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Beginning in 2013, the Central African Republic has been engulfed in a civil war pitting successive governments against a substantial number of armed groups who also compete against each other for control over territory, population and resources. Some of these groups are claiming to be defenders of religious groups in the country, with the Séléka militias fighting for the Muslim communities and the anti-Balaka groups claiming Christian roots and inclinations. Other religiously inspired armed groups such as the Lord's Resistance Army are also present in the country. The following study is an attempt to understand how the "religious" label can be applied to such armed groups and whether it can influence their behavior, thus bringing into light a valuable, albeit lesser known example on how AGs and religion are connected in contemporary Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations are increasingly deployed during ongoing violent conflict, they are also increasingly staffed with civilian personnel tasked with peacebuilding at the local level. How does violent conflict affect civilian peacekeepers' peacebuilding efforts locally? Shifting the research focus from military to civilian peacekeepers, we argue that the latter have various incentives and the capacity to concentrate their local-level peacebuilding efforts in violence-affected areas. We test our argument using novel, georeferenced data on peacebuilding by "Civil Affairs" personnel of the peacekeeping operation in the Central African Republic. Consistent with our expectation, violence positively correlates with civilian peacekeepers' peacebuilding interventions both within and across localities. Furthermore, mediation analyses suggest that this correlation is not merely due to greater UN military deployments in violence-affected areas. Instrumental variable regression supports a causal interpretation: violence leads to more efforts by civilian peacekeepers. These findings inform expectations and assessments of peacekeeping effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critiques the prescription of joint security units called for by civil war peace agreements as a means to integrate armed forces previously in conflict. Drawing on cases from Sudan, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic, this article offers a comparative assessment of the joint security units attempted in each country. As negotiators and mediators often employ templates from other contexts, the deficits exemplified by these cases call for rethinking the practice of establishing joint units in the doctrine of military integration, as well as in the wider practice of negotiating security arrangements in peace processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When bringing armed conflicts to a peaceful end, the inclusion of civil society in peacemaking is a vital task. However, whereas previous research on civil society inclusion has made significant advancements, surprisingly little attention has been paid to analyzing how civil resistance and mass action may interact with more elite-driven approaches during peace processes. This study addresses this research gap by examining the interplay between elite and mass-based civil society approaches in three different peace processes in civil wars in Africa in the post-Cold War period: Liberia, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Burundi. We advance the literature by developing a framework that focuses on coordination of these different efforts and we explore this interplay empirically. With this study, we aim to broaden the research agenda, allowing for future synergies at the research frontier of mass action and the inclusion of civil society in peace processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A frequent sight along many roads, roadblocks form a banal yet persistent element across the margins of contemporary global logistical landscapes. How, this article asks, can we come to terms with roadblocks as a logistical form of power? Based on an ongoing mapping of roadblocks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, it sketches a political geography of "roadblock politics": a spatial pattern of control concentrated around trade routes, where the capacity to disrupt logistical aspirations is translated into other forms of power, financial and political. While today's roadblocks are tied up with the ongoing conflict in both countries, the article shows, roadblock politics has a much deeper history. Before colonization, African rulers manufactured powerful polities out of control over points of passage along long-distance trade routes crisscrossing the continent. The article traces how since precolonial times control over long-distance trade routes was turned into a source of political power, how these routes were forcefully appropriated through colonial occupation, how after the crumbling of the colonial order new connections were engineered between political power and the circulation of goods in Central Africa, and how control over these flows ultimately became a key stake in ongoing civil wars in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The use of child soldiers in conflicts has received increasing academic attention in recent years. This article examines post-conflict periods to see whether the use of child soldiers mobilizes United Nations peacekeeping operations (UN PKO) in the aftermath of a conflict. Taking into consideration how child soldiers affect conflict and how important their reintegration is to sustainable peace and post-conflict development, we analyse whether the presence of child soldiers in a civil war increases the likelihood of the presence of a PKO. We argue that the UN deems a conflict with child soldiers as a difficult case for conflict resolution, necessitating a response from the international community. This is in line with our empirical results confirming that the use of child soldiers significantly increases the likelihood of peacekeeping. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Does United Nations peacekeeping protect civilians in civil war? Civilian protection is a primary purpose of UN peacekeeping, yet there is little systematic evidence for whether peacekeeping prevents civilian deaths. We propose that UN peacekeeping can protect civilians if missions are adequately composed of military troops and police in large numbers. Using unique monthly data on the number and type of UN personnel contributed to peacekeeping operations, along with monthly data on civilian deaths from 1991 to 2008 in armed conflicts in Africa, we find that as the UN commits more military and police forces to a peacekeeping mission, fewer civilians are targeted with violence. The effect is substantial-the analyses show that, on average, deploying several thousand troops and several hundred police dramatically reduces civilian killings. We conclude that although the UN is often criticized for its failures, UN peacekeeping is an effective mechanism of civilian protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]