When Emerging Democracies Breed Violence: Sierra Leone 20 Years after the Civil War

This is a joint report produced by the ACLED in partnership with Clingendael – the Netherlands Institute of International Relations and the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding-Sierra Leone (WANEP-SL).

Introduction

During the 1990s, Sierra Leone was a synonym for violence, with a major war ravaging the country. It has since seen an increase in public safety and security. Recent assessments have applauded the “little violence since the end of the civil wars” and the country’s peculiar post-war stability, asking: where is the war? ¹

Yet there is limited evidence to make substantial claims about an increase or decrease of political violence and its drivers. Presently, debates in the country about political violence are often based on perceptions and anecdotes⁵ which cannot be taken at face value. Likewise, any long-term observer of Sierra Leone’s politics can recall brutal incidents of political violence over the past 10 years. Debates over the security situation in Sierra Leone need real data in order to draw strong conclusions about the level of political violence in the country, its drivers, and its perpetrators.

This report makes four contributions. First, it analyzes trends in existing data on political violence in the country collected by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). These data provide an evidence base against which fact-free statements in the country can be judged. Second, it shows concrete evidence of an increased number of incidents of political violence in Sierra Leone since 2012. This evidence is based on existing ACLED data as well as new data integrated from the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding – Sierra Leone (WANEP-SL) and academic research from the Sierra Leone – Local Event Dataset (SL-LED) as part of a joint project to monitor political violence in the country. The data indicate that political violence levels started to increase around 2014 and 2015 and peaked around the 2018 elections. Violence levels have remained high since.

The third contribution of this report is that it urges peacebuilders and development policymakers to rethink the assumption that building democratic institutions also builds peace. In Sierra Leone, the push for formal and informal government institutions — like political parties, decentralization, and the reinstatement of the chieftaincy — is based on the assumption that this leads to more inclusivity and a better social contract. Yet, in Sierra Leone, the main drivers for violence are exactly these institutions. Democratic practices such as elections have become more and more institutionalized at all levels, but breed political competition. Political violence has become a tool in that competition. It should remind policymakers that reform is often manipulated and transformed, and can therefore lead to violence and instability.

Key Findings

• Combined data from ACLED, WANEP-SL, and SL-LED show that political violence in Sierra Leone is increasing. Since 2014-2015, a slow increase in political violence has been recorded. Violence peaked around the 2018 elections and has remained at high levels since.
• Most political violence in the country is driven by political competition. Sierra Leone has four dominant forms of political violence: a) communal violence; b) violence targeting civilians by state security forces; c) riots and protests over national issues; and d) violence accompanying political competition. The latter two forms include violence around national elections, by-elections, and informal elections, as well as inter- and intra-party violence.
• Local politics has become increasingly subservient to national politics. There are various examples of how very local communal conflicts are becoming entangled with the tensions at the center between the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and All People’s Congress (APC), as well as between factions within both parties.
• There is an urgent need for national politicians and international policymakers to stop the cycle of violence. As most violence is driven by national political competition, measures should foremost be aimed at changing the political calculus: using violence should become an expensive option. Those politicians who do not embrace violence and instead seek genuine competitive politics have to be supported to keep Sierra Leone on track.

1. Political Violence in Sierra Leone and the Need for Reliable Data

It is important to clearly define what qualifies as and does not qualify as political violence. This analysis is restricted to incidents of violence that are perpetrated by a political group, directed against a group with a political motive, or have a political character. Political violence is thus defined as “the use of force by a group with a political purpose or motivation.”. This violence often involves excessive policing. If targeted against political parties (and their supporters), incidents were coded as electoral violence (in electoral contexts) or political competition (outside electoral contexts). In electoral seasons, most riots or protests were coded as electoral violence as they tend to be politically sponsored — unless the notes contradicted this assessment. In terms of ACLED data, this includes demonstration events (riots or protests), violence against civilians events, or strategic developments, where the notes for the event suggest civilian targeting.

Sierra Leone is no longer the peaceful country that miraculously buried a violent history during a brutal war. The collected data are an early warning that the country is regressing back into low levels of continuous violence that were typical during its pre-war political life.¹³