Local Self‐Governance and the State in South Sudan: Studying Gendered Tenure Relations in Times of Uncertainty

With governance increasingly regarded as co-governance, states' capacity to steer, correct, and discipline a wide range of self-governing actors becomes crucial for states' effectiveness, efficiency, and democracy. This article investigates that capacity and the relationship between formal institutions and customary self-governance in areas of limited statehood. In South Sudan, the field of land governance can be regarded as an area of limited statehood. As land relations are closely connected to clan structures and intra-familial relationships, customary norms and institutions enjoy great legitimacy and are an important locus of local land governance and dispute resolution. The South Sudanese government has promulgated legal provisions for equal rights to property and inheritance that clash head-on with customary notions of gender roles in the family and the preservation of family land. By focusing on the case of women’s land rights in South Sudan, combining literature study with data from exploratory fieldwork in two South Sudanese towns, this article aims to reflect on the cohabitation of customary and formal norms and values and the role formal legal and administrative systems, in areas of limited statehood, can and do play in boundary setting for customary self-governance

Bias-induced conformational switching of supramolecular networks of trimesic acid at the solid-liquid interface

Using the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope, an electric field-induced reversible phase transition between two planar porous structures ("chickenwire" and "flower") of trimesic acid was accomplished at the nonanoic acid/highly oriented pyrolytic graphite interface. The chicken wire structure was exclusively observed for negative sample bias, while for positive sample bias only the more densely packed flower structure was found. We suggest that the slightly negatively charged carboxyl groups of the trimesic acid molecule are the determining factor for this observation: their adsorption behavior varies with the sample bias and is thus responsible for the switching behavior. Published by AIP Publishing

Traditional Authorities

This entry discusses the continued relevance of traditional authorities whose positions and power are constantly restructured and recreated in dialogue between chiefs, local communities, state actors, donors and international organizations.Effective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a pluralist worl

Legalising customary land tenure in Ghana: The case of peri-uban Kumasi

Rule of Law and Development: Formation, Implementation and Improvement of Law and Governance in Developing Countrie

Traditional Authorities in Africa. Resurgence in an Era of Democratisation

FDR Rule of Law and Development: Formation, Implementation and Improvement of Law and Governance in Developing Countries - ou

In the land of the chiefs : customary law, land conflicts, and the role of the state in Peri-Urban Ghana

The central themes of this book are customary law, traditional leadership and local land management. International policy is currently witnessing a renewed interest in customary tenure systems and traditional leadership, through which it aims to enhance the efficiency of local governance, and create general access to and secure rights in land. Contrary to these ideas, practice reveals a lack of security of customary tenure in many areas. Mounting evidence displays that customary systems often evolve inequitably and that traditional elites benefit disproportionally from commodification of land. In an effort to understand customary land management by traditional authorities, and the role policymakers, lawmakers, judges and civil servants play in this process, this book studies practices of land management in peri-urban Kumasi. It combines local case studies with theories about efficient land management, the resilience of traditional leadership, the negotiability of customary law and the gap between judges’ customary law and local practices. Doing so, it offers a unique body of empirical and theoretical knowledge for those interested in customary land management, as well as those interested in how customary law functions both at the local level and at the level of the state, in interaction with judges, lawmakers, policymakers, and civil servants.Leiden University Fund (LUF) NWO Mordenate AdatrechtstichtingEffective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a pluralist worl

Gender Equality on the Horizon: The case of Uukwambi Tradtional Authority, Northern Namibia

Rule of Law and Development: Formation, Implementation and Improvement of Law and Governance in Developing Countrie