Pub Date : 2022-03-01DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X21000392
William Hatungimana
Abstract Recent protests against police brutality in Nigeria and the Arab Spring, which was sparked by an incident of police brutality in Tunisia, led to public demands that brought political reforms. This paper explores the question, how do citizens evaluate their government in regards to corruption? Using the Afrobarometer Wave 6 dataset, I investigate the relationship between the public's perception of police and upper-level government officials’ corruption in African countries. Due to lack of transparency, the public has no direct information from upper-level bureaucracy but can evaluate corruption of upper-level government officials through direct experience with police. My finding demonstrates that regardless of regime type, the corruption perception of police influences the corruption perception of upper-level government officials. The public cues to evaluate their government quality are likely derived from interactions with police. Therefore corruption perception of police can affect government legitimacy.
{"title":"How people appraise their government: corruption perception of police and political legitimacy in Africa","authors":"William Hatungimana","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X21000392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X21000392","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Recent protests against police brutality in Nigeria and the Arab Spring, which was sparked by an incident of police brutality in Tunisia, led to public demands that brought political reforms. This paper explores the question, how do citizens evaluate their government in regards to corruption? Using the Afrobarometer Wave 6 dataset, I investigate the relationship between the public's perception of police and upper-level government officials’ corruption in African countries. Due to lack of transparency, the public has no direct information from upper-level bureaucracy but can evaluate corruption of upper-level government officials through direct experience with police. My finding demonstrates that regardless of regime type, the corruption perception of police influences the corruption perception of upper-level government officials. The public cues to evaluate their government quality are likely derived from interactions with police. Therefore corruption perception of police can affect government legitimacy.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43779371","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 : 2022-03-01DOI: 10.1017/s0022278x21000379
J. Shannon
{"title":"Street Sounds: listening to everyday life in modern Egypt by Ziad Fahmy Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. Pp. 312. $90 (hbk), $28 (pbk).","authors":"J. Shannon","doi":"10.1017/s0022278x21000379","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x21000379","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41664275","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 : 2022-03-01DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X21000409
Ilmari Käihkö
Abstract Building on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this article draws from military sociology to revisit past portrayals of Liberian former combatant networks and assesses four central assumptions connected to them: that formal wartime command structures continue as informal networks long after the end of the war; that former combatants are united by a wartime identity and form a community to an extent separated from the surrounding society; that wartime experiences have had a major disciplining effect on former combatants; and that former combatants are both good mobilisers and easy to mobilise in elections and armed conflict alike. Finding limited evidence close to two decades after the end of war to support these assumptions, I ultimately ask whether it would be more productive to both theory and Liberians alike to widen investigation from former combatants to structural issues that affect many more in the country.
{"title":"‘Once a combatant, always a combatant’? Revisiting assumptions about Liberian former combatant networks","authors":"Ilmari Käihkö","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X21000409","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X21000409","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Building on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this article draws from military sociology to revisit past portrayals of Liberian former combatant networks and assesses four central assumptions connected to them: that formal wartime command structures continue as informal networks long after the end of the war; that former combatants are united by a wartime identity and form a community to an extent separated from the surrounding society; that wartime experiences have had a major disciplining effect on former combatants; and that former combatants are both good mobilisers and easy to mobilise in elections and armed conflict alike. Finding limited evidence close to two decades after the end of war to support these assumptions, I ultimately ask whether it would be more productive to both theory and Liberians alike to widen investigation from former combatants to structural issues that affect many more in the country.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42159632","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 : 2022-03-01DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X21000331
Andrew Wojtanik
neopatrimonialism’, and where Mamdani talks of the colonial bifurcated state, Tapscott reads postcolonial neopatrimonial bifurcated state (f). Wittingly or otherwise, the tendency here is to flatten the diversity of literature on the postcolonial state, and to suppose that all are varieties of neopatrimonialism. Early in the book, Tapscott rightly notes that ‘arbitrary governance is indeed tied to historical factors, such as the postcolonial nature of the state’ (). The book’s historical chapter (Chapter ), however, surprisingly locks the debate to the postcolonial period. If the distinctive feature of the state in Africa is its postcolonial nature, what is the place of colonial political modernity in the emergence of institutionalised arbitrariness? Asking such a question would definitely imply approaching this book’s research object differently, and questioning knowledge produced through a conception of postcolonial temporality as the beginning of time. Overall, if this book’s major downside is its limited historicisation of the state in Uganda, its strength is in its detailed engagement with various manifestations of state power in contemporary Uganda. In the latter, Tapscott makes an important contribution.
{"title":"Constraining Dictatorship: from personalized rule to institutionalized regimes by Anne Meng Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. 278. $105 (hbk).","authors":"Andrew Wojtanik","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X21000331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X21000331","url":null,"abstract":"neopatrimonialism’, and where Mamdani talks of the colonial bifurcated state, Tapscott reads postcolonial neopatrimonial bifurcated state (f). Wittingly or otherwise, the tendency here is to flatten the diversity of literature on the postcolonial state, and to suppose that all are varieties of neopatrimonialism. Early in the book, Tapscott rightly notes that ‘arbitrary governance is indeed tied to historical factors, such as the postcolonial nature of the state’ (). The book’s historical chapter (Chapter ), however, surprisingly locks the debate to the postcolonial period. If the distinctive feature of the state in Africa is its postcolonial nature, what is the place of colonial political modernity in the emergence of institutionalised arbitrariness? Asking such a question would definitely imply approaching this book’s research object differently, and questioning knowledge produced through a conception of postcolonial temporality as the beginning of time. Overall, if this book’s major downside is its limited historicisation of the state in Uganda, its strength is in its detailed engagement with various manifestations of state power in contemporary Uganda. In the latter, Tapscott makes an important contribution.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42184278","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 : 2022-03-01DOI: 10.1017/s0022278x2100032x
Adventino Banjwa
{"title":"Arbitrary States: social control and modern authoritarianism in Museveni's Uganda by Rebecca Tapscott Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 256. $100 (hbk).","authors":"Adventino Banjwa","doi":"10.1017/s0022278x2100032x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x2100032x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44149764","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 : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X21000264
Vibeke Wang, Ragnhild L. Muriaas, Yvette Peters
ABSTRACT While the increase of women in elected office has received much scholarly attention, less attention has been paid to the dynamics of resisting gender quotas in countries that fail to adopt such measures despite regional and international pressure. We develop a context-sensitive typology of affirmative action measures that includes gender quotas and funding incentives and explore determinants of electoral candidates’ positioning in the context of Zambia. Using a sequential mixed-methods approach and unique data, we examine how candidates of different gender, party affiliation, and level of electoral success position themselves when asked to choose between different options. Intriguingly, electoral success and party allegiance – whether a candidate is affiliated with a current or former government party – are more important than gender. This finding is relevant for the debate on feminist democratic representation by showing that candidates are likely to have their more radical views muted when getting into position.
{"title":"Affirmative action measures and electoral candidates’ positioning in Zambia","authors":"Vibeke Wang, Ragnhild L. Muriaas, Yvette Peters","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X21000264","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X21000264","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT While the increase of women in elected office has received much scholarly attention, less attention has been paid to the dynamics of resisting gender quotas in countries that fail to adopt such measures despite regional and international pressure. We develop a context-sensitive typology of affirmative action measures that includes gender quotas and funding incentives and explore determinants of electoral candidates’ positioning in the context of Zambia. Using a sequential mixed-methods approach and unique data, we examine how candidates of different gender, party affiliation, and level of electoral success position themselves when asked to choose between different options. Intriguingly, electoral success and party allegiance – whether a candidate is affiliated with a current or former government party – are more important than gender. This finding is relevant for the debate on feminist democratic representation by showing that candidates are likely to have their more radical views muted when getting into position.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49512500","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 : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.1017/s0022278x21000318
{"title":"MOA volume 59 issue 4 Cover and Back matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s0022278x21000318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x21000318","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44878586","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 : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.1017/s0022278x21000306
{"title":"MOA volume 59 issue 4 Cover and Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s0022278x21000306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x21000306","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46887011","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 : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X2100029X
Jenny Lorentzen
Abstract More than 20 years after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, the international community is concerned with taking stock of its implementation in countries undergoing transitions from war to peace. This article contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics involved in implementing the Women, Peace and Security agenda through a focus on the frictional interactions that take place between different actors promoting women's participation in the peace process in Mali. Based on extensive fieldwork in Bamako between 2017 and 2019, it analyses interactions between different international and local actors in the Malian peace process through a discussion of vertical (between international and local actors) and horizontal (between local actors) friction. It finds that the way different actors respond to friction shapes relationships and impacts norm trajectories by triggering feedback loops, which in turn trigger new responses and outcomes.
{"title":"Frictional interactions on Women, Peace and Security in Mali","authors":"Jenny Lorentzen","doi":"10.1017/S0022278X2100029X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X2100029X","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract More than 20 years after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, the international community is concerned with taking stock of its implementation in countries undergoing transitions from war to peace. This article contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics involved in implementing the Women, Peace and Security agenda through a focus on the frictional interactions that take place between different actors promoting women's participation in the peace process in Mali. Based on extensive fieldwork in Bamako between 2017 and 2019, it analyses interactions between different international and local actors in the Malian peace process through a discussion of vertical (between international and local actors) and horizontal (between local actors) friction. It finds that the way different actors respond to friction shapes relationships and impacts norm trajectories by triggering feedback loops, which in turn trigger new responses and outcomes.","PeriodicalId":47608,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42177946","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}