ARTICLES State Resilience in Guinea: Mitigating the ‘Bad Neighbourhood Effect ’ of Civil War Next Door1

This article addresses the question of how to sustain domestic peace in a regionalized conflict zone, with special reference to the Republic of Guinea. From 1990-2008, Guinea was surrounded by six countries experiencing political unrest and/or civil war. The outbreak of these wars and the influx of refugees presented a threat to Guinea’s stability. This article explains how the Guinean state, despite these unfavourable conditions, known as the ‘bad neighbourhood effect, ’ remained resilient during these decades. It concludes that the measures taken by Guinea and its international partners successfully mitigated the contagion effects of Guinea’s neighbouring conflicts. This is in contrast to findings in recent quantitative studies where the ‘bad neighbourhood effect ’ is strongly linked with the onset of large-scale civil conflicts