Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN-SSR)

What Sustains 'Internal Wars'? The Dynamics of Violent Conflict and State Weakness in Sudan

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Are the factors that start internal wars the same as the factors that sustain them?  This paper from the Third World Quarterly argues that the international community has been misguided in focusing on determining the causalities of internal wars and should instead focus on the contextual conditions and dynamic relationships that allow them to continue.  Using the conflicts in Sudan as a case study, the paper concludes that time alters the reasons why internal wars are fought, and argues that the international community is not well placed to intervene.

The international community has tended to view internal wars as problems where two clearly defined sides are in disagreement over a set of specific issues, and for which there is a solution.  This is an oversimplification of internal wars and has led to a preoccupation with identifying the causes of conflict and categorising them, for example according to ethnicity, resource scarcity or resource abundance.  This is counter-productive.  Instead, conflict analysis must acknowledge the diversity of causes and motivations that ensure that wars continue, as well as the diversity of conduct and organisation of the actors involved. 

The internal conflicts in Sudan between the North and South, and the conflict in Darfur, demonstrate the inadequacy of searching for causal factors.  The North/South conflict is a complex and dynamic set of tensions relating to ethno-political marginalisation and resource allocation.  The violence continues regardless of the peace agreements supposedly in force.  Other concerning observations include:

• The international community presumes that modern states foster stability.  This is not always the case.  In Sudan, various authorities act against the interests of stability and so have made the conflict self-reinforcing. 
• Sudanese politics has become more focused on the internal appeasement of competing factions to facilitate survival than on following a developmental agenda. 
• This gives rise to warlord politics and processes of ‘elite accommodation’, where Khartoum is forced to cut deals with local political rulers in order to establish their power outside the capital. 
• In Sudan’s context of patrimonial, informal politics, formal conflict resolution is difficult, if not impossible. 

The international community must therefore change the way it attempts to understand internal wars.  This should also affect the way external actors seek to engage in internal conflicts:

• Rather than focusing on identifying the initial causes of internal wars it is more appropriate to seek to understand the dynamic processes and relationships that perpetuate them.
• The specific dynamics of internal wars preclude the use of ‘one size fits all’ policies that are based on European models.
• The desire for regime survival rather than the implementation of a political agenda defines politics in Sudan and much of Africa.

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