Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2200598
G. Bareebe, Moses Khisa
ABSTRACT Rwanda and Uganda have had strained relations, oscillating between warm, lukewarm, hostile and outright war. Since the biggest falling out during the Second Congo War (1998–2003), both governments have variously accused each other of wrongdoing, including allegations of supporting rebel activities, covert counterintelligence operations and espionage. The most recent escalation in frosty relations saw the closure of Katuna border post. Because the respective ruling parties – the Rwandan Patriotic Front and the National Resistance Movement – at a minimum have shared ideological and historical origins, we would expect relations to be strong and constructive not hostile or tenuous. Yet, it is precisely the shared history and social ties among the politico-military and intelligence elites that shape the suspicion, mistrust and hostility that feed into official policies. This article analyses how shared ideological and historical origins, social relations and kindred ties inform individual attitudes and perceptions of key elites toward each other’s government.
{"title":"Rwanda-Uganda relations: elites’ attitudes and perceptions in interstate relations","authors":"G. Bareebe, Moses Khisa","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2200598","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2200598","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Rwanda and Uganda have had strained relations, oscillating between warm, lukewarm, hostile and outright war. Since the biggest falling out during the Second Congo War (1998–2003), both governments have variously accused each other of wrongdoing, including allegations of supporting rebel activities, covert counterintelligence operations and espionage. The most recent escalation in frosty relations saw the closure of Katuna border post. Because the respective ruling parties – the Rwandan Patriotic Front and the National Resistance Movement – at a minimum have shared ideological and historical origins, we would expect relations to be strong and constructive not hostile or tenuous. Yet, it is precisely the shared history and social ties among the politico-military and intelligence elites that shape the suspicion, mistrust and hostility that feed into official policies. This article analyses how shared ideological and historical origins, social relations and kindred ties inform individual attitudes and perceptions of key elites toward each other’s government.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"24 1","pages":"152 - 176"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73442229","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2207818
E. McDonnell
Patchwork States argues that the subnational politics of conflict and competition in South Asian countries have roots in the history of uneven state formation under colonial rule. Colonial India contained a complex landscape of different governance arrangements and state-society relations. After independence, postcolonial governments revised colonial governance institutions, but only with partial success. The book argues that contemporary India and Pakistan can be usefully understood as patchwork states, with enduring differences in state capacity and statesociety relations within their national territories. The complex nature of territorial governance in these countries shapes patterns of political violence, including riots and rebellions, as well as variations in electoral competition and development across the political geography of the Indian subcontinent. By bridging past and present, this book can transform our understanding of both the legacies of colonial rule and the historical roots of violent politics, in South Asia and beyond.
{"title":"Patchwork states: the historical roots of subnational conflict and competition in South Asia","authors":"E. McDonnell","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2207818","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2207818","url":null,"abstract":"Patchwork States argues that the subnational politics of conflict and competition in South Asian countries have roots in the history of uneven state formation under colonial rule. Colonial India contained a complex landscape of different governance arrangements and state-society relations. After independence, postcolonial governments revised colonial governance institutions, but only with partial success. The book argues that contemporary India and Pakistan can be usefully understood as patchwork states, with enduring differences in state capacity and statesociety relations within their national territories. The complex nature of territorial governance in these countries shapes patterns of political violence, including riots and rebellions, as well as variations in electoral competition and development across the political geography of the Indian subcontinent. By bridging past and present, this book can transform our understanding of both the legacies of colonial rule and the historical roots of violent politics, in South Asia and beyond.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"12 1","pages":"230 - 233"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88620306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2207810
Pedro Monaville
in small group interviews with subjects. The journey from having one’s racial ambiguity questioned to developing a political identity is extremely complicated and a discussion of the interviews’ content would have really offered unique personal insight to these processes. Lastly, the author could have used standard questions in South African voting studies that asks respondents how representative they think each party is, whether they think the ANC or DA represents all South Africans or only a narrow interest, and which of these parties they believe would govern the country best or be best able to solve the most important problems. I appreciate Harris’s concern for endogeneity and post-treatment biases in the analysis, but I was left wondering why subjects’ considerations of the parties’ representative capacities and evaluations of their performance in office (the ANC at the national level, the DA in the Western Cape) were not considered. The above should not be viewed as criticisms but rather as suggestions to advance the analytical and theoretical core developed in this book. The crux of this book impressively advances the study of race and ethnicity in African politics well beyond earlier more crude analyses that merely included demographic factors, which neglect to fully consider the construction of racial identity. This is a marvellous book on the role of race in politics, which can be extended to other cases globally, and should be on the reading list of anyone interested in these dynamic socio-political processes.
{"title":"Decolonizing 1968: transnational student activism in Tunis, Paris, and Dakar","authors":"Pedro Monaville","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2207810","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2207810","url":null,"abstract":"in small group interviews with subjects. The journey from having one’s racial ambiguity questioned to developing a political identity is extremely complicated and a discussion of the interviews’ content would have really offered unique personal insight to these processes. Lastly, the author could have used standard questions in South African voting studies that asks respondents how representative they think each party is, whether they think the ANC or DA represents all South Africans or only a narrow interest, and which of these parties they believe would govern the country best or be best able to solve the most important problems. I appreciate Harris’s concern for endogeneity and post-treatment biases in the analysis, but I was left wondering why subjects’ considerations of the parties’ representative capacities and evaluations of their performance in office (the ANC at the national level, the DA in the Western Cape) were not considered. The above should not be viewed as criticisms but rather as suggestions to advance the analytical and theoretical core developed in this book. The crux of this book impressively advances the study of race and ethnicity in African politics well beyond earlier more crude analyses that merely included demographic factors, which neglect to fully consider the construction of racial identity. This is a marvellous book on the role of race in politics, which can be extended to other cases globally, and should be on the reading list of anyone interested in these dynamic socio-political processes.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"10 1","pages":"227 - 230"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81668180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2204738
P. VonDoepp, D. J. Young
ABSTRACT This paper examines support for media freedoms in Anglophone African countries, focusing on the national and individual-level determinants of such support. Leveraging a unique dataset capturing anti-media rhetoric from political leadership across 15 African countries, we explore whether such rhetoric drives down support for media freedoms. Our findings offer only modest support for this, indicating that only certain types of rhetoric diminish support for media freedoms and, at that, only among executive supporters. By contrast, we find that anti-media rhetoric may actually drive up support. Moreover, we find that higher comparative levels of media professionalism significantly increase support for media freedoms. This suggests that media professionals may have substantial say in patterns of popular support for the media. More generally, our findings point to the need for more research on the impacts of both rhetoric and professionalism on support for the media.
{"title":"Elite rhetoric, media professionalism and popular support for media freedoms in Sub-Saharan Africa","authors":"P. VonDoepp, D. J. Young","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2204738","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2204738","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper examines support for media freedoms in Anglophone African countries, focusing on the national and individual-level determinants of such support. Leveraging a unique dataset capturing anti-media rhetoric from political leadership across 15 African countries, we explore whether such rhetoric drives down support for media freedoms. Our findings offer only modest support for this, indicating that only certain types of rhetoric diminish support for media freedoms and, at that, only among executive supporters. By contrast, we find that anti-media rhetoric may actually drive up support. Moreover, we find that higher comparative levels of media professionalism significantly increase support for media freedoms. This suggests that media professionals may have substantial say in patterns of popular support for the media. More generally, our findings point to the need for more research on the impacts of both rhetoric and professionalism on support for the media.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"2146 1","pages":"197 - 216"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91370149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2207809
R. Nyenhuis
{"title":"Everyday identity and electoral politics: race, ethnicity, and bloc voting in South Africa and beyond","authors":"R. Nyenhuis","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2207809","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2207809","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"25 1","pages":"225 - 227"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84507754","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2203997
Sruthi Muraleedharan
ABSTRACT Narendra Modi’s national leadership since 2014 is a significant marker of revitalisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Indian politics. This article traces Modi’s association with the idea and rhetoric of development. He presented himself as vikaspurush (development man) and as a leader who would provide strong governance for India when he campaigned in the 2014 general elections. The Gujarat Model was showcased by him as the blueprint for development for the whole of India. However, a closer analysis of the developmental paradigm demonstrates that he has changed secular meanings and connotations of state-initiated development by associating state action with the rituals of pilgrimage used in the yatra (procession) politics of the Hindu nationalist movement. The article highlights the significance of the blurring of the lines between the administrative-bureaucratic process of planning and religio-spatial symbolism.
{"title":"Narendra Modi's ‘Gujarat Model’: re-moulding development in the service of religious nationalism","authors":"Sruthi Muraleedharan","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2203997","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2203997","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Narendra Modi’s national leadership since 2014 is a significant marker of revitalisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Indian politics. This article traces Modi’s association with the idea and rhetoric of development. He presented himself as vikaspurush (development man) and as a leader who would provide strong governance for India when he campaigned in the 2014 general elections. The Gujarat Model was showcased by him as the blueprint for development for the whole of India. However, a closer analysis of the developmental paradigm demonstrates that he has changed secular meanings and connotations of state-initiated development by associating state action with the rituals of pilgrimage used in the yatra (procession) politics of the Hindu nationalist movement. The article highlights the significance of the blurring of the lines between the administrative-bureaucratic process of planning and religio-spatial symbolism.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"355 1","pages":"129 - 151"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84882074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There is currently no widely accepted standard method to determine whether gerrymandering has occurred. To determine a cutoff for unreasonable gerrymandering, simulating collections of districting plans in the absence of partisan bias has been proposed. In simulation-based methods, real-world election outcomes are compared to results from simulated districting plans. Here, a simulation method that creates possible districts in continuous space is proposed. Existing methods use preliminary spatial discretization of the state to perform simulations. This spatial discretization can result in biased estimates, which could lead to inaccurate conclusions regarding gerrymandering. We use our continuous-space method to analyze the political districts in Pennsylvania. All of our simulated elections result in fewer than 13 Republican seats, indicating that the districting plan used in Pennsylvania prior to 2018 was likely gerrymandered. This finding agrees with and confirms the results of simulation-based discrete-space gerrymandering studies without the presence of discretization bias.
{"title":"Gauging Gerrymandering in Pennsylvania","authors":"J. Russell, Benjamin Lieberman","doi":"10.15367/com.v22i1.640","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15367/com.v22i1.640","url":null,"abstract":"There is currently no widely accepted standard method to determine whether gerrymandering has occurred. To determine a cutoff for unreasonable gerrymandering, simulating collections of districting plans in the absence of partisan bias has been proposed. In simulation-based methods, real-world election outcomes are compared to results from simulated districting plans. Here, a simulation method that creates possible districts in continuous space is proposed. Existing methods use preliminary spatial discretization of the state to perform simulations. This spatial discretization can result in biased estimates, which could lead to inaccurate conclusions regarding gerrymandering. We use our continuous-space method to analyze the political districts in Pennsylvania. All of our simulated elections result in fewer than 13 Republican seats, indicating that the districting plan used in Pennsylvania prior to 2018 was likely gerrymandered. This finding agrees with and confirms the results of simulation-based discrete-space gerrymandering studies without the presence of discretization bias.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88243716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article uses pre-election survey, post-election survey, voter registration, and election data to interpret the outcomes of the 2018 midterm elections for governor, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives in Pennsylvania. This analysis shows that the results of the 2018 midterm races in Pennsylvania were nationalized. Feelings about the president’s performance drove voter interest and turnout, and also factored into the choices that voters made in the gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House races. Voter preferences in each race followed the same pattern: even after accounting for partisanship and ideology, those who were dissatisfied with President Trump’s performance were more likely to vote for a Democratic candidate. The results suggest that the 2018 midterm results were a repudiation of the Trump presidency, but not a return to the state’s pre-2016 politics.
{"title":"The 2018 Pennsylvania Midterm Election","authors":"Berwood A. Yost, Jackie Redman","doi":"10.15367/com.v22i1.639","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15367/com.v22i1.639","url":null,"abstract":"This article uses pre-election survey, post-election survey, voter registration, and election data to interpret the outcomes of the 2018 midterm elections for governor, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives in Pennsylvania. This analysis shows that the results of the 2018 midterm races in Pennsylvania were nationalized. Feelings about the president’s performance drove voter interest and turnout, and also factored into the choices that voters made in the gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House races. Voter preferences in each race followed the same pattern: even after accounting for partisanship and ideology, those who were dissatisfied with President Trump’s performance were more likely to vote for a Democratic candidate. The results suggest that the 2018 midterm results were a repudiation of the Trump presidency, but not a return to the state’s pre-2016 politics.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88535516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Criminal justice reform has become an important policy area in the American states and federal government due to the extremely high rates of incarceration in the United States. In addition, high and disproportionate rates of incarceration for black people is an important civil rights issue that needs attention at all levels of the criminal justice system, from policing to parole. This case study of the mid-Atlantic states generates hypotheses for a 50-state model on one aspect of this system: sentencing policy. The mid-Atlantic states of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania are similar in terms of political culture and demographics and have key differences in incarceration rates that make them good choices for a comparative case study using the “most similar systems” or “comparable cases” design. Through our case study we identify policies that we believe contribute to rising incarceration levels as well as suggest reforms. Specifically, we argue that the combination of Pennsylvania’s structured sentencing guidelines and indeterminate sentencing have contributed to high levels of incarceration that have persisted even as the push for punitiveness in the criminal justice system has diminished. These factors in conjunction with political variables should be studied further in a quantitative model of the 50 states in order to provide areas for reform.
{"title":"The Evolution of Sentencing Policy in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania","authors":"Courtney E. Broscious, Kathy S. Javian","doi":"10.15367/com.v22i1.638","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15367/com.v22i1.638","url":null,"abstract":"Criminal justice reform has become an important policy area in the American states and federal government due to the extremely high rates of incarceration in the United States. In addition, high and disproportionate rates of incarceration for black people is an important civil rights issue that needs attention at all levels of the criminal justice system, from policing to parole. This case study of the mid-Atlantic states generates hypotheses for a 50-state model on one aspect of this system: sentencing policy. The mid-Atlantic states of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania are similar in terms of political culture and demographics and have key differences in incarceration rates that make them good choices for a comparative case study using the “most similar systems” or “comparable cases” design. Through our case study we identify policies that we believe contribute to rising incarceration levels as well as suggest reforms. Specifically, we argue that the combination of Pennsylvania’s structured sentencing guidelines and indeterminate sentencing have contributed to high levels of incarceration that have persisted even as the push for punitiveness in the criminal justice system has diminished. These factors in conjunction with political variables should be studied further in a quantitative model of the 50 states in order to provide areas for reform.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"369 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82605072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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