Ex-Combatants and the Post-Conflict State Challenges of Reintegration

The reintegration of ex-combatants after conflict is a crucial peacebuilding task, but several challenges stand in the way of efforts to successfully assist ex-combatants after war. Drawing on extensive field research including nearly 200 interviews with policy practitioners, government officials, and ex-combatants themselves, this book critically examines these challenges by analyzing reintegration policy and outcomes in Namibia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.

McMullin presents a troubling contradiction in the conventional wisdom about peacebuilding as it relates to ex-combatants: limited economic opportunities and short term assistance programs mean that 'reintegration' tends to be back into the poverty and marginalization that contributed to war in the first place. Can reintegration back into poverty be called successful?

This book will appeal to scholars of political violence, security studies, peacekeeping and peace building, transitional justice, social policy after war, and peace and conflict studies.

Jaremey R. McMullin is a Lecturer in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews, UK. He has published research on post-conflict transition and ex-combatant reintegration in International Peacekeeping, Review of International Studies, Third World Quarterly, and Civil Wars. He has also written reports on ex-combatant reintegration in Liberia and Burundi for the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

Introduction: Reintegration into What?
1. Conceptualizing Reintegration Challenges
2. The Advent of the Ex-Combatant: A Critical History of Reintegration
3. Namibia: Jobs for Some
4. Mozambique: Cash for All
5. Sierra Leone: Trained for Jobs that Weren't There
6. Liberia: Reintegration 2.0?
Conclusion: 'Like Everyone Else'