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D. Elwood Dunn
Thinking About Postconflict Liberia:
Sawyer's Plunder, Levitt's Evolution
The Evolution of Deadly Conflict in Liberia: From 'Paternaltarianism' to State Collapse. By Jeremy L. Levitt. Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 2005, xvi + 257 pp.
Beyond Plunder: Toward Democratic Governance in Liberia. By Amos Sawyer. Boulder & London: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2005, xiv + 201 pp.
The collective review that follows is a continuation of research and reflections of long duration. As the Governance Reform Commission organizes to frame and structure a national debate, it may be useful to revisit some of the pertinent literature on Liberia. For starters, I refer to the Liberian Studies Journal (LSJ), a premier publication in continuous existence since 1969 and a repository of cutting-edge scholarship on Liberia.1
Amos Sawyer (a seasoned Liberian scholar/activist) and Jeremy Levitt (an African-American scholar) contribute, in their respective recent publications, to setting the intellectual, though not the political, stage for governance reform in Liberia. The timeliness of both publications seems evident as Liberia extricates itself from a quarter century of war and dysfunctional governance. In a way, the two books complement one another. Levitt resurrects deadly conflicts in Liberian history to explain root causes of what he calls the "great war" (conflict of 1989-2003). Sawyer sees the roots of conflict in an over-centralized (autocratic) and predatory (repressive) state. Each book has a similar prescriptive intent. Levitt advocates democratic inclusiveness to "settler nationalism and authoritarianism," while Sawyer speaks of transformational change from a monocentric (single center) to a polycentric (multiple centers) governance arrangement. Levitt states his purpose as three-fold: a desire to address "methodological weakness in conflict studies" as he delves into origins of the Liberian civil war rather than as study of the war per se; providing an alternative framework (to conflict studies literature) for understanding the dynamics of warfare in Liberia; and offering the first comprehensive study of deadly conflict in Liberia. He adopts a socio-political and institutional approach which posits that the "nature of preexisting regime shapes the dynamics and outcomes of political transition" (pp. 11-12). Consequently, he identifies and analyzes a "continuum of circular causation between the state of affairs that led to the founding of the Liberian state, the evolution of nationalism and authoritarianism, and deadly conflict" (p. 85). Fifteen conflicts are examined "in detail," with a secondary overview of the circumstances that led to the 1980 coup d'etat and the subsequent civil war. He uncovers a socio-political order that institutionalized ethno-political conflict between immigrants and indigenes from 1822 through 1980, and "all" Liberians between 1980 and 2003.
Sawyer's purpose is reconstituting order following state collapse and violent conflict. In this quest he employs a variant of the institutional analysis framework of his intellectual mentors (Vincent and Elinor Ostrom) to uncover "how institutions structure incentives and influence choice within ecological and social environments" (p. 4). His analysis leads him to "guideposts" for constructing "a system of democratic governance based on a theory of limited or shared sovereignty as an alternative to monocentric governance derived from a theory of unitary sovereignty" (p. 11).
For both Levitt and Sawyer the essential Liberian problem has been the critical choice of the early Liberian leadership for a unitary rather than a confederal state, or immigrant nationalism and authoritarianism over political inclusiveness and democracy. Sawyer recalls the loose organization of early county political subdivisions as opposed to power concentration in Monrovia, and Levitt notes that 65% of eligible voters boycotted Liberia's first open pre-independence elections though the leadership proceeded in absence of a clear mandate. Both suggest no significant departure since then from the founding dispositions. They each recognize half-hearted attempts at political inclusion, Levitt characterizing Tubman's unification policy as "deceptive inclusion", and Sawyer pointing out a "structural flaw" that underpins governance reform attempts.
Among the strengths of Sawyer's well-crafted study are his clear prescriptions for post conflict Liberia. They crucially include a possible replacement of the current 1986 constitution with his National Constitution Commission draft of 1984 ("Framework for Democratic Governance", Chapter 5); a radical re-ordering of the socio-political order that incorporates the use of indigenous endowments and knowledge systems, and empowering the masses through political devolution of both authority and resources. He wisely adds the need to carefully study past governance failures in addressing current challenges.
Two possible shortcomings are discernable in Sawyer's remedies for structural flaws. The first relates to combining in his person the scholar and the activist (politician), and the second concerns his reform proposal going beyond Liberia to incorporate states of the West African sub-region. On the first count, one observes a certain confusion of roles in an uneven analysis of events spanning three decades in which he was participant. Little effort is made, for example, at probing a problematic political culture, or appreciating oligarchical rule attempting reform and needing corrective assistance outside the system. Too often the public tendency has been to defer to government the collective societal responsibility of governance. Sawyer's approach seems much the same for the 1980s. The deeper analysis he contends for does not come through. The flaws then may not alone have been autocratic military leadership, but a struggle for entitlement (10th County and the Gola, for example), as well as a national mindset that ensured autocracy regardless of the ethnicity of the autocrat (William Tolbert or Samuel Doe). The situation seems not much different in the 1990s and beyond. We have yet to see a full account and analysis of Sawyer's stewardship of the first civil war Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU) of 1990-1994. "The Legacy of Predation and Violence" (Chapter 2) is only a selective account and incomplete analysis.
The other problem with Sawyer's prescription is admittedly his correct observation that reforming Liberia alone will not suffice, for in respect of security, warlords in the 1990s exploited natural human networks to achieve their nefarious purposes. The security crisis thus spawned, he justifiably contends, can only effectively be addressed by now building on the ECOWAS/ECOMOG security mechanism, initiate a Mano River basin sub-regional security arrangement, perhaps even a Pan-African security system. While bold and commendable a huge debate may await such a proposal with implications for the evolution of the meaning of sovereignty across the African continent and beyond.
Levitt, for his part, makes a major contribution to our understanding both of Liberia's past and how that past ought to inform our understanding of the present. Indeed, his is the first systematic accounting for the many nation-building conflicts of Liberia. He debunks the "black colonialism" thesis in Liberian historiography by pointing out the competition between the immigrant government (no attributes of a leviathan) and native sub-states for political, economic, and territorial control of the region. Levitt is at his analytical best as he attributes the historic causes of deadly conflict, including perhaps the "great war" to multiple reasons – dynamics involving white American Colonization Society agents/immigrants/indigenes; immigrant expansionism; ethnic rivalry (Kudemowe/Nyemowe Grebo conflicts); an exclusionary polity and "deceptive inclusion."
But the Liberian experiment in nation-forming needs to be understood in a broader comparative perspective, not solely as a morality tale of the good versus the bad guys. At the least, state building everywhere since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia has been associated with warfare. This was the experience of European states and subsequently the United States. Is there great surprise that Liberia is a part of the wars and nation-making nexus? Like "The War That Made America," the stories that Levitt recounts is "a tale with many facets . . . anger bred retaliation, retaliation bred ambition . . . No one was immune . . . The results were . . . morally ambiguous." (See Jay Winik's Review of Fred Anderson's "The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War," New York Times Book Review, January 8, 2006, p. 23). Might there be a lesson here for Liberia? Liberia's past, all of it, needs to be marshaled for a deep and nuanced understanding of human failings involving immigrant-Liberians, indigenous-Liberians, and hybrid- Liberians. Need I mention as well the Liberian state's interaction with its many external environments? Moving "beyond plunder" and stemming the tide of "deadly conflict" might benefit from comparative historical and contemporary perspectives, as well as openness to "best practices" around the world in the quest for governance reform and sustainable peace in Liberia.
Endnotes
1. See in various numbers of the journal: J. Bernard Blamo "Nation-building in Liberia: The Use of Symbols in National Integration"; Togba Nah-Tipoteh "Crisis in the Liberian Economy 1980-85"; J. Mills Jones "Development Planning, Politics and the Bureaucracy: The Liberian Experience"; Zamba Liberty "Reflections on the Liberian Crisis"; Alpha Bah "The 19th Century Partition of Kissiland and the Contemporary possibilities for Reunification"'; Godon Thomasson "Primitive Kpelle Steel-making: A High Technology Knowledge System"; Sakui Malakpa "The Elusive Trio In Quality Education in Liberia"; Alfred Konuwa "Public Choice Applications To Government Size in Liberia"; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf "The Liberian Economy in April 1980: Some Reflections"; C. William Allen "The Challenges of the Liberian Press in the 1990s"; Byron Tarr "Founding the Liberian Action Party"; M.J. Mason, H. Tokpa, E.C. Gongar & A. Mason "Higher Education in Liberia: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow"; J. Chris Toe, "Macroeconomic Policies and Agricultural Performance in Liberia, 1980-90"; and M. Soniia David "'To Be Kwii is Good': A Personal Account of Research in a Kpelle Village." The Liberian Studies Association publishes the Liberian Studies Journal bi-annually in June and December.
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