Legitimacy, Identity and Conflict: The Struggle for Political Authority in Southern Sudan, 2005-2010

The consolidation of political authority over Southern Sudan has never been achieved, nor has the region ever experienced a comprehensive, uniform system of governance. No one political group, external or internal, has ever been able to present itself as the legitimate representative of the populace of Southern Sudan. These, however, were the objectives which the Sudan People‘s Liberation Movement (SPLM) sought to achieve from 2005 to 2010. The main contention of this thesis is that the success or failures of the SPLM at post-conflict state-building can be measured through the conceptual framework of legitimacy. As a rebel movement, the SPLM fought a war of liberation against the government of Sudan from 1983 to 2004. Yet, the SPLM was not fighting for the secession of the South, as its predecessor had, but for the liberation of the country and for the creation of a ‗New Sudan‘ where all the politically marginalised groups of Sudan would be political equals. The movement based its rationale on a ‗revolutionary ideology‘, but this form of ideological legitimation was insufficient to gain Southern-wide support for its cause. The movement failed to establish rebel governance structures, was accused of abuses against the local population, and generally looked to external actors for support. Yet, through a peace agreement largely propelled forward by the United States, the SPLM ‗won‘ the war and was tasked with constructing a semi-autonomous state in Southern Sudan. The successes or failures of the SPLM in developing the Government of Southern Sudan were largely dependent on its ability to create effective institutions and consolidate legitimacy. In order to accomplish this, the SPLM would have to shed its militaristic ethos and revolutionary ideology and thereby enable it to govern not as a rebel movement but as a political party. This, however, did not take place. The new Southern Government, which was supposed to be developed along the lines of a decentralised system of governance, remained centralised. The state and county governance institutions did not undergo the necessary capacity-building and were, subsequently, not able to provide for the security, development or welfare of the Southern populace. Thus, the government failed to consolidate eudaemonic legitimacy. In light of this shortcoming, government officials and the SPLM leadership promoted civic and revolutionary 3 ideology as means to consolidate support. While ideological legitimation was successful to a certain extent, the majority of the Southern populace was illiterate and living in poverty; concepts such as democracy, civic responsibility or SPLM successes during in the peace process were not as appealing as the provision of basic services and development. Thus, the inability of the government to provide for the needs of the citizens jeopardised the attempts at ideological legitimation. As long as the government remained centralised and paralysed in providing for the welfare of the Southerners, it was unable to be considered as the true representative of the populace

Ira B. Lykes to Dr. Silver, 16 April 1954

Professional correspondenc

Mayan young women and photovoice: Exposing state violence(s) and gendered migration in rural Guatemala

This research reports on a collaborative photovoice project developed to document and respond to some of the effects of the complex interface of state violence and gendered migration in the Southern Quiché region of Guatemala. The participating women were students in a local high school who had at least one parent living in the United States, and had themselves expressed some interest in migrating North at some point in their lives. Findings from the photovoice process revealed how these young women’s transnational understandings of family and home shaped their hopes, resistance, and complex views of migration. The youth’s visual representations facilitated community dialogues regarding the urgency to challenge gendered forms of discrimination at the intersection of state violence and migration. The article also discusses ethical implications for co-researchers and Mayan communities seeking to engage feminist-infused photovoice processes that best support Mayan young women’s resistance to some of the structural violence(s) that push them North

Can educational policy redress historical discrimination? Exploring a University Community’s experiences with India’s caste-based affirmative action policy

This research engaged a grounded theory process to explore whether or not and, if so, in what ways, an affirmative action quota policy disrupted historical power structures towards generating change in one university community in rural India. This rural university community has implemented an affirmative action quota system for three decades. Participants’ embrace of and resistance to diversity and caste-based social transformations were identified through an analysis of in-depth interviews with 6 Upper caste faculty and staff, 3 Dalit students, and 7 and Upper caste students. Strategies of embracing and resisting diversity and broader pushes for social transformation to create a more inclusive community included participants positioning themselves in favor of or opposed to the affirmative action quota policy. Implications for change at individual, community, institutional, and national levels are discussed

Situating and contesting structural violence in community-based research and action

Structural violence refers to social systems as well as the mechanisms through which they produce and normalize marginalization, exclusion, and exploitation. It is intricately tied to cultural violence, that is, systematic assaults on the human dignity and self-worth of individuals and communities. This latter violence operates through culture, language, ideology, and knowledge production in academic disciplines and in scientific canons. Cultural violence serves to justify, legitimize, mask, and naturalize both direct assaults on human beings and systems of oppression and inequality. This special issue highlights new approaches to interrogate the processes and mechanisms between individual and collective suffering and the macrosocial matrices in which the experiences are configured. In this introduction, we argue that an understanding of structural and cultural violence has significant potential for reinvigorating some of the longstanding but often under-engaged goals of community psychology. We explore the challenges facing community psychologists committed to social and transformative change towards wellbeing for all in a global context characterized by gross inequities, thereby establishing the context for this special issue on situating and contesting structural violence in community psychology

Physician Opinion of the U.S. Health Care System: A Systematic Review

This systematic review of published research on physician attitudes toward health reform begins with a brief analytical illustration of organized medicine as an important political influence, before moving to a structured, critical appraisal of opinion literature. The systematic review identified 15 studies, culled from 1968-2009, which met quality standards. Physicians overall tended to be dissatisfied with the system and believed that everyone should have access to care, but they have yet to achieve consensus as to the best course for reform. Primary care, hospital-based, salaried, and urban physicians were more likely to support single payer plans. Meanwhile, surgeons, specialists, AMA members, office-based, and private practice physicians appear more likely to choose retention of the current system or a non-single-payer alternative, such as tax credits or health savings accounts. Several problems dog the literature throughout and limit our ability to draw conclusions, including: question wording problems, non-response bias, limited study populations, the absence of key variables, and a limited ability to track trends.Master of Public Healt

Romantic ideals, mate preferences, and anticipation of future difficulties in marital life: a comparative study of young adults in India and America

This article has been made available through open access by the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Previous studies have established that Indians tend to be greater in collectivism and gender role traditionalism than Americans. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether these differences explained further cultural differences in romantic beliefs, traditional mate preferences, and anticipation of future difficulties in marital life. Results revealed that Indians reported greater collectivism than Americans and, in turn, held stronger romantic beliefs. Additionally, Indians’ greater collectivism and endorsement of more traditional gender roles in part predicted their preferences for a marital partner possessing traditional characteristics, and fully accounted for their heightened concerns about encountering future difficulties in marital life. These results shed light on the processes underlying cultural differences in relationship attitudes and preferences, and point to culture-specific therapies to enhance marital functioning

Mental health literacy: a cross-cultural approach to knowledge and beliefs about depression, schizophrenia and generalized anxiety disorder

Many families worldwide have at least one member with a behavioral or mental disorder, and yet the majority of the public fails to correctly recognize symptoms of mental illness. Previous research has found that Mental Health Literacy (MHL)—the knowledge and positive beliefs about mental disorders—tends to be higher in European and North American cultures, compared to Asian and African cultures. Nonetheless quantitative research examining the variables that explain this cultural difference remains limited. The purpose of our study was fourfold: (a) to validate measures of MHL cross-culturally, (b) to examine the MHL model quantitatively, (c) to investigate cultural differences in the MHL model, and (d) to examine collectivism as a predictor of MHL. We validated measures of MHL in European American and Indian samples. The results lend strong quantitative support to the MHL model. Recognition of symptoms of mental illness was a central variable: greater recognition predicted greater endorsement of social causes of mental illness and endorsement of professional help-seeking as well as lesser endorsement of lay help-seeking. The MHL model also showed an overwhelming cultural difference; namely, lay help-seeking beliefs played a central role in the Indian sample, and a negligible role in the European American sample. Further, collectivism was positively associated with causal beliefs of mental illness in the European American sample, and with lay help-seeking beliefs in the Indian sample. These findings demonstrate the importance of understanding cultural differences in beliefs about mental illness, particularly in relation to help-seeking beliefs

Toward a Relational Humanism

Humanist conceptions of the person evolve across history. Whereas humanism has served a pivotal role in the caregiving professions, its individualist emphasis now stands as an impediment to its future. Proposed is a relational reconceptualization of the person, placing relational as opposed to individual well-being at the forefront of humanists\u27 concerns