Suchergebnisse

The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Djenné, in modern day Mali, is exalted as an enduring wonder of the ancient African world by archaeologists, anthropologists, state officials, architects and travel writers. In this revealing study, the author critically examines how the politics of heritage management, conservation, and authenticity play essential roles in the construction of Djenné's past and its appropriation for contemporary purposes. Despite its great renown, the majority of local residents remain desperately poor. And while most are proud of their cultural heritage, they are often troubl

We document the existence of a gubernatorial election cycle in state executions, suggesting that election year political considerations play a role in determining the timing of executions. Our analysis indicates that states are approximately 25 percent more likely to conduct executions in gubernatorial election years than in other years. We also find that elections have a larger effect on the probability that an African American defendant will be executed in a given year than on the probability that a white defendant will be executed, and that the overall effect of elections is largest in the South. These findings raise concerns that state executions may fail to meet the constitutional requirements stipulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in *Gregg v. Georgia* for the administration of state death penalty laws. This paper was revised July 2002.

Across the globe, from mega-cities to isolated resource enclaves, the provision and governance of security takes place within assemblages that are de-territorialized in terms of actors, technologies, norms and discourses. They are embedded in a complex transnational architecture, defying conventional distinctions between public and private, global and local. Drawing on theories of globalization and late modernity, along with insights from criminology, political science and sociology, Security Beyond the State maps the emergence of the global private security sector and develops a novel analytical framework for understanding these global security assemblages. Through in-depth examinations of four African countries – Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa – it demonstrates how global security assemblages affect the distribution of social power, the dynamics of state stability, and the operations of the international political economy, with significant implications for who gets secured and how in a global era

THE COUP OF 25 MAY 1997 CAME AS A SURPRISE TO MOST OBSERVERS OF THE POLITICAL SCENE IN SIERRA LEONE. FOR MANY IT WAS A MAJOR BLOW STRUCK AT THE HEART OF A NASCENT DEMOCRACY, ONE WHICH THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY SHOULD NOT TOLERATE. A LOOK AT RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE TRANSITION TO CIVILIAN RULE POINTS TO CERTAIN DANGEROUS PITFALLS IN THE PATH TO SUSTAINED DEMOCRACY. THIS BRIEFING DRAWS ATTENTION TO SOME OF THESE PITFALLS AND THE UNDERLYING REASON FOR THE RECENT BLOW AT DEMOCRACY.

Much of the existing research on race and crime focuses on the manipulation of crime by political elites or the racially biased nature of crime policy. However, Miller's study zeroes in on the political and socio-legal institutions and actors that drive these developments and their relationship to the politics of race and poverty.

Soweto, Rhodesia, and Umtata in 1976 are poignant and pointed symbols of change and continuity in Southern Africa. Regional politics here as in other international subsystems are characterized by the tension between order and continuity on the one hand and opposition and change on the other. This trinity of symbols consists, in part, of a revival of the violence of Sharpeville, earlier diplomacy over Zimbabwe and Afrikanerdom's continued ambivalence towards the demands of African nationalism. But clearly it also embodies new features, especially the apparent inexhaustibility of black anger, the greater imperative of a settlement, and the unacceptability of "separate freedoms" respectively. Moreover, both the regional and global environments have evolved significantly in the last decade so that apparently similar events in Southern Africa may now have new meanings, implications, and results.

In the 1980s & 1990s African Americans made two fundamental responses to the growing conservatism within politics: (1) a series of electoral & nonelectoral progressive protests, characterized by the presidential campaigns of Jesse Jackson in 1984 & 1988 & the antiapartheid movement; & (2) "electoral accommodation," a repudiation of the reformist impulse of the civil rights period, characterized by the newly elected Va governor, Douglas Wilder. The conservatism even influenced Jackson, whose 1988 campaign was strikingly to the Right of his 1984 electoral mobilization. It is argued that US leftists must establish an independent identity, organizationally & programmatically, to advance the progressive impulse of the civil rights movement & other liberal constituencies. To do so will require an "inside-outside" approach, supporting progressive Democrats in specific elections, but also building nonelectoral protest formations. In the long run, the black movement & the broader US Left should not look to the Democratic Party as a vehicle for broad, humanistic change, effectively challenging corporate capitalism. Rather, a radical, democratic vision of social change, represented by the term "socialism-from-below," but in a popular discourse readily understood by blacks, Latinos, feminists, & other constituencies, must inform progressive political practice & strategy for the 1990s & beyond. AA

The present analysis disaggregates election results and voter turnout according to the voters' ethnic background during a time span which covers three electoral processes (1997–2007) in Kenya. The two data combined produced an index which was called the 'degree of mobilization index'. Given that most of the Kenyan parties proved to be ethnic or made of ethnic alliances, voter turnout was found crucial in differentiating the degree of ethnic mobilization. Ethnicity alone, however, failed to explain these differences. The findings were likely linked to the past record of patronage for the five selected ethnic groups and the ability of such groups to provide a cohesive ethnic leadership.

Student activism has made an important contribution to the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe. In the first years of independence students were among the most fearsome defenders of the regime. Three broad periods of student activism can be identified. The first pro-government period was followed by a violent break with the regime in 1988, the second period saw students declare that they were `the voice of the voiceless'. With the onset of structural adjustment programmes in the early 1990s, the privileged status of students in higher education was rapidly eroded. The third period emerged after 1995 as student activism converged with the urban revolt that was beginning to shake Zimbabwe. This article assesses the role of student activism in Zimbabwe.