Event Date: April 3, 2019 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: FSS4006, 120 University Private

In the aftermath of the Liberian civil war, groups of ex-combatants seized control of key natural resource enclaves in the country. With some of them threatening a return to war, these groups were widely viewed as the most significant threats to Liberia’s hard-won peace. Building on fieldwork and socio-historical analysis, this study shows how extralegal groups were incentivized to provide basic governance goods in their bid to create a stable commercial environment during the country’s war-to-peace transition. By analysing the trajectory of extralegal groups in three sectors of the Liberian economy— rubber, diamonds, and timber— this book traces how livelihood strategies merged with the opportunities of Liberia’s post-war political economy. At the same time, this is also a context-specific story that is rooted in the country’s geography, its history of state-making, and its social and political practices. Extralegal groups did not emerge in a vacuum.

Christine Cheng is Lecturer in War Studies at King’s College London. Dr Cheng is the author of Extralegal Groups in Post-Conflict Liberia- How Trade Makes the State (OUP), which was shortlisted for the 2019 Conflict Research Society’s Annual Book Prize.