This month, RESOLVE highlights recommended readings from our latest Policy Note, "Leveraging the Peacebuilding Potential of Cross-border Trader Networks in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Author Maryam Rokhideh introduces cross-border traders, actors embedded in licit and illicit networks at local and regional levels, who present an underexamined yet critical point of entry for analyzing and addressing conflicts and thus should be included in new and ongoing peacebuilding programming. The policy note provides recommendations on how policymakers can leverage the untapped peacebuilding potential of cross-border traders and decrease their spoiling power. This What We’re Reading digest was recommended by the author to give more background on cross-border trade, war economies, and conflicts, the peacebuilding potential of cross-border trade, and social networks and armed groups.

On Cross-border Trade, War Economies, and Conflicts

Kabamba, Patience. Business of Civil War: New Forms of Life in the Debris of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA, 2013.

Raeymaekers, Timothy. Violent Capitalism and Hybrid Identity in the Eastern Congo: Power to the Margins. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Titeca, Kristof. “Tycoons and Contraband: Informal Cross-Border Trade in West Nile, North-Western Uganda.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 6, no. 1 (2012): 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2012.664703.

Walther, Olivier J., and William F.S. Miles (eds.). African Border Disorders: Addressing Transnational Extremist Organizations. New York: Routledge, 2018.

On the Peacebuilding Potential of Cross-Border Trade

Berdal, Mats, and Nader Mousavizadeh. “Investing for Peace: The Private Sector and the Challenges of Peacebuilding.” Survival 52, no. 2 (2010): 37-58. https://doi.org/10.1080/00396331003764595.

International Alert. “Making trade work for peace in the Great Lakes.” April 4, 2016. https://www.international-alert.org/news/ making-trade-work-for-peace-in-the-great-lakes.

Ramsbotham, Alexander, and I. William Zartman. Paix Sans Frontières: Building Peace across Borders. Accord: An International Review of Peace Initiatives, Issue 22. Conciliation Resources, January 2011. https://rc-services-assets.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Paix_….

Rolandsen, Øystein H. “Trade, Peace-building and Hybrid Governance in the Sudan-South Sudan Borderlands.” Conflict, Security & Development 19, no. 1 (2019): 79-97. https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2019.1561628.

OECD Sahel and West Africa Club. Cross-border Co-operation and Policy Networks in West Africa. Paris, France: OECD Publishing, West African Studies, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264265875-en.

On Social Networks, Bridging Ties, and Armed Groups

Carpenter, Ami C. Community Resilience to Sectarian Violence in Baghdad. New York: Springer, 2014.

Stys, Patrycja, Judith Verweijen, Papy Muzuri, Samuel Muhindo, Christoph Vogel, and Johan H Koskinen. “Brokering Between (not so) Overt and (not so) Covert Networks in Conflict Zones.” Global Crime 21, no. 1 (2020): 74–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/1 7440572.2019.1596806.

Van Metre, Lauren. Community Resilience to Violent Extremism in Kenya. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2016. https:// www.usip.org/publications/2016/10/community-resilience-violent-extremis….

Walther, Olivier, and Christian Leuprecht. “Mapping and Deterring Violent Extremist Networks in North-West Africa.” Department of Border Region Studies Working Paper No. 04/15 (2015). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2593020.