Pub Date : 2021-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00020397211031915
Nathan Munier
What do non-electoral turnovers tell us about the relationship between elections, executive turnover, and democratisation? Can they contribute to democratisation? To gain insight into these questions, we consider the experiences of Southern Africa. While transfers of executive authority have become commonplace in Southern Africa, they do not necessarily coincide with elections and rarely involve partisan turnover. Neither the mode nor the form of executive turnover corresponds clearly with prior assessments of democracy. This study examines recent non-electoral turnovers in Zimbabwe (November 2017), South Africa (February 2018), and Botswana (April 2018). This research finds that non-electoral transfers of presidential authority in Southern Africa represent efforts by dominant parties to manage factional conflicts and enhance their ability to benefit from incumbency in competitive elections. While non-electoral turnover in executive authority might promote democracy under some conditions, they do more to sustain dominant party rule and a stagnate level of low-capacity democracy.
{"title":"Non-Electoral Executive Turnover and Low-Capacity Democracy in Southern Africa","authors":"Nathan Munier","doi":"10.1177/00020397211031915","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00020397211031915","url":null,"abstract":"What do non-electoral turnovers tell us about the relationship between elections, executive turnover, and democratisation? Can they contribute to democratisation? To gain insight into these questions, we consider the experiences of Southern Africa. While transfers of executive authority have become commonplace in Southern Africa, they do not necessarily coincide with elections and rarely involve partisan turnover. Neither the mode nor the form of executive turnover corresponds clearly with prior assessments of democracy. This study examines recent non-electoral turnovers in Zimbabwe (November 2017), South Africa (February 2018), and Botswana (April 2018). This research finds that non-electoral transfers of presidential authority in Southern Africa represent efforts by dominant parties to manage factional conflicts and enhance their ability to benefit from incumbency in competitive elections. While non-electoral turnover in executive authority might promote democracy under some conditions, they do more to sustain dominant party rule and a stagnate level of low-capacity democracy.","PeriodicalId":45570,"journal":{"name":"Africa Spectrum","volume":"56 1","pages":"194 - 215"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42506851","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00020397211023513
Emily Dunlop
Education policy can embed ethnic inequalities in a country. Education in Burundi, with its historically exclusive political institutions and education, represents an important case for understanding these interactions. In this article, I interview twelve Burundians about how they experienced and perceived ethnicity and politics in their schooling from 1966 to 1993. I argue that education contributed to tangible and perceived social hierarchies based on ethnic inequalities. I show that this exclusion reflected both overt and covert policy goals, through proxies used to identify ethnicity in schools and through the exclusive nature of national exams at the time, which promoted members of the Tutsi minority at the expense of the majority Hutus. This study has implications for understanding how perceptions of inequality in education manifest as grievances against the state. It sheds light on the importance of understanding covert education policy as a potential mechanism for generating exclusion and contributing to conflict.
{"title":"Ethnicity, Exclusion, and Exams: Education Policy and Politics in Burundi from the Independent Republics to the Civil War (1966–1993)","authors":"Emily Dunlop","doi":"10.1177/00020397211023513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00020397211023513","url":null,"abstract":"Education policy can embed ethnic inequalities in a country. Education in Burundi, with its historically exclusive political institutions and education, represents an important case for understanding these interactions. In this article, I interview twelve Burundians about how they experienced and perceived ethnicity and politics in their schooling from 1966 to 1993. I argue that education contributed to tangible and perceived social hierarchies based on ethnic inequalities. I show that this exclusion reflected both overt and covert policy goals, through proxies used to identify ethnicity in schools and through the exclusive nature of national exams at the time, which promoted members of the Tutsi minority at the expense of the majority Hutus. This study has implications for understanding how perceptions of inequality in education manifest as grievances against the state. It sheds light on the importance of understanding covert education policy as a potential mechanism for generating exclusion and contributing to conflict.","PeriodicalId":45570,"journal":{"name":"Africa Spectrum","volume":"56 1","pages":"151 - 171"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/00020397211023513","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48842916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00020397211030934
Eun Kyung Kim, Hye‐Sung Kim
Previous literature suggests that some African parties employ non-valence positional issues in their party platforms and that this practice is more prevalent in some countries than in others; however, no quantitative research has analysed the electoral effects of non-valenced campaigns. How do African voters perceive parties’ policy positions? Who uses party platforms to choose candidates? Using data from an original survey experiment conducted in Nairobi, we examine voter perceptions of party platforms and their behaviour in the 2017 Kenyan presidential elections. We find that the opposition party’s clearer messaging helps average voters recognise and characterise the party, compared to the incumbent’s moderate policy stance. Moreover, while both parties’ policy positions positively affect voting, non-partisan voters are more likely to support a candidate advocating moderate policies. This implies an incumbency advantage: incumbents’ broad-appeal strategies help maximise their votes, whereas opposition parties have limited strategy options.
{"title":"The Winning Party Platform: Voter Perceptions of Party Positions and Voting in Urban Africa","authors":"Eun Kyung Kim, Hye‐Sung Kim","doi":"10.1177/00020397211030934","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00020397211030934","url":null,"abstract":"Previous literature suggests that some African parties employ non-valence positional issues in their party platforms and that this practice is more prevalent in some countries than in others; however, no quantitative research has analysed the electoral effects of non-valenced campaigns. How do African voters perceive parties’ policy positions? Who uses party platforms to choose candidates? Using data from an original survey experiment conducted in Nairobi, we examine voter perceptions of party platforms and their behaviour in the 2017 Kenyan presidential elections. We find that the opposition party’s clearer messaging helps average voters recognise and characterise the party, compared to the incumbent’s moderate policy stance. Moreover, while both parties’ policy positions positively affect voting, non-partisan voters are more likely to support a candidate advocating moderate policies. This implies an incumbency advantage: incumbents’ broad-appeal strategies help maximise their votes, whereas opposition parties have limited strategy options.","PeriodicalId":45570,"journal":{"name":"Africa Spectrum","volume":"56 1","pages":"172 - 193"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43517893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-28DOI: 10.1177/00020397211025986
Julian Friesinger
In recent decades, musicians have figured prominently on Africa’s political stage. Popular Ugandan musician Bobi Wine moved beyond protest singer and ventured into politics by entering parliament in 2017 and challenging long-term President Yoweri Museveni at the presidential polls in 2021. To push for social change, Wine created the People Power movement and built an alliance with fellow musicians. This article studies Wine’s movement and his alliance with musicians by taking a political economy approach. I posit that the political activism of musicians reaches its limits when a sitting government can easily threaten the economic base of its oppositional challengers. Alliances become fragile once the government can demonstrate that challenging a ruling elite has severe consequences for one’s livelihood whereas aligning with the government ensures economic prosperity. The article uses ethnographic data, interviews, and newspaper articles to demonstrate this argument.
{"title":"Patronage, Repression, and Co-Optation: Bobi Wine and the Political Economy of Activist Musicians in Uganda","authors":"Julian Friesinger","doi":"10.1177/00020397211025986","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00020397211025986","url":null,"abstract":"In recent decades, musicians have figured prominently on Africa’s political stage. Popular Ugandan musician Bobi Wine moved beyond protest singer and ventured into politics by entering parliament in 2017 and challenging long-term President Yoweri Museveni at the presidential polls in 2021. To push for social change, Wine created the People Power movement and built an alliance with fellow musicians. This article studies Wine’s movement and his alliance with musicians by taking a political economy approach. I posit that the political activism of musicians reaches its limits when a sitting government can easily threaten the economic base of its oppositional challengers. Alliances become fragile once the government can demonstrate that challenging a ruling elite has severe consequences for one’s livelihood whereas aligning with the government ensures economic prosperity. The article uses ethnographic data, interviews, and newspaper articles to demonstrate this argument.","PeriodicalId":45570,"journal":{"name":"Africa Spectrum","volume":"56 1","pages":"127 - 150"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/00020397211025986","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49320292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-24DOI: 10.1177/0002039721990394
T. Tieku
Conventional narratives suggest that the African Union Commission (AUC), like most international public administrations and international organisations (IOs) housed in the less materially endowed regions of the world, exercises no meaningful agency on international issues. This article however seeks to show that the AUC is neither a glorified messenger and docile follower of orders of governments nor is it an empty vessel that timidly goes where the wind of governments blows. Rather, the AUC exercises significant agency on issues that affect not just the African continent but also the broader international system. The AUC is often at the heart of international agenda-setting, norm development, decision-making, rule creation, policy development, and it sometimes offer strategic leadership. The article demonstrates six pathways through which the AUC acts like a tail wagging a dog.
{"title":"Punching above Weight: How the African Union Commission Exercises Agency in Politics","authors":"T. Tieku","doi":"10.1177/0002039721990394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0002039721990394","url":null,"abstract":"Conventional narratives suggest that the African Union Commission (AUC), like most international public administrations and international organisations (IOs) housed in the less materially endowed regions of the world, exercises no meaningful agency on international issues. This article however seeks to show that the AUC is neither a glorified messenger and docile follower of orders of governments nor is it an empty vessel that timidly goes where the wind of governments blows. Rather, the AUC exercises significant agency on issues that affect not just the African continent but also the broader international system. The AUC is often at the heart of international agenda-setting, norm development, decision-making, rule creation, policy development, and it sometimes offer strategic leadership. The article demonstrates six pathways through which the AUC acts like a tail wagging a dog.","PeriodicalId":45570,"journal":{"name":"Africa Spectrum","volume":"56 1","pages":"254 - 273"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0002039721990394","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47756466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-24DOI: 10.1177/0002039721991151
Nicholas Chan
African countries are well recognised as being among the worst affected by the impacts of climate change. However, efforts to secure recognition of these “special circumstances” of African countries within the UN climate negotiations have been unsuccessful, despite this being a continental priority prior to and following adoption of the Paris Agreement. Such status is linked to global priorities for funding adaptation to climate change. This article explores why some other groups of developing countries have been successful in securing such recognition when African countries have not. It provides a historical institutionalist explanation of the path-dependent politics of such institutional recognition, emphasising the timing of when different groups have advanced vulnerability claims, which shapes the opposition that African countries have encountered in their efforts, as relative late-movers, to exercise agency. It highlights contestation surrounding what “vulnerability” to climate impacts means, and how this contestation has divided Global South solidarity.
{"title":"“Special Circumstances” and the Politics of Climate Vulnerability: African Agency in the UN Climate Change Negotiations","authors":"Nicholas Chan","doi":"10.1177/0002039721991151","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0002039721991151","url":null,"abstract":"African countries are well recognised as being among the worst affected by the impacts of climate change. However, efforts to secure recognition of these “special circumstances” of African countries within the UN climate negotiations have been unsuccessful, despite this being a continental priority prior to and following adoption of the Paris Agreement. Such status is linked to global priorities for funding adaptation to climate change. This article explores why some other groups of developing countries have been successful in securing such recognition when African countries have not. It provides a historical institutionalist explanation of the path-dependent politics of such institutional recognition, emphasising the timing of when different groups have advanced vulnerability claims, which shapes the opposition that African countries have encountered in their efforts, as relative late-movers, to exercise agency. It highlights contestation surrounding what “vulnerability” to climate impacts means, and how this contestation has divided Global South solidarity.","PeriodicalId":45570,"journal":{"name":"Africa Spectrum","volume":"56 1","pages":"314 - 332"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0002039721991151","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47827052","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-24DOI: 10.1177/0002039720984481
E. Balogun
This article investigates how practitioners in the West African Health Organization (WAHO) obtain and exercise autonomous political agency in the development of regional health policy. While many process-driven accounts of African agency focus on the freedom and ability of African governments and regional organisations to act and not be acted upon, the article finds that it is necessary look within these agents to examine how they are constituted and the processes in which they acquire the capacity to be agents in their external interactions. This article shows that practitioners in WAHO rely on three institutional strategies that constitute them as agents within the organisation: networking with extra-regional partners; the inclusion of civil society in regional social policy; and the development of intra-organisational linkages to create insulation from political control. Through these strategic interactions, WAHO practitioners constitute themselves as agents within the organisation as well as autonomous agents in the broader global health theatre.
{"title":"African Agency in Practice: Acquiring Agency and Institutional Change in the West African Health Organisation","authors":"E. Balogun","doi":"10.1177/0002039720984481","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0002039720984481","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates how practitioners in the West African Health Organization (WAHO) obtain and exercise autonomous political agency in the development of regional health policy. While many process-driven accounts of African agency focus on the freedom and ability of African governments and regional organisations to act and not be acted upon, the article finds that it is necessary look within these agents to examine how they are constituted and the processes in which they acquire the capacity to be agents in their external interactions. This article shows that practitioners in WAHO rely on three institutional strategies that constitute them as agents within the organisation: networking with extra-regional partners; the inclusion of civil society in regional social policy; and the development of intra-organisational linkages to create insulation from political control. Through these strategic interactions, WAHO practitioners constitute themselves as agents within the organisation as well as autonomous agents in the broader global health theatre.","PeriodicalId":45570,"journal":{"name":"Africa Spectrum","volume":"56 1","pages":"293 - 313"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0002039720984481","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43619654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-21DOI: 10.1177/0002039721999392
Norman Sempijja
{"title":"Book Review: The Postcolonial African State in Transition: Stateness and Modes of Sovereignty","authors":"Norman Sempijja","doi":"10.1177/0002039721999392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0002039721999392","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45570,"journal":{"name":"Africa Spectrum","volume":"56 1","pages":"338 - 340"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0002039721999392","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44926568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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