Conference Report: The Legacy of Armed Conflicts: Southern African and Comparative Perspectives

Die Autorin berichtet vom internationalen Workshop "The Legacy of Armed Conflicts: Southern African and Comparative Perspectives", der am 28./29. Juli 2016 an der Universität Pretoria stattfand. Der Workshop ermöglichte den Austausch und die gemeinsame Debatte von Experten für Regionalforschung und für komparative Studien. Im Zentrum standen drei Themen: der Zusammenhang zwischen Friedensprozessen und langfristiger Friedenssicherung, die Rolle ehemaliger bewaffneter Akteure in Nachkriegsgesellschaften und die Fortdauer von Gewalt nach der Beendigung von Konflikten. In der Diskussion wurde insbesondere die Bedeutung von Legitimität beim Aufbau friedlicher Strukturen hervorgehoben sowie die Notwendigkeit, die Kontinuität zwischen bewaffneten Konflikten und späteren Formen gewaltsamer und gewaltloser sozialer Handlungen zu berücksichtigen.This report deals with the international workshop "The Legacy of Armed Conflicts: Southern African and Comparative Perspectives," held on 28–29 July 2016 at the University of Pretoria. The workshop facilitated discussions and exchanges between regional and comparative experts and focused on three themes: the relationship between peace processes and long-term peacebuilding, the role of former armed actors in post-conflict societies, and the persistence of violence after conflict. The importance of legitimacy for peacebuilding was often evoked as was the necessity to consider the continuity between armed conflict and other forms of violent and non-violent social action

Does democratisation foster effective taxation? Evidence from Benin

Fiscal sociology has alleged the existence of a mutually reinforcing effect between the emergence of representative government and effective taxation. This paper looks at Benin, a low-income country that successfully democratised in the early 1990s. It finds that Benin appears to have reinforced its extractive capacities since democratisation. However, the effect of democratisation has been indirect, while the influence of the International Financial Institutions (IFI) and the size of the country's informal sector have played a more direct role. Nevertheless, the hypothesis that effective taxation is based on a quasi-consensual relationship between the state and the taxpayers finds some confirmation

Winning wars, building (illiberal) peace? The rise (and possible fall) of a victor’s peace in Rwanda and Sri Lanka

© 2015 Southseries Inc., www.thirdworldquarterly.com.The literature on peacebuilding dedicates very little space, empirically and theoretically, to countries that are emerging from a war waged to a decisive outcome. This review essay looks at Sri Lanka and Rwanda, two countries where a victorious leadership has led the process of post-conflict reconstruction, largely by employing illiberal means. It looks at the effect of decisive war on statebuilding and at the role of local agency and illiberal practices in a post-victory context. It concludes by assessing the global significance and long-term sustainability of post-victory illiberal statebuilding

One step forward, two steps back? Côte d’ivoire’s 2015 presidential polls

© 2016. GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies. All Rights Reserved.The 2015 presidential election in Côte d’Ivoire was seen as an important test for the country given the 2010 post-election crisis. Although the 2015 polls were peaceful, they were affected by problems not new to Côte d’Ivoire: lack of competition due to non-participation of major political actors, low voter turnout, mistrust in electoral institutions. The unpreparedness of the Commission Electorale Indépendante (CEI) was also problematic, especially with respect to the revision of the voter list. Due to the boycott of partisans of former president Laurent Gbagbo and because of the support of the Rassemblement des Houphouëtistes pour la Démocratie et la Paix (RHDP), President Alassane Ouattara’s reelection was essentially a given from the start. With the ruling coalition firmly in control, Côte d’Ivoire appears stable. However, the country’s democratic deficit might lead to renewed violence once the RHDP has to pick Ouattara’s successor

International diffusion and the puzzle of African regionalism: insights from West Africa

Since decolonization, Sub-Saharan Africa has seen the birth of a large number of regional initiatives whose institutional set up and high integration ambitions are inspired by the model of the European Union (EU). West Africa’s sub-regional organizations: the Economic Community of the West African States (ECOWAS) and the Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA), are clear examples of this pattern of diffusion. However, African regionalism is often decried as ineffective, in particular in the domain of trade and economic cooperation. Two arguments have been usually put forward in order to explain the simultaneous adoption of the EU model of integration in Africa and its mixed outcomes: constructivist scholars have emphasized normative tensions, while area studies specialists have focused on the neo-patrimonial nature of African politics. Looking at West Africa as a case study, this article argues that both perspectives have limits. Structural constraints and sociological institutionalist theory appear more appropriate in order to account for the mixed record of regionalism in Africa. It is argued that these challenges seem to be less specifically ‘African’ than usually thought

The dilemmas of state consent in united nations peace operations: The case of the united nations operation in Côte d’Ivoire

The dilemmas of state consent in united nations peace operations: The case of the united nations operation in Côte d’Ivoir

Infrastructural state capacity for democratization? Voter registration and identification in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana compared

© 2015 Taylor & Francis.A large portion of electoral irregularities in developing countries stem from administrative deficiencies, rather than deliberate fraud. This is particularly evident when it comes to voter registration and identification: the quality of a voter list depends on the existence of effective mechanisms to register and identify citizens and electors, which might not be easily at hand in many developing countries. Democratization in these countries has been accompanied by intense polemics about the quality of the voter rolls and the identification of electors, which have threatened democratic consolidation. Biometric technology has been recently heralded as a possible solution, but its effective potential is disputable. In order to understand how problems with registering and identifying voters have affected democratization, this article reviews the contrasting experiences of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. In Côte d'Ivoire, the problem of the reliability of the voter register has been entangled since the 1990s with the politicization of the citizenship question. As a consequence, compiling an acceptable voter register has proven extremely difficult and cumbersome. In Ghana, an effective electoral administration has been key to overcoming the mistrust of the political parties about the fairness of the voter process

A democratic rentier state? Taxation, aid dependency and political representation in Benin

Drawing on the history of statebuilding in Western Europe, fiscal sociology has proposed the existence of a mutually reinforcing effect between the emergence of representative government and effective taxation. This paper looks at the case of Benin, a low‐income West African country that underwent a fairly successful democratization process in the early 1990s. It finds, in contrast to previous studies that have emphasized dependency on aid rents, that Benin appears to have reinforced its extractive capacities since democratization. However, the effect of democratization has been largely indirect, while other factors, such as the influence of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and the size of the country’s informal sector, have played a more direct role in encouraging or inhibiting tax extraction. Nevertheless, the hypothesis that effective taxation depends on a quasiconsensual relationship between government and taxpayers finds some confirmation in the Beninese case

The Unintended Consequences of Risk Assessment Regimes: How Risk Adversity at European Universities Is Affecting African Studies

Many European universities have introduced procedures for assessing risks to social researchers. These procedures are inspired by occupational and safety health standards, whose logic is driven by the suppression of uncertainty. The rise of risk assessment also fits into a broader global trend of increasingly representing marginalised areas of the world as risky and insecure. While there is a lack of evidence about the actual impact of these procedures on mitigating risks, they are posing an increasing burden on researchers in terms of time, effort, and financial resources, affecting particularly research in and about Africa. Risk assessment can also influence the choice of research methods and reinforce neocolonial patterns of knowledge production by encouraging the transfer of risk to local partners, whose views are rarely integrated in the risk assessment process. This analysis discusses the unintended impact of risk assessment and gives some suggestions for improving processes of preventing risk to social researchers.Viele europäische Universitäten haben Verfahren zur Risikobewertung von Sozialforschung eingeführt. Diese Verfahren orientieren sich an Arbeits- und Gesundheitsschutzrichtlinien, die alle Unsicherheiten ausschließen sollen. Die verstärkte Risikobewertung spiegelt auch einen globalen Trend wider, marginalisierte Regionen als riskant und unsicher darzustellen. Während Belege für die tatsächlichen Auswirkungen dieser Verfahren auf die Risikominderung fehlen, stellen sie eine zunehmende zeitliche und finanzielle Belastung dar, die insbesondere Forschung in und über Afrika beeinträchtigt. Risikobewertung kann auch die Wahl der Forschungsmethoden beeinflussen und neokoloniale Muster stärken, indem Risiken auf lokale Partner übertragen werden, deren Ansichten selten in den Risikobewertungsprozess einbezogen werden. Dieser Beitrag analysiert die unbeabsichtigten Auswirkungen der bestehenden Risikobewertung und entwickelt Vorschläge zur besseren Risikoprävention für Sozialwissenschaftlerinnen und Sozialwissenschaftler

The European Union and the promotion of regional integration: a viable approach to the resolution of regional conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa?

The European Union has been seen as a new type of 'normative power', aiming at diffusing its values through its external policy. The EU influence in Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly worth noting. The EU is historically a leading partner for Africa and it presents itself to the African continent as a successful model of conflict transformation by regional integration. The European institutions have spent a considerable amount of material resources and diplomatic efforts for promoting regionalism in Africa and for encouraging the transition of African regional organizations from a security culture of 'non interference' to one of 'non indifference'. Yet, the expectation that the promotion of regional integration will contribute to the resolution of regional conflicts in Africa faces two sets of challenges. First, the historical, political and economic context of Africa may not be conducive to the success of regional cooperation as a conflict resolution strategy. Second, the effectiveness and the coherence of the EU's promotion of regional integration and regional conflict resolution in Africa are disputed. This paper presents REGIOCONF, a new collective research project aiming at investigating systematically the EU's engagement in addressing regional conflicts worldwide, particularly by promoting regional integration. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the project will address the cases of Sahel and the Great Lakes region