Download or read book Chieftaincy the State and Democracy written by J. Michael Williams and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As South Africa consolidates its democracy, chieftaincy has remained a controversial and influential institution that has adapted to recent changes. J. Michael Williams examines the chieftaincy and how it has sought to assert its power since the end of apartheid. By taking local-level politics seriously and looking closely at how chiefs negotiate the new political order, Williams takes a position between those who see the chieftaincy as an indigenous democratic form deserving recognition and protection, and those who view it as incompatible with democracy. Williams describes a network of formal and informal accommodations that have influenced the ways state and local authorities interact. By focusing on local perceptions of the chieftaincy and its interactions with the state, Williams reveals an ongoing struggle for democratization at the local and national levels in South Africa.
Download or read book Democracy Compromised written by Lungisile Ntsebeza and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2005-06-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that the promulgation of the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework and Communal Land Rights Acts runs the risk of compromising South Africa's democracy. The acts establish traditional councils with land administration powers. These structures are dominated by unelected members.
Download or read book Traditional Leaders in a Democracy written by Skosana, Dineo and published by The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA). This book was released on 2019-03-31 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Post-1994, South Africa's traditional leaders have fought for recognition, and positioned themselves as major players in the South African political landscape. Yet their role in a democracy is contested, with leaders often accused of abusing power, disregarding human rights, expropriating resources and promoting tribalism. Some argue that democracy and traditional leadership are irredeemably opposed and cannot co-exist. Meanwhile, shifts in the political economy of the former bantustans − the introduction of platinum mining in particular − have attracted new interests and conflicts to these areas, with chiefs often designated as custodians of community interests. This edited volume explores how chieftancy is practised, experienced and contested in contemporary South Africa. It includes case studies of how those living under the authority of chiefs, in a modern democracy, negotiate or resist this authority in their respective areas. Chapters in this book are organised around three major sites of contest: leadership, land and law.
Download or read book The Paradox of Traditional Chiefs in Democratic Africa written by Kate Baldwin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows that powerful hereditary chiefs do not undermine democracy in Africa but, on some level, facilitate it.
Download or read book Waiting for Democracy written by Jesse Craig Ribot and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: References pp. 115-132.
Download or read book Chieftaincy in Ghana written by Irene K. Odotei and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chieftaincy is one of the most enduring traditional institutions in Ghana, which has displayed remarkable resilience from pre-colonial through colonial to postcolonial times. In the past, the role of a chief was to lead his people in war to defend, protect and extend their territories. The modern role is to combat poverty and other social ills: illiteracy, ignorance, environmental degradation, and the depletion of resources. Nowadays, chiefs are under pressure to achieve good governance in their traditional areas. They are challenged to integrate tradition and modernity, a process about which there is considerable debate. They carry out their duties in an increasingly globalised world where the accent is on democracy, human rights, health delivery, employment, human development and regional integration. Their ability to come to terms with these challenges will provide an indication of their relevance and the relevance of the institution to Ghana?s long-term development. This massive volume is arguably the most comprehensive and detailed scholarly study of the institution of chieftaincy to appear on the subject to date. The subjects and approaches are wide- ranging, and cover most aspects of the institution in every geographical area in Ghana. Some thirty contributors from the humanities and social sciences tell the story of chieftaincy past and present from a multitude of perspectives: anthropological, historical, economic, sociological, gender, literary, religious and philosophical.
Download or read book State Recognition and Democratization in Sub Saharan Africa written by L. Buur and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-11-26 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Being critical and empirically grounded, the book explores the complex, often counter-balancing consequences of the involvement of traditional authority in the wave of democratization and liberal-style state-building that has rolled over sub-Saharan Africa in the past decade.
Download or read book Nkrumah the Chiefs written by Richard Rathbone and published by Ohio State University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The end of independent chieftaincy must be one of the most fundamental changes in the long history of Ghana, and one of the central achievements that Kwame Nkrumah and his movement brought about. Nkrumah & the Chiefs examines a radical nationalist government's attempts to destroy chieftaincy in Ghana. Richard Rathbone's pioneering work shows how chiefly resistance forced the government to seek control over rural areas by incorporating and redefining chieftaincy. Based primarily on previously unconsulted archival and other material in Ghana, Nkrumah & the Chiefs is a detailed analysis of this neglected side of Ghana's history.
Download or read book Imagining the Post Apartheid State written by John T. Friedman and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In northwest Namibia, people’s political imagination offers a powerful insight into the post-apartheid state. Based on extensive anthropological fieldwork, this book focuses on the former South African apartheid regime and the present democratic government; it compares the perceptions and practices of state and customary forms of judicial administration, reflects upon the historical trajectory of a chieftaincy dispute in relation to the rooting of state power and examines everyday forms of belonging in the independent Namibian State. By elucidating the State through a focus on the social, historical and cultural processes that help constitute it, this study helps chart new territory for anthropology, and it contributes an ethnographic perspective to a wider set of interdisciplinary debates on the State and state processes.
Download or read book Indigenous African Institutions written by George Ayittey and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2006-09-01 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Ayittey’s Indigenous African Institutions presents a detailed and convincing picture of pre-colonial and post-colonial Africa - its cultures, traditions, and indigenous institutions, including participatory democracy.
Download or read book Decentralized Governance and Accountability written by Jonathan A. Rodden and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-28 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reviews recent lessons about decentralized governance and implications for future development programs and policies.
Download or read book Democracy in the South written by Brendan M. Howe and published by UN. This book was released on 2010 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy in the South is the first international collaboration that draws attention to the complex problems of democratic consolidation across the majority world. Nine case studies, three each from Africa, Latin America and Asia, shed light on the contemporary challenges faced by democratizing countries, mostly from the perspective of emerging theorists working in their home countries.--Publisher's description.
Download or read book The People s Government written by Del Dickson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-21 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the strengths and weaknesses of democracy, in multiple forms, in multiple locations.
Download or read book Accountability without Democracy written by Lily L. Tsai and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-08-27 with total page 55 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the fundamental issue of how citizens get government officials to provide them with the roads, schools, and other public services they need by studying communities in rural China. In authoritarian and transitional systems, formal institutions for holding government officials accountable are often weak. The state often lacks sufficient resources to monitor its officials closely, and citizens are limited in their power to elect officials they believe will perform well and to remove them when they do not. The answer, Lily L. Tsai found, lies in a community's social institutions. Even when formal democratic and bureaucratic institutions of accountability are weak, government officials can still be subject to informal rules and norms created by community solidary groups that have earned high moral standing in the community.
Download or read book Mediating Legitimacy Chieftaincy and Democratisation in Two African Chiefdoms written by Jude Fokwang and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2009-02-15 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study analyses the effects of democratic transition in two African countries - Cameroon and South Africa - on chiefs and the institution of chieftainship. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the monograph explores the cultural and socio-political conditions that enabled chiefs to reinvent themselves in the new era of democratic politics despite their status as 'old political actors'. It explores the kinds of legitimacies claimed by chiefs in the new era and the responses of their subjects to such claims, particularly with respect to chiefs' involvement in national politics. The monograph makes a case for the importance of comparative research on chiefs in the era of democracy and the predicaments they face therein. It contends that contrary to exhortations about the incompatibility of chiefs and democracy, the reality is that political transition in both South Africa and Cameroon produced contradictions, creating space and a role for chiefs in a fascinating and negotiated interplay of legitimacies and history.
Download or read book The Politics of Custom written by John L. Comaroff and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How are we to explain the resurgence of customary chiefs in contemporary Africa? Rather than disappearing with the tide of modernity, as many expected, indigenous sovereigns are instead a rising force, often wielding substantial power and legitimacy despite major changes in the workings of the global political economy in the post–Cold War era—changes in which they are themselves deeply implicated. This pathbreaking volume, edited by anthropologists John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, explores the reasons behind the increasingly assertive politics of custom in many corners of Africa. Chiefs come in countless guises—from university professors through cosmopolitan businessmen to subsistence farmers–but, whatever else they do, they are a critical key to understanding the tenacious hold that “traditional” authority enjoys in the late modern world. Together the contributors explore this counterintuitive chapter in Africa’s history and, in so doing, place it within the broader world-making processes of the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Freedom in the World 2005 written by Freedom House and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2005 with total page 812 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 192 countries and a group of select territories are used by policy makers, the media, international corporations, and civic activists and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. Press accounts of the survey findings appear in hundreds of influential newspapers in the United States and abroad and form the basis of numerous radio and television reports. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development. Freedom House is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that supports democratic change, monitors freedom, and advocates for democracy and human rights.
