This article proposes an alternative interpretation of political disorder in Ethiopia's Somali Regional State since the rise to power of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in 1991. Some observers have perceived contemporary politics in the former Ogaden as an example of ‘internal colonisation’ by highland Ethiopians. Others attribute political instability to the ‘nomadic culture’ inherent in the Somali clan structure and the ineptness of its political leaders. This study argues that neither of these two politicised narratives grasps the contradictory interactions between the federal Ethiopian government and its Somali periphery, nor the recursive relations between state and society. With reference to the literature on neo-patrimonialism, I elucidate political disorder in the Somali Region by empirically describing hybrid political domination, institutional instability, and patronage relations, showing how neo-patrimonial rule translates into contested statehood in the region and political devices ranging from military coercion to subtle co-optation. Rather than unilateral domination, a complex web of power and manipulation between parts of the federal and regional authorities animates political disorder in Ethiopia's Somali Region.

The debate over peace in Sudan has centred on the ongoing talks in Naivasha, Kenya. This paper argues, however, that sustainable peace is not simply a function of the implementation of an agreement between the SPLA and Khartoum, but that other fracture lines will run through post-conflict Sudan. Here we draw attention to the rupture between the Dinka, dominant within the SPLA, and the Equatorian peoples of the far south, hundreds of thousands of whom were driven from their homes or faced with economic and political oppression under SPLA occupation. As these refugees return, it will be through local government structures that Equatorians will or will not be integrated into the SPLA political project for Southern Sudan. Thus, local government figures prominently in the possibility for sustainable peace. We describe the origins and structure of local government in Southern Sudan, situating it in the history of political tension between Dinka and Equatorians. We then describe the challenge of equitably distributing land and foreign aid to returnees in the context of ethnic politics and a massive NGO presence.

This paper examines the cultural repertoires of the youthful, ‘militant’ faction of the Oodua People's Congress (OPC) in Nigeria, pointing to ways in which violence and ritual can be interpreted both as an instrumentally rational strategy of power struggle and as a form of symbolic action with cultural meanings. The OPC case strongly challenges the bifurcation of tradition and modernity, given the way the group appropriate culture in negotiating Yoruba identity, while also retaining democratic rhetoric. It argues that the activities of the OPC constitute not stable, bounded manifestations of culture, but rather fluid, ambivalent and paradoxical ethnic-power relations and formations.

The pursuit of an African Renaissance has become an important aspect of regional cooperation between South Africa and its neighbours. Transfrontier conservation areas, or ‘Peace Parks’ as they are popularly called, have been identified as key instruments to promote the African Renaissance dream, and are increasingly advocated and justified on this basis. By fostering joint conservation (and tourism) development in Southern Africa's marginalised border regions, Peace Parks are claimed to further international peace, regional cooperation and poverty reduction, and thus serve basic ideals of the African Renaissance. This article critically explores this assumption. Using the joint South African-Mozambican-Zimbabwean Great Limpopo Park as a case study, it argues that in reality the creation of Peace Parks hardly stimulates and possibly even undermines the realisation of the African Renaissance ideals of regional cooperation, emancipation, cultural reaffirmation, sustainable economic development and democratisation. So far, their achievement has been severely hindered by domination of national interests, insufficient community consultation, and sensitive border issues such as the illegal flows of goods and migrants between South Africa and neighbouring countries. Furthermore, exacerbation of inter-state differences induced by power imbalances in the region, and harmonisation of land use and legal systems across boundaries, are increasingly becoming sources of conflict and controversy. Some of these problems are so severe, we conclude, that they might eventually even undermine support for African Renaissance as a whole. Utmost care is thus required to optimally use the chances that Peace Parks do offer in furthering an African Renaissance.

Since the early 1990s, building peace during and after conflict has been moving away from the conference tables of diplomats to informal settings created by local NGOs. The vast majority, if not all, of the peacebuilding policy and literature argues for strengthening local organisations as vehicles for peace. This paper starts from the observation that there is a dire lack of organisational perspective to the processes set into motion. Current local peacebuilding policy, we argue, is based on analyses that are far removed from the everyday practices of the actors engaged in peacebuilding. The paper offers instead a qualitative approach that gives central attention to the dynamics of peace organisations and the way conflict is experienced in the everyday life of local people. It analyses the case of one local women's peace organisation: the ‘Sudanese Women's Voice for Peace’. Peacebuilding is done by people, and the dynamics of their organisation are crucial for its success. The paper argues that a process approach to peace organisations will enhance agencies' efforts for local peacebuilding. Such an approach focuses on the question how actors in and around organisations give meaning to an organisation. The paper outlines this approach, presents five central properties of local peace organisations, and discusses what lessons can be learnt from this perspective for the practice of peacebuilding.

Post-apartheid South Africa has recast its regional relations. Nonetheless, much of the literature depicts its policy as a projection of captured interests, for instance big business as embedded in Pretoria's apparent neo-liberal turn. Instead, post-apartheid South Africa's regional relations represent a political compromise, albeit not necessarily an explicit one, that reflects the different visions of South Africa's regional role and their respective political bases. Because their policies reflect the push and pull of competing constituencies, democratic states are rarely one dimensional. Post-apartheid South Africa is no exception, as it attempts to square the political circle of competing political constituencies, such as big business and labour. South Africa's regional relations and, in particular, its policy of regional economic cooperation/integration, are best understood as a reflection of the competing interests within its domestic political economy.

South Africa's growing economic presence across the African continent has sparked a debate in public and scholarly circles as to its intentions. While some have been quick to see South African business and parastatals as part of a larger hegemonic project pursued by Pretoria, the authors’ more structured analysis of economic ties with Africa reveals a more complex picture. Institutionalised forms of regional cooperation, such as SACU and SADC, must be contrasted with the activities of South African multinationals and parastatals on the wider African stage to understand the possibilities and limitations of hegemonic practice open to South Africa. Beyond its own region, a key determinant will be its relations with the other leading African power, Nigeria, as well as its ability to compete with other external actors. Finally, the role of ideology is a crucial measure of South African hegemony, and while certainly its ‘soft power’ is evident at the societal level, some African elites actively resist the pull of South Africa-based ideas.

In the 1990s, Senegal and South Africa undertook decentralisation reforms that caused a considerable stir in academic and policy communities. But how much decentralisation actually occurred, and how autonomous are subnational governments in two of Africa's leading democracies? This article assesses the mix of decentralising reforms in these two countries. Subnational officials are now elected and receive revenue transfers, but remain limited by other measures, including low tax-raising capacity, tight central control over spending, limited access to capital markets, and even insecure legal rights in their own jurisdictions. While the decline of governing parties provides incentives for decentralisation in some areas, central states successfully resist attempts to devolve fiscal decisionmaking authority to subnational levels.

In October 1988, Algeria began a process of transition from authoritarianism. Political reforms were introduced, on the surface, to facilitate the process of transition, but in reality to ensure the survival of the incumbent regime. The reform of the electoral system played a significant part in this survival strategy. Between 1989 and 1997, Algeria witnessed the adoption of three distinct electoral systems as the authorities sought ways to give a façade of democratisation while manipulating the rules to suit their purposes. This paper looks at the Algerian transition, asks why the Algerian authorities switched from one system to another, and assesses the impact of the three different electoral systems that the country has experienced.

In recent years several democratically elected African governments have abolished primary school fees following pledges made during presidential election campaigns. Among these cases, Uganda's universal primary education (UPE) programme, launched in 1997, has received particular attention, due to the massive increase in primary school enrolment, as well the sustained increase in public spending on education that it has entailed. This paper asks whether the Ugandan government's policies in this area can be explained by the prior establishment of competitive elections in 1996. It provides several reasons to believe that the move to UPE has indeed been linked to democratic politics, and that this outcome has depended on the salience of education as an issue, as well as on the public's access to information about UPE. As a result, recent Ugandan experience helps show why the establishment of competitive elections might prompt an African government to spend more on primary education. However, it also suggests why in many African countries a democratic transition will have little effect on primary education provision.

The stated economic policy of the African National Congress (ANC) underwent a dramatic shift in the 1990s, away from a soft-left redistributionist position to one much more closely aligned with the policy preferences of the South African business community. To what extent can this shift be attributed to lobbying efforts by that community? The article reviews the development of economic policy by the ANC in the 1990s, and concludes that while business was undoubtedly influential in this process, much of that influence was indirect and derived from two sets of sources: first, the international policy consensus around the neo-liberal reform agenda; and second, indirect signals from ‘the market’ by means of such mechanisms as movements in the value of the currency, and investor and business confidence.

This article describes and analyses voter alignments in the new democracy of Ghana in two recent elections, 1996 and 2000. These elections are a part of the Fourth Republic that began with a ‘founding’ election in 1992, ushering Ghana into Africa's new wave of democratisation. First the size of the core voting population is established to be about 82% of the voting population, refuting the assumption that voting volatility in new and transitional democracies is always extremely high. A second conclusion is that core and swing voters cannot be distinguished by structural factors, whereas thirdly, the factors behind the party alignment of core voters are similar to Western patterns; primarily level of education, the rural-urban divide, income, and occupation. Finally, swing voters seem to be characterised by a conscious evaluation of government and candidate performance in a sign of relatively ‘mature’ democratic voting behaviour.

The Great Lakes region has been in profound turmoil for the past 15 years. Through the game of shifting alliances, and because of geographic proximity in an area with porous borders, conflicts have tended to merge, thus giving rise to a huge zone of instability. Conflicts have been compounded by the export of war to neighbouring countries, and the extreme weakness of the Congolese state has led to the ‘satellisation’ of large parts of its territory. This has in turn led to the privatisation and criminalisation of public space, to the advantage of both neighbouring countries and local, regional and international ‘entrepreneurs of insecurity’. From political, ideological, ethnic or security-induced, violence has become predominantly predatory, with loyalties and alliances essentially based on the search for personal or factional enrichment. In human terms, the damage caused by the occupation and plunder of eastern DRC has been colossal.

Post-conflict elections in Mozambique, held in 1994, 1999 and 2004, established a formally competitive and pluralistic system. This paper examines the country's emerging two-party system as an essential feature affecting prospects for democratic deepening and consolidation. The condition for political parties to actually help the establishment of democratic politics is their development as durable, socially rooted, country-wide effective and legitimate organisations. The paper contends that the current party system has indeed been a major instrument for political expression and for the channelling and peaceful management of conflicts. It shows how both Frelimo and Renamo – and the competition between them – have deep-seated historical origins and well-established regional roots. Yet, a number of aspects concerning the Mozambican party system negatively affect the deepening of democratic politics: the legitimacy of the party system is weakened by post-conflict polarisation and uncertain mutual recognition; the ethno-regional entrenchment of the two main parties bestows a communal connotation on electoral competition; and most importantly, the party system remains unbalanced and unevenly institutionalised, with Frelimo's disciplined and fundamentally institutionalised organisation opposed by a strongly personalistic and weakly organised Renamo, which struggles to operate within state institutions and to accommodate internal differences.

Civil society has been an active mobilisational and agitational force in the resource conflicts of the Niger Delta region in Nigeria. The paper examines the gender segment of civil society and its character, forms and roles in these conflicts. The central argument is that marginality can be a basis of gendered movements and their engagement in struggles for justice, accommodation and fair access to benefits. Utilising secondary data and primary data elicited from oral interviews, the study identifies and categorises women groupings and identifies their roles and engagements in the oil economy. It finds that community women organisations (CWOs), with the support of numerous grass-roots women organisations, are the most active and frequently engaged in the local oil economies, where they have constructed and appropriated traditional women protests as an instrument of engagement. The paper notes the implications of women protest engagements and particularly their exasperation with previous engagements, the depth of their commitments, and the extension of the struggle beyond the threshold of normal social behaviour.

The failure of a power-sharing attempt at peace in Burundi in 1993 led to the killing of hundreds of thousands of Burundians and played a significant role in feeding tensions leading up to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, in which another 800,000 people lost their lives. A look at the specifics of this power-sharing arrangement in the framework of Arend Lijphart's theory of consociational democracy leads to some interesting conclusions and insights into why the effort at peace failed and how future efforts could be improved. The paper looks at the arrangement in terms of Lijphart's four main pillars for successful consociationalism in deeply divided states: a grand coalition, segmental autonomy, minority overrepresentation or parity, and a minority veto. The extent to which Lijphart's recommendations were implemented is assessed along with the impact of their presence or absence. The analysis leads to some important lessons and further questions which are of particular importance as Burundi heads into its latest attempt at a stable and peaceful society.

A sparse literature examines African legislatures, generally thought to be weak and unimportant. Unlike many African countries that reintroduced multiparty politics in the 1990s, Senegal did so in the 1970s. In 2000, it joined the select group of African countries to experience democratic alternance. What role does the National Assembly play in light of these important steps in democratic consolidation? This article describes the operation of the National Assembly, with attention to its role in legislation, appropriations, executive oversight, constituent service and representation. The article concludes that despite Senegal's democratic advances, the operation of the National Assembly echoes much earlier studies of other African legislatures. These studies found that the legislatures did not play strong roles in legislation, appropriations or executive oversight, but instead played less formal roles such as constituent service and lobbying the administration for spending in their districts.

Guerrilla organisations vary greatly in their relations with civilians living in territories that they control. The NRA presents a rare, though not unique, case of a guerrilla group whose commitment to popular support deepened into democratic village management during the course of its civil war. The significant causal factors in deepening this commitment were its ideological conviction, relative military strength, dependence on civilian material assistance, and need for accommodation with civilian preferences in its operational area. It withdrew this commitment when it was under severe military pressure. Military survival was central to NRA calculations, but insufficient to determine its relations to civilians. In those phases of the war when the NRA soldiers were relatively secure, these other factors determined the type of civilian participation it supported. It organised clandestine civilian committees for assistance when it was dependent on civilians. During those periods when it held territory, it held elections for committees which managed their villages without NRA supervision.

Private research institutions, commonly referred to as think tanks, are a recent phenomenon in the Ghanaian policy environment. They are part of a growing number of NGOs that have emerged with Ghana's political liberalisation and are attempting to influence policymaking. These institutions exert a greater influence on policies affecting the functioning of the ‘administrative state’ than other NGOs. Through their efforts, ideas pertaining to administrative reform appear to have taken root strongly in Ghana. This paper examines the processes and methods that have been adopted by these institutions in developing policies that are being pursued to change the ‘administrative state’ in Ghana. It argues that the ability of these institutions to influence policies geared towards changing the administrative state can be attributed to the calibre of personnel as well as the processes and methods they have adopted.

In the last fifteen years, Tanzanian forest policy has embraced an agenda of biodiversity preservation coupled with privatisation that calls for the expansion of state oversight over forests and woodlands. Reflecting the hegemony of conservationist donors and international and local NGOs, and couched in a language of community conservation, this agenda decries peasant intrusion into forest reserves to burn charcoal for the urban market and to expand fields for agriculture. This agenda is a departure from over a century of state forestry that sought to exploit forests for domestic consumer and development needs, and to compete in export timber and charcoal markets. Following the Second World War, state forestry anchored peasants in selected forest reserves as licensed cultivators in the face of an ongoing labour shortage, in order to create tree plantations that replaced indigenous hardwoods with fast-growing exotic softwoods. This trend continued after independence as forestry was perceived as a means for agricultural modernisation and economic self-reliance, particularly after the Arusha Declaration. Current changes in forest policy prioritise forests more as ‘refugia’ for endemic plant and animal species, rather than as sources of timber and fuel, moving forest policy more in the direction of wildlife conservation, which has long aimed at excluding peasants and pastoralists from reserves. Recent evictions of peasants from forest reserves, and ongoing tensions between villagers, the state and conservationists, are the direct result of NGO pressure to protect forest reserves and to expand forest conservation into previously unreserved lands.