Living politics after war: Ex-combatants and veterans coming home

By Johanna Söderström

Life after war is intrinsically political for former combatants. As wars end, societies and former combatants face a period of transition. This book explores the experience of coming home for former combatants, capturing the challenges and opportunities for political mobilization among former combatants as they return from three very different wars: South West Africa People’s Organization combatants who participated in the Namibian War of Independence (1966–90); guerrillas from Movimiento 19 de Abril who joined the ongoing guerilla warfare conducted against the Colombian state (1974–90), and combatants from the United States who participated in the Vietnam War (1955–75).

Offering an insightful perspective on peace as a process through the long-term study of the lives of fifty former combatants, Söderström demonstrates how the process of coming home shapes their political commitment and identity. Combining detailed scholarship with interviews with former combatants, this volume serves as a powerful reminder of the legacies of war in the lives of former combatants.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Dec 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781526144911

Book preview

Figures

1 Political life path of Estella (C8), removed type

2 Political life path of Jaime (C11), resilient type

3 Political life path of Charles (U7), resilient type

4 Political life path of Jairus (N6), resilient type

5 Political life path of Emilio (C14), remobilized type

6 Political life path of Dennis (U8), remobilized type

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the European Institutes for Advanced Study Fellowship Programme and the European Commission (Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions, COFUND Program, FP7), at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS), the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders’ Fellowship Fund Program at Uppsala University, and the Varieties of Peace research program (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond M16–0297:1). Data collection was made possible through stipends from Borbos Erik Hansson, Atmerstiftelsen, and Sederholms, and the Skytte Foundation generously funded a manuscript workshop.

I am very grateful for the many people who have discussed and commented on my work in its various stages: Abbey Steele, Anna Ida Rock, Anna Jarstad, Ben Oppenheim, Enzo Nussio, Gyda Marås Sindre, Ingrid Samset, Jan Willem Duyvendak, Jaremey McMullin, Jason Klocek, Jenny Jansson, Joanna Britton, John Spall, Julia Jennstål, Katrin Uba, Kim Wale, Kristin Ljungkvist, Lalli Metsola, Lennart Bolliger, Li Bennich-Björkman, Maartje Abbenhuis, Malin Åkebo, Markus Holdo, Matthew Hoye, Moa Mårtensson, Nikkie Wiegink, Nina Wilén, Preeti Chopra, Ralph Sprenkels, Remco Raben, Roxane Farmanfarmaian, Sandra Håkansson, Steven Wilkinson, Teije Hidde Donker and Zoe Marks. It is wonderful to be part of such a generous and incisive research community; thank you for sharing and thinking with me.

The work benefited greatly from discussions within the Folke Bernadotte Academy Research Working Group, at the Peace and Conflict Studies in Anthropology meeting in Amsterdam, and at NIAS, also in Amsterdam. In particular, I want to stress how important my time at NIAS, the cohort and support staff, were to the completion of this manuscript. I miss you all!

I also want to thank Enzo Nussio, Stefan Quiroga Fajardo, Maria Camila Perez Bonila, Usdin Leonardo Martínez Orellanos, Natalia Gutiérrez Trujillo, Arlene B. Tickner, Patricia Bohórquez and Ana Maria Rodriguez Alfonso for their help in Colombia, and to Johannes Shekeni, Sylvia Shimaneni, Dula Tulimevava and Julia Heimo for their help in Namibia. Finally, I am clearly indebted and grateful to all those who were willing to share their life after war with me.

Introduction

Independently of the path that each one of us decided to follow, or the different actions we took during the militant period, our way of thinking and acting has a trace of the times when we were militants.

Joaquin, C6, a former M-19 guerilla

Life after war is intrinsically political for former combatants. As wars end, societies and individuals face a period of transition, and former combatants in particular are a crucial part of this transition to peace. Wars politicize combatants in a number of different ways, either explicitly or inadvertently. This book is about understanding how former combatants come home after war and live politics. It captures the challenges and opportunities for political mobilization among former combatants as they come home from three very different wars. Depicting their political life histories after war sheds light on how former combatants’ identities and war experiences shape their political involvement long after the war has ended.

This book is not about peacebuilding in the sense of interventions. Rather, it examines peace as a process through studying the lived experiences of individuals. By focusing on the long-term political mobilization of former combatants after disarmament, the book displays how the dynamics between political mobilization, identity, and networks vary across time in the lives of fifty former combatants as they move toward peace and coming home. Coming home is not a clear-cut experience, and is one that needs to be unpacked. The book demonstrates how the process of coming home shapes their political commitment and identity, and how the legacy of war is a powerful reminder in the lives of these former combatants long after the end of war. Depicting the process of coming home for various former combatants, and how this process is made sense of by the former combatants themselves, thus contributes to an understanding of one part of the politics of peace.

Using self-constructed life histories, the book draws out the similarities (and dissimilarities) across three different wars and types of former combatants from Colombia (civil war), Namibia (war of independence), and the United States (interstate war). Interviews were conducted with independence fighters from the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN)/South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) who participated in the Namibian War of Independence (1966–90);¹ with guerrillas from Movimiento 19 de Abril (M-19) who joined the ongoing guerilla warfare conducted against the Colombian state (1974–90); and with veterans from the United States who participated in the Vietnam War (1955–75). The M-19 guerillas joined the struggle with a deep leftist commitment politically, but what happened after demobilization? The SWAPO veterans are often described in Namibia as the liberators of the nation. What legacy do they have today as keepers of the nation, and what happened to their political commitment after national independence was achieved? Vietnam veterans were often politicized by others and upon their return home, but for what and how do they mobilize now? These are the types of questions that this book asks.

The armed combat itself and combatants’ relationship with their particular armed group may produce ties to, and ways of engaging in, politics which endure beyond disarmament. The war and participation in the conflict represents an important historical and generational event for these groups. The person's identification with the group, whether it is as a Vietnam veteran, or as a former guerilla, is likely to remain a lens through which politics after disarmament is interpreted. Overall, this raises questions about how former combatants are politicized, and how political their lives are after disarmament. This is the concern of this book.

Previous work and the way forward

A huge literature that stretches across both time and space demonstrates the extensive political involvement of veterans and former combatants after war as well as the challenges and determinants of their life after war (see, among others, Alfieri 2016; Brooks 2004; Christensen and Utas 2008; Edele 2006, 2008; Erikson and Stoker 2011; Grossman et al. 2015; Jennings and Markus 1977; Jha and Wilkinson 2012; Kowalsky 2007; Leimgruber 2010; Maclay and Özerdem 2010; Mettler 2005; Mitton 2008; Ortiz 2010; Prost 1992; Schreiber 1979; Söderström 2011a, 2013a, 2015, 2016a; Teigen 2006; Ugarriza and Craig 2013; Utas and Christensen 2016). This book builds on and departs from previous work in four main ways. Firstly, a central contribution of this book is that it crosses global boundaries in the study of life after war among former combatants. Most of the existing work on this topic tends to focus on certain geographical areas and specific wars, and does not approach it as a global phenomenon. At present, the literature on former combatants is largely divided between the Global South and the Global North, and the authors of these literatures rarely seem to talk with or read each other. One example of this is the terminology used to refer to former combatants. Veterans in the Global North have often been described as defenders or creators of the nation, as they typically form part of regular armies. The returning veteran has often been celebrated, alongside the dramatic value of the tragic life stories which infuse our ideas of who the veteran is and their life after coming home. In contrast, the ex-combatant is more often seen as an amoral character who is a threat to society, and this negative image tends to infuse our ideas of combatants returning home after war in the Global South. This dichotomy in language belies a commonality: for whatever we call them – former combatants, veterans, ex-combatants, ex-front soldiers, former insurgents, former guerillas, freedom fighters, ex-servicemen, and so on – the process of returning from war is one that occurs across all these divides. One of the research participants, a former guerilla from Colombia, notes that

From the moment of the agreements, however you want to call us – ex-combatants, ex-military, demobilized – they are words that lead you to immobilization, to get stuck, to say to people that the only future remaining for us is that of the war veterans, that you have to sit and wait for death. (Felipe, C16)

The term veteran is often used as shorthand for this experience in the Global North, and ex-combatant for the same experience in the Global South. Yet these terms often morph and vary in each specific case, and the choice of terminology is often a political struggle and process in itself. In this book I have opted for the more neutral term former combatant when I discuss the overall phenomenon, while adopting the language used by the research participants themselves where I feel their grounded experience calls for more specific terminology. I also use the term veteran across all three cases to signify instances when the experience of being a former combatant has become a political identity.

However, the artificial division between Global North and South goes deeper than the question of terminology. This division is often taken for granted, yet the empirical data paints a different picture. The notable continuities across these different empirical fields of research pertaining to life after war highlight the importance of making comparisons across boundaries that are taken for granted. The division in the existing literature is not only limiting in an empirical sense (as it fails to give a full depiction of a global phenomenon) but it also carries normative implications, as ex-combatants in the Global South are often seen as less political, or overly political as extremists, less worthy and treated in a more simplistic fashion (either as victims or as guilty parties), whereas the depiction of veterans in the Global North is often more nuanced. This division also suggests a colonial legacy within this literature, dividing the world into separate categories in this manner. Ultimately, this division in the literature has consequences for policies.

There are many reasons for the importance of empirical comparisons across this divide. Kestnbaum also noticed this bias, arguing that interstate wars and civil wars cannot be fully understood in isolation from one another (2009, p. 236). Similarly, Kriger argues that the division between types of war can often be quite arbitrary (2003, p. 13). Different types of war in fact share many similarities, and we can learn more about the nature of war from studying them together. Indeed, former combatants themselves often compare and contrast across various divides (types of war, across time and space) (see e.g. Kriger 2003, p. 187; Mann 2006, p. 10). This uncomfortable division between different types of former combatants has resulted in calls for more comparative research (see e.g. McMullin 2013a, 2013b; Schafer 2007; Sindre and Söderström 2016; Söderström 2011b, 2015); McMullin's critical history of reintegration has been a particularly important source of inspiration for this book (2013a, pp. 45–77). McMullin holds up a critical mirror to the practices and literatures around former combatants, spanning both history and disciplinary boundaries, showing that there is very little that is new about today's ex-combatants, and nothing that proves their DNA is fundamentally distinct from their veteran ancestors and contemporaries (2013a, p. 76).

Even wars which are transnational are not always studied in a transnational fashion. The First World War, for example, has tended to be studied in a national and not a comparative way, yet this was a global war. Most wars are indeed transnational in character even if they are often perceived as solely national affairs (Kitchen et al. 2011, pp. xix–xliii). This transnational character can be gleaned from more recent wars as well (see e.g. Christensen 2017). Despite these calls, very few single studies exist that actually make empirical comparisons across this divide.² This book studies the experiences of different types of former combatants from different wars, from around the world, in order to bridge this divide.

Naturally, despite the many and surprising commonalities between the experiences of former combatants around the world, there are large differences between wars as well as across generations and locations. Wars differ in their goals, in their experience, and in how they cast shadows on societies after their conclusion, as attested to by current and past research, including the cases studied in this book. Even within the same war, among combatants on the same side, we need to recognize and disaggregate differences between groups. This book does not deny such differences, or hide them. Indeed, such differences and cleavages within the group of former combatants also need scholarly attention, and have in fact been given a lot; for instance, several studies have shown the differentiated effects on trust and satisfaction with reintegration programs (see e.g. Nussio and Oppenheim 2014; Oppenheim and Söderström 2018; see also Kriger 2003, p. 32).

Life after war clearly entails a diversity of experiences. The task at hand in this book, however, is to bring out the shared experiences across these divides when they exist, as former combatants face similar challenges irrespective of context. This book unravels the experience and meaning of coming home after war, and the degree to which this is shared across different wars and across different lives.

Offering an insider's perspective on the process of coming home and life after war is a second central aspect of this book. The book is largely concerned with capturing how former combatants themselves understand and portray their own political mobilization across their lifetimes; how they make meaning of this process and the legacy of the war in their political life paths. Kestnbaum argues that past work on war and military service has not focused enough on the meaning-making:

What is marginalized here is the host of ideational processes – cognitive, evaluative, and even emotional – that get at how individuals make sense of themselves and the world in which they live and the variety of ways these efforts at sense making may shape and be shaped by warfare. (Kestnbaum 2009, p. 238)

Similarly, Bräuchler argues that meaning-making has not yet been consistently adopted in peace and conflict studies (2018, p. 27). Others have stressed the importance of paying attention to how individuals’ personal experience shapes and feeds into larger processes of transition after war (albeit not specifically limited to combatants, but also including refugees and civilians who stayed home) (Long and Oxfeld 2004, p. 3). It is important for things such as mental health and overcoming trauma as we know these are affected by how meaning is assigned and processed in relation to the war experience (see e.g. Aldwin et al. 1994, pp. 40–41; MacLean and Elder 2007, p. 183; Schok et al. 2008, p. 361). For instance, it has been shown that combat veterans from the Second World War and Korea who assigned more positive meaning to their war experience suffered less from post-traumatic stress disorder (Aldwin et al. 1994).

However, an understanding of the individual experience of former combatants is also important because it shapes larger processes as well; it is constitutive of the conditions for peace, as well as for specific peace agreements (Bräuchler 2018, p. 31; Burgess et al. 2007; Sacipa et al. 2006), or for how support programs should be designed to counteract negative outcomes of this transition for the individuals themselves (Binks and Cambridge 2018). Indeed, taken to the extremes, a mismanagement of the post-war experience of individuals can even play a role in instigating darker political processes, as most famously seen in Germany after the First World War when the meaning-making surrounding that conflict was hugely important for understanding the rise of Nazism (Diehl 1993, p. 26).

Further back, another example of a veteran identity which was infused with meaning, and which changed over time, is seen in the case of the American War of Independence. Resch's work demonstrates how malleable the legacy of, and the treatment by society of, revolutionary war veterans can be. These men were romanticized in the early 1800s in part to help recruit more combatants for the war with England in 1812–15. Resch describes the process of how these veterans are remade, and especially how the image of the suffering soldier is brought to the fore: instead of being despised and looked down upon, the veterans became the principal symbols of the spirit of ’76 and models of national character (1999, p. 66). In the long run, the meaning-making associated with these former combatants contributed to the making of the state in the United States.

In general, ideas of the soldier and their traits become closely associated with the traits of the specific nation or state; similarly, traits of the state are projected on the idea of the combatant (see e.g. Edele 2008; Metsola 2006; Resch 1999, p. 201). An insider's perspective on this process helps us understand how these processes matter for the individual, but also how such perspective interacts with larger political processes. This book therefore pays attention to this perspective and details what meaning-making has occurred; this has informed the data collection decisions, particularly the choice of using life histories in this book.

Thirdly, in addition to bridging the literature gap between the Global North and Global South, and exploring an insider perspective on coming home from war, this book also approaches transition in the lives of former combatants in a different way than previous literature. Transition, naturally, is a key aspect of the lived experience of those who come home from war – not solely the macro-level transition from war to peace but also how that transition is experienced in the lives of individual combatants. The experience and memory of the war carries on, even when armed hostilities end, even when arms are handed in, and even when veterans’ pensions are paid out. This book attempts to show how this transition finds expression in the lives of former combatants. Some literature has focused on the supposed degree of success of veterans’ transition, through employing different measures of reintegration and ultimately problematizing such measures (see, among others, Colletta et al. 1996; Gleichmann et al. 2004; Humphreys and Weinstein 2007; Knight and Özerdem 2004; Nilsson 2005; Özerdem 2012; Pugel 2009; Söderström 2015). This book argues that it is not very useful to focus on judging whether a transition is successful because, as Kriger argued, such criteria can be both subjective and arbitrary (2003, p. 9). This book therefore does not seek to judge whether transition is successful or not. Rather, this book attempts to understand how the legacy of war lives on.

Peace is a long-term process which underlines change, and moreover the notion of transition is not linear, nor dichotomous; understanding transition means understanding how elements of both war and peace are present at the same time, and how they meld together, and sometimes also create something entirely new. In several of the interviews for this book it was clear that the legacy of war lives on in both good and bad ways in the lives of these former combatants. Studying this phenomenon through the eyes of the individual, we can gain a deeper understanding of how such transitions unfold.

Indeed, the transition in the lives of former combatants is far more complex and more interesting than a simple question of the extent to which these individuals reintegrate. The former combatant is often seen as a liminal figure, filled with ambiguity, posed on the threshold of different boundaries: between war and peace; between the individual's own experience and how they are perceived; as creators or destroyers of social order. For instance, Leed notes that the veteran is defined by the fact that he has crossed the boundaries of disjunctive social worlds, from peace to war, and back. He has been reshaped by his voyage along the margins of civilization (1979, p. 194). This liminality creates unease for the returning society, as veterans are seen as embodying both the violence of the war and the aspirations of society (Leed 1979, pp. 195–196). Some even note that former combatants can become lost between worlds (Demers 2013, 2011). How former combatants themselves make sense of this in-between-ness is therefore especially interesting, and the participants in this book offer a unique insight into this.

The ambiguity of the figure of the former combatant was also highlighted by Gerber, who described the division within American society at the end of the Second World War as one which both honored the veteran and feared his potential to disrupt society (Gerber 1994, p. 545). Despite this ambiguity, the idea of former combatants as inherently violent seems to be a most persistent idea. Protests of former combatants are often interpreted through this frame, and seen as confirmations of veterans being uncontrollable and out of bounds (Leed 1979, p. 200). This liminality is sometimes also recognized by the former combatants themselves (see e.g. Christensen 2017).

No doubt, some former combatants exhibit traits which can be disruptive to society, and certainly some mobilize in ways which are anti-democratic. Yet this book is not about explaining when and how this happens; rather it offers an inside understanding of how former combatants relate to their own veteran status, to other veterans, and mechanisms of mobilization. Ultimately, in these personal transitions, liminality is present. The task of this book is to understand the process of leaving war, and coming home, and how they live peace. This entails understanding the legacy of the war for their politics, their in-between-ness, how they relate to and make sense of their liminality, how they make sense of leaving war and living peace. This means studying the process of coming home from war.

The fourth and final essential element of this book is the aspiration, for perhaps the first time in an in-depth comparative study on former combatants, to take a long view of the transition from war to peace. Much of the work on former combatants (particularly in the Global South) and their relationship with politics has a limited temporal scope (see e.g. Blattman 2009; Christensen and Utas 2008; Denissen 2010; Hauge 2008; Maclay and Özerdem 2010; Mitton 2008; Porto et al. 2007; Ucko 2009). This limited time span makes sense given the focus on overcoming war in the immediate post-war years from a societal perspective, and in terms of data collection from a research perspective. In relation to older wars, such as the world wars, some work has been done from a longer-term perspective (see e.g. Allport 2009; Elder and Clipp 1988; MacLean and Elder 2007; Mettler 2005). We have good reasons to expect different dynamics during different periods of the former combatant's life, as the discussion below will demonstrate. For this reason, this book takes on a longer time frame in order to fully understand the political lives of these former combatants.

One key reason to take a long-term view of the homecoming process is that we know that family life in general tends to compete with a political life, at least in the short term where social and economic concerns take precedence (Stoker and Jennings 1995). After disarmament, former combatants have to cope with family demands, completing school, and/or establishing themselves in a profession. Participation in an armed conflict represents a disruption in the typical sequencing and availability of certain life events, meaning these issues compete for attention after disarmament. Regarding employment, there are tendencies of cyclical or reciprocal patterns of interaction between social structures and the agency of the individual, creating vicious or virtuous cycles in turn (Shanahan 2000, p. 682). Aspects such as continued education, variations in sequencing, degree, and composition of family events, and employment opportunities (Jennings 1979; Nie et al. 1974; Shanahan 2000), are likely to shape the room for politics. The temporal element is, therefore, a central perspective throughout all the chapters.

Various work on former combatants also points to the need for an extended time perspective in order to understand their homecoming experience (see, among others, Brooks 2004, p. 12). For instance, Mann's work on West African veterans and their relationship with the state of France explored a context where experiences and events from both world wars still inform the debate in the twenty-first century (Mann 2006). Additionally, more recent work on the networks of former combatants also suggest that processes and constellations peculiar to these networks are extended in time (Nussio and Oppenheim 2014, p. 1017). Work on life trajectories and the role of military service have also used a more extended time perspective in order to understand when and how behavioral continuity and discontinuity is possible. This research tries to understand whether or not war creates major shifts in life trajectories (Elder 1986, p. 244) and, as such, highlights the importance of trying to understand the individual situated in and across time; thus, by default, an extended time perspective is obligatory.

Moreover, if we look outside the field of former combatants, research on the life course underlines the added value in taking a long view. By cultivating an appreciation for ‘the long way’ of thinking about human personality and its social pathways in changing societies in relation to former combatants, we can gain an informed awareness of individuals as choice makers and agents of their own lives (Elder 1994, p. 4). In life course research, historical transitions are also often connected with personal transitions. Coming home, adjusting to new conditions, experiencing peace, filling peace with meaning, and handling the remains of the transition from war to peace is a long-term process. Thus, situating life paths in the midst of the transition to peace requires an extended time perspective. This book moves beyond a limited temporal perspective on veterans and ex-combatants by using life history interviews with groups that disarmed several decades ago. The book thus also forms part of the recent biographical turn in the social sciences (see e.g. Chamberlayne et al. 2000; Rustin 2008). The book takes the long view of life seriously; it also tries to make sense of transitions. These two elements are essential to the biographical turn and work within that tradition. Prioritizing the insider perspective is also central in the book, but not as essential in the biographical turn in general.

The aim of this book is to understand the personal transition from war to peace, principally in terms of the political life histories that ensue after coming home. The central research question for this book is, therefore: how do former combatants make sense of their war legacy for their continued life of politics? As such, this book gives insight into how the legacy of the war matters for individual combatants and their political life paths after coming home.

Peace is not accomplished on the backs of former combatants alone. The displaced, the refugees, the opposing combatants, the victims, the survivors of war also share in this process. However, this book focuses only on one side, namely the former combatants. It does not look for or bring out voices from those with other roles, experiences, and positions during the wars. This part of the process of peace is not a part of this book. In addition, of course, not everyone comes home. Some die, either as combatants or as civilians. Others shed their former combatant identities fully and leave their wartime identities behind, or are reluctant to talk about their experiences. These histories are not a part of this book either. Nonetheless, fifty individuals were interviewed about their experiences of coming home and living politics after war, and this book is first and foremost about their personal transitions from war to peace. The goal of the book is to focus on the reoccurring, the commonalities, and the similarities across time and space, and across individuals as they come home from war. The book does not answer how different combatants are from non-combatants, but rather how similar combatants from one war are to combatants from another war.

The book, therefore, sets out to understand the consequences for the individual combatant and their life – how the life of the returning former combatant is infused with politics, and how the transition from war to peace plays out on the personal level. Through understanding these transitional life paths, we can come closer to understanding how societies leave war behind and journey toward peace.

Conceptualizing political life after war

There is a wealth of work that highlights the political consequences of war in a number of different (indirect) ways (even if this literature may be tilted toward paying attention to interstate wars in the Global North). A vast amount of work has been devoted to understanding the political repercussions of the two world wars, particularly in terms of how veterans organize as veterans, how they position themselves in relation to the state, and how they express demands on the state (see, among others, Brooks 2004; Edele 2006, 2008; Jha and Wilkinson 2012; Kowalsky 2007; Leimgruber 2010; Mettler 2005; Ortiz 2010; Prost 1992). Several studies (most often on American veterans) also use survey data to study how draft risk, military service, and/or combat experience influence voter turnout, attitudes toward war and conflict resolution, party choice, party identification, and policy positions (see in particular Erikson and Stoker 2011; Jennings and Markus 1977; Schreiber 1979; Teigen 2006; but see also Grossman et al. 2015 and their work on Israeli soldiers; and Blattman 2009 on child soldiers in Uganda).³ There is some evidence that voter turnout increases, for instance. Overall, however, the effects are not uniform, and there are differences in the longevity and strength of the effects.

Literature dealing with former combatants in the Global South typically focuses on what kinds of different roles in politics these individuals take after war using more qualitative methods. Factors such as electoral mobilization, campaign activities, engagement with political elites, and relationship with political parties are often studied (see e.g. Alfieri 2016; Christensen and Utas 2008; Ishiyama 2016; Mitton 2008; Söderström 2016a; Utas and Christensen 2016). But this literature has also taken on questions such as the role of and attachment to ideology (Ugarriza and Craig 2013), the degree to which former combatants adhere to ideals of pluralism (Söderström 2011a), electoral legitimacy (Söderström 2013a), and political values and degree of participation more generally (Maclay and Özerdem 2010; Söderström 2015). Overall, this literature demonstrates an interest in and a tendency to participate in politics, even if it is not always accentuated by democratic values. This literature also shows that the interaction with the institutional environment is important for shaping how this participation unfolds.

This book focuses on understanding the former combatants’ own perspective on the process of coming home and their sense of political voice after disarmament. Not only has this perspective been underestimated, it is central to understanding not just the peace but also the conditions