‘Negligence’ is frightening to think about, but accepting the possibility of making mistakes as lawyers does not mean we ought to give up on a desire to perform to the best of our ability, and at the peak of our moral consciousness. This chapter applies morality to our technical competence. In the hothouse atmosphere of competitive law firms, the underlying conflict between commercialism and professionalism leads to moral as well as financial risk. Only true professionalism – which emphasizes the dual virtues of integrity and competence – will sustainably support your future. Too much concentration on the business of law and profit can and does lead to the temptation to ‘borrow’ clients’ money and to carelessness. There are extensive conduct and accounting rules that focus on accounting honestly for clients’ money, especially for lawyers who practise across international borders, and we should back that up by arranging professional indemnity (malpractice) insurance against any negligence. In addition, risk management, continuing legal education and specialist accreditation courses are all available through the internet to support you, even if not available through a bar association

Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospitals is a 1914 New York Court of Appeals decision frequently cited as the foundational case establishing a patient’s common-law right to bodily autonomy. But Judge Benjamin Cardozo’s assertion that “every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body” was mere dicta. In affirming a directed verdict for the hospital where the plaintiff’s uterus was removed without her consent, Cardozo deemed a nurse’s awareness of the patient’s objection to surgery insufficient to put the hospital on notice that an independent-contractor surgeon was planning a non-consensual hysterectomy. In her feminist judgment, Professor Kelly Dineen unearths a treasure trove of contemporaneous sources that establish the nursing function as an independent basis for duties to patients for which the hospital may be held vicariously liable. In her commentary, Professor Danielle Pelfrey Duryea situates the case within the emergence of “modern nursing” as a devalued feminine counterpart to masculine, valorized “modern medicine."

This chapter lays the foundation for what comes next by providing a summary discussion of the electoral history of each country. Intended partly to introduce names, events, dates and institutions that will be reappear in subsequent chapters, it also sets out a central element of our argument: that the history of elections has been shaped by a chronic tension between two alternative registers of virtue: a patrimonial register that revolves around reciprocity and personal relations; and a civic register that exalts bureaucratic order and emphasises the moral claims of national citizenship. The electoral histories shaped by that tension in the three countries may seem to follow different trajectories, yet they share significant features. In all three, electoral politics has continued to revolve around securing access to the resources controlled by ‘the government’; in all three, the same chronic tension persists – between elections as manifestations of civic order, and as sites for an intense local politics of clientelism and redistribution. Finally, all three continue to see high levels of electoral participation that shape political subjectivity. Widely understood as a site for moral claims-making as well as political competition, elections underwrite – albeit in a contingent way - the legitimacy of the state.

This chapter traces the history of election organization in Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda. It identifies a common pattern of technical and institutional elaboration, driven by a desire to produce procedurally perfect elections through the combination of new technologies and more professional personnel. The chapter argues that this elaboration has come at a significant financial cost, but that it has had some effect in shaping the subjectivities of those involved as electoral officials and of voters. Yet this determined attempt to promote civic virtue through electoral performance – which has attracted much support from donors - has always been challenged by forms of patrimonial claims-making that persistently intrude into the imagined order of the electoral process. Intimidation and bribery, as well as pursuit of particular interest, drive malpractice; logistical failures and errors encourage the suspicion that others may not follow the rules. Ghana, Kenya and Uganda may seem to offer different stories: Ghana’s Electoral Commission attracts international praise, while Uganda’s has been heavily criticised. Yet that difference may be overstated: there is widespread suspicion of the electoral management bodies in all three countries. The production of citizens and state through electoral performance may be powerful, but it is very far from unquestioned.

In contrast to accounts of political mobilization that focus solely on patronage and/or co-ethnicity, this chapter argues that – to be successful – candidates need to speak to both the patrimonial and civic registers of virtue. Even aspirants who emphasise their claims to patrimonial virtue must make some claim to civic virtue and/or justify their deviation from that virtue as a necessary expedient forced on them by the nepotism or tribalism of their rivals. This need stems from the fact that both registers hold moral weight amongst the publics that politicians seek to mobilise, and is reinforced by “decampaigning” efforts whereby an aspirant’s rivals seek to attack their viability, capacity and virtue. The chapter shows how, understanding electoral campaigns in this way – i.e. as a struggle by politicians to speak to both the civic and patrimonial registers of virtue – helps to explain why campaigns are so vibrant and ground-intensive; why politicians give handouts, but also invest in projects, support particular policies, and stand up for local interests; why ethnicity can sometimes become so politically salient and divisive; and how violence and electoral malpractice can sometimes appear as justified (at least to certain audiences). Finally, the chapter underscores how politicians help to shape campaign environments through, for example, the divisions that they foster or salve, the institutions that they build or undermine, and the experiences that they imprint, but how their campaign strategies are also shaped by the political landscapes that they face – with socio-economic contexts, the structure of key political organisations, past experiences, and actions of others helping to ensure that certain messages resonate in some contexts but not in others.

Introducing the idea that elections can be understood as extended moments in which multiple actors make competing claims to virtue, this chapter sets that argument in the context of an existing literature on voting and democracy in Africa. These competing claims may usefully be understood in terms of two contrasting moral registers, the civic and the patrimonial: the productive tension between these is the basis of the moral economy of elections. The making and remaking of this moral economy is shaped by four key factors: socio-economic context; the structure of political institutions; historical experience; and, the agency of actors. In the three countries studied here the moral economy constrains and enables political action in different ways. Yet in each, the moral economy shows how elections continue to attract such vigorous engagement (even where the outcome in terms of presidential power seems entirely predictable). It further explains why popular participation is not necessarily discouraged by the breaking of electoral rules; why all politicians must speak to both these moral registers; why sub-national electoral contests are often unpredictable. The moral economy approach shows why the secret ballot and adult suffrage do not always simply make national citizens, as some would hope.

Chapter seven investigates what voters in Kenya, Ghana and Uganda think about different forms of electoral malpractice – what is seen to be morally wrong, and what can be justified? In particular, we focus on the exchange of money and gifts around elections – a particularly powerful lens through which to understand the complexity of moral claims making. We find that money is more likely to be handed out where political parties are institutionally weaker and politics has become more personalised, as in Kenya. We also find that the way voters think about the distribution of money is shaped by their understanding of the candidate and the meaning of the gift. Leaders who are seen to be authentic and who have a sustained relationship with an individual or a community can have their reputation bolstered by making handouts; in this context, gift-giving is usually seen as an act of generosity and evidence of “good” leadership. By contrast, those who lack moral authority are vulnerable to being accused of “vote buying” – a largely illegitimate activity in all three countries. In this way, a focus on gift-giving reveals why some leaders do not benefit from handouts, and hence why the individuals who hand out the most money do not always win.