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Legacies of Civil Wars: Former armed actors’ political participation and impact

Posted on 5 June 2024

Research Workshop

Dr Gyda Sindre and Dr Matthew Whiting recently co-organised with swisspeace and the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), a 2-day research workshop, ‘Legacies of Civil Wars: Former armed actors’ political participation and impact’ hosted by swisspeace in Basel, Switzerland. The workshop, which builds on a collaboration between swisspeace, the FBA and the Politics After War Network, brought together 25 researchers working on critical topics around the question of political transformation of armed groups after wars. 

The research workshop was followed by a research-practice exchange, ‘Negotiating political reintegration,’ where a smaller group of researchers were joined by 15 practitioners with extensive experience in political transformation, mediation/negotiation, and DDR processes, particularly in the contexts of Colombia, Sudan/South Sudan, and the Philippines. 

The exchange, which was co-convened by swisspeace, the Berghof Foundation, the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) and the Politics After War Research Network, provided a space to discuss how to leverage the existing research on the topic and the practical experiences accumulated through different peace processes to generate actionable recommendations on best practices for supporting and accompanying negotiations on the political reintegration of armed groups in the context of peace processes.