‘Bawku is still volatile’: ethno-political conflict and state recognition in Northern Ghana

2003 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Lund

This article analyses a longstanding ethno-political conflict between Kusasis and Mamprusis in Bawku in north-east Ghana. A double argument is pursued. First, while communal conflict and violence challenge the state and expose its incapacity, the conflicts (played out over chieftaincy, party politics, land, markets, names of places etc.) at the same time invoke a powerful idea of the state as the most significant institution to qualify claims as rights or discard them as illegitimate. Second, the broad variety of social conflicts has effectively been cut to fit an ethnic distinction. Thus, the various conflictual issues have ‘confirmed’ and structured each other. The antagonisms have been crystallised and a pattern entrenching conflict between the two groups has been perpetuated. The article draws historical lines from the 1930s to the present, linking national policy to local politics and political culture with a particular focus on the political manifestations vis-à-vis the state and the use of ‘history’ to justify claims.

Antiquity ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 50 (200) ◽  
pp. 216-222
Author(s):  
Beatrice De Cardi

Ras a1 Khaimah is the most northerly of the seven states comprising the United Arab Emirates and its Ruler, H. H. Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad al-Qasimi, is keenly interested in the history of the state and its people. Survey carried out there jointly with Dr D. B. Doe in 1968 had focused attention on the site of JuIfar which lies just north of the present town of Ras a1 Khaimah (de Cardi, 1971, 230-2). Julfar was in existence in Abbasid times and its importance as an entrep6t during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-the Portuguese Period-is reflected by the quantity and variety of imported wares to be found among the ruins of the city. Most of the sites discovered during the survey dated from that period but a group of cairns near Ghalilah and some long gabled graves in the Shimal area to the north-east of the date-groves behind Ras a1 Khaimah (map, FIG. I) clearly represented a more distant past.


2000 ◽  
pp. 20-25
Author(s):  
O. O. Romanovsky

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the nature of the national policy of Russia is significantly changing. After the events of 1863 in Poland (the Second Polish uprising), the government of Alexander II gradually abandoned the dominant idea of ​​anathematizing, whose essence is expressed in the domination of the principle of serving the state, the greatness of the empire. The tsar-reformer deliberately changes the policy of etatamism into the policy of state ethnocentrism. The manifestation of such a change is a ban on teaching in Polish (1869) and the temporary closure of the University of Warsaw. At the end of the 60s, the state's policy towards a five million Russian Jewry was radically revised. The process of abolition of restrictions on travel, education, place of residence initiated by Nicholas I, was provided reverse.


Author(s):  
Adam Bodіuk

The subject of the study is the mechanism for determining the fiscal fee forthe main transportation of hydrocarbon goods as a resource concept. The purposeof this article is to justify the nature and prospects of using, instead of currentrent, hydrocarbon fiscal-main income as a fiscal payment, which is brought intothe state budget by operators of the main hydrocarbon-transport system as business entities for their transportation of hydrocarbons and products of their processing through main pipelines appropriate to the economic requirements. Theresearch methodology is determined by a combination of methods: a) cognition:legal analysis (study of the regulatory framework for the use of rent); b) justification: abstract logical analysis (definition of the concepts of hydrocarbon fiscalmain income); c) generalization (substantiation of conclusions and proposals).Results of work. In the process of analyzing the regulatory legal acts that regulate the use of current annuity as payment to the budget for the main transportation of hydrocarbons, it was established that it is not a tax in the interpretationof PKU, since the essence does not meet the official definition of tax, does notmeet the accepted definition of the concept of rent. The accepted nature andmechanism of paying rent for the transportation of hydrogen resources and associated revenues of the state and users of the main hydrogen transport systemand the unpromising nature of its use as a fiscal payment are analyzed. Conclusions.It is proposed that the state pay for the territorial pumping of hydrocarbon resources according to our triple principle as hydrocarbon fiscal-main income, whichcorresponds to its essence, and accordingly change the mechanism for calculatingand depositing funds to treasury accounts. Since the funds come to the revenueside of the state budget, that is, inherently belong to state revenue. The creationof such a mechanism needs certain studies, justifications and government decisions. The same applies to land use, since the quality indicators of soils, wherethe laid pipelines are territorially different. In addition, there is a process ofchanging land for its intended purpose, for the property. The fee for movinghydrocarbon resources should be calculated depending on the type of transport,including pipelines, for a set of indicators: quantity and quality of goods, time,main tariffs and distance of its movement. The amount may be adjusted usingfactors officially established by the CMU. Since the pipelines are located in territorial lands, part of this fee should be transferred to the territorial local budgets.Theoretically, the economic use of trunk pipelines should be considered as a typeof economic environmental management. Therefore, this type of government revenue should be determined by a set of indicators, as well as taking into account the economic interests of business entities authorized by the CMU. Thus, theimplementation of our proposed fiscal payment is relevant, has scientific noveltyand promising practical significance, therefore, for state recognition it is proposedto include it in the Tax Code of Ukraine.


Author(s):  
Hazel Gray

This chapter explores the role of the political settlement in shaping outcomes of land investments by analysing struggles in key sectors of the economy. Land reform during the socialist period had far-reaching implications for the political settlement. Reforms to land rights under liberalization involved strengthening land markets; however, the state continued to play a significant role. Corruption within formal land management systems became prevalent during the period of high growth. Vietnam experienced a rapid growth in export agriculture but, in contrast with stable property rights for smallholders, Tanzania’s efforts to encourage large land investments were less successful. Industrialization in both countries generated new forms of land struggles that were influenced by the different distributions of power between the state, existing landowners, and investors.


Author(s):  
Clare Chambers

The conclusion recaps the arguments of Against Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State. The book presents a critique of state-recognized marriage and an alternative model for regulating personal relationships. The main critique of marriage is that it is inegalitarian. Feminists have long criticized the gendered nature of marriage. Even reformed marriage creates unjustified inequalities between married and unmarried people and their children. State recognition of marriage also involves the state in making controversial judgements about ways of life, undermining liberty. In place of state-recognized marriage, the marriage-free state would regulate relationship practices in a piecemeal fashion and without requiring a special status.


2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 466-480
Author(s):  
Kavita N. Soreide

The legal-political discourse at the time of drafting of independent India’s Constitution resulted in a unique constitutional arrangement guaranteeing a model of self-government through setting up Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) for some of India’s designated tribal communities. This constitutional modality governing the tribal majority regions in India’s North-east is known as the Sixth Schedule. Given the pre-existing tribal institutions, it was implied that ADCs were to act as ‘bridges of governance’ between the state and traditional polity. This article tries to look at the nature of governance and gaps in governance through the lens of ADCs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Belmonte

AbstractThis paper investigates the consequences for inter-group conflicts of terrorist attacks. I study the 2015 Baga massacre, a large scale attack conducted by Boko Haram at the far North-East state of Borno, Nigeria, as a quasi-natural experiment and examine a set of attitudes in the aftermath of the event of Christians and Muslims throughout the country. Comparing individuals, outside the region of Borno, interviewed by Afrobarometer immediately after the massacre and those interviewed the days before within same regions and holding fixed a number of individual characteristics, I document that the informational exposure to the event rendered Christians less amiable to neighboring Muslims and Muslims less likely to recognize the legitimacy of the state. Nonetheless, Muslims increased their view of the elections as a device to remove leaders in office, event that took place 2 months later with the election of the challenger, Muhammadu Buhari. My findings indicate that terrorist attacks may generate a relevant and heterogeneous backlash across ethnic groups.


2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELIZA W. Y. LEE

This article discusses the politics of social policy development in Hong Kong following the Asian financial crisis. It examines the cause, mode and political significance of social policy reform in an Asian late industrialiser that has been experiencing the twin pressures of economic globalisation and socio-economic change. Financial austerity has prompted the state to adopt social policy reforms through re-commodification and cost containment, resulting in the retrenchment of the residual welfare state. The state's policy choices are structured by local politics, including the state of political development and the path dependence nature of policy change. The article questions the effectiveness of the social authoritarian approaches adopted by the state in attempting to renegotiate the social pact with its citizens, and contends that progressive development in social policy is inevitably bound to democratisation.


1977 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Tapia-Videla

In contrast to other countries in Latin America, Chile emerged from the chaotic postindependence period with a strong state apparatus. Fashioned by the leadership of Diego Portales and institutionalized in the Constitution of 1833, the Chilean state became (and remains) the central focus for national development. Portales was able to marry the existing social and economic order, which was sharply hierarchical, to the institutional structures of a corporate state. In doing so, he shaped political conflict throughout Chilean history into a series of struggles for inclusion in the coalition in control of the state apparatus at any given time. Problems of violence and instability can be seen as the the natural by-products of these multiple attempts to define and redefine both the legitimate scope and orientation of the state and the composition of the dominant groups exercising power.


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