Justice for survivors of sexual violence in Kitgum,Uganda

Based on fieldwork in the Kitgum district of northern Uganda, this paper investigates the experience of justice for the large number of survivors, female and male, of sexual violence as a result of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency and its aftermath. It asks: what justice do survivors of sexual violence want; what access to justice do survivors of LRA sexual violence have; what access to justice do the survivors of current sexual violence have; and what are the problems faced with delivering justice. It finds that the response has been minimal, ineffective and inappropriate. It concludes that the neglect of justice has serious implications for the attitudes on Acholi people towards the current Uganda government, for it perpetuates the perceived sense of marginalisation felt by many Acholi and which was a contributor to the LRA rebellion.     

Protection gaps for civilian victims of political violence

This article begins by explaining why the United Nations' civilian protection agenda is particularly relevant and important for Africa and why the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) might be said to be an African norm export to the rest of the world. Next, it traces the reasons for peace operations' reluctance to use force. It then shows how the civilian protection agenda has tried to fill critical gaps in the existing normative architecture, with both R2P and the Protection of Civilians (POC) resulting from growing shame at the accumulating list of atrocities in which the international community stood by as passive onlookers, frustrations at the ‘constitutional’ constraints and normative inadequacies rather than indifference and apathy to the plight of civilian victims that produced the passivity, and a determination to reposition the United Nations system to be empowered and capacitated to be able to respond better on both the timeliness and effectiveness dimensions when confronted by repeat occurrences of similar tragedies. The fourth section discusses the merits of the R2P and POC norms in responding to the challenge of civilian protection. The final part notes that, despite these two valuable additions to the repertoire of the international community in dealing with atrocities perpetrated on civilians, there remain many gaps in the protection agenda, as shown in several recent cases.     

Dying to win: Elections,political violence,and institutional decay in Kenya

This paper examines the lessons learned from Kenya's 2007 post election violence and what has happened since then. It notes that the root causes of the violence still persist, have not been addressed, and easily could be reignited. Faced with a situation where institutions and the rule of law have been weakened deliberately and where diffused violence is widespread, both Kenya's transition to democracy and the fate of the nation remain vulnerable. The argument here is that the problems faced in holding and managing elections in conflict situations often are not simply technical. Instead, in Kenya and elsewhere, many difficulties are symptomatic of larger political and institutional questions related to democratic change that are more difficult to analyze in causal terms or to address.     

The fate of the Assyrian minority in early independent Iraq: a test case of political violence based on rational primordialism

Analyzing ethno-national conflicts is usually not easy in that not all quantitative scientific tools are useful to the student of a conflict based on primordial elements. The burden of studying the outcome of a conflict is all the more complex given that the two conflicting groups might be at two different stages of their political development at any given time during the course of the conflict. In the case of the fate of the [Eastern Christian] Assyrian community in early independent Iraq, the political rationale for decisions taken by each party was drawn from different sociological, historical and political realms. Decisions in times of conflict and their political and historical ramifications are not always rational, since they draw upon primordial/communal considerations rather than the accurate reading of the overall true strategic scene.

The violence was an outcome of a combination of primordial differences and rational choice. The Iraqis sought to establish a new sovereign state with minimal disturbances from its Christian minority that they perceived as not belonging to the new nation. As for the Assyrians, they chose violence believing that at least some superpowers would support them. Historically, this rational decision based upon a primordial dispute turned out to be a mistake primarily because of lack of external support, weak internal cohesion of the group, and feeble leadership.     

Review: India's political economy

Abstract

Though this is an extremely important study from one of the most perceptive of U.S. scholars of India, it is not, despite its title, a study of India's “political economy.” That would require a much fuller analysis of Indian relations of production and their contradictions-including those of class, caste, gender, and nationality—within the framework of the world capitalist system. Instead, it is basically a detailed analysis of Indian government economic policy since independence, with a discussion of economic dilemmas and rural class-caste contradictions as a backdrop.     

Elections and political parties in Hong Kong's political development

This article seeks to explore the influence of social capital on the decision to hire Chinese professionals to work for Taiwanese companies in Vietnam. We argue that this employment and migration pattern is mainly determined by the social capital of the Chinese professional transient, and is not based solely on economic calculation as push-pull economic theory describes.     

The CFA Franc Zone: a political re-evaluation twenty years after the advent of the Euro

ABSTRACT

Although the CFA monetary union is not an ‘optimal’ currency area as such, it has allowed member countries to benefit from the convertibility guaranteed by the French Treasury and from enhanced policy credibility in achieving low inflation rates.

Both benefits may be under threat. The convertibility is under threat due to the harder budgetary commitments imposed on France by its membership of the Eurozone and the dwindling political interest in the CFA Franc Zone shown in France.

The policy credibility is becoming costlier as evidenced by output-inflation trade-offs, which, although still more favourable than in comparable sub-Saharan African countries, have been declining since the 1994 devaluation period.     

Telephone Justice in Russia

This article investigates the predicament of the Russian legal system associated with the phenomenon of telefonnoye pravo or "telephone justice"—informal influence or pressure exerted on the judiciary—using quantitative data obtained from the all-Russia national survey conducted in 2007. These data are complemented by subsequent in-depth interviews with experts. The article offers a conceptual framework for the analysis of informal influence and empirical findings about forms of telephone justice. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, the spread of the practice is assessed and the relationship of pervasiveness of the practice to its effectiveness is analyzed.     

Making democracy safe: Policies tackling electoral violence in Africa

This article analyses the ways in which African countries are grappling with the problem of electoral violence. It argues that, although electoral violence has posed a serious challenge to democratic consolidation and peace in Africa, knowledge of how to prevent and or manage it is largely inadequate. Much of the academic interest in electoral violence has focused on defining the phenomenon, particularly analysing its causes, scope, patterns and consequences. This article examines the measures adopted by Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria to manage electoral violence. The specific measures analysed in this study include: (1) establishment of commissions of inquiry; (2) mediation in high-tension situations; and (3) regulation of political activities. While these measures represent significant efforts to curb electoral violence in Africa, they do not, of course, directly address the underlying causes of the problem. Electoral violence will continue to pose serious challenges to democracy and peace in Africa until the lingering socio-economic and political tensions and the lack of credibility of the electoral process in many African countries are addressed; however, in the meantime, to save lives, it is worth putting into place effective deterrents to election violence wherever it threatens.     

From rural rebellions to urban riots: political competition and changing patterns of violent political revolt in Uganda

Violent political revolt has been common in independent Uganda. For a long time, such revolts were exclusively expressed as rural-based rebel groups fighting the government. Since the mid-2000s, however, this seems to have come to an end. Instead, urban riots, very rare in the past, have become much more common. This article analyses these changing patterns of types and location of violent political revolt in Uganda under the National Resistance Movement government. It argues that the earlier prevalence of rural rebellions can be explained by the combination of a coercive and militarised state, and weak and ethnically factionalised political forces who took their violent resistance to rural regional bases. Over time, however, government counter-insurgency became more effective and the conditions for insurgency were undermined by withdrawal of external support. Furthermore, the reintroduction of multi-party politics in 2005 opened up new avenues for political expression. The changes to the political system were, however, more nominal than real in many respects. While the rebel option had become less attractive and feasible, a series of social, economic and political grievances remained which were only partly channelled through party politics. They also found expression through sporadic urban violent revolt.