Conflict resolutionWhen ideas of peace meet politics of conflict

Burundi has experienced cycles of violence, civil war, and even genocide since achieving independence from Belgium in 1962. So, when this small central African country finally held democratic multiparty elections in 2005 following a lengthy peace process, the international community cheered.

Here, perhaps, was a nation set to become a model for post-conflict inclusive governance. A model for building peace.

Now, Burundi once again teeters on the brink. In 2015, President Nkurunziza refused to step down at the end of his term, violating the new constitution and leading to a failed coup attempt – the aftermath of which has seen violent repression of the population.

Hundreds of thousands have fled, including much of civil society and a once-flourishing media. Torture, rape, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings are now commonplace, and in July 2016 the United Nations (UN) Security Council strongly urged all parties to cease and reject violence. The language of ethnic difference and the politics of ethnic scapegoating are once again coming to the fore, and tensions are extremely high.

For regional and international actors, such as the African Union (AU) and UN, which played key roles in the peace initiatives that paved the way for the 2005 elections, come familiar questions: what went wrong, and what to do now?

Through hundreds of interviews with everyone from government officials to local activists, AU and UN representatives, ex-combatants and aid workers, Dr. Devon Curtis from Cambridge’s Center of African Studies is exploring what happens when the lofty ambitions of peace programs – the language of security and democracy – encounter, as she says, “African realities and politics on the ground.”

“Before I became an academic I worked with government and the UN and it was almost easier then to provide policy recommendations in broad bullet points. It’s not so easy now that I have a real sense of the complexities of a country like Burundi, based on extensive research,” says Curtis.

U Cambridge says that her research, in collaboration with U.K. and African-based scholars, is revealing the myriad ways international peacebuilding is reinterpreted and distorted by the politics of post-conflict African countries.

“Various local groups attract attention, funds or delegitimize opponents by manipulating – or ‘instrumentalizing’ – the simplistic categories set by international donor organizations,” she says. “This can lead to unintended consequences for international agencies.”