conflicts.
This paper contributes to filling this research gap and disaggregating peacebuilding research into the level of communal conflicts through a novel focus on the domestic peacebuilding interaction between the local, often-informal peacebuilding institutions and the central, state agents. Using disaggregated conflict data, I carry out a systematic, country- and conflict-year examination of the type of local-central peacebuilding interaction and its influence on the number and severity of communal conflicts across Africa during the period of 1989-2014. The paper introduces a typology of local-central peacebuilding interaction on the basis of the government policy approach vis-à-vis potential local-level peacebuilding instruments. The variable receives four values ranging from a de facto national infrastructure for peace (i.e. the most extensive form of local-central peacebuilding interaction) to a stage of government hostility towards local peacebuilding initiatives. I find a considerable difference in the type of local-central peacebuilding interaction across states facing similar numbers of communal conflicts. The study adopts a theoretical framework building on the notion of local legitimacy in peacebuilding and the state’s role in enabling the utilization of this legitimacy. Accordingly, I argue that adopting a domestic peacebuilding partnership that gives support to local peacebuilding institutions will translate into more effective communal conflict mitigation and resolution. The paper presents an important first step in examining domestic responses to communal conflicts and assessing the potential benefits of building a national infrastructure for peace.
