ROYAL WRIT AND BRITISH RESIDENCY IN THE SULTANATE OF BRUNEI: A FLUID PARTNERSHIP

The aim of the article is to explore and illustrate some “dynamics of transition” across some six decades of British protection of the Brunei Sultanate, 1906-1967, with particular reference to the interaction of traditional administration and the new system of governance of a Residency, especially in the part of Tutong district that was home to the Dusun/Bisaya ethnic minority.     

BRITAIN AND YEMEN: THE END OF BRITISH RULE IN SOUTH ARABIA THROUGH THE EYES OF A YOUNG POLITICAL OFFICER

This article publishes for the first time selections of the private correspondence (placing them in their historical context) of John G. T. Shipman (1939–2016), who took up his position as assistant adviser in the Eastern Aden Protectorate at the end of 1962 just as the first signs of political and social change were appearing in South Arabia. He served from this position in different parts of the Eastern Aden Protectorate until 1967. Shipman's correspondence allows for an unmediated appreciation of how people on the ground experienced the historical events at the time, including the British withdrawal in 1967, and highlights the extent of their own grasp of the goings-on when contrasted with the historical record. In this sense, the scope of this article is to allow the voice of one of the many British colonial officials to directly narrate their encounters during the last five years of British colonial rule over southern Arabia. The perceptive eye of a young political officer coupled with the ephemeral character of his handwritten correspondence, which providentially survived for more than five decades although it was never intended for publication, offers a fresh insight into the political and social life of the Eastern Aden Protectorate.     

STATES AND NON-STATES: THE LEVANT IN TURMOIL

This article reflects on the turmoil in the states of the Levant, particularly seen in the context of broader tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Particular regard is given to the radical challenge of Sunni and largely Salafi jihadism; the disabling of large parts of the Middle East state system in the wake of the Arab Spring; the dramatic fall in global energy prices; the fraying of traditional alliances between Saudi Arabia, the US and other powers. The increase in sectarianism and conflicts over authority in Islam are also discussed.     

BETWIXT AND BETWEEN: 'TRADITIONAL AUTHORITY' AND DEMOCRATIC DECENTRALIZATION IN POST-WAR MOZAMBIQUE

The end of civil war in Mozambique has been accompanied by democratizationof political processes, as exemplified by the 1994 multi-partypresidential and parliamentary elections. Under the rubric ofdemocratization, the issue of state decentralization has alsobeen raised. Current political debates focus on what role ‘traditionalauthority’ might play in local governance. Advocates arguethat ‘traditional authority’ constitutes a genuinelyAfrican form of local governance, while detractors suggest thatthese institutions were irrevocably corrupted by their involvementwith the colonial administration. This article challenges notonly the black-and-white framework in which the present-day‘legitimacy’ of ‘traditional authority’has been debated, but also questions the value of the term ‘traditionalauthority’ itself. The article explores the diverse historiesof kin-based political institutions in Mozambique, arguing thatthe meaning and function of ‘traditional authority’has been transformed many times over with changes in the largerpolitical contexts in which local institutions have existed.As a result of historical events, the issue of ‘traditionalauthority’ is, today, intimately bound up with the dividebetween the ruling FRELIMO party and the opposition, RENAMO.Only by approaching the issue of ‘traditional authority’through an understanding of its variegated and contentious historywill policy-makers and Mozambican residents alike be able totranscend existing political divides on issues of local governance.     

SOUTH AFRICAN LAND REFORM: CASE-STUDIES IN 'DEMAND' AND 'PARTICIPATION' IN THE FREE STATE

This article offers an ethnographic cross-section in one provinceof South Africa's new land reform programme. ‘Demand’and ‘participation’ are the rhetorical keywordsof the programme. Demand for land redistribution, however, cannotbe understood in abstraction from the political and economicconditions of its supply. Similarly, ‘participation’is a managed process involving many institutional intermediaries.A series of illustrative case-studies is presented, relatingto the allocation of state-owned land; state-facilitated ‘market’access to privately-owned land; the reconstruction and partialprivatization of a para-statal development agency, which havebrought into question the viability of a ‘community conservation’project and also exposed the agency to political cross-fire;and, finally, some intricacies of the possibility of land restitutionto people dispossessed under apartheid, which raises the questionof whether the concept of indirect racial discrimination maybe applied in the South African context. Several contradictionsof the process of land redistribution are analysed: for example,the massive financial costs, direct and indirect, of bringingprojects to fruition in the short term, without resolution ofthe need for long-term support; the divergence between nominaland actual beneficiaries; political and institutional conflicts,both inside and outside the state; and routine incompatibilitybetween the diverse aspirations of beneficiaries and the ‘businessplans’ required by bureaucrats and suppliers of credit.     

WINNING COALITIONS AND ETHNO-REGIONAL POLITICS: THE FAILURE OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE 1990 AND 1995 ELECTIONS IN COTE D'IVOIRE

Why is that former dominant or single party regimes, especiallythose in Africa, have generally survived and even emerged strengthenedafter the introduction of multi-party competitive elections?In Côte d'lvoire since 1990 the ruling party has beenable to win elections by using incumbency to present itselfas the organization most likely to be capable of putting togethera winning coalition. In a society segmented by a multiplicityof cultural and religious divisions and where political poweris a zero-sum game, the logic of democratic representation meansthat no group can afford to be excluded. Yet in the 1990 and1995 Ivorian elections .the opposition attacked die ethnic characterof the government and deliberately mobilized ethnic minorities,regional and religious (Islamic) sentiments. They thereforefailed to escape, in electoral terms, from their extremely localizedstrongholds. Their attempt to mobilize around an anti-foreignerplatform in 1990 rebounded in 1995 when the government itselftook over their ‘ultra-nationalist’ stance by excludingnon-Ivorians from the elections. The consequent exclusion ofthe opposition's favoured Presidential candidate and the failureof the opposition alliance to agree on a non-northern, non-Islamicalternative candidate led to a violent boycott and the eventualcollapse of the opposition alliance.     

MAINTAINING A UNITARY STATE: COUNTER-TERRORISM,SEPARATISM, AND EXTREMISM IN XINJIANG AND CHINA

This essay reviews the history of Uighur related terrorism in Xinjiang as well as elsewhere in China and discusses the political motivations and effectiveness of the Chinese government in suppressing terrorism. The essay assesses both the motivations of the Uighurs engaged in terrorism, as well as the motivations for counter terrorist by the Chinese authorities. A key objective of the essay is to determine what are the political and other reasons that drive the Chinese government’s counter terrorism strategy and tactics and whether these have been effective or counter-productive. The essay assesses the counter terrorism strategy of the Chinese government in Xinjiang Province and across China, the political motivations for the strategy, the impact and success or otherwise. The essay discusses if the government is combatting terrorism, or separatism, or extremism, the confusion of these terms, and whether this has had any impact on the effectiveness of counter terrorism.     

IDENTITIES AND THE STATE IN PAKISTAN: A STUDY OF MENTALITY

This paper examines Pakistan's identity as a state, a religious community, a developmental enterprise, and a primordial society. It argues that over time Pakistan's state and developmental identities have weakened while its religious and primordial identities have gained in strength. This change in the balance has grave implications for Pakistan in terms of the working of the state and its legitimacy in the eyes of its own people. There is therefore a need to rehabilitate the state and developmental identities at a functional level, which means investing in improving the quality of governance and policy planning in Pakistan over the long-term.     

DEMOCRACY AND NATIONALISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: THE CASE OF MALAWI

The collapse of the Banda regime in 1994 has led to a renewedinterest in the nature of the Malawian political tradition.This paper seeks to contribute to the debate by focusing onthe political beliefs of nationalist politicians in the decadeleading up to the cabinet crisis of 1964 which marks, in someviews, the true origin of the Banda dictatorship. It suggeststhat early nationalist politicians like James Frederick Sangalaand Levi Mumba combined a belief in the importance of unitywith a democratic awareness of the virtues of civil society.As Congress grew in popularity, however, elements of a totalitarianideology, deeply intolerant of dissent, began to appear, notonly in Dr Banda's speeches but in those of his lieutenantsand subsequent opponents such as Masauko Chipembere and KanyamaChiume. This tendency increased with the founding in 1959 ofthe Malawi Congress Party which developed as an absolutist bodyboth in terms of its own internal structure and in the demandsit made on Malawian society. Some politicians drew on the autocratictradition of the colonial era to produce justifications forthe establishment of an African-controlled dictatorship. OnlyDunduzu Chisiza provided a coherent democratic alternative tothese views. And even Chisiza had difficulty in reconcilinghis belief in strongman government with the need to protectindividual rights. A totalitarian strain, deeply intolerantof dissent, had thus entered Malawian politics prior to 1964.But this strain coexisted with a democratic tradition, articulatedin particular by Mumba and Chisiza.