Of cabbages and King Cobra: Populist politics and Zambia's 2006 election

Zambia's 2006 election was won by incumbent President Levy Mwanawasaand his Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD). However, itis argued here that the most important outcome of the campaignwas the successful articulation of a new populist politics byMichael Sata's Patriotic Front (PF), which won a significantmajority in urban areas. Sata's attacks on foreign investors(particularly from China) for their abuse of the workforce andtheir supposedly corrupt relationship with the MMD resonatedwith urban Zambians, already angered by the negative impactof economic liberalization. PF's campaign injected popular socialdemands into what had become a moribund political debate. TheMMD government is now adopting PF policies in an attempt torestore its own urban support base. The article describes thecampaign and its outcomes, contrasting the political discourseof the MMD and PF and analysing the differences in voting behaviourbetween rural and urban Zambians. It argues that recent reliefof 92 percent of Zambia's international debt, along with therenewed profitability of the copper mining industry, have createdconditions for the re-emergence of a nationalist-developmentalpolitical framework.     

Searching for the IRA "disappeared": ground-penetrating radar investigation of a churchyard burial site, Northern Ireland

A search for the body of a victim of terrorist abduction and murder was made in a graveyard on the periphery of a major conurbation in Northern Ireland. The area is politically sensitive and the case of high profile. This required non-invasive, completely non-destructive and rapid assessment of the scene. A MALA RAMAC ground-penetrating radar system was used to achieve these objectives. Unprocessed and processed 400 MHz data show the presence of a collapse feature above and around a known 1970s burial with no similar collapse above the suspect location. In the saturated, clay-rich sediments of the site, 200 MHz data offered no advantage over 400 MHz data. Unprocessed 100 MHz data shows a series of multiples in the known burial with no similar features in the suspect location. Processed 100 MHz lines defined the shape of the collapse around the known burial to 2 m depth, together with the geometry of the platform (1 m depth) the gravedigger used in the 1970s to construct the site. In addition, processed 100 MHz data showed both the dielectric contrast in and internal reflection geometry of the soil imported above the known grave. Thus the sequence, geometry, difference in infill and infill direction of the grave was reconstructed 30 years after burial. The suspect site showed no evidence of shallow or deep inhumation. Subsequently, the missing person's body was found some distance from this site, vindicating the results and interpretation from ground-penetrating radar. The acquisition, processing, collapse feature and sequence stratigraphic interpretation of the known burial and empty (suspect) burial site may be useful proxies for other, similar investigations. GPR was used to evaluate this site within 3 h of the survey commencing, using unprocessed data. An additional day of processing established that the suspect body did not reside here, which was counter to police and community intelligence.     

Burial location using cheap and reliable quantitative probe measurements

Absolute measurements of soil density using a weight gauge attached to the standard probe of Owsley [D.W. Owsley, Techniques for locating burials, with emphasis on the probe. J. Forensic Sci. 40 (5) (1995) 735-740] provide digital data for operator-independent verification and possible later manipulation. The weight gauge measures insertion pressure that depends on soil density, variations in which may define areas of disturbance. Iterative reconnaissance surveys allow selection of appropriate probe length and weight gauge type in order to obtain maximum sensitivity. In a test case, a probe was used to locate a 50 cm-wide, 3-year-old fibre optic cable trench in urban circumstances where geophysics would have proven challenging. Subjective surveys using the standard 1m probe located the trench; summary digital output from the weight gauge (contoured on site in 1 h) allowed the original form of the trench to be ascertained. This is a preliminary note: the technique requires testing by parallel measurement, comparison to other (especially geophysical) techniques and in a court of law.     

Policy learning and the public inquiry

Can public inquiries learn lessons in ways which can reduce the likelihood of future failure? Political science research has consistently stated that the answer to this question should be an emphatic no and defined the public inquiry as an ineffectual lesson-learning mechanism. This article, however, contends that this conventional wisdom needs to be revisited. Drawing upon policy learning research for its theory, and 100 interviews across four international cases for its evidence, this article returns to the question above and finds that inquiries regularly produce ‘instrumental’ and ‘cognitive organisational’ forms of learning, which propel substantive reform agendas. By contrasting these outcomes against the types of learning that inquiries struggle to produce, the article delivers a nuanced evaluation that indicates that we need to reconsider what we think we know about these important institutions.

     

Gramsci,the peasantry and popular culture

Antonio Gramsci adopted a developmentalist position after becoming a marxist. He thus departed from earlier Italian positions in foreseeing a society in which peasants — understood as a structure of petty property and its dependants ‐ would eventually though not immediately be peasants no more after the introduction of modern methods of cultivation. After the success of fascism in 1922 he began to reconsider his assumption that the peasantry were destined to disappear in a new mode of production, which would replace the backward dual economy of Italy. If the peasantry were not always in secular decline before the onward march of capitalism, but could, as in Italy, increase in numbers and political strength even under capitalism, then this called for a reassessment of their social and political role in a marxism which was not simply developmental in the old sense. In the 1930s in particular, Gramsci therefore started to develop strategies for change which assumed that: (1) the peasantry would remain in the foreseeable future as a significant political force; (2) their ethos and values would therefore have to be incorporated in any marxist theory of transition and socialism, and (3) developmentalism or modernisation would have to be re‐examined as a core part of marxist strategy.     

HIV/AIDS and governance along the corridors of conflict in West Africa

West Africa demonstrates a sub-regional pattern of violence and political instability that has engulfed Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and now extends out from these states through corridors of violent conflict throughout the region; both physical and figurative. This article makes two arguments. That HIV/AIDS has developed a complex inter-relationship with violent conflict in the West African sub-region; and that the presence of HIV/AIDS in West Africa in zones of violent conflict is not given the recognition needed by the international policy community. The neglect of West Africa in the Pan-African response to HIV/AIDS, and the intractability of the region's Complex Political Emergencies, is creating an emerging phenomenon of Complex Human Emergency in the region. An acknowledged gap exists in social analyses of HIV/AIDS between policy speculations and the actual evidence base that these are built upon. Instead of speculative theorizing, this article presents seven key questions that need to be asked about HIV/AIDS and conflict in West Africa, in order to begin the process of serious policy research on the issue.