Peace Agreements and Civil Wars in Africa: Insurgent Motivations, ...

As a result, it will tend not to negotiate in good faith and will concentrate on persuading the mediator that its negotiation positions are fair.⁶⁶

1.6. “Spoilers” And The Failure Of Agreements

While negotiations to end civil wars constitute difficult challenges for peacemakers, the task of nurturing an agreement and making it to hold once the parties have committed themselves to peace is even more difficult. One key challenge comes from “spoilers”—leaders and groups or factions who believe that a peace agreement threatens their power and interests, and who, as a result, would choose to use violence to undermine it. As Stephen Stedman has pointed out, when leaders decide to end a conflict by concluding a peace agreement, they face challenges from three groups of actors: adversaries who may take advantage of the settlement, disgruntled followers who see peace as a betrayal of their key values, and excluded parties who seek either to alter the process or to destroy it.⁶⁷ In other words, by choosing to go forward with a peace settlement, peacemakers become vulnerable to attacks from those who are interested in undermining their efforts.

Stedman further points out that spoilers exist only after a negotiated settlement has been concluded—that is, after two or more parties in the conflict have committed themselves publicly to a comprehensive peace agreement.⁶⁸ A peace agreement creates spoilers because not all parties reach the decision to seek peace negotiations at the same time. Also, a negotiated settlement has losers because it prevents some groups from attaining their aims through force. Moreover, civil war parties are rarely monolithic: each side may have competing groups who may disagree on objectives, goals, strategies, or even the desirability of a peace agreement. Sometimes competing leaders and groups belonging to one faction may harbor relations to each other that are as hostile as to their adversaries from the main opposing group. Furthermore, some spoilers have limited aims and are willing to compromise, while others hold nonnegotiable positions and see the conflict as an all-or-nothing affair.