#VoteSalone 2018 : will Sierra Leone's two-party system survive after March?

Lansana Gberie discusses how Kandeh Yumkella and his National Grand Coalition have injected a measure of unpredictability into the 2018 Presidential elections

War and state collapse: The case of Sierra Leone

This thesis examines the crises of war and state collapse in the West African state of Sierra Leone, which has been devastated by a civil rebellion which began ostensibly as armed incursions from neighbouring war-torn Liberia in 1991. It critically examines current literature on the crises, including Robert Kaplan\u27s use of the country as a case study for his views on the coming anarchy , and concludes that the dynamics of the country’s collapse are far less mysterious and more pedestrian than the spurious environmental and cultural essentialism which Kaplan ascribes to it. The thesis argues that the failure of the Sierra Leonean state must be understood in terms of the failure of the political leadership since the advent of President Siaka Stevens in I968 and his imposition of a one-party state in 1978. Steven’s brand of one-party rule succeeded in subverting the state’s institutional capacity and undermined respect for institutions of the state. Particular attention is paid to the development of the Shadow State , and the subsequent failure of society to meet the basic demands of its citizens, especially the ability to provide meaningful and remunerative work for educated and volatile youth

IBPP Research Associates - Sierra Leone/Ivory Coast

This article - The Tragedy of Ivory Coast, by Lansana Gberie - was posted on the February 6, 2003 edition of Expo Times. Copyright permissions were not available for posting the article in Scholarly Commons for download. The author discusses the history of Ivory Coast and its independence from France in 1960 through the early 21st century, emphasizing the descent into political violence and regional instability