| Abstract: | This article seeks to advance analyses and responses to conflict prevention and reconstruction in Africa that go beyond state‐centric perspectives to include a range of non‐state players. Drawing on examples from both Uganda and Canada, it focuses on the activities of NGOs that have ‘partnered’ with state‐based actors in various peacekeeping and peace‐building operations as well as on the increasingly important role played by think‐tanks. The latter have emerged in Africa as major contributors to the proliferating literature on the political economy of violence, an approach that recognizes that African conflict reflects imperatives of production and consumption in relations that juxtapose Africa’s political institutions and cultures with international and global political economies. The article argues that novel forms of ‘security communities’ are emerging from the non‐state/state/international partnerships and coalitions that have developed around contemporary issues like ‘blood’ diamonds, small arms, debt and HIV/AIDS, thus drawing attention to connections between conflict and development. |
