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| 1 |
ID:
135418
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| Summary/Abstract |
partner. In 2011, Europe provided nearly half of Africa’s total investment stock, worth around €200 ... attendance. What is the substance behind these summits? Is this a signal of Africa’s coming of age as ... Africa’s own peace support operations, as well as the provider of training missions and protective mineral rich with untapped markets, this is the continent the world is now courting.
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ID:
136439
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This study explores the role of domestic politics in China’s health-related development assistance to Africa. It identifies domestic politics as a constant, even critical, component in shaping and structuring China’s health aid to Africa. Until the late 1970s, foreign policy considerations determined the volume, direction and terms of China’s foreign aid, but since the 1980s domestic political economy has dominated China’s health aid policy process. China today utilises development assistance for health not only to expand its global influence and improve its international image, but also to serve the market and resource needs of its domestic economic development. An examination of existing policy-making and implementation regimes in health aid highlights the role of bureaucratic politics and other political-institutional variables in affecting the form, substance and effectiveness of foreign aid to Africa. The findings have important implications in China’s willingness and capacity to cooperate with the global donor community in Africa.
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ID:
134945
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Using a panel data set from Burundi where information on protection payments during the twelve-year civil war was collected, we test the relationship between payments, the nature of extraction by the rebels, and the welfare outcomes. We ask, “Does payment to rebels insure against future welfare loss and does the nature of payment matter? Specifically, does the level of institutionalization of extraction within the rebel governance structure provide a form of insurance for future welfare?” No less than 30 percent of the interviewees made at least one payment. Rebels extract these taxes through one of the following two routes: an “institutionalized” and regular cash-with-receipt method or an ad hoc and unpredictable labor extraction. Using matching methods, we find that payment through the institutionalized route increases household welfare between 16 and 25 percent. Ad hoc extraction has no effect. We situate our findings in the empirical literatures on contributions to mafia-type organizations and rebel governance.
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ID:
136217
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This article argues that the securitisation of Africa’s environment and climate in the early twenty-first century has less to do with multidisciplinary inquiry into the complexities of climate change, development and conflict, and more with historically established paradigms of thinking about Africa, its ecosystems and notions of disorder and violence. Securitisation is the result of a specific moment in the post–Cold War era with its particular geopolitical configuration and of deeply embedded modes of imagining the African continent, its peoples and their relationship with the environments they inhabit. The main objective of this article is to historicise and politicise the prevailing dystopian discourse about climate-induced insecurity. I show that the assumptions and chains of causality that constitute today’s climate wars narrative are remarkably similar in nature to the environmental narratives that underpinned imperialist and post-independence discourses on environment and development, legitimising highly authoritarian interventions against local populations by governments.
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| 5 |
ID:
136876
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| Summary/Abstract |
Almost across the board, recent studies of small arms proliferation and policy in Africa seem to have disengaged from historical data and analysis. This article contextualizes current debates on small arms and how they relate to the African continent, by revisiting historical data and analysis. The article draws on the relatively large literature on firearms in African history from the slave trade to early independence to offer new ways of thinking about small arms imports, the impact and prospects for control. Despite the richness of historical studies, they tend to be treated as historical conditions, not assessed for their implications for the current small arms regime. Reflecting on the historical sequence, it appears as if the situation today resembles that of the beginning of the 20th century. Enforcement of local leadership is often weak and the arms trade is relatively large and liberalized. This review finds that historical conditions and structures are built into Africa's current arms control architecture, posing significant challenges for effectiveness and legitimacy. The large scale of old and obsolete small arms frequent in sub-Saharan Africa suggests that weapon destruction programmes, rather than marking, recordkeeping and safe stockpiling of old stocks or recovered weapons, would often be more manageable and offer greater improvements in local security. The positive aspects of external influences on African sub-regional arms control regimes in terms of financial and technical support should be carefully weighed against the risk of reinforcing old patterns.
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| 6 |
ID:
135786
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This paper addresses the effects of the mixed system used for the last three elections in Lesotho (2002, 2007 and 2012), a small African country with a turbulent history regarding opposition acceptance of elections. The decision to implement a mixed system was in part to encourage democratic stability, yet whether the electoral system has become more conducive to democratic competition is unclear. Through an analysis of national and district-level results, this paper addresses the following questions. First, at the district level, is competition consistent with Duverger’s law or the contamination thesis and is a progression over time evident? Second, does the population size of a district influence the number of candidates and the concentration of votes? Finally, following recent research on detecting electoral fraud, this paper tackles whether the reports of district results suggest extra-institutional manipulation.
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| 7 |
ID:
135789
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper addresses the effects of the mixed system used for the last three elections in Lesotho (2002, 2007 and 2012), a small African country with a turbulent history regarding opposition acceptance of elections. The decision to implement a mixed system was in part to encourage democratic stability, yet whether the electoral system has become more conducive to democratic competition is unclear. Through an analysis of national and district-level results, this paper addresses the following questions. First, at the district level, is competition consistent with Duverger’s law or the contamination thesis and is a progression over time evident? Second, does the population size of a district influence the number of candidates and the concentration of votes? Finally, following recent research on detecting electoral fraud, this paper tackles whether the reports of district results suggest extra-institutional manipulation
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| 8 |
ID:
136807
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India and Africa are two ancient civilizations. Both share a common colonial past and ideological orientation. India’s engagement with Africa in modern times goes back to the pre-colonial period. Since the British colonial rule was also established in many African countries, they became instrumental in initiating the interactions between the two peoples. For the purpose of colonial exploitation the cheap labour from India was brought in many African countries to work as plantation workers.
India
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| 9 |
ID:
136107
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This article examines the habitus of soldiers who either deserted or resigned from the Zimbabwe National Army in the post–2000 crisis in Zimbabwe and now live in exile in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is based on the information provided by forty-four former soldiers who related their life histories and participated in informal conversations and group discussions. A main finding is that these men, even though they have left the army, hold on in the extreme to their being as soldiers. This is shaped by at least four, interlinked dimensions of change in their lives: leaving the army without honorable discharge, leaving Zimbabwe itself, being exiles in an often unwelcoming South Africa, loss of family life and military status. The post-deployment dominance of military dispositions in the identity of the former soldiers is quite unique. Most former combatants worldwide have succeeded in different degrees to unmake their habituated forms of military identity or live with multiple identities.
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| 10 |
ID:
134236
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The North American scholarship on gated housing communities posits the desire for security as the main driver for gating, but does this hold true for less wealthy countries? To address this question, this study examines evidence of why people live behind gates in Malaysia and Ghana and investigates the socio-economic implications of gating. It uses a critical institutional framework anchored on Foucault’s interpretation of ‘panopticon’ and Runciman’s theory of relative deprivation, while drawing empirical evidence from surveys and emic experiences. It finds that, while security is an important reason, it is the provision of quality housing services that is reported as the single most important reason for living behind gates. ‘Quality service’ is, however, shorthand for a preference for privileged status. Further, the paper reveals that it is more helpful to see the binary between quality and security as constituting a flexible continuum of motives. Inhabitants of gated housing communities may be primarily motivated by quality service or prestige. Yet, as they set themselves up against the rest of society by enclosing themselves in walls of affluence, they begin to feel a need for greater security. This feeling of insecurity is heightened as people outside the gates feel relatively deprived. Thus, the desire for security becomes illusory and attainment of privilege, pyrrhic, while the harsh socio-economic conditions for a large stratum of the urban population living outside the gates persist and are sometimes worsened.
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| 11 |
ID:
135117
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As the Ebola virus spreads across Western Africa, World Policy Journal explores the role of social media in tracking epidemics. In order to measure social media’s impact, we compare the number of reported cases and deaths through social media with that of the World Health Organization (WHO), the international body responding to the virus in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, in May, June, and July 2014. The information is compiled through Crisis NET, a cutting-edge platform that collects and houses incident data. Crisis NET’s
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| 12 |
ID:
136692
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| Summary/Abstract |
Burkina Faso ousted a leader who overstayed his welcome. Should other West African leaders watch their backs?
The government of Burkina Faso’s deposed president, Blaise Compaoré, was a cornerstone of French and US security policy in the northwest of Africa. For 27 years, he was the immovable guarantor of internal and external stability. Or so it seemed. But then, within 48 hours at the end of October 2014, he was gone.
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| 13 |
ID:
135958
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When elites mobilize supporters according to different cleavages, or when individuals realign themselves along new identity lines, do their political preferences change? Scholars have focused predominantly on the size of potential coalitions that leaders construct, to the exclusion of other changes that might occur when one or another identity type is made salient. In this article, I argue that changes in the salience of ethnicity and religion in Africa are associated with variation in policy preferences at the individual level. I test this claim empirically using data from a framing experiment in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. By randomly assigning participants to either a religious or an ethno-linguistic context, I show that group members primed to ethnicity prioritize club goods, the access to which is a function of where they live. Otherwise identical individuals primed to religion prioritize behavioral policies and moral probity. These findings are explained by the geographic boundedness of ethnic groups and the geographic expansiveness of (world) religions in the study area.
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| 14 |
ID:
137070
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| Summary/Abstract |
African cotton has been an engine of immiseration. On this the historic record is clear. Since 2002 development policy and decision makers have attempted to treat aspects of this unwelcome condition by focusing official poverty-reduction efforts more explicitly on cotton. While these anti-poverty palliatives have doubtless been well-warranted, the preferred poverty pain relievers have under-performed. This article argues that poverty reduction efforts undertaken for African cotton at multiple levels over the past 13 years have been overly infused with neoliberal ideas. Many experts have simply not cottoned on to the possibility that prescriptions steeped in neoliberal predispositions might only alleviate some of the symptoms that their African ‘patients’ experience every day. In this context status quo poverty reduction initiatives come at a high potential risk and cost. Absent a rethink, in this case the poverty of ‘poverty reduction’ could well be cemented.
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| 15 |
ID:
136090
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Why are refugee populations associated with the spread of conflict? Do refugees upset local dynamics by increasing the mobilization opportunities of rebels? Work on rebel motivation predicts that the strategic impact of a location influences armed actors' decisions to fight there; thus, I identify two strategic aspects of refugee geography which may influence where conflict takes place in the host country – refugee mass and refugee accommodation type. I examine the influence of these factors using a new, disaggregated dataset on refugees in 26 African countries engaged in armed conflict during the period 2000–2010.
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| 16 |
ID:
137011
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The emergence of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) group of states as a new geopolitical power bloc has received substantial coverage in the media. South Africa’s inclusion in the group has been particularly controversial, and media attention tended to focus on the country’s relationship with China against the backdrop of the BRICS alignment. The media industry itself has also been a part of global movements of people and capital. This article seeks to establish how this relationship has been represented in the South African media, and to explore the attitudes of senior journalists and editors towards South Africa’s position within the changing global geopolitical landscape.
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