Belonging in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is negotiated through everyday practices that link land, ancestry, displacement, and local authority. This article examines how ethnicized categories are produced in routine encounters and dispute arenas rather than only through elite politics or episodes of violence. Drawing on comparative ethnography in a periurban setting near Bukavu and a rural setting in Kalehe, based on 72 interviews, observation of 18 dispute and community forums, and a bounded discourse corpus of radio, public speech, and WhatsApp materials, it analyses how people assemble and contest claims to local membership. The study shows that local citizenship is produced through practical regimes of proof in which people must demonstrate credibility via relational anchors, witnesses, documents, and moral narratives about stewardship and suffering. Belonging emerges as graded and situational rather than binary: the same person may be recognized as a church member, tenant, in-law, displaced person, or stranger depending on the arena and resource at stake. Dispute resolution forums institutionalize these claims, while rumor and media infrastructures accelerate boundary hardening or enable restraint. The article contributes to scholarship on boundary making, autochthony, and everyday bordering by showing how local citizenship is assembled through ordinary evidentiary demands and partial forms of recognition.
Chapter 5 focuses on Ghana, one of Africaâs most institutionalized democracies, and contrasts its relatively balanced allocation of development finance with the regional favoritism observed in Zambia. Ghanaâs stable two-party system â dominated by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) â is characterized by cross-ethnic coalitions. While the NDC has traditionally drawn support from the Volta region and the Muslim North, and the NPP from the Akan-dominated Ashanti region, ethnic fragmentation has encouraged both parties to target swing regions through strategic resource allocation. Ghanaâs political landscape is shaped by a commitment to ethno-regional balance in leadership and efforts to institutionalize regional equity, which curtail ethnic favoritism. Decentralization and broad-based representation further incentivize parties to compete in swing constituencies. Despite ongoing challenges such as rent-seeking and rising debt, Ghanaâs independent institutions and vibrant civil society help constrain ethnic favoritism â offering a stark contrast to Zambiaâs declining accountability during its democratic transition.
The Ambazonian conflict in Cameroonâs Anglophone regions has unfolded within an era defined by mobile connectivity, social media, and digitally mediated political contention. This article examines the role of mobile technology in shaping the conflictâs trajectory from early mobilization to prolonged armed stalemate. It argues that mobile technology functioned as both an enabling and destabilizing force: facilitating mass mobilization, diaspora coordination, documentation of abuses, and digital finance, while simultaneously accelerating fragmentation, disinformation, cybersecurity exposure, and state surveillance. Drawing on comparative cases including the Arab Spring, ISIS, Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Myanmar, the article situates Ambazonia within broader patterns of digital contention and digital authoritarian response. The analysis further demonstrates how ungoverned digital visibility and decentralized online fundraising undermined strategic coherence and legitimacy. The article concludes that while mobile technology can amplify resistance, it cannot substitute for political legitimacy, institutional coherence, or negotiated settlement. Durable peace requires a transition from networked resistance to normatively grounded frameworks such as the Alliance for Peace and Justice (APJ) Peace Plan.
âThe Ledger of Power: Who Benefits, Who Paysâ Author: Historian Abstract This work examines political power not through ideology, legality, or declared moral principles, but through a diagnostic lens focused on benefit, cost, and silence. Across democratic, authoritarian, and hybrid systems, it traces how legitimacy is constructed and maintained by the selective distribution of advantage and the deferral or concealment of harm. Rather than asking whether regimes are virtuous, this analysis asks who benefits, who pays, and which costs remain unaccounted for. Drawing on historical patterns and contemporary structures, the text argues that power defines what is considered ârightâ through enforceability and delivery, while moral language follows as justification rather than guidance. Elections, law, growth, and stability are treated as mechanisms that regulate elite competition, manage consent, and stabilize hierarchical benefit flows. When these mechanisms succeed, legitimacy appears moral; when they fail, narratives collapse and deferred costs surface. The book emphasizes that compliance is often transactional rather than ideological, rooted in material security, predictability, and exhaustion rather than belief. It further shows how stagnation, inequality, and narrative contradiction erode legitimacy, producing cynicism, withdrawal, or instability. Rather than prescribing ideal systems, the work offers an analytical framework for understanding any regimeâs trajectory by examining its internal accounting of benefits and burdens. The central claim is simple: power is temporary, legitimacy is conditional, and consequences endure. Understanding political systems requires not moral affirmation or rejection, but clear-eyed accounting of how advantage and harm are distributed over time.
Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) were supposed to prevent oligarchy. On the evidence, they haven't. Voting power is concentrated, delegation keeps producing superrepresentatives, and proposal turnout hovers below ten percent (Han et al. 2024; Fabrega et al. 2025). The empirical literature has measured this pattern many times over, but it has not had a theoretical frame equal to what it measures. This paper offers one. Drawing on Milovan Djilas's The New Class (1957) and Robert Michels's Political Parties (1911), I argue that DAO governance reproduces-not metaphorically, but structurally-the features of the communist nomenklatura: a self-perpetuating stratum that rules through control of the administrative apparatus rather than through ownership, that selects its members by cooptation rather than election, and that accrues privileges attached to position. I operationalize this through the Nomenklatura Index (ONI), a seven-dimension composite derived directly from Djilas's categories and piloted on three DAOs-Compound, MakerDAO/Sky, and Gitcoin-chosen to span the range of oligarchic formation I expected to see. The pilot does what it is supposed to do: ONI discriminates across the three cases in the predicted order and with meaningful spread. I close with design and regulatory implications. The governance-design ones (rotation mandates, supermajorities on self-dealing, deliberation minima) target the Djilasian mechanisms directly rather than working around them; the regulatory ones supply courts and agencies with a diagnostic vocabulary for the liability questions opened by CFTC v. Ooki DAO and unlikely to close anytime soon.
Portia Roelofs, Good Governance in Nigeria. Rethinking Accountability and Transparency in the Twenty-first Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. 356 pp. ÂŁ 26.69 paperback. Peer Schouten, Roadblock Politics. The Origins of Violence in Central Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 256 pp. ÂŁ 95.78 hardcover. The state in Africa has been the object of ongoing analysis and debate. Those who qualify it as âfailedâ, âweakâ, âfragileâ or âneo-patrimonialâ rely on a strict Weberian definition which views the state as the monopolist of legitimate physical violence, an autonomous bureaucratic apparatus, the embodiment of popular sovereignty, and a spatially and territorially coherent entity. These features represent an essentially Western ideal type. As an alternative, scholars have explored its long historical formation (Bayart, 1989; Cooper, 2002; Hibou and Tozy, 2020), the interpenetration of the bureaucratic realm and the social world (Mitchell, 1991), and the everyday making of the state through processes of negotiation, contestation and bricolage (Hagmann and PĂŠclard, 2010). Other scholars have examined the fabric of informal political order, emphasizing, sometimes uncritically, âthe strength of weak statesâ (Meagher, 2012). This essay reviews the two books listed above by Portia Roelofs and Peer Schouten, which are part of the ongoing discussion on state-making theory. Both authors reflect on this theory from a local perspective, employing popular understandings of accountability, legitimacy and forms of sovereignty. Roelofs book on Nigeria and Schouten's on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are excellent cases through which to examine these issues and to rethink some of the significant challenges Africa faces. These include an outward-looking political economy based on mineral wealth in parts of the territory (for example, oil in Nigeria and coltan, copper and gold in Eastern Congo); decades of armed conflicts, indicating the difficulty of the central state in controlling its national territory; widespread forms of patronage understood as the distribution by politicians of private goods to citizens; and the imposition of structural adjustment programmes by the International Monetary Fund which drastically reduced the state bureaucracy and its capacity to govern societies. At first glance, the title of Portia Roelofs book Good Governance in Nigeria: Rethinking Accountability and Transparency in the Twenty-first Century (hereafter Good Governance in Nigeria) might be viewed as provocative. It is surprising to see good governance associated with this country, given that Nigerian politics is often characterized in academic literature by neo-patrimonialism, patronage and corruption. Instead of endorsing the view of Nigerian governance as marked by self-destructive greed and a culture of corruption, Roelofs explores lesser-known forms of popular accountability and transparency by examining how the Nigerian political class governs the population and how Nigerians want to be governed. She focuses on Ekiti, Lagos and Oyo, three southwestern states where governors from the dominant party in the southwest, the All Progressives Congress (APC), adopted new public policies in the 2000s. They did so not because they were influenced by donor agencies (for example, in 2004, development aid represented only 0.6 per cent of government spending) but rather because they reactivated a long tradition of progressive governance ingrained in the history of the southwestern region. While radically different in the argumentation, Peer Schouten's book Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa (hereafter Roadblock Politics) also starts with empirical observations. Schouten mapped more than 800 roadblocks in eastern DRC, where minerals are strongly associated with armed conflict. With this new cartographic evidence in hand, the author challenges a well-established analytical framework â the DRC conflict is not so much about control over natural resources but about control over spaces of circulation or roads. For Schouten, roadblocks form an entry point into âforms of political order that somehow remain invisible in conventional state theoryâ (p. xiv). His comparative analysis with the Central African Republic (CAR) helps us to rethink how informal political orders have been constructed along roads in economically poor, resource-rich countries in Central Africa. For the author, roadblocks are not symptomatic of the region's predicament as Hobbesian anarchy; rather, they display a structure of consistent rules and logics of control. These rules pertain to who can set up a roadblock, where, and how movement beyond the roadblock is organized. In exploring these different forms of territorial governance, both books reviewed here prove useful in rethinking state theory and the making of contemporary political arenas. They are based on several years of fieldwork conducted by the authors as part of their PhD dissertation research. What politicians, traders, market women, policemen, military men and rebels think about governance, sovereignty and accountability enables the authors to decipher conventional wisdom on good governance, the resource curse thesis and the neo-patrimonial state. In the sections that follow, I individually discuss the two books which address different research questions on governance, transparency and political order. Following this, I examine the various local conceptions of authority and political legitimacy, which are rooted in a long historical trajectory and challenge common assumptions about state theory. As in so many developing countries, the World Bank and international donors sought to export a ready-made model to Nigeria to transform the state from within. A classical international good governance agenda insists on the need for an insulated system of techno-managerial governance that will protect the market from politics, and in which elected officials and civil servants in government are committed to delivering public goods and to being held accountable for adhering to rules and meeting key indicators. While this narrative is well known, it is surprising to see its adoption by some states in Nigeria in the early 2000s. A long period of military rule, coupled with the implementation in 1985 of structural adjustment programmes, led to the evisceration of many federal and state institutions, a sharp increase in corruption levels, a general decline of public infrastructure, the marginalization of civil society institutions and an upsurge in the number of violent groups claiming more financial resources from the federal state (Osaghae, 1998; Suberu, 2001). Nonetheless, in the early 2000s, the Lagos State government implemented new public policies consistent with the governance agenda of the World Bank, which entailed upgrading public services, reasserting an autonomous civil service, embracing publicâprivate partnerships in various sectors (security, waste and transportation) and increasing the state budget through taxation. Roelofs convincingly suggests that Lagos became a model replicated in neighbouring states; it was implemented in Oyo State during the mandate of Governor Abiola Ajimobi (2011â19) and in Ekiti State under Governor Kayode Fayemi (2010â14) (p. 59). Both governors were able to modernize their states by embracing publicâprivate partnerships and constructing new roads and market infrastructures. Despite this, Fayemi was not re-elected in 2014, and the APC lost Oyo State to the opposition in 2019. This leads Roelofs to ask, âWhat kind of accountability and what kind of transparency do people expect from their leaders?â (p. 56). Her book is partly inspired by the suggestion in the early 2000s of Thandika Mkandawire that âanti-democratic effects of technocracy can be counterbalanced by an aspect of governance that has been downplayed by Western approaches to democracy: the social dimensionâ (p. 24). The core argument Roelofs advances is that power must be socially embedded for it to be accountable. In other words, social demands (either personal, family or group-based interests) have the potential for constraining power which, admittedly, is an argument poorly mobilized by academics working on Nigeria. In the process of doing so, Roelofs reconceptualizes accountability as accessibility. Accessibility is understood as the maintenance of spaces for direct communication between political leaders and their constituents. However, politicians often ignore these demands in favour of dominant technocratic approaches to accountability. On a more theoretical level, the author criticizes the claim that politics should be divorced from the world of social relations. Many academics who promote rational choice theory, as well as economic experts at the World Bank, fail to recognize the central role that social relations between politicians and the broader population play in shaping effective mechanisms of transparency and accountability. Similarly, the dominant interpretation of transparency is largely based on the quantity and coverage of budget information. For Roelofs, this is insufficient. Transparency demands that the social networks, relations and obligations within which leaders are embedded should be made visible. While emphasis is placed on the importance of communication channels, Roelofs is not naĂŻve about the material dimension of politics and does not overlook established practices of exchange of private goods between politicians and voters. She also recognizes that such patronage politics provides only a partial explanation: the relationship between voters and politicians is also shaped by citizensâ social demands and their broader expectations about how politicians should behave. Empirically, the argumentation is convincing for the states of Oyo and Ekiti. The APC governors were lacking human faces and neglecting the masses despite the implementation of progressive policies. Although Ajimobi improved or built new infrastructures, he was seen as arrogant and disrespectful and was replaced by a governor who was perceived as being closer to the people. Lagos State remains a question mark in Roelofs book. It is presented as a model for the southwestern states based on the success achieved during the rule of Governors Tinubu (1999â2007) and Fashola (2007â15). This reflects an academic optimism about the policies of Lagos that does not consider the strength of APC bureaucratic machines and societal groups (for example, market women's associations, unions, professional guilds, street leaders) loyal to APC governors and working for their re-election (Fourchard, 2021; Lawanson et al., 2025; Salvaire, 2019). In other words, it remains to be demonstrated that since 1999 APC governors of Lagos State have been re-elected due to their accessibility, accountability and ability to listen to the population at large. At the core of Peer Schouten's book, Roadblock Politics, lies another conventional wisdom. The resource curse thesis is a popular narrative with respect to Central Africa. Richard Auty (1993) is credited with coining the concept,1 but Paul Collier amplified it in the late 1990s. Collier explained that the upsurge of conflicts in Africa was linked to globalization while civil wars were motivated by the same basic âgreedâ as that of rational entrepreneurs (Collier, 2004; Collier and Hoeffler, 2004). The risk of civil war was especially high if countries with weak institutions depended on primary commodity exports, as in the DRC and CAR (p. 237). Interestingly, Schouten notes that Collier was highly influential in promoting this thesis among an unlikely alliance of activists, governments and industrial stakeholders in the region (pp. 237â38). Schouten's quantitative and qualitative analysis of roadblocks rightly indicates not only that this oversimplifies the situation on the ground, but also that it conceals other analytical possibilities. He demonstrates and argues that the emergence of mobile economies across long distances gave rise to roadblocking as a political technique for negotiating and governing the control of long-distance exchanges from pre-colonial times to the present. Roadblock Politics is a very well-informed history and geography of roadblocks in central Africa. The work is impressive in its articulation of a quantitative analysis of 1,000 roadblocks concentrated in Eastern Congo and CAR with ethnographic insights from specific places. Schouten advances three principal arguments. First, roadblocks are a meaningful form of state making because they have been a dominant form of power both in the 19th century and in the past 25 years, a point to which I will return in the last section of this essay. Second, different means of different forms of rule and which the author to as an of where the of the of is to and the circulation of goods and Roadblock are highly On national and which of roadblocks are largely by state roads and through the with weak economic are and at per cent by armed groups such as the and other or reflect the of power in that they for They are both a groups different of and a must part of their up the roadblocks do not Following such as or the as they are able to through roadblocks through of and who the on the while a from the under which this work is Schouten's to the theoretical that are First, it challenges the dominant role minerals play in of conflict in Central Africa and an interpretation of the Although roadblocks are a central part of the conflict between groups for control of different they are not linked to the of mineral All goods are not only Second, it what Schouten to as the political of governance which is meaningful only if it is in to a territory and a population within it (p. a with other forms of territorial governance might have been useful to the to which roadblock politics as local political order is that the author roadblocks as a political through which Central African the by the of In for their they from and at roadblock politics reflects local conceptions of public authority in Central Africa. Despite being very both examine African conceptions of state making and political They the making of authority by exploring and often political This is especially in an academic where African history has so often been to Schouten, is a long historical tradition of to the of power in the of Roadblock Politics the history of a on on the roads from the to the and along the Congo to the became widespread in the 19th century as the circulation of goods as and It was a very for able to and control over a party to it was As with was the for these as or For Schouten, a form of He us that this is rooted in Central African the of along key is in and what as first of people to wealth by along (p. were a of state making than autonomous to the emergence of political power (p. Roadblock politics in the century is presented as a of two how the period period from the of the 19th century the of the in might have contemporary and politics is a form of history that to as Peer Schouten's book is well to an between the two the is more historical especially of the and The of roads into during the period is presented as a African are at the same seen as the of the on the suggests that the was along and in in mineral but weak especially in and was This form of government is by the author as on a (p. Schouten suggests in the same that on was a and more form of rule than the of direct across He also that the population was and in in the a as the (p. The last point to is that the analysis of and to be the of the order. All the presented by Schouten favour a thesis from the pre-colonial to the period in to state However, I have some about this The thesis has the of some on rule which are well established by These include the capacity of the to in very the in of central African to along the and in of work and and the ability of to and by especially World In other words, Schouten suggests that the population the imposition of (for example, and and the central state other political possibilities. This thesis does not to how view their of movement of the In the book, a at about In the I from to were this is (p. In a roads are The government (p. These that a system of roads did of the century and that the It a of national state legitimacy, and if this were the roadblocks politics be an radically different to the both in and in the of and In other words, historical between the 19th and are not especially how roadblock politics might from In Good Governance in Roelofs is in to state than in the to rule and the in which political legitimacy is over Instead of that a of good governance was on Nigeria by the Roelofs the tradition of or or In the of a political class led by a and of the Western this have a to rule in so as they display a based on Western with the of in the 19th For historical in the region in the 19th and and replaced war as a of political leaders must than they For and governors in leaders need an of government if they are to their to new The a social and political a social that is through the of It the of social and for constraining the power of Roelofs suggests that Tinubu was elected as governor of Lagos State in he was very much influenced by and a public in the of Nigeria for and the return of in The strength of the on the capacity to of historical and Roelofs is very to local conceptions of APC politicians a to and to be for their good governance, but they politicians from private of and She suggests that is a The book the between political of the politicians who do not often This of development and local authority has as by the for and so ingrained in the southwestern part of Nigeria. ask, to what local politicians have been in the past APC politicians have the in Nigeria since but popular has in a of economic power and of in and What remains of this to It that has as the three political in the very patronage politics to play a significant role in by the widespread of politicians their that the core of and This the question of how political legitimacy has been built over in the two to state on the hand, and popular of accountability, on the other hand, to be central in the of local political the two books are convincing in their argumentation, might be other to For Schouten, roadblock politics reflects the radically and of local public This point the in which informal institutions public authority by a of (for example, associations, associations, women's and In the past years, an of work in and political has the role of state and institutions in shaping local authority in (Fourchard, the African has of institutions working at the of the state and These institutions the state as and while to or their public authority have and conflicts, power local power within a the of political Schouten's central arguments. or informal institutions that transform into This is the for groups that have some legitimacy because they are seen as more than the and a for which people are to and Schouten that roadblock groups have some legitimacy, especially with respect to and they for the of local What might be is the to which these armed groups at a of from the or the local they might be a of the but is a significant between the two in that roadblocks to be a form of between central state services, and what are the or the seen as legitimate or in and on this another from the roadblocks to the in which they are to how to between groups which legitimate or local For Roelofs, local political legitimacy is in the popular of accountability and accessibility. In coupled with a neo-patrimonial of the the social with officials as effective governance in Africa. by patronage or politics, Western political have social relations in their discussion of African politics and socially embedded forms of of the of Good Governance in Nigeria is that it beyond these patronage to other forms of popular accountability in Nigeria and in the For example, politicians are to be embedded in and the of communication through to by of is This is in the literature on politics but largely in the literature on in a broader with literature beyond the African is but political research on Africa with neo-patrimonial literature or rational choice theory political and political research that and the of political legitimacy beyond However, a more central question how politicians are in Africa and how their will and political demands in public The two books reviewed here with historical and conceptions of authority and accountability in Africa that have been This of history into the social remains to a more of the fabric of public authority in the African and is a for more qualitative work that challenges and assumptions about countries in and the African in The two books a central to the conventional wisdom on state authority in Africa and A strength of these two scholars is their capacity to fieldwork over to rethink many central issues in state-making theory. in the of a roadblock, a or in how local politicians to their is an excellent point for on very state theory. The World technocratic of good governance, the resource curse thesis and neo-patrimonial and rational choice theory remain dominant in international development agencies and among academics and need to be by such research. In this the to territorial governance forms part of a broader by a number of scholars to the state in a more and (Hagmann and PĂŠclard, 2021; The quantitative analysis of roadblocks helps beyond a of the roadblocks are a form of political order and to be a political or the of mineral exploring the role of Western such as and is an to the of in such a political is a political and at the for International His research include the and the political of public He and in Africa and Nigeria
It has been 8 months since the inauguration of the Javier Milei administration. His rise to power marks an unprecedented event in Argentine politics. Until 2021, when he stepped into politics and ran for a deputy seat in the city of Buenos Aires, Milei, who besides his role as an economic advisor at CorporaciĂłn AmĂŠricaâa large business conglomerateâhad been a frequent guest on television shows, levying strong criticism toward both Kirchnerism and Mauricio Macri's economic policies, advocating for a sharp reduction in the state apparatus and sweeping market reform aggressiveness displayed toward his critics and rivals. In 2021, he founded La Libertad Avanza, a small party that competed in that year's mid-term election, obtaining 17% of the vote in the city of Buenos Aires and gaining two Chamber of Deputies seats. While not uncommon in other countries, Javier Milei is the first case in Argentina of a presidential candidacy crafted on a television set and social media. His constant presence on shows made him popular across the country against the backdrop of the severe economic decay and deterioration of social indicators that Argentina has experienced over the past 14 years. To many observers, his unexpected victory in the November 19 presidential runoff was a major blow to Argentine politics and the country's establishment. His first-place showing in the August 13 presidential primaries had already dealt a shock to Argentina's political elites. There was some expectation before the August open, simultaneous, and compulsory primaries (PASO in Spanish) that Milei could end up being the candidate with the most votes at the individual level, but it was believed that the aggregate vote of the main opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio and of the ruling Frente de Todos, both of which had competitive primaries, would surpass La Libertad Avanza's candidate. The election of outsiders has been a common phenomenon in Latin America since the beginning of the third wave of democratization, but until last year's election, Argentina had not experienced it. The resilience of Peronism and the strength of its partisan apparatus apparently posed a strong barrier for an outsider lacking a strong partisan structure. Furthermore, Argentina's electoral system stood as an obstacle to the rise of outsiders. The PASO, which have effectively turned the presidential election into a three-round system, and the use of paper ballots, which requires a large apparatus to monitor the electoral process, allegedly provided Argentine politics with a bullet-proof jacket that safeguarded its polity from outsiders. Yet, against all odds, Javier Milei surprisingly ended up as the candidate with the most votes in the August PASO, at 31%, dealing the first blow to Argentina's partisan establishment; he obtained 29% support in the October first round, placing him in second place behind Sergio Massa, whom he defeated in the November 19 runoff by a much larger margin than expected (Labaqui, 2023a). Elected with an 11-point advantage in the presidential second round, Milei's party only held 10% and 15% of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies seats, effectively becoming Argentina's weakest head of state in legislative terms since the democratic restoration in 1983. As is well known, Milei's initial economic package resulted in an acceleration of Argentina's already high inflation rate, presumably leading to a further deterioration of poverty rates and deepening the pre-existing decline in economic activity. Yet, after 6 months in office, Milei's approval ratings remained surprisingly high, according to various public opinion polls raising questions about social tolerance to fiscal austerity and economic adjustment. In this sense, Milei's rise in Argentine politics poses a fascinating set of questions that are relevant both from an empirical and theoretical standpoint. As stated, the rise of populist outsiders (and as I shall describe later, this label fits Milei's leadership strategy and style perfectly) has not been unusual in Latin America but is rather uncommon in Argentina.1 By this token, it is worth questioning what lies behind his stunning ascent to power. The emergence of populist leaders has typically been associated with the deinstitutionalization of party systems (Levitsky & Loxton, 2013; Mainwaring, 2018; Mainwaring & Scully, 1995). The press usually compares Milei's triumph to Donald Trump's 2016 victory in the United States and Jair Bolsonaro's in Brazil. There is more recent literature on the surge of a new illiberal and populist right both globally and in the region (Luna & Rovira-Kaltwasser, 2021; Monestier & Vommaro, 2021). Theoretical discussions about populism are also relevant to understanding Milei. The blend of populism and economic liberalism is hardly a new phenomenon in the region (Weyland, 1996). Milei's legislative weakness also brings back discussions about the elective affinities between neoliberalism and populism raised by Weyland (1996) and Roberts (1995) 30 years ago during the heyday of market reforms in Latin America. At the same time, Milei's quest for radical economic liberalization brings to the forefront debates regarding the political economy of stabilization plans and structural reforms and discussions about the functioning of minority governments under presidential regimes. Milei's presidency has also raised discussions about the consequences his arrival to power could have for Argentina's democracy. Levitsky and Loxton (2013) have argued that the election of a populist leader, especially in the case of outsiders, has usually resulted in the emergence of competitive authoritarian regimes. During the campaign for the 2023 runoff election, several organizations and intellectuals warned about the peril that Milei represented for the fate of Argentina's democracy (ClarĂn, 2023a). In this essay, I will address some of these questions. First, I will argue that Javier Milei's victory fits well with the existing knowledge about the circumstances that result in the election of populist leaders. Then, I will center on Milei's particular blend of populism, which, as noted, has not been an uncommon phenomenon in the region. In the fourth section, I assess the prospects for governability of Milei's administration. In the final section, I assess the first semester of Milei's tenure as president and discuss whether he poses a threat to Argentina's democracy. The August 13 primaries were a shock for Argentina's political establishment. After votes were counted, Milei surprisingly not only had the most votes as an individual candidate but also his newly formed political party La Libertad Avanza was in first place, outnumbering the until-then predominant political coalitionsâthe ruling Peronist UniĂłn Por la Patria and the center-right non-Peronist opposition Juntos por el Cambio. Although Argentina's party system had exhibited clear trends of deinstitutionalization since the mid-1990s (Gervasoni, 2018), it had not suffered a collapse of its party system like Venezuela and Bolivia in 1998 and 2005, respectively, or more recently in MĂŠxico with LĂłpez Obrador's (AMLO) election in 2018, and in El Salvador in 2019. Even during the 2001â2002 economic crisis, despite the profound disenchantment with the partisan establishment, the party system did not break down completely but underwent a partial restructuring (Malamud & De Luca, 2015). The collapse of the convertibility regime certainly took a toll on the degree of institutionalization, but there was a more profound effect on the radical party than on Peronism (Escolar et al., 2002; Torre, 2003). The creation of Cambiemos in 2015âan alliance between Macri's Propuesta Republicana (PRO), the UniĂłn CĂvica Radical (UCR). and the CoaliciĂłn CĂvicaâresulted in the first victory at the national level of a non-Peronist coalition since the demise of the Alianzaâthe coalition of the radical party and the center-left Frepasoâin 2001. Both the victory of Cambiemos (later rebranded as Juntos por el Cambio) in 2015 and the Peronist comeback (under the Frente de Todos label, which brought together different Peronist factions that had quit the party during the Kirchner era) in 2019 suggested that Argentine politics were evolving toward a two-coalition system. Paradoxically, the degree of institutionalization in partisan representation exhibited a sharp contrast with the disappointing performance of Argentina's ruling coalitions. The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated Argentina's economic problems. The FernĂĄndez administration's (2019â2023) decision to tie its fate to rigid enforcement of social distancing measures, coupled with the further economic deterioration brought about by the pandemic, provided the political space for the type of discourse Milei had been putting forth since his emergence in the public sphere, initially as an economic analyst who frequently participated on television shows. Bearing in mind Argentina's declining economic performance in the decade following the commodities boom of the 2000s, the question is not so much how Milei managed to defeat Argentina's partisan establishment but why it took so long to happen. A victory of Sergio Massa, who had been responsible for the Fernandez administration's economic policy since August 2022, would have been abnormal for a variety of reasons. From 2018 to 2023, the only ruling party that managed to win a presidential election in a democratic setting in Latin America was the Colorado Party in Paraguay. The poor economic performance of the FernĂĄndez administration, which saw a further acceleration of inflation particularly during Massa's tenure in the Ministry of Economy, made Argentina an unlikely candidate to break the regional anti-incumbent wave. See Table 1. Certainly, Massa was close to striking a first-round victory thanks to Argentina's presidential election rules that require 40% support and a 10-point advantage to avoid a second round. Since Massa had failed to avoid a runoff election, the likelihood of his victory was certainly low. In the first place, Massa failed to achieve a decisive lead in the first round. Reversal of the first-round result has occurred in 35% of elections decided through a second round in Latin America since the beginning of the third wave of democratization. Still, the phenomenon has become more frequent in recent yearsâ12 of the 22 cases of runoff reversal have occurred within the last decade. See Table 2. Second, the poor economic performance of the FernĂĄndez administration and particularly of Massa as minister of economy made his triumph a highly unlikely event. Except for the case of Fernando Henrique Cardoso in Brazil in 1994, no presidential candidate from a ruling party or coalition has won an election in Latin America since the beginning of the third wave of democratization when there has been an annual inflation rate above 40% (Labaqui, 2023a). See Table 3. Mainwaring (2018) has argued that poor government performance makes political parties vulnerable to profound electoral losses, effectively undermining the stability of the party system. The case of Argentina's 2023 election fits well with Mainwaring's argument. Not only did Peronism have its worst electoral showing in a presidential election since its emergence in Argentine politics in the 1940s, but also what until then had been the main opposition coalition, Juntos por el Cambio, underwent a dramatic electoral decline that left it out of the November 19 s round. Three consecutive administrations disappointed citizensâ expectations, handing power to their successor in worse conditions than those they had received, creating the space for the surge of a populist outsider. Milei's emergence in Argentina's political landscape fits well with the literature on weak party-system institutionalization and with the more recent discussions on the emergence of a new type of political right in Latin America. Monestier and Vommaro (2021) have pointed out the recent cases of right-wing movements that won elections without previously building a political vehicle. According to them, this new right is based on personalistic leaders embracing a reactionary cultural and political anti-elitist discourse. This new far-right comes in hand with a new wave of populism, an old theme in Latin American politics. Milei would not see himself as a populist leader. In fact, he has frequently blamed populism as one of the causes behind Argentina's stagnation and decay (YouTube, 2022). Yet, his political strategy and style as well as his discourse are typical examples of populist leadership. Populism is a disputed concept. There are disagreements among scholars about its defining elements. The fact that populism is not only an analytical category but also a term frequently used in political discourse, usually with a negative connotation, adds to the controversy. Milei's adherence to economic liberalism and fiscal orthodoxy would not be an example of populism if we use Dornbusch and Edwardsâ (1991) definition, which confines the term to a type of economic policy, but the economic definition of populism is problematic for a variety of reasons. For one, many populist leaders have not hesitated on certain occasions to adopt fiscal austerity policies at odds with the economic definition of populism. Despite their differences, I it more to use and Weyland populism as a strategy through which a personalistic or government power based on support from large of According to is a of building political power based on the of through the use of and Milei is a highly personalistic with a with his The fact that he obtained support in his had had a performance in held on a different than the August primaries and the October first round the personalistic and of his leadership. Milei's are also his definition of Argentina's partisan establishment as a is a case of the of discourse that and right-wing populist leaders have both Peronism and Juntos por el Cambio under the same label, was a in Milei's campaign which not from Bolsonaro's on partisan establishment, against the of the Party and Party or against the and Latin America has different of populism. During the and populist much to the of many observers, Until populism had been associated with economic and fiscal based on the of the in and under and Weyland (1996) that populism and were not at all and in fact, had elective For different populist leaders and of reforms have legislative and see as to the of economic The typical of populist leaders is hardly with a strong the and personalistic of democracy by has usually resulted in a of with the legislative they not have a which of There is of that populism and and not his and Milei has not from levying against the legislative he has so not with the After to approval for the of his administration's first legislative the in the Chamber of Deputies in Milei the Argentine a of (ClarĂn, Milei's initial policy are in with of the elective affinities between populism and after being Milei a highly and and a of policy and a of the he to an a of legislative in the and a of in policy social and This also a of to be and an electoral reform that Argentina's compulsory primaries system and for among other The election of a populist outsider has been the for an crisis, as by Levitsky and Loxton not like and Furthermore, they rise to with an which with an to the existing or Milei has the political the strength to as they did during their first term in Milei's La Libertad Avanza, 10% and 15% of in the Senate and Chamber of His legislative weakness an about the prospects of governability for a head of state that a strong legislative before his election, I Milei's in terms of governability (Labaqui, governments in presidential between the strategy by which of to presidential and the to the president to coalition which of the of legislative support by other parties with representation into the in the and the a to an that is and and The Argentine the president with to the and and Still, both require some of and be used for political and and be by The use of is by of the and by FernĂĄndez de Kirchner the when a Senate seat and was the head of are in of the of both of is to a which effectively that a government one the of a Milei, with the support of the Propuesta Republicana (PRO), not in the Senate or the Chamber of could the for the legislative of more for both approval to the and a for in The of legislative in requires a are to a legislative The to by and a be for a minority administration. Milei's one of his who would be as minister of that if did not Milei would to to legislative As this is by both the in the case of administrations lacking at a in one by the Argentine also have the of for a several occasions before and after office, Milei suggested that he to this if to his legislative (ClarĂn, El this has According to Argentina's is not compulsory for popular The this the that be to a those that require legislative as and that be to of as the in Argentina's regime between the government and the From a more recent from under or during the administration shows that be a especially in the case of of state that a in Milei's initial to a of from failed in when the Chamber of Deputies certain from the in leading the government to the A much and of the was in down during the legislative in both the Chamber of Deputies and the At the of this had this of the The approval a more from the Milei administration and a about how minority administrations with to their policy The and of the and the fiscal package by the government in the of coalition over a according to typically in the head of state from to the with public opinion comes to an the highly vulnerable to in the of legislative It is to be whether Milei will of the recent and to a more of legislative support or for the October mid-term elections of the Chamber of Deputies and of the Senate will be and his of legislative While the first more Milei more to the second which fits with his political strategy of the This second is not as Milei has the support of than of the in both of which that if opposition parties they could a presidential or or in the an an unlikely at this The first semester of the Milei administration poses questions about the of the administration's economic policy, and social tolerance to adjustment. Furthermore, Milei's leadership his political discourse and and his with far-right from other in the the about whether Argentina's democracy is at of the most of this first semester lies in the fact that despite the economic from the administration's initial economic to Argentina's Milei a level of popular tolerance to economic has been than The acceleration in inflation from the initial and the in the decline in that the Milei administration has since the in 2023, in a rate, the since This in has hand in hand with an According to the is expected to decline by in Aires There are no poverty but according to the the the poverty had from in 2023 to in Yet, despite the economic Milei's approval ratings are high, into the economic based on the government by shows that at the of this in the government remained close to The of the political establishment, particularly of and about the economy to behind the tolerance of economic Milei's political which since one that economic would be to avoid a further of the economic has to the than social Despite the administration's and frequent of governability has been of an than what have been in At the of Milei his first victory in the legislative with the approval of the of the and the fiscal and the prospects of social stood as for Milei. Even if these 6 months were of of social have already two against the policy social movements have held several against the Milei have been by organizations to Peronism and have not Milei's As for despite his legislative Milei from two of Massa's tenure in the Ministry of The of the by Massa and by in 2023 resulted in a of for some of which have a on Argentina's At the same time, to the before the November runoff Milei with administration. In the of a the government with a of the administration's first was to to governments To a certain the of administrations has Milei's weak legislative him to with It is to assess whether Milei will in the economy and economic and the have Milei's economic policy, particularly his on Argentina's fiscal Still, the has the to vulnerable and to the social and political behind the administration's economic policy (ClarĂn, from the stabilization and structural reform plans of the and not be In Milei's political the by popular head of state and a of from the of adjustment. expected this to of poor policy that the head of state from to when his approval ratings Second, from the and some administrations are more to and stabilization outsiders have to in fiscal and state as they their political of economic and a highly of state with is but not for the of stabilization and reform The literature on economic reforms out legislative as of the for A final lies in the prospects for Argentina's democracy. Milei's victory raised a on this As populism has been the between a democracy and the emergence of competitive (Levitsky & Loxton, Milei's leadership style and are certainly not His adherence to liberalism is to the of and after becoming Argentina's Milei has tolerance of criticism and has to opposition leaders and in and are not Still, there are certain that a for Argentina's democracy. other Latin American were the have become a in political or have political the Argentine is a weak political one with in in political Second, Milei not the and certainly not the of which is the when it comes to the of government from a legislative or of state rather than weak have typically been a major threat to democracy in Latin America In the governability rather than democracy is much more to be at in but the is certainly not a Milei's arrival to power is the of severe in Argentina's party system, which has certainly become The election of a populist is hardly a for party-system In this Milei's election was certainly an to Argentine political who are in a state of Milei in Argentina's economic a of the party system his would not the old system and could in fact Argentina's of further democratic is a of Latin American and in the of and at the also in the in at the
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to spur further exploration of blockchain technologies for environmental peacebuilding, specifically through water management. Although the environmental peacebuilding field acknowledges the potentially transformative nature of frontier technologies, most existing studies do not address how such technologies can contribute to peacebuilding through improved natural resource governance. Using a theory synthesis research design, this conceptual paper connects these studies to discuss how blockchain technologies in water management may contribute to environmental peacebuilding through the efficient and transparent management of natural resources. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a conceptual approach and a theory synthesis research design to present potential mechanisms through which blockchain technology can potentially contribute to environmental peacebuilding. Findings The authors discuss the limitations in the literature on environmental peacebuilding, blockchain and water management, concluding that the third generation of studies should focus on the role of frontier technologies. This approach should especially address the negative consequences of technology for peacebuilding objectives. The authors argue that blockchain applications in water management can potentially contribute to environmental peacebuilding objectives in three ways: (i) creating a mechanism for confidence-building in low-trust contexts through automated and transparent water transactions, (ii) facilitating postconflict economic development through attracting capital and increasing the efficiency of water management and (iii) improving governance through greater transparency and local participation in natural resource management. Originality/value To the best of the authorsâ knowledge, this study is among the first to conceptually explore the use of blockchain technology for water management in the context of environmental peacebuilding. The insights from this study can guide policymakers of conflict sides that focus on resolving issues such as lack of governance and low state agency.
Abstract Fiscal federalism in Ethiopia has been implemented within a unique political context. The adoption of a multiethnic federal system has reshaped the fiscal and economic landscape of the country since 1991. Following the political restructuring towards federalization, the culture of centralization of fiscal powers and responsibilities, which had been witnessed for more than half a century, has significantly been altered. Yet, Ethiopia is a highly centralized federation, both in design and practice. The division of powers favors the Federal government in legislation and policymaking. The provision of most public services is, however, significantly decentralized. The lucrative sources of revenue are assigned to be either exclusive federal powers or concurrent. As a result, Ethiopiaâs fiscal federalism has been characterized by a high degree of fiscal imbalances, the Federal General-Purpose Grant (FGPG), an equalization transfer, being the dominant mechanism to bridge the imbalances. Revenue sharing and specific purpose transfers constitute only a very small proportion of Subnational finance. Statesâ borrowing rights are limited to internal sources and are subject to stringent preconditions set by the federal government.
What explains variation in the structure and practices of collective vigilantism? I develop a framework that focuses on relations among victims and between victims and the state. I use the framework to compare variation in collective vigilantism enacted by avocado and berry sectors in Michoac'n, Mexico. Centralized collective vigilantism by the avocado sector entailed a single sectoral organization coordinating victims' extra-legal activities with no interference from local politicians. By contrast, decentralized collective vigilantism by the berry sector consisted of multiple autonomous groups of victims in conflict with criminals, local political authorities and among each other as they competed for power and resources. These differences in collective vigilantism can be traced back to differences in the local political economies that shape relations among victims and between them and the state.
Web3 and DeFi are widely advocated as innovations for greater financial inclusion and democratization. We assemble the most comprehensive dataset to date on the largest Web3 ecosystem and use large-scale computing to investigate the claim. We discuss Ethereum's network structure, time trends, and distributions of transactions, mining, and ownership. Mining income and Ether ownership are concentrated in a few nodes, even after excluding exchange and mining pool wallets, with inequalities more exacerbated than observed in the real economy. Network activities are dominated by large transactions, shifting from peer-to-peer to user-DApps/DeFi interactions, and from Ether-based to ERC-20-token-based. High percentage transaction fees, congestion-induced gas-price fluctuation, suboptimal reserve setting, and large return volatility of tokens disproportionally harm small, unsophisticated, and new nodes, with high failure rates hurting all users. Finally, we present causal evidence that base-fee burning mechanisms (e.g., EIP-1559) and airdrop programs (e.g., OmiseGo Airdrop) promote inclusion and equality through monetary redistribution.
During the 1990s, a conventional wisdom emerged, based on literature going back decades, that political decentralization might be among the most effective forces for democratization. If ordinary people could participate in autonomous local governments, democracy would be built from the ground up, ultimately shaping the entire political system. Once decentralization reforms were implemented across the world, however, the results were disappointing. Authoritarianism not only thrived at the local level, it could also undermine democratization at the national level. Thus, local-national transference still held, but sometimes as a poison. In this context, the case of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan is an anomaly. Here, the relative success of political decentralizationârather than its failureânevertheless failed to spur democratization at the national level. I argue that this is because decentralization allowed national authorities to appease international donors while they consolidated their own power. Moreover, while decentralization empowered local communities, it did so in ways that personalized local authority and pitted local and national authorities against one another, resulting in intense localism and antagonistic center-local relations that undermined any democratic transference. The case study findings are based on ten months of field research, which includes interviews with local and national officials, ordinary villagers, and representatives of NGOs and international organizations.
Perhaps the most important story in all of sub-Saharan African politics in the past two decades is how Nigeria, a country that ushered in the new millennium with broad popular optimism about its newly elected civilian, democratic government, would become by 2018 the site of more deaths from terrorism than any country in the world except Afghanistan and Iraq. Alex Thurston's Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement is as close to a definitive answer to this question as we are likely to get while the insurgency continues. Scholars of Salafi-jihadism should regard it as required reading. Moreover, given that discussions of Salafism and religiously inspired terrorism in West Africa (home to over 150 million Muslims) have been marginal to broader scholarly and policy debates about these issues in the West, Thurston's work should serve as a necessary addition, and indeed corrective, to some of the trends in these fields.For those who do not follow West African affairs, some context is in order. Although as of this writing, Boko Haram is less deadly now than at its high point of 2014â15 (when it loosely controlled a territory the size of Belgium), it continues to pose a major threat to the peace and stability of at least four countries sharing borders around the Lake Chad Basin (Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon). Even the most carefully collected data on the death toll resulting from the Boko Haram conflict (37,500 from June 2011 to June 2018)1 likely underestimates the size and scope of its impact. A recent UN report that put the current number of people displaced by the conflict at over 4 million paints a clearer picture.2 Despite the Nigerian government's repeated declarations of victory over Boko Haram, and predictions of a rapid return to peace and security in the Lake Chad Basin, the conflict remains far from over. While events may eventually overtake some of Thurston's analyses, it will stand as a clearly written and comprehensively sourced account of Boko Haram's origins, the local religious and political context from which its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, emerged, and the largely ineffective domestic, regional, and international response to its violence.Thus far, the conversation around Boko Haram in academic journals and books has been dominated by journalists and âterrorism studiesâ practitioners, with little input from scholars whose work in the region predates the crisis. Little of what is available addresses the group's theological and social origins with nuance and depth, and even less is grounded in a deep understanding of the Nigerian and West African regional political context from whence the group sprang. Thankfully, however, this state-of-the-field is changing rapidly, and Thurston's book represents one of the most important contributions to the field. In particular, it is the first serious analysis of the group written by a scholar of religion, and it does a great deal of important work dispelling many of the myths, confusions, and half-truths about the actual positions and arguments adopted by Boko Haram's early leadership.Here, Thurston is uniquely qualified, as he was one of the only foreign researchers already working on intra-Islamic debates and dynamics in northern Nigeria during the earliest days of the insurgency. His first book, Salafism in Nigeria, is the only English-language history of Salafism in West Africa that situates the rise of Salafi-jihadi groups like Boko Haram within the context of the rise of al-QaĘżida, as well as within the conflicts and debates roiling the local Salafi community in the late 1990s and early 2000s. At that time, the government led an effort to implement a version of shariĘża in twelve of Nigeria's federal states.3 While most early research on Boko Haram more or less ignored the Salafi dimension entirely,4 Thurston carefully and persuasively tracks Muhammad Yusuf's evolution from a disaffected youth bouncing back and forth between various fringe communities of religious dissenters5 before eventually âcast[ing] his lot with the Salafi campâ in the late 1990s (39). Thurston's analyzes Yusuf and his less sophisticated and more violent successor Abubakar Shekau's engagement with the Salafi âcanonâ of key texts, and in particular Yusuf's effort to define himself publicly as a âmainstreamâ Salafi thinker (108) while selectively endorsing only those Salafi texts that led him to stake out a far more radical position than many of his peers on the permissibility of relations with the Nigerian state. This novel approach helps readers understand the transnational and local debates that shaped Yusuf's views.Thurston is similarly (and laudably) cautious in his analysis of Boko Haram's founding and its slide into violence in the late 2000s. Drawing on a combination of primary sourcesâincluding recordings and transcriptions of Yusuf's own preachingâand a deep knowledge of the local Nigerian religious and political scene, Thurston carefully picks his way through the various claims about Yusuf's involvement in the so-called Nigerian Taliban uprising in 2003, allegations of his involvement with al-QaĘżida-funded efforts to create jihadist cells in West Africa, and possible connections to other regional jihadi groups like and al-QaĘżida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). He acknowledges evidence that various representatives of AQIM and its predecessor, the Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat GSPC, had been in contact with people in âBoko Haram's orbitâ (162) and that broader efforts by al-QaĘżida and others to promote jihad in northern Nigeria likely reached out to Yusuf's group. He also acknowledges that after Yusuf's assassination in 2009 during a massive uprising of his followers these efforts sped up, culminating in a promise to Shekau by AQIM leader Abu Zayd Droukdel to transfer 200,000 euros to Boko Haram. Some recent analyses read this evidenceâsome of it drawn from contemporary texts recovered in military operations, other parts from later narratives produced by al-QaĘżida and Islamic Stateâaffiliated authors and disseminated through their propaganda channelsâas definitive proof that Yusuf's movement was directed or intimately shaped by these outside forces.However, by examining the internal dynamics of both Boko Haram and AQIM, Thurston convincingly argues that whatever contact the two may have made, there is little evidence to sustain the argumentâadvanced most notably by Jacob Zennâthat international assistance and influence meaningfully shaped Boko Haram's trajectory in the years leading up to the 2009 uprising and its aftermath.6 Relying heavily on primary sources, Thurston argues that internal politics within Boko Haramâin particular, clashes between âhardlinersâ and the âmainstreamâ Salafi community Yusuf sought to be a part ofâplayed the most important role in shaping his thought on the advisability of jihad, while his (often violent) confrontations with the Nigerian state nurtured his sense of grievance and expectation of an inevitable clash with the authorities. And for Shekau's part, while the evidence clearly suggests he sought out and (to a certain extent) was successful at gaining greater international recognition, his ultimate failure to ally fully with al-QaĘżida and his subsequent move toward a limited partnership with the Islamic State in 2015 was rooted primarily in Shekau's own âuncontrollableâ commitment to his own agenda, making him at best an unreliable partner (168). Thurston's case is further borne out by the group's repeated schisms in recent years and in the Islamic State's own rejection of his leadership on the basis of his enthusiastic support for takfirism and violence against Muslims.Yet another important strength of Thurston's work is that for a scholar of religion, he is remarkably effective as an analyst of political and military dynamics. In fact, one of the most useful aspects of the book is that it carefully and accurately situates the claims made by nearly every actor involved in the conflictâfrom Nigerian military spokesmen to the presidency, from Western diplomats to regional leaders and mercenaries, and of course the jihadists themselvesâwithin their own set of interests in how the conflict is depicted. Rather than simply telling the story of Boko Haram's insurgency from a single perspective (critical or otherwise), Thurston successfully weaves all these different actors together into a narrative text that gives the reader the information they need to judge for themselves. That the judgments a careful reader is likely to make are not particularly kind toward the Nigerian state's policies directed at religious dissidents, its military-heavy counterinsurgency strategy, or the global âWar on Terrorâ as led by the United States and France reflects, to my find, an accurate assessment of the state of play across the region.Nowhere is this book's argument clearer than in its conclusion, where Thurston takes the âconventional wisdomâ about how to defeat Boko Haram to task for ignoring the political dimensions of the conflict. As Thurston rightly notes, the Nigerian state's reliance on a primarily military strategy for fighting the insurgency has simply fueled Boko Haram's commitment to sustaining the fight, hardening their religious and political positions and guaranteeing them at least some potential recruits from communities ravaged by violence and devoid of the kind of state services that can only be provided in a more secure environment: Throughout the crisis, Boko Haram has deployed a doctrine of religious exclusivism to claim legitimacy for its message. It has presented itself both as the victim of other actors' aggressions and as a righteous vanguard fighting for the purity of Islam. The interplay of doctrine and events means that there is no easy way out of the crisis. Boko Haram represents an ugly paradox: its ideas have limited appeal but significant staying power. The group can be crushed militarily, yet state violence fuels its narrative of victimhood. (301) In this light, Thurston argues, the usual prescription of the international communityâmilitary victory and investments in socioeconomic development in the war-ravaged regionâis not only unlikely to be effective, but fundamentally misses the point that in Nigeria (as elsewhere) there is no solution to the insurgency and the circumstances that produced it that ignore politics. In earlier chapters, Thurston chronicles how Yusuf and his successors have drawn on a long legacy of violence involving Muslimsâmuch of it carried out or exacerbated by state forces to justify their own actions. In the absence of a larger national conversation about how to address that legacy, the feelings of marginalization and victimhood that have driven these specific individuals' participation in the Boko Haram insurgency will remain even if the group's leadership is killed, its sources of weapons and financing are cut off, and some measure of security is restored to the region. Ultimately, Thurston offers little optimism that the key decision-makers will take these concerns seriously, and forecasts (correctly, so far) a continued insurgency capable of sustaining a low level of violence and a high degree of insecurity across the region for a very long time.If I were to identify any shortcomings to Thurston's bookâand to do so in no way lessens my endorsementâit would be that even his own nearly comprehensive account of the religious, social, and political dimensions of the conflict remains incomplete. Although it is the best book of its kind currently available, Thurston's story is essentially one of elite actorsâreligious leaders and ideologues, militaries and government actors, and international organizationsâwith relatively little to say about those impacted by their actions. While the so-called Chibok abductees have been the face of this group internationally and in Nigeria, the sheer scope of the displaced and otherwise affected communities in the Lake Chad basin and across Nigeria requires a level of attention that even a reasonably comprehensive history of Boko Haram as a movement cannot provide. Hopefully, the next wave of research in this field will build on Thurston's accomplishments and devote significant attention to the experiences and challenges faced by those who have (and have not) survived the conflict, giving serious consideration to the impact that these experiences will have on the region at large.
Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
This chapter begins with an analytic definition of the collective action organization. Collective action organizations seek nonmarket solutions to individual or group problems. Collective action organizations usually have mechanisms for mass membership involvement in internal decision making. The potential for minority control and abuse of collective resources remains as much a threat in nominally democratic associations as in more overtly hierarchical firms and bureaus. Civil associations preserve civilization against barbarism; that is, against the disappearance of individual liberty and freedom. In order for societal freedom and liberty to prevail, intermediate groups must be autonomous and substantially self-governing. The fundamental issue in organizational governance is the distribution and legitimation of power among a collectivityâs participants. Public policy-making is the result of many social group forces, exerted by collective action organizations, that reach equilibrium in a decentralized but consensual democratic polity. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
The nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), on southeastern Europeâs Balkan Peninsula, is a unique product of international peace building based on a consociational model of ethnic power sharing. Organized around protection of âvital interestsâ of its constituent ethnic communities, the BiH state is radically decentralized. In forest administration, national government is practically nonexistent; multiple substate entities including cantons and municipalities operate as autonomous, self-governing units. This paper finds that the politics of accommodation, ironically couched in the language of rights, creates conditions of illiberal dissociation which block consensual natural resource governance. Conservation policies which require political compromise, thus, face a challenge in BiHâs illiberal consociation. Through policy analysis and interviews with representatives of key organizations affected by the 2008 Law on Una National Park, this study finds that when policies are implemented at levels of expected cooperation, the resultant needs are to reconcile rifts of interpretation and coordinate competencies vertically among dissociative bureaucracies.
This article seeks to understand why monks played a central role in anti-Muslim violence in transitional Myanmar (2013â2014). We argue that scapegoating is one of many strategies used by monks to gain visibility, to strengthen their autonomous networks, and to increase their social credentials. By analyzing two episodes of monks' participation in religious violence (1930s and 2013â2014), we identify two factors that make scapegoating strategies more likely: (a) decentralized religions foster a multiplicity of organizations and provide incentives for leaders to be entrepreneurial and compete for followers; while (b) the rapid pluralization of the public sphere explains the timing, because it intensifies competition among religious leaders and between religious and secular leaders for social ascendency and power.
What factors shape the distribution of funds and functions in Latin American federations? In this chapter, I empirically assess the capacity of the theoretical argument developed in Chapter 1 to account for changes in the distribution of funds and functions across cases and time in Latin America. The main hypothesis is that changes in the distribution of funds and functions in Latin American federations are more likely when either the president or subnational actors hold more political power and when the fiscal context in which they interact is more critical. I present statistical evidence to sustain some of the expectations in the argument and discuss some of its limitations. The immense majority of countries in Latin America, being federal or unitary, with relatively strong or weak subnational governments, have transferred funds and/or functions (or initiated some kind of decentralization policies1) during the last two decades. In political terms, this means that where subnational officials are usually appointed, many Latin American countries are electing intermediate governments, and the vast majority of them (in fact, all South American countries) have now elected local authorities.2 In fiscal terms, new resources have been transferred to lower levels of government across the region (Falleti, 2000, 1; 2005, 327; Rodden, 2006, 25-26; World Bank, 1998, 2001, 2004a).3 Likewise, new functions and administrative capabilities have also been transferred to subnational governments in several countries. Lower levels of government in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico (among other countries; see: Di Gropello and Cominetti, 1998; Falleti, 2000) now handle the administration of education and health care services. This dramatic convergence in Latin America toward the decentralization of funds and functions to subnational governments has generated a vast body of literature and theoretical frameworks to explain the dynamics and characteristics of these policies. A large share of the scholarly works on the topic have been interested in explaining the policy results rather than exploring the dynamics of the bargaining processes that led to the outcome. In the following sections, I first review some of the main arguments, which stress institutional factors (such as electoral rules or party nomination procedures), economic variables (such as fiscal crisis or the level of economic growth), external pressures (from international financial organizations), or demands from civil society as the main factors that promoted decentralization in the region. In this chapter, I attempt to, first, empirically assess the main theoretical contributions in these frameworks to explain changes in the distribution of funds and functions in all the federal countries in the region (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela) and some unitary ones (Chile, Ecuador, and Uruguay), stressing some of their shortcomings and limitations. I selected these cases in order to have the widest possible range of variation in the dependent variables. Second, I examine the empirical strength of the argument developed in Chapter 1, according to which the distribution of funds and functions is the result of power struggles between central and subnational governments in federal democracies in conditions of fiscal crises. This claim is valid for federal democracies with relatively autonomous states or provinces. But I also include evidence for unitary countries with more dependent subnational governments (although in some of these countries subnational governments have recently gained more power). This argument can help us to account for the distribution of funds and functions across cases (federal and unitary), and it can provide dynamic explanations for decentralization and centralization processes alike. In the following sections, I first define what I mean by distribution of funds and functions. Second, I put forward the central hypothesis and operationalize it. Third, I develop a statistical analysis of the main and the competing arguments. I present the results, analyze them, and conclude in the final section.
The empirical evidence and the academic literature point to the opposed directions on the capability of the territorial arrangements to extenuate conflict in ethnically divided and civil war-worn countries. Little is known about the diverse capacities of the territorial power sharing arrangements in diminishing violence in the post-conflict societies. Therefore, this thesis aims to contribute to the field through studying the conditions under which territorial power sharing arrangements reduce violence in the post-conflict settings. I argue that a resumption of violence is less likely following territorial power sharing arrangements in cases where a relatively high level of economic decentralization is provided for a subnational entity, as it allows the rebel groups to sustain their support base among key constituencies. To test the theoretical argument, a structured, focused comparison of territorial power sharing arrangements in Aceh province of Indonesia and Mindanao province of the Philippines is conducted. The empirical findings give support to the hypothesis in the expected direction. Aceh, where the resumption of violence did not occur, also was enjoying a relatively higher level of economic decentralization. While in ARMM, where the violence resumed after five years following the peace agreement, economic decentralization was relatively low. Nevertheless, the extended analysis reveals additional factors. Transformation of the rebel organization into the political parties and inclusive peace agreements potentially may have impact on the territorial power sharing arrangementsâ capability to contain violence in the post conflict environments.
Are there differences between the sale of an unopened Super Mario Bros. computer game and of the digital collage of 5,000 images? Viewed from the perspective of the doctrine of exhaustion, we can easily conclude that the two transfers have significant differences. The auction of the tangible data carrier of the Super Marioâs 1986 edition (for $660,000) 1 fits well into the doctrine. The auction of the NFT (non-fungible token) representing Beepleâs âEverdays: the First 5000 Daysâ (for an equivalent of an astounding $69.3 million) 2 seems to be hype with a snowball effect rather than a modern encapsulation of digital exhaustion. Some commentators, 3 including the present author in collaboration with Alexandra Giannapoulou, JoĂŁo Pedro Quintais, and BalĂĄzs BodĂł, 4 have thoroughly introduced the incompatibility of the NFT mania with the existing copyright status quo, and so â in connection with the present bookâs topic â the sale of tokenized information, which is capable of representing information related to digital artworks, is practically excluded from the scope of the exhaustion of the right of distribution. At the same time, NFTs de facto offer a âcode-based digital ecosystem that has practical consequences for the copyright-relevant fields of creativeness.â 5 The sale and resale of NFTs is possible; an exchange of information and title to âownâ and âtradeâ information related to copyrightable subject matter is technologically guaranteed. In line with that, a quasi-exhaustion regime has also emerged. As such, the NFT mania can practically evidence the need for and modern technologyâs capability of offering digital marketplaces for artworks as well.
Vertical decentralization, either at the deconcentration, delegation or, more rarely, the devolution level, has been instituted in most countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. It usually has the effect of increasing the quantity as well as the quality, in terms of health and education, of public goods. More neglected in the literature is the issue of horizontal decentralization, shifting the decision-making power from the central ministry of finance to the ministries of education and health, as well as strengthening the legislative and judicial branches of government. We examine the relationship between horizontal decentralization with its important ethnic dimension and vertical decentralization. Local governments are accountable to the center under vertical and to democratic forces and civil society under horizontal decentralization. Smaller local units are more likely to be more homogeneous ethnically, leading to a larger quantity and higher quality of public goods.