Local power-sharing institutions and interreligious violence in Nigeria

2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas B Bunte ◽  
Laura Thaut Vinson
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 79-89
Author(s):  
Mahendra Sapkota

Globally, power and leadership are considered as two unavoidable factors of social change and local development. In Nepal’s federal context, the nexus of power and leadership has been less addressed in academic research though most of the studies are focused on local governance. The present study attempts to analyze the nature of leadership and its power structure in the context of rural Nepal. It follows a critical ontological position of the development of power and leadership. Methodologically, a complete leadership of Dogana village in Suddhodhan Rural Municipality of Rupandehi district (Lumbini Province) was undertaken to assess the rural leadership. It is found that the most important factor for holding the rural leadership was ‘affiliation with the political party’, which was followed by ‘well-being ranking’ and ‘caste/ ethnic status’ of the leadership. The rural leaders used to change their policies and strategies to create and sustain power, such as doing multiple professions and building networks other than politics. The paper, therefore, concludes that a significant change occurred in leadership pattern and power structure of rural Nepal from informal to formal, and less inclusive to more inclusive and representative. Despite this, the changes are still elite-centric, politically vested, and economically favorable either to the upper-class people or middle-class mediators (bichauliyas). The study predicts that the contestations in leadership and power-sharing could be more critical in the days to come with the implementation of federalism in the rural context. The implication of this study largely relies on the context of local power structure and village politics in Nepal.


2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-494
Author(s):  
Souhaïl Belhadj

The weakening of local power structures in Tunisia, whether linked to the authoritarian centralization of the country or to the erosion of the mechanisms for coopting local elites, strongly contributed to upset the political equilibrium of fallen President Ben Ali’s regime. The weakened position created conditions favorable to an ongoing negotiation over power-sharing among social groups and their access to resources. The adoption of a new Constitution in 2014 attests to this redefinition of power relations between local elites and the central State inasmuch as it established, for the first time in modern Tunisian history, the principle of an elected, decentralized ‘local power’ with financial and administrative autonomy. The aim of this article is to answer the question of whether the adoption of a new Constitution, brought in on the basis of a historical compromise between the representatives of the country’s different political tendencies, would enable an orderly changeover from authoritarian government to long-term power-sharing arrangements.


2013 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 681-706 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Simons ◽  
Franzisca Zanker ◽  
Andreas Mehler ◽  
Denis M. Tull

ABSTRACTResearch on power-sharing in Africa remains silent on the effects of national peace agreements on the sub-national level. Conversely, most armed conflicts originate and are fought in (or over) specific areas. A plausible hypothesis would be that for power-sharing to have the desired pacifying effect throughout the national territory, it needs to be extended to the local level. Based on fieldwork in six former hotspots in Liberia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) we find that there is hardly any local content, including local power-sharing, in national agreements. However, contrary to our hypothesis, neither local content (inclusion of actors or interest) nor local-power-sharing (either introducing a local power balance or monopoly) are indispensable to effectively bring about local peace, at least in the short-term. On the contrary, it might even endanger the peace process. The importance of the sub-national level is overestimated in some cases and romanticised in others. However, the history of spatial-political links, centralised policies, and the establishment of local balances or monopolies of power ultimately play an important role.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline A. Hartzell ◽  
Matthew Hoddie
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Muhammad Mushtaq ◽  
Muhammad Riaz Mahmood

The problématique of governing diversity has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention but literature has largely overlooked the challenges appertaining to growing religious diversity in many places. The contemporary power sharing models and multicultural policies which are of a secular nature fall short of the expectations to foster peaceful coexistence in multi-religious societies. The primary concern of this paper is to manifest how religion can help us to lessen faith based violence. It is argued that religious traditions may offer valuable insights to design more inclusive governance. In this backdrop, the current paper evaluates the Islamic values of religious accommodation to gauge how helpful they are for designing inclusive policies in religiously diverse societies. The analysis illustrates that Islamic doctrine contemplates the politics of accommodation and forbearance. The pluralistic approach of Islam offered religious autonomy to non-Muslims in the state of Madinah. The ‘millet system’ established by the Ottoman Empire is widely admired for granting non-territorial autonomy in the matters related to religion, culture, and personal laws to non-Muslims. This display of an Islamic pluralistic approach at different junctures of Muslim history attests the capacity of the Islamic values of accommodation to nurture peaceful coexistence in modern societies. However, it requires a more unbiased and rigorous analysis to convince the global audience in this regard.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document