Understanding Conflict Trends in Africa: A Peer into the Psychocultural Conflict Perspective

Abstract

Conflicts within continental Africa have been a recurring decimal in the socio-political, economic, and cultural history of the people of Africa from time immemorial. In the last few decades, especially from the mid-twentieth century, African societies have been undergoing difficult times vis-à-vis interstate and intrastate conflagrations. This study attempts to provide a critical glimpse into the nature of the concept of conflict, its inherent characteristic features and the various types of conflicts applicable to the African continent. It relied on the qualitative content analysis of secondary sources of data, and the psychocultural conflict approach was adopted as the tools of analysis for the study. The paper argues that conflicts in the different African regions are both interstate and intrastate; the latter remaining the dominant form of conflict in Africa with an increasing amount of actors. Also, the essay holds that conflicts have undermined Africa’s development by causing the loss of human lives and economic resources, dislocation of people, and increased poverty rate. The paper, therefore, recommends the need for a context-specific and multi-layer conflict resolution, management and prevention initiative(s) encapsulating a broad based local, regional and international collaboration between all concerned stakeholders; the unfettered adherence to the rule of law; and the governments’ need to place as their basic attention the welfare of the citizens through well guided policies so as to increase citizens’ living standards and support human capital development.