In the seminar “Managing Conflict: Migration, Power-Sharing, and the Politics of Peace,” three recent Ph.D. graduates explored conflict-related migration, ethnic power-sharing, and the role of international law in peace processes. Together with Peter Weiderud, an advisor at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ Unit for UN Policy, Conflict Issues, and Migration, they discussed the potential implications of the research for policy and practice, as well as what the research can reveal about how development cooperation can be designed to support peace and stability.
The discussions were based on three Development Dissertation Briefs (DDBs), EBA’s publication format designed to convey the findings of recent doctoral dissertations in a concise and accessible format to policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders in the development assistance sector:
Maxine Leis presented her DDB study, Signals of Violence, Patterns of Flight: Predicting and Explaining Conflict-Related Mobility, and discussed how the impact of political violence as a driver of human mobility varies across different contexts, forms of violence, and types of movement. Mobility responses depend on overlapping stresses and the resources available to households.
William Underwood provided insights into how governments and partner organizations can use international law to promote inclusive peace and post-conflict constitutional reform processes, drawing from his DDB report Using International Law to Promote Inclusive Peace and Post-Conflict Constitutional Reform: Insights from South Sudan
Alexandre Raffoul presented his DDB, Ethnic Power-Sharing without Ethnic Parties: An Overlooked Source of Peace in Africa, which recommends that associative power-sharing be considered when drafting peace agreements and constitutions in divided societies, but also that it be accompanied by targeted support for internal party democracy and civil society organizations representing minorities.
