This paper explores how the concept of ‘community policing’ has been understood and implemented in Tanzania. Whilst community policing is locally considered to be a very effective means of preventing crime and improving neighbourhood safety, the extent to which it constitutes a more accountable, responsive or ‘democratic’ form of policing, as assumed by proponents, is questionable. Based on research conducted in the city of Mwanza, this paper explains these outcomes in terms of continuities between forms of popular mobilisation that developed during Tanzania's socialist one-party era, and particularly the co-optation by the ruling party of sungusungu vigilantism, and understandings of the role of citizen participation in local development today. However, this paper suggests that as multiparty political competition becomes increasingly competitive, the sustainability of this model of community policing may be undermined, as citizens challenge the notion that they are obliged to provide resources for development directed from above.

This article offers a political economy perspective on the Malian crisis with a focus on aid and donor practices. The argument is two-fold. On the one hand, aid consolidated a regime that grew increasingly discredited, so that aid and donors – voluntarily or otherwise – contributed to create the pre-2012 context of fragility. On the other hand, this structural gap has created a state of affairs that provided some impulse and support to putschists and insurgent groups. It explores four channels through which this has happened in practice. External funding agencies have sponsored what was perceived as President Amadou Toumani Touré's ‘mismanagement’ of the situation in the north and the degradation of governance. In addition, donors exerted weak control over policies and ignored signals of growing popular dissatisfaction with ATT. Finally, when they tried to put pressure on governments, donors chose highly controversial issues and have enacted unpopular conditionalities, which have had destabilising effects.

To date, most of the literature on trade networks in West Africa has considered networks in a metaphorical way. The aim of this paper is to go one step further by showing how social network analysis may be applied to the study of regional trade in West Africa. After a brief review of the literature, this exploratory paper investigates two main issues related to regional trade. We start by discussing how recent developments in regional trade in West Africa have contributed to challenging the social structure of traders. We then discuss the changes that have affected the spatiality of regional trade by looking at the influence of spatial location and geographic scale on traders' abilities to trade. In both cases, we argue that the value of social network analysis in exploring how traders have progressively adapted to social and spatial changes in economic activities has been greatly underestimated. Our discussion is illustrated with the case of two trade networks located between Niger, Benin and Nigeria.

Between the Middle East and Eastern Africa, the city of Harar is often considered as the main historical centre of Islam in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Until recently, the cultural hegemony of the Muslim elites inhabiting Harar was commonly opposed to the almost pagan behaviours of the Oromo – or ‘Galla’ – farmers and cattle herders living in the wide rural vicinity of the town. The 1995 Constitution provided the different ‘ethnolinguistic nationalities’ of the new Ethiopian federation with the same institutional recognition. However, the institutionalisation of the two Harari and Oromo ‘nationalities’ seems to foster the historical duality between the city-dwellers and their close neighbours. This article proposes another political history of Harar and its ambivalent Oromo partners through the local dynamics of the Muslim city/countryside models. It reveals the both competing and complementary orders that have probably bound together the populations of Harar and its rural hinterland for more than five hundred years.

The role of post-1991 ethnic-based federalism on conflicts along regional boundaries has been a topic of great dispute in Ethiopianist literature. This article sheds new light on the on-going debate based on original ethnographic material from the Afar-Tigray regional border zone. Contrary to other studies, conflicts appear to have reduced in that area. Two key questions are addressed: how do different groups lay future claims to land; and which role does the post-1991 government play in those claims to land and in reducing conflicts? The case study reveals that people materialise religion to lay future claims to land and that conflicts have reduced with increased involvement of the state over the past two decades, but that this reduction has come at a high cost and may therefore not be sustainable in the long term.

Whilst the middle class are often heralded as forerunners for consolidating democracy, the experiences of Kikuyu in Kenya's 2013 election reveal how under-problematised the socio-economic group is for understanding the pressures faced in voting. The article presents evidence from diary entries of young middle class Kikuyu residing in Nairobi who recorded their feelings and impressions across a period of one month surrounding the country's elections. The diary writers describe the key moments at which they felt the need to switch from supporting third-placed presidential hopefuls to supporting one of the two favourites. Topics felt to pressure voters most keenly were ethnicity, social media, debate surrounding the International Criminal Court and the lack of confidence in others of the middle class. Unlike election analyses which assume static preferences and voting blocks, this methodology allows exploration of the ongoing negotiations and deliberations that influence voting intentions over time. The tensions felt by middle class Kikuyu during the election period made them wish they were members of either of the two other classes, who were in turn viewed as able to influence politics through money or popular power. These feelings of disempowerment ensured voting attitudes fell closely in line with ethnic affiliations, despite members of the middle class remaining wholly dissatisfied with ethnic labelling throughout. It is argued that the economic autonomy of middle class voters did not help disengage them from political tribalism in assessing how to vote.

Although conflict in Zimbabwe's diamond mining sector has recently received much international scrutiny, very little research has examined conflict in Zimbabwe's gold mining sector. This article analyses how a nationwide crackdown called Operation Chikorokoza Chapera (‘No More Illegal Mining’) affected – and ‘disciplined’ – livelihoods in profound ways in both licensed and unlicensed gold mining regions. Drawing on interviews conducted between 2006 and 2013 with artisanal miners in the Insiza, Umzingwani and Kadoma areas as well as miners who crossed the border to Mozambique, the study reveals how a highly politicised crackdown led to uneven consequences. The analysis highlights both structural and physical violence, with more than 25,000 miners and traders arrested between 2006 and 2009 and more than 9,000 still imprisoned in 2013. Situating the crackdown within evolving political and economic interests, the study contributes to an understanding of how simplified discourses on ‘eradicating illegal mining’ mislead and mask power dynamics, while policing activities transform patterns of resource control. The study also emphasises that conceptualisations of the crackdown's legacy should carefully consider the agency of artisanal miners' associations, which, in some cases, have been actively seeking to resist coercive policies and rebuild livelihoods in the aftermath of Operation Chikorokoza Chapera.

This paper provides a detailed analysis of the cotton sector reform process in Mali from 2000 to 2011, explaining reform delays and ambiguities in terms of the wider political and socio-economic context and aid relationships. Contrary to arguments pointing to lack of state commitment and ownership, domestic stakeholders increasingly worked towards finding an acceptable and consensual reform package. The process encountered quite serious obstacles, however, due to divergent actors' incentives, and the existence of opposing philosophies about what a restructured cotton sector should look like. As a consequence of donors' misjudgement of the political and social realities underlying the Malian cotton sector, dialogue among stakeholders was difficult and polarised, forcing the government to spend considerable time and resources to find a suitable compromise. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the merits and limits of pursuing consensual policy processes against the constraints posed by divergent donors' policy paradigms.

Although much has been written about the ideology of Laurent Gbagbo's Front Populaire Ivoirien in Côte d'Ivoire and its impact on the Ivorian politico-military crisis, little attention has been paid to the ubiquitous role of the law in the discourse and political strategy of the pro-Gbagbo elite. The Ivorian case may provide important insights about the connection between ultranationalist ideology and a legalist, formalist conception of democracy and national sovereignty. The article analyses the circumstances of the emergence of ‘legalist nationalism’ in Côte d'Ivoire by looking at key episodes of the Ivorian transition between 2002 and 2012. The article discusses the relevance of Pierre Englebert's concept of ‘legal command’ and the turbulences of democratic transitions in accounting for the prominence of legalism in Ivorian politics. It explores the implications of the Ivorian case for understanding the connection between law and politics in Africa.

This article argues that access to clientelistic networks is central to the ability of youth to engage in violent activities in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta. Even though the literature has demonstrated that the contradictions of oil wealth and economic neglect provide the backdrop for conflict in the region, the actual channels through which it becomes possible to activate incentives for violence have not been properly addressed. It also points out that a fixation on the narrative of resistance has undermined our ability to engage with other critical variables such as social codes of masculinity, survival and ‘becoming’ which play very central roles in animating violent networks in the region. Drawing evidence from interview data, the article uses the lived experiences of ‘ex-militants’ to highlight these points as well as to raise questions about the applications of neopatrimonial theory to governance projects in African states.

The Nigerian Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which is currently being discussed in Parliament, aims at reforming the oil industry. But it also reveals the guiding forces of local politics. The PIB exposes the limitations of the state's ambitions, desire and capacity for reform, and it is strong evidence for the regional divisions and social tensions catalysing resistance against the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, which is accused of ethnic bias in favour of the oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta.

This paper examines the new styles of houses under construction in contemporary Tanzania and suggests that they can be understood as the material manifestation of middle class growth. Through an examination of the architecture, interior decor and compound space in a sample of these new houses in urban Dar es Salaam and rural Kilimanjaro, the paper identifies four domestic aesthetics: the respectable house, the locally aspirant house, the globally aspirant house and the minimalist house, each of which map on to ideas about ujamaa, liberalisation and the consumption of global consumer goods in distinct ways. The paper argues that these different domestic aesthetics demonstrate intra-class differences, and in particular the emergence of a new middle class.

Civil service reform is an important element of governance reforms, but has received limited attention in the literature pertaining to the Democratic Republic of Congo. This article examines Congo's aborted CSR process from 2003 to 2008. Through a detailed exploration of some of the project's components (the design phase, the census, and the workings of the structures charged with implementation), analysed through a framework attentive to the tensions between democratisation and liberalisation, the political logics that have pervaded and affected implementation outcomes are reconstituted. These logics, it is argued, are deeply embedded in the context of democratic transition/post-2006 elections, which donors have played no small part in shaping. The ambiguity of donors towards CSR, bemoaning the absence of governmental commitment but all too prone to tolerate administrative neglect, suggests that it may have been irrelevant for the disbursement of aid, and ultimately accommodating for the Congolese authorities.

Between 1952 and 2012, there were a total of 88 successful military coups in Africa. Of those, 63 occurred prior to 1990, and 10 cases since the adoption, by the defunct Organization of African Unity (OAU), of the Lomé Declaration in July 2000, banning military coups and adopting sanctions against regimes born out of this. The article shows that the African Union (AU) has followed in the footsteps of the OAU in this regard. Assisted by some African regional organisations and international partners, the combined effect of this policy of the AU – assisted by other factors – has been a significant reduction in the occurrence of this phenomenon. While not constituting a funeral arrangement for military coups in the immediate future, these developments – if they were to continue – may indeed make this eventuality achievable in the long run. But the article also reveals some challenges the AU is facing in ensuring this.

In the late 20th century, 300 Mauritanian shepherds travelled to the United Arab Emirates in order to tend the herds of some of that country's most prominent leaders. These low-tech subjects of global migration flows were particularly valued and sought after by their Emirati employers for their expertise in raising camels. I analyse the forms and consequences of this migration, focusing on the reintegration of these shepherds into Mauritanian stratified tribal spheres following their return to the Sahara. The possibility of a change in their social status (after a financially rewarding experience in the Gulf) will be a central theme of this article. This issue arises from the pervasive designation of these shepherds as a ‘tributary’ (znāga) group, through the application of the tripartite social model that, to a large extent, still defines Mauritania's arabophone population.

As peace returns to northern Uganda, a unique arithmetic of development is evident in the former Internally Displaced Persons camps. Small trading centres whose populations multiplied as they became camps now envision futures as Town Boards. Subtraction is necessary: the displaced people and the dead buried in the camps are being returned to their rural villages. Urban planners have produced meticulous drawings that envisage the division of land into plots for development. Donors are making additions in the form of new market buildings and water supplies. Yet this arithmetic must reckon with new problems as time passes. The article is based primarily on fieldwork in Awach, a former IDP camp now slated for status as a Town Board. In analysing material from interviews with landowners, ‘remainders’ who stayed behind after the camp closed, local leaders and officials, we emphasise the paradoxes, tensions and conflicts of this special path to development.

In this article I explore the making of national culture through bureaucratic routines in the Centre for National Culture in Wa, North-Western Ghana. I focus on an aspect of bureaucracy that is usually left aside: the productivity and creativity of bureaucratic routines. State, nation and culture are not fixed entities, but have to be constantly produced through processes of negotiation and meaning-making and through the continual reproduction of their boundaries and the categories that determine what is to be promoted or preserved. Bureaucratic routines and administrative processes are analysed as practices objectifying and nationalising culture and naturalising the boundaries and categories created through the cultural officers' practices.

In recent years, ‘African homophobia’ has become a spectacle on the global stage, making Africa into a pre-modern site of anti-gay sentiment in need of Western intervention. This article suggests that ‘homophobia’ in post-2009 Malawi is an idiom through which multiple actors negotiate anxieties around governance and moral and economic dependency. I illustrate the material conditions that brought about social imaginaries of inclusion and exclusion – partially expressed through homophobic discourse – in Malawi. The article analyses the cascade of events that led to a moment of political and economic crisis in mid-2011, with special focus on how a 2009 sodomy case made homophobia available as a new genre of social commentary. Employing discourse analysis of newspaper articles, political speeches, the proceedings of a sodomy case, and discussions about men who have sex with men (MSM) as an HIV risk group, I show how African homophobia takes form via interested deployments of ‘cultural’ rhetoric toward competing ends. This article lends a comparative case study to a growing literature on the political and social functions of homophobia in sub-Saharan Africa.

Increasing participation in decision-making processes by service users is one of the objectives of decentralisation reforms in Tanzania. The argument is that decentralisation enhances participation by all sections of the community, and by women in particular, and results in decisions that better reflect local needs. This paper examines the impact of decentralisation reforms on service users' participation for delivery of water and health services in rural Tanzania, using a gender perspective and principal-agent theory. The paper investigates how decentralisation has fostered spaces for participation and how men and women use these spaces, and identifies factors that constrain or encourage women's participation. It shows that decentralisation reforms have created spaces for service users' participation at the local level. Participation in these spaces, however, differs between men and women, and is influenced by the socio-cultural norms within the household and community. Men have gained more leverage than women to exercise their agency as principals. Women's participation is contributing to addressing practical gender needs, but strategic gender needs have been less adequately addressed because gendered power relations have been largely untouched by the reforms.

In early 2012, South Africa's Western Cape Province enacted new alcohol control legislation amid mounting concern with the costs of alcohol-related harms. This has focused on urban shebeen closure to control the informal, unlicensed trade and the harms it generates through crime, violence and injury. In contrast to policy discourse, this paper contends that rather than existing outside regulation, the city's shebeeners embrace multiple (self and collective) regulatory strategies to manage the inherent risks of their own informality. Drawing on novel empirical data including a ‘business census’ and interviews with the police and liquor traders across four Cape Town case study sites, the paper adds new depth to contemporary engagements with the appropriate and equitable regulation of the South African informal liquor trade.