The masculine logic of DDR and SSR in the Rwanda Defence Force

Since the 1994 genocide and civil war, the Rwandan government has implemented an externally funded Demobilisation, Demilitarisation and Reintegration (DDR)/Security Sector Reform (SSR) program culminating in the consolidation of armed groups into a new, professionalised Rwanda Defence Force (RDF). Feminists argue that DDR-SSR initiatives that exclude combatant women and girls or ignore gendered security needs fail to transform the political conditions that led to conflict. Less attention has been paid to how gendered relations of power play out through gender sensitive DDR and SSR initiatives that seek to integrate women and transform hyper-masculine militarised masculinities. This article investigates how Rwanda’s DDR-SSR program is governed by an oppressive masculine logic. Drawing on critical studies on men and masculinities and feminist work on peacebuilding, myths and the politics of belonging, it is argued that Rwanda’s locally-owned DDR-SSR program places the military and militarisation at the centre of the nation-building program. Through various ‘boundary construction’ practices, the Rwandan government attempts to stabilise the post-1994 gender order and entrench the hegemony of a new militarised masculinity in Rwandan society. The case study draws on field research conducted in 2014 and 2015 and a discourse analysis of RDF historical accounts, policy documents and training materials

Domestic Violence as a ‘Class Thing’: Perspectives from a South African Township

The popular discourse on domestic violence in South Africa highlights the preponderance of domestic violence among low income earners, living mainly in black townships. To illustrate the trajectory of this view, it is estimated that one in every four women is assaulted by their partners every week, and one woman is killed every six hours by her partner. Another strand of this discourse is that domestic violence is steeped in the inherent patriarchal nature of the South African society – in which women are denied basic rights by their male dominant society. While these views explain the basic ideas of the discourse on domestic violence, it is framed around the entrenched normative notion of poverty-violence nexus. It does not explain, for example, violence among the middle class and powerful  households in the South African society. Using the empirical data from Mamelodi, a black township in Pretoria, this paper probes the poverty-violence discourse on domestic violence in South Africa. The paper uses qualitative data in its analysis.Keywords: Domestic violence, poverty-violence discourse, low income earner, black townshi

Fighting elephants, suffering grass: oil exploitation in Nigeria

The purpose of this paper is to understand the interactions of the different actors - the state, multnational oil and gas companies, environmental advocacy groups and local people - in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The paper draws on interviews, observations and focus group discussions, as well as on archival materials relating to the development of the oil and gas industry during the colonial period (i.e. pre-1960 Nigeria). The paper draws on interviews, observations and focus group discussions, as well as on archival oil and gas companies, environmental advocacy groups and local people - in the oil-rich Niger Delta. A cultural theory-based analysis of the environmental risk perceptions of the different actors reveals a profoundly unconstructive institutional configuration, in which the collusion of two "solidarities" -the oil companies (individualism) and the state (hierarchy) - has led to the exclusion of the local communities (egalitarianism) who have found themselves impoverished and marginalised (fatalism). With these two "elephants" - individualism/hierarchy and egalitarianism/fatalism - pitted against each other, it has been the "grass" - the natural environment that has suffered. Giving the local communities a stake in the wealth-creating process, from which they are at present excluded, would shift the pattern of inter-solidarity engagement from one in which two "active" (i.e. non-fatalist) voices silence the third to one in which each voice is able to make itself heard and is then responsive to the others. Innovative and current on under-researched topic and geography. The main fieldwork was conducted between 2007 and 2008, with further field visits and updates between 2009 and 2013

REDD+: A fine example of worst practice

Throughout the “Age of Aid” (1944–1989) development has been seen as essentially economic in nature. Increasingly, however, it has become apparent that it is economic only in its consequences. It is something else - entitlements, democratization … social capital - that makes development possible. A different paradigm is therefore needed, and we begin by sketching that by way of the various “experiments” - nationalization, privatization and communitization - with Nepal's forests over the past half-century. Nationalization and privatization turned out to be abysmal failures; communitization a great, and continuing, success. We relate all this to the differing patterns of interaction between four fundamental forms of social solidarity - individualism (eg markets), hierarchy (eg governments and aid donors), egalitarianism (eg activist groups) and fatalism (eg carriers of the “double burden”: poverty and social exclusion) - and go on to show that only when each is (a) able to make its “voice” heard and (b) is following its dharma (acting according to its distinctive morality rather than undermining it) do we get development. REDD+, we then show, using examples of its implementation in Africa, is unremittingly hierarchical and does not satisfy these two conditions. We conclude with some suggestions for remedying these policy defects

Chapter 4. Extract of Africa: Towards the Equitable and Ecologically Sound Governance of Mining and Drilling

Background: Economists and political scientists have long recognised four kinds of goods: private, public, common-pool and club, the assumption being that category membership is determined by the physical properties of the goods themselves. But in the theory of plural rationality—the approach taken in this chapter—where specific goods end up is, to the extent that that is not determined by their physical properties, the outcome of a never-ending struggle between four kinds of social solidarity: individualism (which works towards privatisation), hierarchy (which favours the creation of public goods), egalitarianism (which is supported by common-pool goods) and fatalism (whose upholders enable club goods by the ease with which they can be excluded). Methodology: The study uses historical surveys and case-studies of different contexts where natural resource governance has upset harmonious relationship between different stakeholders. Application/Relevance to systems analysis: Our argument is that policy and governance, particularly in Africa, have allowed (indeed encouraged) individualism and hierarchy to dominate, thereby drowning out the other two institutional “voices”. The result, as we show by way of a continent-wide historical survey and three case-studies—REDD+ in the Democratic Republic of Congo, acid mine drainage in South Africa and oil extraction in Nigeria—has been “crap” governance (in contrast to good governance, which requires that all four voices are both heard and responded to by the others). Put another way, the “resource curse” is not the inevitable consequence of a country being heavily reliant on extractive industries; it stems from insufficient “clumsiness”: exemplified, as Kofi Annan has recently pointed out, by just two solidarities—multinational companies (individualism) and political leaders (hierarchy)—colluding to swindle the citizens out of their just rewards from their natural resources. Policy implications: Of policy implication, is the bringing-in of the two currently excluded voices, and we conclude by showing how, in relation to our case-studies, this can be achieved. Conclusion: Analyses of resource-related conflicts, especially in Africa, have often ignored the voices of the excluded social solidarities. Analysing this problem through a systems perspective will allow the incorporation of all voices as a way of constructing a more harmonious system in natural resource governance