Over the past two decades, the Horn and Eastern Africa Region have witnessed a proliferation of peace-making and peace-building processes as a means of democratisation. A wealth and power sharing governance arrangements designed and upheld by regional and international institutions often saw the transfer of political decision-making away from the local and national level, consolidating them instead in the hands of belligerent elites and a global technocratic class of experts. How have these forms of international diplomatic interventions shaped prospects for peace and democratisation in the region?

Sharath Srinivasan’s When Peace Kills Politics: International Intervention and Unending Wars in the Sudans (Hurst/OUP, 2021) book launch provides a refreshing appraisal of the theory and practice of peace-making by drawing attention to its inherent contradictions that contain risks of violent failure. The book launch engaged the history of interrelated peace-making efforts and their failures in Sudan and South Sudan, from the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement to the more recent Juba Peace Agreement signed in 2020, and their potential to subvert non-violent civic politics.

The book launch was co-hosted and organised jointly by RVI and the International African Institute and supported by Hurst publishers.