The power of proximity: A concept of political party strategies applied to Burkina Faso

Recent publications suggest that exclusively ethno-regional parties are as rare in sub-Saharan Africa as elsewhere. At the same time, the idea that ethnicity is a very special feature of African party politics persists. This article acknowledges the general relevance of ethnicity in party competition but emphasises the level at which it becomes important. It develops a micro-behavioural approach that pays particular attention to the strategic choices of party elites in order to supplement the dominant structuralist thinking in party research on Africa. An in-depth evaluation of detailed election data from Burkina Faso shows strategies that rely on personal proximity between the voter and the candidates influence the parties' success to a great extent. Parties maximise their chances of winning seats if they concentrate their limited resources on the home localities of leading party members. Hence, African party politics are less dependent on ethnic demography than is often implied but more open to change through elite behaviour.     

Editorial

Although a growing body of research has investigated gendered pathways to crime, this study is the first to investigate whether varying levels of family support may constitute a gendered pathway to recidivism. Logistic regression analyses were used to determine the effects of emotional and instrumental support on self-reported reoffending in the 3-, 3- to 9-, and 9- to 15-month postrelease periods. Interaction terms revealed that higher levels of emotional support significantly reduced recidivism for both genders but had a greater effect for females. Whereas higher levels of instrumental support reduced recidivism for females, higher levels increased the likelihood of recidivism for males in some time periods. Implications for correctional policy and practice are discussed.     

Can Self-Defense Justify Punishment?

This piece is a review essay on Victor Tadros’s The Ends of Harm. Tadros rejects retributive desert but believes punishment can be justified instrumentally without succumbing to the problems of thoroughgoing consequentialism and endorsing using people as means. He believes he can achieve these results through extension of the right of self-defense. I argue that Tadros fails in this endeavor: he has a defective account of the means principle; his rejection of desert leads to gross mismatches of punishment and culpability; and he cannot account for punishment of inchoate crimes.