THE AFTERMATH OF THE ARAB SPRING AND ITS IMPLICATION FOR PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE SAHEL AND SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel D Danjibo
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Political Uncertainty ◽  
Subsaharan Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Peace And Development ◽  
Armed Actors

The Arab Spring, which brought an end to the authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, was greeted with so much expectation, especially as it gave hope for the expansion of democracy. Unfortunately, however, the Arab Spring has only helped to bring about a period of political uncertainty in the affected countries and created the opportunity for political instability in the Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa. The fragility of states in Africa with the attendant governance deficits have also created the platform for non-state armed actors to penetrate the Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa, which ultimately impacts negatively on the region. This study, therefore, seeks to investigate the implication of the Arab Spring for peace and development in the Sahel and SubSaharan Africa.

Islamism in Mauritania and the narrative of political moderation

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Cavatorta ◽  
Raquel Ojeda Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Historically Situated ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Arab Spring

ABSTRACTThe rise of Islamism following the Arab Spring has renewed interest in the democratic credibility of Islamist parties and movements. Focusing on the case of Mauritania's Islamists this article analyses the validity of the moderation hypothesis and argues that for some Islamist parties, moderation, when historically situated, has always been a key trait. The case of Mauritanian Islamism is interesting because it takes place within an intellectual and geographical place that straddles both the Arab world and sub-Saharan Africa, therefore providing insights on how Islamism has become an influential ideological framework in both worlds, that are much less separate than superficially believed.

scholarly journals Closing the Arab Democratic Gap: A Re-Assessment of the Tunisian Democratic Transition

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolaine Frossard de Saugy
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Islam And Politics ◽  
Political Bargaining ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The One ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Religion And Democracy

Tunisia is often described as the outlier of the Arab Spring, the one case in which a form of political transition decidedly happened. The fact that this transition first led to the rule of the Islamist party Ennahda has reignited long-standing debates on the role of Islam in politics, the relationship between religion and democracy, and the consequences of their potential incompatibility for the future of Tunisian democracy. A sizeable literature has attempted to address these topics over the years, but it is of little help when trying to understand the events of the Arab Spring and the Tunisian transition, especially when it comes to their impact on the Islamist parties themselves. Borrowing from Villalón’s study of Islam and politics in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper argues that, instead of considering whether Tunisian actors fit within a preconceived notion of democracy, we should consider the process of political bargaining itself as democratic; focusing on the substance of democracy rather than its form sheds new light on the Tunisian case and helps explain various outcomes including the progressive liberalization of Islamist parties and the gradual but distinctive flourishing of democracy in the Tunisian context.

What the People of Africa Think about International Organisations

Politeia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rod Alence
Keyword(s):  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African Union ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
The People ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions ◽  
Peace And Development

International organisations have long sought to promote peace and development in sub-Saharan Africa. Much research has focused on their policies and activities, but little is known about how people living in Africa view them. How aware are people in Africa of international organisations, and how helpful do they believe them to be? This article analyses public perceptions using data from Afrobarometer Round 4 surveys conducted in 20 countries. Awareness of international organisations is widespread, especially in countries that have experienced peacekeeping missions and among individuals who have completed primary school. Evaluations are favourable on balance, more so for the United Nations and other “global” organisations than for the African Union and its sub-regional bodies. Though most Africans see development aid as helpful, large and highly visible aid inflows are associated with concerns about the influence that donors and NGOs wield over recipient governments.

scholarly journals Democracy, consumption, and growth in sub-Saharan Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-48
Author(s):  
John A Doces
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Government Consumption ◽  
Private Goods ◽  
Empirical Estimates ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Sub Saharan

This article studies the effect of political regime type on economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Democracy promotes growth because it conditions government consumption so that consumption is used for public purposes rather than private needs and this in turn leads to faster growth. By conditioning consumption towards public goods and away from private goods, we should see that consumption in democratic regimes is associated with more public goods like roads and education while in authoritarian regimes consumption yields less of these goods. Likewise, consumption should be associated with falling fertility in democratic regimes and rising fertility in authoritarian regimes. Using several measures of growth, the empirical estimates from a large- n fixed-effects regression show that democracy conditions consumption so that the latter is associated with faster growth. Moreover, the empirical analysis indicates that government consumption in democratic regimes is associated with more education completion and lower fertility rates.

Exit, Resistance, Loyalty: Military Behavior during Unrest in Authoritarian Regimes

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Albrecht ◽  
Dorothy Ohl
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Moving Target ◽  
Mass Mobilization ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Military

A few years into the most recent wave of popular uprisings—the Arab Spring—studying regime trajectories in countries such as Syria, Egypt, and Yemen still seems like shooting at a moving target. Yet what has not escaped notice is the central role military actors have played during these uprisings. We describe how soldiers have three options when ordered to suppress mass unrest. They mayexitthe regime by remaining in the barracks or going into exile,resistby fighting for the challenger or initiating a coup d’état, or remainloyaland use force to defend the regime. We argue that existing accounts of civil-military relations are ill equipped to explain the diverse patterns in exit, resistance, and loyalty during unrest because they often ignore the effects of military hierarchy. Disaggregating the military and parsing the interests and constraints of different agents in that apparatus is crucial for explaining military cohesion during such crises. Drawing on extensive fieldwork we apply our principal-agent framework to explain varying degrees and types of military cohesion in three Arab Spring cases: Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria. Studying military hierarchy elucidates decision-making within authoritarian regimes amid mass mobilization and allows us to better explain regime re-stabilization, civil war onset, or swift regime change in the wake of domestic unrest.

scholarly journals Crowdsourcing-Based Geoinformation, Disadvantaged Urbanisation Challenges, Subsaharan Africa: Theoretical Perspectives and Notes

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Ingwe
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Economic Region ◽  
Fast Tracking ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Subsaharan Africa ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Sub Saharan

Abstract Scholars and practitioners concerned with geoinformation, cyber-cartography, development studies, and other subjects increasingly explore crowdsourcing and its huge advantages for development. Some have advocated it for adoption/promotion by government as a means of citizen engagement. The objective of this article is to increase the appreciation of the contribution that crowdsourcing can make towards resolving challenges associated with disadvantaged urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We review urban challenges of SSA and three practices of crowdsourcing: volunteered geographic information (VGI), Citizen Science (CS), and Participatory Mapping (PM). Then we examine problems associated with the advocacy for government adoption of those practices in SSA. We argue that civil society collaboration with an international governmental organisation (IGO) instead of government promises a better way of adopting and promoting them. This suggestion is based on the fact that work related to this strategy is carried out by a global coalition of civil society, the UN-NGLS. This strategy promises a more rapid way of taking advantage of fast-tracking public engagement in the economic region, SSA.

Improving the Kremlin’s Preventive Counter-Revolution Practices after the 2011–2012 Winter of Discontent and the Euromaidan

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 466-491
Author(s):  
Stephen G F Hall
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Politics Of Fear ◽  
Soviet Space ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Post Soviet Space

This paper argues that between 2012 and 2019, the Kremlin recalibrated preventive counter-revolutionary practices due to fears that an event like the Arab Spring or Euromaidan could occur in Moscow or that the 2011–2012 winter of discontent could return. While the Kremlin returned to practices of the preventive counter-revolution used after 2004, the tactics increased creating a “politics of fear.” The preventive counter-revolution post-2012 implemented new tactics, incorporating an external element of countering the involvement of Western states in destabilizing authoritarian regimes, specifically in the post-Soviet space, thereby attempting to weaken Western states. The tactics of the preventive counter-revolution after 2012 have the potential to coup-proof the Kremlin and serve as a model for other authoritarian regimes to devise methods to counter Western states and democratization, thereby allowing the Kremlin to become a model and black knight for other authoritarian regimes.

Arab Spring and its echo in sub-Saharan Africa: a quantitative analysis

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
A. Korotayev ◽  
◽  
K. Meshcherina ◽  
V. Katkova ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan
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