About

Who we are

The Politics After War is a research network for collaborative activities and knowledge sharing among researchers and practitioners interested in dynamics of party politics, political mobilisation, state-society relations and the state in post civil-war contexts.

Our research focuses on rebel-to-party transformation, political parties, state-building and democratisation, from a critical perspective and drawing on a wide range of methodologies, approaches and ideas. We are particularly interested in the relationship between conflict type and ending, rebel group organisation and transformation, and the quality of electoral politics, peace, and democracy as well as the broader processes of state-building in post-war societies.

Existing analysis of the politics of armed groups is predominantly limited to the transition phase. It explains the challenges of rebel group to political party transformation and the factors involved in a successful transition in terms of wartime legacies, conflict endings and organisational trajectories. But aspects of the transition, such as the type of conflict-ending and wartime legacies, such as rebel governance and mobilisation, as well as armed group characteristics, such as ideology, identity, strength of social networks, and organisational structure, have far-reaching impacts on party politics, state building, peace and democracy well beyond the transition phase.