The Paradox Of Traditional Chiefs In Democratic Africa
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Author | : Kate Baldwin |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 261 |
Release | : 2016 |
Genre | : Political Science |
ISBN | : 1107127335 |
This book shows that powerful hereditary chiefs do not undermine democracy in Africa but, on some level, facilitate it.
Author | : Skosana, Dineo |
Publisher | : The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) |
Total Pages | : 402 |
Release | : 2019-03-31 |
Genre | : Political Science |
ISBN | : 0639923836 |
Post-1994, South Africa's traditional leaders have fought for recognition, and positioned themselves as major players in the South African political landscape. Yet their role in a democracy is contested, with leaders often accused of abusing power, disregarding human rights, expropriating resources and promoting tribalism. Some argue that democracy and traditional leadership are irredeemably opposed and cannot co-exist. Meanwhile, shifts in the political economy of the former bantustans − the introduction of platinum mining in particular − have attracted new interests and conflicts to these areas, with chiefs often designated as custodians of community interests. This edited volume explores how chieftancy is practised, experienced and contested in contemporary South Africa. It includes case studies of how those living under the authority of chiefs, in a modern democracy, negotiate or resist this authority in their respective areas. Chapters in this book are organised around three major sites of contest: leadership, land and law.
Author | : David E. Kayuni |
Publisher | : LAP Lambert Academic Publishing |
Total Pages | : 144 |
Release | : 2012-07 |
Genre | : |
ISBN | : 9783844312881 |
Questions persist as to whether African traditional governance and democratic governance are compatible. Existing debate has traditionalists arguing that Africa's traditional chiefs are true representatives of their people, accessible, trustworthy, legitimate and therefore still important to the politics of Africa. Modernists on the other hand regard traditional leadership as chauvinistic, despotic, illegitimate and an irrelevant form of rule in a democracy. A third group argues for a 'mixed government' with modified traditional leadership. This book analyses claims that this leadership oppresses individuals and stifles general democratic participation. The book examines the influence of traditional leadership on people's political choice in electing leaders of democratic Malawi. It concludes that it is the existing interdependent path of survival between traditional leaders and politicians that infringes on freedom of political choice expressed through the right to vote. This undermines democracy. Both traditional leaders and politicians overlook the rights and welfare of the voter in an effort to sustain their authority and material benefit.
Author | : Jude Thaddeus Dingbobga Fokwang |
Publisher | : African Books Collective |
Total Pages | : 140 |
Release | : 2009 |
Genre | : Cameroon |
ISBN | : 9956558648 |
This study analyses the effects of democratic transition in two African countries - Cameroon and South Africa - on chiefs and the institution of chieftainship. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the monograph explores the cultural and socio-political conditions that enabled chiefs to reinvent themselves in the new era of democratic politics despite their status as 'old political actors'. It explores the kinds of legitimacies claimed by chiefs in the new era and the responses of their subjects to such claims, particularly with respect to chiefs' involvement in national politics. The monograph makes a case for the importance of comparative research on chiefs in the era of democracy and the predicaments they face therein. It contends that contrary to exhortations about the incompatibility of chiefs and democracy, the reality is that political transition in both South Africa and Cameroon produced contradictions, creating space and a role for chiefs in a fascinating and negotiated interplay of legitimacies and history.
Author | : Jonathan A. Rodden |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 313 |
Release | : 2019-02-28 |
Genre | : Business & Economics |
ISBN | : 110849790X |
Reviews recent lessons about decentralized governance and implications for future development programs and policies.
Author | : Thad Dunning |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 505 |
Release | : 2019-07-11 |
Genre | : Political Science |
ISBN | : 1108395074 |
Throughout the world, voters lack access to information about politicians, government performance, and public services. Efforts to remedy these informational deficits are numerous. Yet do informational campaigns influence voter behavior and increase democratic accountability? Through the first project of the Metaketa Initiative, sponsored by the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) research network, this book aims to address this substantive question and at the same time introduce a new model for cumulative learning that increases coordination among otherwise independent researcher teams. It presents the overall results (using meta-analysis) from six independently conducted but coordinated field experimental studies, the results from each individual study, and the findings from a related evaluation of whether practitioners utilize this information as expected. It also discusses lessons learned from EGAP's efforts to coordinate field experiments, increase replication of theoretically important studies across contexts, and increase the external validity of field experimental research.
Author | : Alex de Waal |
Publisher | : John Wiley & Sons |
Total Pages | : 242 |
Release | : 2015-10-19 |
Genre | : Social Science |
ISBN | : 0745695612 |
The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa delves into the business of politics in the turbulent, war-torn countries of north-east Africa. It is a contemporary history of how politicians, generals and insurgents bargain over money and power, and use of war to achieve their goals. Drawing on a thirty-year career in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, including experience as a participant in high-level peace talks, Alex de Waal provides a unique and compelling account of how these countries’ leaders run their governments, conduct their business, fight their wars and, occasionally, make peace. De Waal shows how leaders operate on a business model, securing funds for their ‘political budgets’ which they use to rent the provisional allegiances of army officers, militia commanders, tribal chiefs and party officials at the going rate. This political marketplace is eroding the institutions of government and reversing statebuildingÑand it is fuelled in large part by oil exports, aid funds and western military assistance for counter-terrorism and peacekeeping. The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa is a sharp and disturbing book with profound implications for international relations, development and peacemaking in the Horn of Africa and beyond.
Author | : David Stasavage |
Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
Total Pages | : 424 |
Release | : 2020-06-02 |
Genre | : Political Science |
ISBN | : 0691201951 |
"One of the most important books on political regimes written in a generation."—Steven Levitsky, New York Times–bestselling author of How Democracies Die A new understanding of how and why early democracy took hold, how modern democracy evolved, and what this history teaches us about the future Historical accounts of democracy’s rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. The Decline and Rise of Democracy draws from global evidence to show that the story is much richer—democratic practices were present in many places, at many other times, from the Americas before European conquest, to ancient Mesopotamia, to precolonial Africa. Delving into the prevalence of early democracy throughout the world, David Stasavage makes the case that understanding how and where these democracies flourished—and when and why they declined—can provide crucial information not just about the history of governance, but also about the ways modern democracies work and where they could manifest in the future. Drawing from examples spanning several millennia, Stasavage first considers why states developed either democratic or autocratic styles of governance and argues that early democracy tended to develop in small places with a weak state and, counterintuitively, simple technologies. When central state institutions (such as a tax bureaucracy) were absent—as in medieval Europe—rulers needed consent from their populace to govern. When central institutions were strong—as in China or the Middle East—consent was less necessary and autocracy more likely. He then explores the transition from early to modern democracy, which first took shape in England and then the United States, illustrating that modern democracy arose as an effort to combine popular control with a strong state over a large territory. Democracy has been an experiment that has unfolded over time and across the world—and its transformation is ongoing. Amidst rising democratic anxieties, The Decline and Rise of Democracy widens the historical lens on the growth of political institutions and offers surprising lessons for all who care about governance.
Author | : Timothy Jay Peterka |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : |
Release | : 2018 |
Genre | : |
ISBN | : 9780438932302 |
In sub-Saharan Africa, the traditional and modern exist side by side. There, traditional chiefs, subnational elites who enjoy elevated social status by virtue of their historical ties to their local area, work with formal governments and maintain an active role in the everyday lives of people across the region. Despite this pattern, we lack an understanding of how their influence shapes politics. To fill the gap, I examine how chiefs shape the central political economy of development outcomes of clientelism, social conflict, patronage, and opposition fragmentation. In the first paper, I describe how political parties leverage the social influence chiefs wield to hire them on as electoral intermediaries during elections. However, when chiefs are ineffectual partners, parties seek out alternative sources of social influence in the form of opinion leaders. In the second paper, I move to outlining how chiefs shape levels of social conflict. I argue that social conflict is most likely when chiefs are neither very weak nor very strong. In regions with midrange chiefs, authority is contested and violence a more likely tool of political redress. In the third paper, I return to the electoral world and ask how chiefs can make the electoral playing field more equal. I posit that the strongest chiefs can directly blunt the patronage swords incumbents wield by refusing to join the patronage coalition. Strong chiefs too, when aligned with incumbents during the democratic transition, indirectly facilitate opposition consolidation. Together, the dissertation papers demonstrate how chiefs affect outcomes with very real impacts on the material lives of people in the region. The dissertation contributes to a wider literature on the impact of traditional institutions and subnational elites on political outcomes in other parts of the world.
Author | : Torben Iversen |
Publisher | : Yale University Press |
Total Pages | : 221 |
Release | : 2010-01-01 |
Genre | : Social Science |
ISBN | : 0300153104 |
This book presents an original and groundbreaking approach to gender inequality. Looking at women's power in the home, in the workplace, and in politics from a political economy perspective, the authors demonstrate that equality is tied to demand for women's labor outside the home, which is a function of structural, political, and institutional conditions.--[book jacket].