Interim Governance Arrangements in Post-Conflict and Fragile Settings (1-3)
Robert Forster
1. A bridge from crisis
Interim governance arrangements are an institutional framework established to create a ‘bridge’ from a situation of governance that has been interrupted by political or violent crisis often situated in an authoritarian past, towards a more peaceful, inclusive and democratic government. Consisting of a body or set of bodies, usually in the form of an unelected government, and tasked with overseeing a set of reform processes, interim governance arrangements have been a common feature of peace and transition processes since 1990 and have often been the go-to solution for moving from political crises towards a new or revised political settlement.
There is a perception among practitioners that peace processes and interim governance arrangements are becoming increasingly complex and include more issues, sub-processes, tasks, and interim bodies than they did during the 1990s. However, while some of the most intricate and fraught contemporary peace processes are based on interim governance with multiple reform processes, the scope of such arrangements still vary widely, and transitional periods can last from a few weeks to several years. Reasons behind the variation in the length of transitional periods include the number of necessary tasks required to be accomplished in order to prepare for adequately free and fair elections, as well as other structural factors explored in greater detail in this report.
The bridge metaphor for interim governance arrangements captures the idea of the transition as a way of moving from one situation to another, while leaving the nature of the transition open to include:
• supporting the move from conflict to an absence of conflict;
• enabling the transition from illegitimate to (more) legitimate governance;
• providing breathing space in which to agree to a more permanent constitutional settlement; and
• offering a framework for ‘ordinary’ governance while other reform processes occur.
Most interim arrangements attempt to achieve several of the above list of aims simultaneously. However, the interim period also creates a new political ‘field’ in which stakeholders continue to compete for their preferred version of the future state to emerge post-transition. In the case of the ongoing Sudanese transition, for instance, tensions emerged between urban protesters that ‘strive to establish civil-rights based rule’ and those residing in conflict zones that ‘prioritise achieving peace and security and ending regional marginalization’ Interim governance arrangements therefore bear the heavy responsibility of having to continue to broker and build agreement over the nature of the state in the face of competing visions for the country.
1.1. The components of interim governance arrangements
Interim governance arrangements have three main elements:
(a) The temporary body or set of bodies responsible for governing the country in the interim period; (b) the reform processes to be overseen by these bodies to provide the conditions necessary to end the transition; and
(c) A specified transitional period, often with clear time limits.
Interim governance bodies, usually with forms of power-sharing between the opposing sides in the conflict, are often the central component of the transition. The structure, membership and portfolios of such bodies are subject to intense negotiations among competing stakeholders. The formation and consolidation of the interim executive is often one of the first tasks undertaken in a transitional process just after a ceasefire. Membership, decision-making functions and institutional linkages are heavily contested since they provide members with access to power, state resources, esteem and political relevance. At their most basic, interim governance bodies are responsible for two main areas: first, the continuation of state administrative functions; second, the implementation of agreed reform processes. Basic state functions include the management, provision and facilitation of law and order (e.g. the courts and police forces), ensuring the provision of goods and services (e.g. water, electricity, waste disposal, reconstruction efforts) and international representation, which has an impact on the ability of the state to secure funding through multilateral financial architecture. The full list of these functions, and whether there is a hierarchy among them, is heavily debated. Transitional legislatures may be established. However, many transitions limit their focus to the establishment of an executive, leaving the legislature in abeyance. Competition over membership and structure of the executive means many interim governance bodies fail to be formed or become deadlocked.
There are many variations in the structure of interim governance bodies—all involving modes of power-sharing between the key stakeholders in the conflict. The most common model is an unelected power-sharing ‘unity’ government, where seats are divided between domestic stakeholders (most commonly the largest conflict actors). In semi-presidential systems, power-sharing is often characterized by instating the incumbent leader as president and the opposition leader as prime minister or speaker of the parliament (e.g. Central African Republic 2013). In presidential systems, there are a variety of options, including the use of one or multiple deputy or vice presidents to provide executive seats reflecting the number of conflict actors (e.g. Comoros 2001). State or presidential councils may be established in an attempt to include a wider set of actors in executive positions. The composition of the State Council of Liberia was renegotiated five times between 1993 and 2003. Similarly, the status of co-presidents was subject to intense debate in Madagascar between 2009 and 2011. Libya’s post-2015 Presidential Council contained nine members, including a president, five vice presidents and three ministers drawn from different stakeholder groups. In each scenario, decision-making mechanisms vary and models often incorporate different modalities, including veto capabilities, unanimous voting requirements and majoritarian requirements, in addition to regulations on the minimum number of persons required to participate for a vote to be legitimate.
Interim governance bodies are all unique to their context. The 1992 Peshawar Agreement in Afghanistan, for example, broke with convention of a figurehead executive to propose a 51-member Islamic Council to provide transitional governance. Where the conflict and the transition process relate to sub-state regions, sub-state interim governance bodies are often shaped by pre-existing legal frameworks and constitutions to which they must adhere. In the Mindanao conflict in the Philippines, the 2012 Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro envisioned a Transitional Commission for Mindanao, which would be responsible for implementing the reform processes outlined in the agreement. Meanwhile, normal government of the central state would be continued by the national-level government that was not ‘interim’ in nature. In Bougainville (Papua New Guinea), the 1998 Basic Agreement was negated by legislative vote in the Papua New Guinean Parliament due to inconsistencies with the national constitution. A provincial government was established on the same model as those elsewhere in Papua New Guinea, which would not have provided the power-sharing between Bougainvillean groups that was needed for the peace process. Despite this setback, the Bougainvilleans found a way to suspend the official provincial government and set up a Bougainville People’s Conference, which was more representative, helping to bolster the process, and was officially recognized as an advisory body to the sub-national interim government later established in 2005.
Transitional reform processes
In addition to variation in the structure of interim governments, interim governance arrangements vary considerably in the number and nature of reform processes implemented during the transition. The reform processes are agreed upon as a result of bargaining between the stakeholders. The simplest interim governance models rely on three components:
(a) The formation of a power-sharing government between key stakeholders;
(b) A commitment to the suspension of hostilities; and
(c) A mechanism through which power is transferred to a post-transition government (usually via elections). Simple models are often adopted in more limited conflicts, such as following the coup d’état in Guinea-Bissau in 1999, where failure of democracy and democratic transfer of power was understood to be the trigger for the crisis.
More complex transitions addressing protracted armed conflict often seek to overhaul a country’s political system and include comprehensive reforms touching on the very nature of the state (e.g. Burundi 2000–2005, the Democratic Republic of the Congo 2003–2006, Sudan 2005–2011). Reforms usually target specific strategic sectors, including governance, security, legal frameworks, justice, human rights and the economy (access to resources, taxation, etc.). However, many reform processes are connected to each other, which may result in the process ‘ballooning’ and growing in unforeseen ways during the transition. For instance, the need for elections can mean that interim governance arrangements need to form a national electoral commission, conduct a census of the population, redraw administrative units and review electoral and political party laws, in addition to legally underpinning such reforms, depending on the needs of the transition.
Different tracks of reform processes,These tracks comprise:
1. The political track provides for the formation of an interim government and the implementation of the transitional framework agreed by conflict stakeholders including extensive reform of the civil and economic sectors, electoral law reform, and when and how to hold elections.
2. The security track includes enforcement of the ceasefire, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) mechanisms for armed actors, and security sector reform (SSR) of state forces, including a potential merger of forces and military command structures.
3. The constitutional track provides for legal and constitutional reforms that guide the political, security and economic arrangements, including implementing options for public consultation (e.g. national dialogues in Yemen 2013/2014 and Libya 2018, or public consultations such as in Zimbabwe 2008–2009 and 2019), the formation of a constitutional assembly, and in some cases a constitutional referendum.
4. The economic track provides for externally driven funding of humanitarian relief and backing of the interim government and reform processes, in addition to wider humanitarian and developmental support through aid delivery, as well as post-conflict reconstruction. Other actions may include the lifting of sanctions (a central concern for the 2019 Sudanese transition) or denial of earmarked international funding as a diplomatic tool to break deadlock.
However, Figure 1 is idealized. In practice all the tracks are closely interdependent and inter-related and the content of each component and its sequencing changes in different transitional processes. For example, the application of SSR in Tajikistan—where the United Tajik Opposition was subject to voluntary disarmament, repatriation, merger with the Tajikistan Army, and a quota of representation at 30 per cent in law enforcement (Protocol on Military Issues, 1997)—contrasts with SSR requirements in Gabon—where the role of the security forces was merely redefined and lines of command reshuffled.
Nonetheless, each of these areas will need to be addressed and sequenced in an integrated way that enables each phase of the process to build on itself and reinforce the aim of the transition at large. In addition, interim governance arrangements rely on international multilateral architectures that provide both logistical and financial support for the transition process, although questions remain as to whether the international architecture for ‘transition management’ is fit for purpose (see Section 1.4).
1.2. Factors impacting on the selection of reform processes
Considerations of ‘good design’ often play a minor role in the shaping of interim institutions and reform processes. Rather, the drivers of the reform processes depend on the logic of negotiations between stakeholders and can be affected by the structural factors listed below.
Balance of power between stakeholders.
During negotiations, the stronger party is often able to dictate preferential terms for the transitional period, including a higher number of seats in the power-sharing government, as well as the highest executive office. Incumbents are often privileged and may enforce their position with the use of the military and security forces, which—unlike opposition militias—will not come under pressure to disarm during the reform process.
Strength of existing institutions.
In some countries, certain institutions—such as the courts—are stronger, more independent or more trusted than other institutions. This may be a reflection of the fact that those institutions do not replicate the injustices found elsewhere in those societies, or because such institutions had maintained their independence in the face of encroachment by illiberal governments. In some cases, strong institutions are instrumental in interim governance arrangements, in their role as dispute resolution mechanisms. Pre-existing strong legal systems—for instance, in cases such as Nepal or South Africa—were reformed to be more inclusive and then relied on to steward their respective transitions to completion.
In other cases, an obstacle to reform can be the strength of institutions that operate as independent political actors in the countries concerned. In many conflict-affected states, for example, the military often plays a particularly significant role in the governing of the state and receives a large percentage of the state budget, enabling them to behave as independent political actors. The result is that interim governance arrangements must accommodate, or at times incorporate, military representatives to ensure their support for the transition. In the case of Madagascar, the military, which threatened to intervene in the transition on multiple occasions, refused to be targeted for reform, despite fragmentation between its units.
Malagasy military actors rejected article 22 of the Transitional Charter despite the limited mandate of the proposed security committee. Involvement of the military—as is seen in the case of the 2019 Sudan transition—will also likely limit the potential for accountability that may threaten the political survival of senior military officials.
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