Rwanda is a posterchild of economic success in twenty-first century Africa. Dominant explanations for the country’s growth use the political settlements framework, asserting that concentrated political power enabled long-term planning. In contrast, this article uses the case of Rwanda’s impressive boom in electricity generation to demonstrate that such concentrated power also distorts policy-making processes, creating a fiscal crisis that jeopardizes Rwanda’s economic transformation. Therefore, this article questions a central premise of the political settlements framework. Concentrated political power in Rwanda enabled rapid and ambitious construction of power plants but resulted in an oversupply crisis, plunging the sector into significant debt and raising the cost of electricity. Rwanda’s political settlement prevented experts from challenging unrealistic targets set by top politicians, which led to a headlong pursuit of electricity generation capacity. To understand this process, we assert the importance of focusing on the bureaucratic/politician relationship, which we label ‘bureaucratic independence’, rather than on the oft-used concept of ‘bureaucratic autonomy’ usually associated with the concentration of political power.
{"title":"The limits of concentrated power: Bureaucratic independence and electricity crises in Rwanda","authors":"Benjamin Chemouni, Barnaby Dye","doi":"10.1093/afraf/adae003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adae003","url":null,"abstract":"Rwanda is a posterchild of economic success in twenty-first century Africa. Dominant explanations for the country’s growth use the political settlements framework, asserting that concentrated political power enabled long-term planning. In contrast, this article uses the case of Rwanda’s impressive boom in electricity generation to demonstrate that such concentrated power also distorts policy-making processes, creating a fiscal crisis that jeopardizes Rwanda’s economic transformation. Therefore, this article questions a central premise of the political settlements framework. Concentrated political power in Rwanda enabled rapid and ambitious construction of power plants but resulted in an oversupply crisis, plunging the sector into significant debt and raising the cost of electricity. Rwanda’s political settlement prevented experts from challenging unrealistic targets set by top politicians, which led to a headlong pursuit of electricity generation capacity. To understand this process, we assert the importance of focusing on the bureaucratic/politician relationship, which we label ‘bureaucratic independence’, rather than on the oft-used concept of ‘bureaucratic autonomy’ usually associated with the concentration of political power.","PeriodicalId":7508,"journal":{"name":"African Affairs","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140331245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cameroon, traditionally overlooked on the international peace agenda, has recently received increased attention due to mounting security challenges. Operating under an authoritarian regime that denies conflicts while promoting a narrative of stability, the course of international peace-from-below initiatives is profoundly influenced by this constrained political environment. Through in-depth case studies of three ongoing humanitarian crises—the Central African refugees’ influx, the Boko Haram/Islamic State West Africa Province insurgency, and the Anglophone conflict—this article contends that localized peace approaches, centring on grassroots reconciliation, may obscure broader structural issues, silence non-state political claims from below, and absolve the state of its responsibilities. Embracing such methodologies not only reinforces authoritarian dynamics but also exhibits a performative dimension, contributing to the establishment of a ‘victor’s peace’ in the absence of military victory.
{"title":"Peacemaking in authoritarian context in Africa: promoting peace from below in Cameroon","authors":"Claire Lefort-Rieu","doi":"10.1093/afraf/adae004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adae004","url":null,"abstract":"Cameroon, traditionally overlooked on the international peace agenda, has recently received increased attention due to mounting security challenges. Operating under an authoritarian regime that denies conflicts while promoting a narrative of stability, the course of international peace-from-below initiatives is profoundly influenced by this constrained political environment. Through in-depth case studies of three ongoing humanitarian crises—the Central African refugees’ influx, the Boko Haram/Islamic State West Africa Province insurgency, and the Anglophone conflict—this article contends that localized peace approaches, centring on grassroots reconciliation, may obscure broader structural issues, silence non-state political claims from below, and absolve the state of its responsibilities. Embracing such methodologies not only reinforces authoritarian dynamics but also exhibits a performative dimension, contributing to the establishment of a ‘victor’s peace’ in the absence of military victory.","PeriodicalId":7508,"journal":{"name":"African Affairs","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140162189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kenya’s constitutional referendums in 2005 and 2010 stand out for their continuity with the national elections that followed both polls. During campaigns for and against the draft constitutions, politicians attempted to leverage their popularity amongst co-ethnics to signal their viability as coalition partners or ‘formateurs’ in subsequent general elections: rather than nuanced debates on constitutional issues, the campaigns became personal contests that one observer dubbed an ‘industry of insults’. A decade later, this process was repeated as the country’s political class considered further revisions to the constitution. Kenya’s referendum campaigns thus reflect a layer of strategic behaviour that has not been recognized in much of the contemporary literature on democratization and constitutional change in Africa. While the substance of the country’s constitution matters to Kenyan elites, referendum campaigns have added value to leaders independently of the outcomes of the polls themselves. The prominence of ethnicity as an organizing feature in Kenyan politics combined with high levels of party volatility produces an environment in which referendum campaigns serve as opportunities for Kenyan politicians to renegotiate political coalitions and realign party politics in between election cycles. In this way, the country’s referendum politics are a distinct byproduct of its historical and political circumstances.
{"title":"Ethnic Politics and Party realignment in African Constitutional referendums: Understanding Kenya’s ‘industry of insults’","authors":"Kirk A Harris","doi":"10.1093/afraf/adae002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adae002","url":null,"abstract":"Kenya’s constitutional referendums in 2005 and 2010 stand out for their continuity with the national elections that followed both polls. During campaigns for and against the draft constitutions, politicians attempted to leverage their popularity amongst co-ethnics to signal their viability as coalition partners or ‘formateurs’ in subsequent general elections: rather than nuanced debates on constitutional issues, the campaigns became personal contests that one observer dubbed an ‘industry of insults’. A decade later, this process was repeated as the country’s political class considered further revisions to the constitution. Kenya’s referendum campaigns thus reflect a layer of strategic behaviour that has not been recognized in much of the contemporary literature on democratization and constitutional change in Africa. While the substance of the country’s constitution matters to Kenyan elites, referendum campaigns have added value to leaders independently of the outcomes of the polls themselves. The prominence of ethnicity as an organizing feature in Kenyan politics combined with high levels of party volatility produces an environment in which referendum campaigns serve as opportunities for Kenyan politicians to renegotiate political coalitions and realign party politics in between election cycles. In this way, the country’s referendum politics are a distinct byproduct of its historical and political circumstances.","PeriodicalId":7508,"journal":{"name":"African Affairs","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139945389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Analyses of the 2014 protest in Burkina Faso have predominantly focused on some of the movement’s major activists, to the neglect of ordinary citizens. Yet, while citizens’ participation in Burkina Faso in 2014 echoed to some extent the agendas of activists, it built on citizens’ own political subjectivities. Drawing on original interviews and Afrobarometer survey data, we show that Burkinabè citizens were motivated to protest by unmet expectations of the ‘good state’, as experienced in their daily existence in the sense of hardship and unequal treatment by the political system. These expectations and aspirations reflected citizens’ deeper political beliefs or political subjectivities, as already expressed in years prior to the 2014 political crisis. Overall, the article shows how looking at protest from the bottom-up can shift our understanding of political mobilization and its motives: citizen protest constitutes its own political phenomenon, in Burkina Faso and beyond, and should not be subsumed by analyses largely derived from speaking to major activists.
{"title":"Citizen Participation during the 2014 Protest in Burkina Faso: Aspiring to a ‘good State’","authors":"Marie-Eve Desrosiers, Nicolas Hubert","doi":"10.1093/afraf/adae001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adae001","url":null,"abstract":"Analyses of the 2014 protest in Burkina Faso have predominantly focused on some of the movement’s major activists, to the neglect of ordinary citizens. Yet, while citizens’ participation in Burkina Faso in 2014 echoed to some extent the agendas of activists, it built on citizens’ own political subjectivities. Drawing on original interviews and Afrobarometer survey data, we show that Burkinabè citizens were motivated to protest by unmet expectations of the ‘good state’, as experienced in their daily existence in the sense of hardship and unequal treatment by the political system. These expectations and aspirations reflected citizens’ deeper political beliefs or political subjectivities, as already expressed in years prior to the 2014 political crisis. Overall, the article shows how looking at protest from the bottom-up can shift our understanding of political mobilization and its motives: citizen protest constitutes its own political phenomenon, in Burkina Faso and beyond, and should not be subsumed by analyses largely derived from speaking to major activists.","PeriodicalId":7508,"journal":{"name":"African Affairs","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139945362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Scholars frequently allude to the concept of a supportive extended family system that provides a lifeline to less privileged members of society, such as the indigent and the aged. Yet, the extended family and the network of support it enables have come under immense threat from neoliberalism. This article examines the constrained role of the extended family system and its implications, based on residential ethnographic fieldwork data gathered in rural northwestern Ghana. It draws on transnational discourses on empathy and local conceptions of interdependence and unity as encapsulated by African communitarian philosophies such as Ubuntu and Te jaa bonyeni of the Waala people of northwestern Ghana to explore how to generate empathy. Neoliberal individualist values have intensely undermined the support networks of the extended family system. Te jaa bonyeni philosophy, similar to Ubuntu, and many humanistic philosophies, offers important opportunities for reinvigorating debates on African indigenous support networks as important steps towards nurturing affective empathy. This study contributes to discourses on affective empathy by connecting it to communitarianism. Cultivating empathy is necessary towards imagining forms of existence that are dignifying for the marginalized and preventing them from descending into abysmal deprivation.
{"title":"Reinvigorating Social Support Systems in Rural Northwestern Ghana: Towards Affective Empathy in a Neoliberal Age","authors":"Constance Awinpoka Akurugu","doi":"10.1093/afraf/adad033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adad033","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars frequently allude to the concept of a supportive extended family system that provides a lifeline to less privileged members of society, such as the indigent and the aged. Yet, the extended family and the network of support it enables have come under immense threat from neoliberalism. This article examines the constrained role of the extended family system and its implications, based on residential ethnographic fieldwork data gathered in rural northwestern Ghana. It draws on transnational discourses on empathy and local conceptions of interdependence and unity as encapsulated by African communitarian philosophies such as Ubuntu and Te jaa bonyeni of the Waala people of northwestern Ghana to explore how to generate empathy. Neoliberal individualist values have intensely undermined the support networks of the extended family system. Te jaa bonyeni philosophy, similar to Ubuntu, and many humanistic philosophies, offers important opportunities for reinvigorating debates on African indigenous support networks as important steps towards nurturing affective empathy. This study contributes to discourses on affective empathy by connecting it to communitarianism. Cultivating empathy is necessary towards imagining forms of existence that are dignifying for the marginalized and preventing them from descending into abysmal deprivation.","PeriodicalId":7508,"journal":{"name":"African Affairs","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139544276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-01Epub Date: 2023-07-28DOI: 10.1016/j.aan.2023.06.001
Richard P Dutton
The malpractice system in the United States provides civil remedies-payment-for patients injured by non-standard-of-care medical practice. Anesthesiologists are not sued often, but one can still expect to be named in a suit at least once in their career. Although many prefer not to be involved in malpractice cases, there is a critical role for anesthesiologist expert witnesses to educate and inform the court regarding the appropriate standard of anesthesia care, and the contribution, if any, of anesthesia clinicians to specific adverse outcomes. This article describes the basic features of malpractice litigation, offering advice for anesthesiologist expert witnesses.
{"title":"Expert Advice for the Expert Witness.","authors":"Richard P Dutton","doi":"10.1016/j.aan.2023.06.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aan.2023.06.001","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The malpractice system in the United States provides civil remedies-payment-for patients injured by non-standard-of-care medical practice. Anesthesiologists are not sued often, but one can still expect to be named in a suit at least once in their career. Although many prefer not to be involved in malpractice cases, there is a critical role for anesthesiologist expert witnesses to educate and inform the court regarding the appropriate standard of anesthesia care, and the contribution, if any, of anesthesia clinicians to specific adverse outcomes. This article describes the basic features of malpractice litigation, offering advice for anesthesiologist expert witnesses.</p>","PeriodicalId":7508,"journal":{"name":"African Affairs","volume":"88 1","pages":"111-125"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83082205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Living for the City: Social Change and Knowledge Production in the Central African Copperbelt","authors":"Dominic Liche","doi":"10.1093/afraf/adad031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adad031","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":7508,"journal":{"name":"African Affairs","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139209858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Citizens, Civil Society, and Activism under the EPRDF Regime in Ethiopia: An Analysis from Below","authors":"Asebe Amenu Tufa","doi":"10.1093/afraf/adad030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adad030","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":7508,"journal":{"name":"African Affairs","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139211643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Young Women against Apartheid: Gender, Youth and South Africa’s Liberation Struggle","authors":"Neha Saini","doi":"10.1093/afraf/adad028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adad028","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":7508,"journal":{"name":"African Affairs","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139209572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"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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