Pub Date : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.1017/s0022278x22000532
{"title":"MOA volume 60 issue 4 Cover and Back matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s0022278x22000532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x22000532","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47480587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X22000325
E. Hern
Abstract Africa's plural legal systems are often doubly bad for women: reinforcing patriarchal threads in indigenous practices while layering male-dominated Anglo-European laws atop. While these systems generally work to their detriment, women are sometimes able to take advantage of them. Under what conditions are women able to ‘win’ in Africa's plural legal systems? I examine women's interactions with the plural colonial court systems in the Gold Coast and Senegal. Based on an analysis of original court records in each country, I argue that women are more likely to win in plural legal systems in areas of operational ambiguity where applicable legal principles are contradictory. Leveraging this ambiguity enabled women in the Gold Coast and Senegal to win rights around inheritance and divorce, respectively. These victories were codified post-independence, though women face social pressures against exercising them.
{"title":"When do women win in legally plural systems? Evidence from Ghana and Senegal","authors":"E. Hern","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X22000325","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X22000325","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Africa's plural legal systems are often doubly bad for women: reinforcing patriarchal threads in indigenous practices while layering male-dominated Anglo-European laws atop. While these systems generally work to their detriment, women are sometimes able to take advantage of them. Under what conditions are women able to ‘win’ in Africa's plural legal systems? I examine women's interactions with the plural colonial court systems in the Gold Coast and Senegal. Based on an analysis of original court records in each country, I argue that women are more likely to win in plural legal systems in areas of operational ambiguity where applicable legal principles are contradictory. Leveraging this ambiguity enabled women in the Gold Coast and Senegal to win rights around inheritance and divorce, respectively. These victories were codified post-independence, though women face social pressures against exercising them.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48208907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X22000374
D. Penu
ABSTRACT For the first time in its history, Ghana held a referendum in 2018 to divide some of its regions to create new ones. Though the regions are purely administrative, the division faced resistance in some areas and not in others. This study combines qualitative comparative analysis with process tracing to show that the resistance occurred within regions with relatively high support for the opposition party, but only in the combined presence of (traditional) elites competing from either side of the region and controversies regarding claims to (traditional) political authority. Further, it finds a bottom-up mechanism of the resistance, evolving as the threatened interests of stakeholders grew from the community to the regional, national and diaspora levels. As in other African cases, this suggests that the sources of conflicts in Africa are not so much about ethnic differences but more about elites’ unequal access to political and economic resources.
{"title":"Explaining region creation conflicts in Ghana","authors":"D. Penu","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X22000374","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X22000374","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT For the first time in its history, Ghana held a referendum in 2018 to divide some of its regions to create new ones. Though the regions are purely administrative, the division faced resistance in some areas and not in others. This study combines qualitative comparative analysis with process tracing to show that the resistance occurred within regions with relatively high support for the opposition party, but only in the combined presence of (traditional) elites competing from either side of the region and controversies regarding claims to (traditional) political authority. Further, it finds a bottom-up mechanism of the resistance, evolving as the threatened interests of stakeholders grew from the community to the regional, national and diaspora levels. As in other African cases, this suggests that the sources of conflicts in Africa are not so much about ethnic differences but more about elites’ unequal access to political and economic resources.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46704937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.1017/s0022278x22000271
M. Langan
{"title":"Revisiting EU–Africa Relations in a Changing World edited by Valeria Fargion & Mamoudou Gazibo Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2021. Pp. 304. $155 (hbk).","authors":"M. Langan","doi":"10.1017/s0022278x22000271","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x22000271","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43703280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X22000337
J. Haynes
ABSTRACT The article examines two decades of Jerry Rawlings’ rule in Ghana. It seeks to explain why Rawlings’ revolutionary populism did not develop in the direction that he envisaged: a new kind of popular democracy. Instead, Rawlings oversaw the reintroduction of Ghana's popularly preferred political system: ‘Western-style’ multi-party democracy, despite his avowed intention of not doing so. To what extent was this outcome surprising or puzzling? The article explains that it was neither surprising nor puzzling as Rawlings’ regime, the PNDC, lacked the capacity to introduce a radical new political system, despite his desire to do so. His aim – to craft a new kind of popular democracy – was not achievable as both internal and external opposition forces were stronger in their desire for multi-party democracy and a neo-liberal economic system.
{"title":"Revolutionary populism and democracy in Ghana","authors":"J. Haynes","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X22000337","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X22000337","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The article examines two decades of Jerry Rawlings’ rule in Ghana. It seeks to explain why Rawlings’ revolutionary populism did not develop in the direction that he envisaged: a new kind of popular democracy. Instead, Rawlings oversaw the reintroduction of Ghana's popularly preferred political system: ‘Western-style’ multi-party democracy, despite his avowed intention of not doing so. To what extent was this outcome surprising or puzzling? The article explains that it was neither surprising nor puzzling as Rawlings’ regime, the PNDC, lacked the capacity to introduce a radical new political system, despite his desire to do so. His aim – to craft a new kind of popular democracy – was not achievable as both internal and external opposition forces were stronger in their desire for multi-party democracy and a neo-liberal economic system.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46980019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-14DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X22000234
Mohammad Amir Anwar, Elly Otieno, Malte Stein
Abstract This article examines the impact of the pandemic on ride-hailing drivers and their mitigation strategies during lockdown in Africa. Ride-hailing has emerged as one of the latest paid-work opportunities for the continent's many unemployed. Yet, ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Bolt misclassify drivers to avoid regulation and responsibilities towards workers’ welfare. Drawing on 34 in-depth interviews with ride-hailing drivers, driver representatives and trade unions in South Africa and Kenya, this article makes two arguments. First, the gig economy in Africa provides work opportunities for the unemployed on the continent and simultaneously vitiates the working conditions through the commodification and informalisation of work. Second, the state-directed emergency measures act as a veneer to capital's efforts to commodify labour and the gig economy platforms have emerged as primary tools for it. Our account points to an urgent need for better regulatory systems to hold platform companies accountable and a collective bargaining mechanism in the gig economy.
{"title":"Locked in, logged out: pandemic and ride-hailing in South Africa and Kenya","authors":"Mohammad Amir Anwar, Elly Otieno, Malte Stein","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X22000234","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X22000234","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines the impact of the pandemic on ride-hailing drivers and their mitigation strategies during lockdown in Africa. Ride-hailing has emerged as one of the latest paid-work opportunities for the continent's many unemployed. Yet, ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Bolt misclassify drivers to avoid regulation and responsibilities towards workers’ welfare. Drawing on 34 in-depth interviews with ride-hailing drivers, driver representatives and trade unions in South Africa and Kenya, this article makes two arguments. First, the gig economy in Africa provides work opportunities for the unemployed on the continent and simultaneously vitiates the working conditions through the commodification and informalisation of work. Second, the state-directed emergency measures act as a veneer to capital's efforts to commodify labour and the gig economy platforms have emerged as primary tools for it. Our account points to an urgent need for better regulatory systems to hold platform companies accountable and a collective bargaining mechanism in the gig economy.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41712330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-01DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X22000180
Y. Gez, Marie-Aude Fouéré, Fabian Bulugu
ABSTRACT In the early 1960s, three pilot agricultural and settlement schemes were set up along the shores of Lake Victoria in the north-western region of Tanzania with the involvement of Israeli development agency Agridev. One of these sites was Mbarika, where the experimental project ran for three years and had mixed results before being discontinued by the young Tanzanian government. This article explores the story of that scheme and its long-term legacies some 50 years on. Unpacking the representational and material ruinations that outlived the project's official timeline, we examine the memories and rumours that continue to haunt the site to this day and their entanglement with successive development experiences and shifting political ideologies. Through interviews, ethnographic observations and archival research, we shed light on the complex, deeply ambiguous legacies and ‘afterlives’ of a development intervention set between expectations of modernity and a sense of exclusion.
{"title":"Telling ruins: the afterlives of an early post-independence development intervention in Lake Victoria, Tanzania","authors":"Y. Gez, Marie-Aude Fouéré, Fabian Bulugu","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X22000180","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X22000180","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the early 1960s, three pilot agricultural and settlement schemes were set up along the shores of Lake Victoria in the north-western region of Tanzania with the involvement of Israeli development agency Agridev. One of these sites was Mbarika, where the experimental project ran for three years and had mixed results before being discontinued by the young Tanzanian government. This article explores the story of that scheme and its long-term legacies some 50 years on. Unpacking the representational and material ruinations that outlived the project's official timeline, we examine the memories and rumours that continue to haunt the site to this day and their entanglement with successive development experiences and shifting political ideologies. Through interviews, ethnographic observations and archival research, we shed light on the complex, deeply ambiguous legacies and ‘afterlives’ of a development intervention set between expectations of modernity and a sense of exclusion.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44481420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-01DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X22000179
T. Binns, Jerram P Bateman
Abstract Relatively few longitudinal studies have been undertaken of change and development among rural communities in Africa. Drawing on field-based research conducted over almost five decades, the article examines the shocks and adaptive strategies experienced in the remote rural community of Kayima in north-eastern Sierra Leone. In coping with both external and internal shocks and displaying a remarkable level of resilience, there has however been very little improvement in community livelihoods, and it is suggested that it is a case of ‘resilience without development’. It is likely that the findings of the study could have wider relevance among rural communities elsewhere in Africa.
{"title":"‘Resilience without development’ in a remote rural West African community: the case of Kayima, Sierra Leone","authors":"T. Binns, Jerram P Bateman","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X22000179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X22000179","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Relatively few longitudinal studies have been undertaken of change and development among rural communities in Africa. Drawing on field-based research conducted over almost five decades, the article examines the shocks and adaptive strategies experienced in the remote rural community of Kayima in north-eastern Sierra Leone. In coping with both external and internal shocks and displaying a remarkable level of resilience, there has however been very little improvement in community livelihoods, and it is suggested that it is a case of ‘resilience without development’. It is likely that the findings of the study could have wider relevance among rural communities elsewhere in Africa.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45971329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-01DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X22000210
Ricardo Soares de Oliveira
ABSTRACT One of the key features of today's global economy is an ‘offshore world’ of financial structures, institutions and techniques designed to provide secrecy, asset protection and tax exemption. While its worldwide impact is very significant, Africa is affected to an unusual extent by the strategies of tax avoidance/evasion, outward financial flows (both legal and illegal) and corruption enabled by the offshore world. This is corroborated by a number of quantitative studies of capital flight as well as by influential investigations such as the Pandora Papers, Panama Papers and Luanda Leaks. The offshore world's limited presence in the study of contemporary African politics, political economy and international relations is therefore striking. The purpose of this exploratory paper is to highlight this gap, provide a preliminary analysis, and suggest that the politics of African insertion in the global offshore economy merits more attention from scholars of African politics.
{"title":"Researching Africa and the offshore world","authors":"Ricardo Soares de Oliveira","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X22000210","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X22000210","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT One of the key features of today's global economy is an ‘offshore world’ of financial structures, institutions and techniques designed to provide secrecy, asset protection and tax exemption. While its worldwide impact is very significant, Africa is affected to an unusual extent by the strategies of tax avoidance/evasion, outward financial flows (both legal and illegal) and corruption enabled by the offshore world. This is corroborated by a number of quantitative studies of capital flight as well as by influential investigations such as the Pandora Papers, Panama Papers and Luanda Leaks. The offshore world's limited presence in the study of contemporary African politics, political economy and international relations is therefore striking. The purpose of this exploratory paper is to highlight this gap, provide a preliminary analysis, and suggest that the politics of African insertion in the global offshore economy merits more attention from scholars of African politics.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44443468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-01DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X22000131
D. Babalola
invest in pro-trade policies – particularly when members are not in direct competition with each other – so that the leaders can mobilise members if the state tries to interfere. In the absence of state threats, strong leaders use their power to extort traders and embezzle market funds. Competition between traders, as well as weak leaders, can also lead to poor private governance and poorly functioning markets. Grossman concludes that private governance works best in the shadow of the state – under enough threat of interference to motivate strong leaders to build governance institutions but not so much interference that the government crushes or takes over market institutions. The book supports the argument with a rich array of original surveys, maps, administrative data, observations, and interviews with traders in Lagos. Informal work and institutions are notoriously difficult to quantify because they exist by definition outside of regulatory agencies that collect regular data and labour statistics. Grossman addressed this challenge by building a sampling frame of markets from the Lagos Waste Management Authority, mapping out every market in the city and taking a census of , shops. Grossman then randomly selected shops from this frame and surveyed traders in face-to-face interviews with a team of enumerators. She conducted three waves of surveys in , and , with traders participating in all three waves. This trove of data gives Grossman unprecedented quantitative data on the economic and political decisions of an important group of microenterprises over time. Grossman uses these data to prove her points as well as anticipate objections and alternative explanations. She illustrates the numbers with interviews, stories and observations across the market landscape in Lagos. Grossman asserts that her account of private governance institutions in Lagos marketplaces uncovers a channel for trade and development that does not require a benevolent or efficient government or even the rule of law. Instead, she argues, all a government needs to do to spur efficient private institutions is to threaten to intervene in business people’s affairs. She convincingly demonstrates that when predatory politicians work against traders’ interests, they unintentionally trigger private policies and mobilisation that benefits traders. This book should be on the reading list of scholars working on property rights, development, governance, informality, African politics and urban politics.
{"title":"Understanding Modern Nigeria: ethnicity, democracy, and development by Toyin Falola Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. 672. £74.99 (hbk).","authors":"D. Babalola","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X22000131","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X22000131","url":null,"abstract":"invest in pro-trade policies – particularly when members are not in direct competition with each other – so that the leaders can mobilise members if the state tries to interfere. In the absence of state threats, strong leaders use their power to extort traders and embezzle market funds. Competition between traders, as well as weak leaders, can also lead to poor private governance and poorly functioning markets. Grossman concludes that private governance works best in the shadow of the state – under enough threat of interference to motivate strong leaders to build governance institutions but not so much interference that the government crushes or takes over market institutions. The book supports the argument with a rich array of original surveys, maps, administrative data, observations, and interviews with traders in Lagos. Informal work and institutions are notoriously difficult to quantify because they exist by definition outside of regulatory agencies that collect regular data and labour statistics. Grossman addressed this challenge by building a sampling frame of markets from the Lagos Waste Management Authority, mapping out every market in the city and taking a census of , shops. Grossman then randomly selected shops from this frame and surveyed traders in face-to-face interviews with a team of enumerators. She conducted three waves of surveys in , and , with traders participating in all three waves. This trove of data gives Grossman unprecedented quantitative data on the economic and political decisions of an important group of microenterprises over time. Grossman uses these data to prove her points as well as anticipate objections and alternative explanations. She illustrates the numbers with interviews, stories and observations across the market landscape in Lagos. Grossman asserts that her account of private governance institutions in Lagos marketplaces uncovers a channel for trade and development that does not require a benevolent or efficient government or even the rule of law. Instead, she argues, all a government needs to do to spur efficient private institutions is to threaten to intervene in business people’s affairs. She convincingly demonstrates that when predatory politicians work against traders’ interests, they unintentionally trigger private policies and mobilisation that benefits traders. This book should be on the reading list of scholars working on property rights, development, governance, informality, African politics and urban politics.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48922693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：