Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Jon Abbink
Author-X-Name-First: Jon
Author-X-Name-Last: Abbink
Author-Email: abbink@ascleiden.nl
Title:The Ethiopian Second Republic and the Fragile .Social Contract.
Abstract:Eighteen years after the change of power and the ushering in of the second Ethiopian republic in 1991, the political process in Ethiopia has, according to most observers, rigidified and largely closed the space for representative democracy. This paper will look at the main organizing political ideas or ideology of the current Ethiopian republic and to the nature of its governance techniques in the face of domestic and international challenges with reference to the debate on .failing. or .fragile. states. The new .social contract. defined after 1991 and codified in the 1994 Constitution is precarious. Dissent and ethno-regional resistance to federal policies are dealt with mainly by coercion and discursive isolation. Oppositional forces voice the need for a rethinking of the organizing ideas and institutions of the second republic in order to enhance political consensus and a shared political arena, but get little response. The paper will sketch an interpretation of governance in Ethiopia, focusing on the dilemma of reconciling local and modernist political practices, and will discuss the status of .republican. ideas, in name important in Ethiopia but mostly absent in practice. Explicit debate of these ideas is usually sidelined . also in academic commentaries . in favour of a focus on the ethno-federal ideology of the Ethiopian state.
Pages: 3-28
Creation-Date:2010-01
File-URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/122/122
File-Format: Application/pdf
Keywords: Republicanism; Democratization; Ethnicity; Political culture; Fragile states
Volume: 44
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:44:y:2009:i:2:p:3-28
Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Volker Stamm
Author-X-Name-First: Volker
Author-X-Name-Last: Stamm
Author-Email: Volker.Stamm@gtz.de
Title:Social Research and Development Policy: Two Approaches to West African Land-tenure Problems
Abstract:This article analyses the extent to which the concepts underlying land policies in West Africa that prevail amongst the development organisations most active in this field correspond to the results of the intense debate on the same subject over the last three decades, which has involved almost all branches of the social sciences: ethnology, legal anthropology, sociology, history and rural economics. It is found that the outcomes of these academic analyses are in sharp contrast to the approaches propagated and translated into practice by development agencies, which often start from oversimplified and inadmissibly generalised assumptions, so that one must ask whether the diverging logics of these two disciplines are responsible for this marked difference.
Pages: 29-52
Creation-Date:2010-01
File-URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/123/123
File-Format: Application/pdf
Keywords: Land law; Agricultural reforms; Development policy
Volume: 44
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:44:y:2009:i:2:p:29-52
Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Komlan Essizewa
Author-X-Name-First: Komlan
Author-X-Name-Last: Essizewa
Author-Email: komlan.essizewa@gmail.com
Title:The Vitality of Kabiye in Togo
Abstract:In Togo, speakers of Kabiye have been in contact with the speak¬ers of Ewe for several decades due to migration. As a result of this language contact, many members of the Kabiye speech community have become bilingual in Kabiye and Ewe. There have been a number of claims that Kabiye .est une langue en péril. (Aritiba 1993: 11). These claims have been based mainly on the observation of Kabiye speakers in Lomé and other major cities, where younger speakers seem to be losing their mother tongue to the benefit of Ewe. However, the extent of the loss of Kabiye is not well known because no extensive sociolinguistic study has been carried out among Kabiye speakers in these areas, and more specifically, in major Kabiye-speaking areas. The current study which has been carried out in Kara, the major Kabiye-speaking city and Awidina, a Kabiye village of the prefecture of Kara, fills the gap. The paper examines Kabiye speakers. reports of patterns of language use in these areas of the Kabiye community.
Pages: 53-76
Creation-Date:2010-01
File-URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/124/124
File-Format: Application/pdf
Keywords: Language; Kabiye; Bilingualism
Volume: 44
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:44:y:2009:i:2:p:53-76
Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Reuben Chirambo
Author-X-Name-First: Reuben
Author-X-Name-Last: Chirambo
Author-Email: reuben.chirambo@uct.ac.za
Title:Democracy as a Limiting Factor for Politicised Cultural Populism in Malawi
Abstract:Though Malawian democracy could still be described as in transition from authoritarianism, it has enabled an atmosphere for critical debate of and dissent against seemingly popular opinions, which was not possible during the authoritarian rule of former life president, Dr. H. K. Banda, 1964-1994. This article examines politicised cultural populism in Malawi under the dictatorship and democracy in comparative terms. President Banda, as a political populist, appropriated culture to legitimate and validate his political power as well as to cultivate popular support from the majority of ordinary people. Following reforms towards democracy since 1992, his successors have also tended towards populist politics by similarly appropriating culture and cultural activities, among other means, to cultivate popular support from mostly ordinary people for their regimes. Such politicised cultural populism involves adopting traditional roles, cultural symbols and images of power such as praise-titles, and participating in cultural activities such as traditional dances. This article examines the efforts of President Bingu wa Mutharika in the democratic dispensation to appropriate cultural artefacts used by Banda during a dictatorship in order to cultivate popular support for his regime. The article argues that Bingu.s efforts at politicised cultural populism are constrained, among other factors, by the nature and climate of democratic politics mainly because democracy, unlike a dictatorship, enables critical debate and the questioning of political leader.s behaviour and their motives.
Pages: 77-94
Creation-Date:2010-01
File-URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/125/125
File-Format: Application/pdf
Keywords: Democracy; Dictatorship; Political Culture; Populism
Volume: 44
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:44:y:2009:i:2:p:77-94
Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Paul-Henri Bischoff
Author-X-Name-First: Paul-Henri
Author-X-Name-Last: Bischoff
Author-Email: paulhenri.bischoff@gmail.com
Title:Reform in Defence of Sovereignty: South Africa in the UN Security Council, 2007-2008
Abstract:After 1994, South Africa became the sine qua non of an interna¬tionalist state, willing to promote cooperation amongst a plurality of actors, believing common interests to be more important than their differences. This raised the hopes of constitutionalists, and those who believed in the expansion of a liberal democratic peace. South Africa has acted out two seemingly contradictory roles: those of a reformer and those of a conserver. By 2007-2008 she had shifted towards the latter, conservative-reformist position. Thus, South Africa.s voting record at the General Assembly expressed her overriding concern to regionalise African issues and minimise the US and the West shaping political events. This brought her foreign policy into sharper relief. But while in some sense successful, it came at a price: a controversy about her surrendering her internationalism and principles on human rights for African unity and traditional sovereignty. But it also marked the arrival of South Africa in the world of international Realpolitik.
Pages: 95-110
Creation-Date:2010-01
File-URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/126/126
File-Format: Application/pdf
Keywords: Foreign policy; United Nations Security Council
Volume: 44
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:44:y:2009:i:2:p:95-110
Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Roger Southall
Author-X-Name-First: Roger
Author-X-Name-Last: Southall
Author-Email: roger.southall@wits.ac.za
Author-Name: John Daniel
Author-X-Name-First: John
Author-X-Name-Last: Daniel
Author-Email: John.Daniel@sit.edu
Title:The South African Election of 2009
Abstract:South Africans voted in their country.s fourth democratic general election on 22 April 2009. The African National Congress (ANC) again secured a substantial victory. It might seem that the 2009 Elections proved to be .business as usual.. Yet such a conclusion is unjustified, for events had conspired to generate excitement about this particular contest, which rivalled that leading up to the .liberation election. of 1994. The reasons for this were several, but the most important revolved around Jacob Zuma, who had risen to the presidency of the ANC in December 2007, and the formation of a new party of opposition, the Congress of the People (COPE), by dissidents from within the ANC. In the elections, however, the ANC reasserted its dominance. Even so, the results of the 2009 election at national and provincial level indicate change. The ANC has maintained its electoral dominance, yet its grip on the electorate has been somewhat weakened, while the opposition . although remaining very much in the minority . has consolidated.
Pages: 111-124
Creation-Date:2010-01
File-URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/127/127
File-Format: Application/pdf
Keywords: State; Elections; ANC
Volume: 44
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:44:y:2009:i:2:p:111-124
Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Norbert Kersting
Author-X-Name-First: Norbert
Author-X-Name-Last: Kersting
Author-Email: kersting@sun.ac.za
Title:Voting Behaviour in the 2009 South African Election
Abstract:This article analyses voting behaviour in the South African election of 2009 and draws conclusions regarding the significance of party affiliation and issue-based voting in South Africa. It demonstrates the low level of voter registration and voter turnout. In the 2009 election the Independent Electoral Commission had problems with electoral management for the first time; however, it was able to prevent electoral violence. During the campaign the newly founded COPE focused on institutional reforms and the oppositional Democratic Alliance concentrated too much on negative campaigning. In the post-Mbeki era, the ANC has been able to reinvent itself by being the only party with a strong focus on pro-poor policies. Nevertheless, the lack of alternatives in electoral democracies may lead to alternative instruments of political action.
Pages: 125-133
Creation-Date:2010-01
File-URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/128/128
File-Format: Application/pdf
Keywords: State; Elections; ANC
Volume: 44
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:44:y:2009:i:2:p:125-133
Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Bruce Baker
Author-X-Name-First: Bruce
Author-X-Name-Last: Baker
Author-Email: lsx103@coventry.ac.uk
Title:Cape Verde: Marketing Good Governance
Abstract:Faced with a lack of natural resources Cape Verde has made good governance one of its most marketable products. Running parallel to the institutionalisation of democratic politics there has been an overhaul and growing sophistication in public administration, though certain weaknesses persist. This report argues that it is reform and improvement in this area in particular that has enabled this small island state to punch above its weight and achieve remarkable social, economic and political results. But will the successful formula of the past decade prove sufficient for the future? Poverty and unemployment have by no means been conquered. Much of the economic growth has been based in the tourist sector and the government is well aware of the dangers of over-reliance on a single industry. Cape Verde.s midway location between South America and Europe and its increasing international transport connections will continue to offer advantages to drug traffickers. The next few years of the world financial crisis will show whether marketing good governance is enough and whether this is the model for small resource developing states.
Pages: 135-147
Creation-Date:2010-01
File-URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/129/129
File-Format: Application/pdf
Keywords: State; Economy; Society; Good governance
Volume: 44
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:44:y:2009:i:2:p:135-147
Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Boubacar Barry
Author-X-Name-First: Boubacar
Author-X-Name-Last: Barry
Author-Email: bbarry@orange.sn
Title:.We must move towards a conference of national reconciliation .. . Professor Boubacar Barry on the Guinean crisis
Abstract:This text is a combination of an authorised interview with and text fragments by historian Boubacar Barry on the roots of the Guinean crisis. Barry traces the origins of the crisis back to the Sékou Touré dictatorship and even beyond. He considers ECOWAS involvement in the crucial crisis management and major reforms of the state.s structure to accommodate for the diversity of the cultural background of Guinea.s population.
Pages: 149-159
Creation-Date:2010-01
File-URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/130/130
File-Format: Application/pdf
Keywords: State; Society; Military
Volume: 44
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:44:y:2009:i:2:p:149-159
Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Rita Schäfer
Author-X-Name-First: Rita
Author-X-Name-Last: Schäfer
Author-Email: Marx.Schaefer@t-online.de
Title:Review: Susanne Buckley-Zistel: Conflict Transformation and Social Change in Uganda. Remembering after Violence (2008)
Abstract:Review of the monograph: Susanne Buckley-Zistel: Conflict Transformation and Social Change in Uganda. Remembering after Violence, Houndsmills/Basingstoke: Palgrave Publications, 2008, ISBN 978-1-4039-9576-6, 192 pages
Pages: 161-163
Creation-Date:2010-01
File-URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/131/131
File-Format: Application/pdf
Keywords: Social change; Social conflicts
Volume: 44
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:44:y:2009:i:2:p:161-163