Governance, Fragility and Insurgency in the Sahel: A Hybrid Political Order in the Making

Once a region that rarely featured in debates about global security, the Sahel has become increasingly topical as it confronts the international community with intertwined challenges related to climate variability, poverty, food insecurity, population displacement, transnational crime, contested statehood and jihadist insurgencies. This Special Issue discerns the contours of political orders in the making. After situating the Sahel region in time and space, we focus on the trajectory of regional security dynamics over the past decade, which are marked by two military coups in Mali (2012 and 2020). In addressing state fragility and societal resilience in the context of increasing external intervention and growing international rivalry, we seek to consider broader and deeper transformations that can be neither ignored nor patched up through the framework of the ‘war on terror’ projected onto ‘ungoverned spaces’. Focusing especially on the mobilisation of material and immaterial resources, we apply political economy lenses in combination with a historical sociological approach to shed light on how extra-legal governance plays a crucial role in the deformation, transformation and reformation of political orders

"New" nationalism and autochthony - tales of origin as political cleavage

The conflicts in Liberia, Eastern DRC and Côte d'Ivoire can be "read" as "wars of modernity" as they are concerned with the composition of their respective polities: who is a citizen and who is not. However, these contemporary conflicts are deeply embedded in a long history of violence: integral to this history is the issue of land. Citizenship in itself does not secure access to land, but at the very least it allows those with this status a legitimate entry to the competition for land. There is therefore a direct link between contested citizenship and land rights issues. Drawing on fieldwork material from the above-mentioned countries, this article will show how localised identity narratives under certain circumstances destroy as well as reformulate national identities, and that insight from ethnographic work on autochthonic issues can help us understand conflicts in a broad range of African countries.Die Konflikte in Liberia, im Osten der Demokratischen Republik Kongo und der Côte d'Ivoire können als "Kriege der Moderne" angesehen werden, weil es dabei jeweils um den Aufbau des Gemeinwesens geht: Wer ist Bürger und wer nicht? Hinter diesen aktuellen Konflikten steht jedoch eine lange Geschichte der Gewalt, wobei die Landfrage das zentrale Problem darstellt. Staatsangehörigkeit allein ist keine Garantie für das Recht auf Landbesitz; sie legitimiert aber zumindest Personen mit diesem Status zur Teilnahme am Wettbewerb um Landbesitz. Deshalb besteht beim Thema Landbesitz ein direkter Bezug zwischen den Auseinandersetzungen über Staatsbürgerschafts- und Besitzrechtsfragen. Auf der Grundlage von Material aus Feldstudien in den genannten Ländern zeigt dieser Artikel, wie einheimische Identitäts-"Narrative" in bestimmten Zusammenhängen nationale Identität sowohl zerstören als auch neu bilden, und wie Erkenntnisse zu Autochthonie-Fragen aus ethnografischen Arbeiten helfen, derartige Konflikte in zahlreichen afrikanischen Ländern zu verstehen

Substantial decrease of PFAS with anion exchange resin treatment – A clinical cross-over trial

Background: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are heat and stain resisting chemicals. They are persistent, bioaccumulating and spread ubiquitously. Many hotspots where humans are exposed to high levels of PFAS have been reported. A few small observational studies in humans suggest that treatment with an Anion Exchange Resin (AER) decreases serum PFAS. This first clinical controlled crossover study aimed to assess whether AER decreases perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) in highly exposed adults. Methods: An open label 1:1 randomized treatment sequence crossover study with allocation to oral AER (cholestyramine 4 g three times daily) or observation for 12 weeks was conducted among citizens from a PFAS hotspot. Main inclusion criteria was serum PFOS > 21 ng/mL. Primary endpoint was change in serum PFOS levels between treatment and observational period. Results: In total, 45 participants were included with a mean age of 50 years (SD 13). Serum PFOS baseline median was 191 ng/mL (IQR: 129–229) and decreased with a mean of 115 ng/mL (95 % CI: 89–140) on treatment, and 4.3 ng/mL in observation period corresponding to a decrease of 60 % (95 % CI: 53–67; p < 0.0001). PFHxS, PFOA, PFNA and PFDA decreased during treatment between 15 and 44 %. No serious adverse events were reported. Conclusions: Oral treatment with AER significantly lowered serum PFOS concentrations suggesting a possible treatment for enhancing elimination of PFOS in highly exposed adults

Incomplete Cost Pass-Through Under Deep Habits

A number of empirical studies document that marginal cost shocks are not fully passed through to prices at the firm level and that prices are substantially less volatile than costs. We show that in the relative-deep-habits model of Ravn, Schmitt-Grohe, and Uribe (2006), firm-specific marginal cost shocks are not fully passed through to product prices. That is, in response to a firm-specific increase in marginal costs, prices rise, but by less than marginal costs leading to a decline in the firm-specific markup of prices over marginal costs. Pass-through is predicted to be even lower when shocks to marginal costs are anticipated by firms. In our model unanticipated firm-specific cost shocks lead to incomplete pass-through (or a decline in markups) of about 20 percent and anticipated cost shocks are associated with incomplete pass-through of about 50 percent. The model predicts that cost pass-through is increasing in the persistence of marginal cost shocks and U-shaped in the strength of habits. The relative-deep-habits model implies that conditional on marginal cost disturbances, prices are less volatile than marginal costs. (Copyright: Elsevier)Deep habit formation; Markups; Cost pass-through