The Republic of Guinea is located in a particularly turbulent region. However, while several conflicts in neighbouring countries – Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone – have spilled over Guinea's borders, the country's central government has displayed a seemingly unlikely stability. Until a bloodless coup in December 2008 brought a military junta to power, the country had had only two presidents since independence, both of whom died of natural causes while still in office. Ahmed Sékou Touré, Guinea's first leader, deftly used the anti-colonial insurgency in neighbouring Guinea-Bissau to enhance his political credentials and control domestic and international opposition. The administration of the late President Lansana Conté leveraged regional warfare to solidify its command over remote provinces, increase government revenues, bolster military capacity, and improve regional diplomatic relations. This paper supports the analysis of civil wars as regional phenomena, while shedding light on mechanisms that may interact in counter-intuitive ways with the dynamics of state strength.

Since the early 1990s, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have established semi-autonomous revenue authorities (ARAs), organisationally distinct from ministries of finance, with some real operational autonomy, and with staff paid at rates substantially higher than those in comparable public sector jobs. This has been seen by some observers as a step to dilute the power of the central state executive. We demonstrate that this is a misreading of the story of revenue authorities in Africa. Both African governments and the international development agencies involved in the reforms see ARAs as a means of increasing central government revenues, and thus enlarging the authority of the (central) state. To date, there is little sign that the creation of revenue agencies has actually increased public revenues. It has, however, facilitated a range of reforms in the ways in which taxes are assessed and collected, and deflected pressures that might otherwise have emerged for substantial privatisation of tax collection.

The 2004 reform of the family code in Morocco has been held as one of the most significant liberal reforms undertaken in the country, and has led scholars and policy makers to argue that this demonstrates the democratic progress Morocco and the King are making. At the same time, the role of the women's movement in getting the reform approved has seemingly confirmed that associational life is crucial in promoting democratisation. This paper, building on theoretical work questioning the linkage between a strong civil society and democratic outcomes, argues that civil society activism does not necessarily lead to democratisation, and may reinforce authoritarian practices. Far from demonstrating the centrality of civil society, the process through which the new family code was passed highlights the crucial institutional role of the monarch, whose individual decision-making power has driven the whole process. Authoritarianism finds itself strengthened in Morocco despite the liberal nature and outcome of the reform.

The modernised tradition of the Gacaca courts has become the key mechanism for dealing with the past in Rwanda. The process needs to establish accountability for all acts of genocide and to foster reconciliation. Nevertheless, popular narratives and survey results reveal that a widespread ‘crisis’ accompanied the initial stages of the Gacaca process. We argue that a problematic quest for the truth is short-circuiting reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda. Truth-telling is the cornerstone of the transitional justice framework due to the design of the Gacaca tribunals. On the basis of twenty months of fieldwork in Rwandan villages, we locate tensions at different levels. The Gacaca system is a distinctively modern phenomenon despite its traditional appearance. The state-sanctioned speaking of the truth according to a prosecutorial logic runs counter to the core values of the customary institution and established societal practices. This friction is further enhanced by the underlying Judeo-Christian model of truth-telling introduced with the Gacaca system in a socio-political environment mediated by a culture of deceit and dominated by a war victor. In such a socio-cultural context, communication serves the interests of the power holders (national and local), and not necessarily the interest of truth-telling and justice.

There is a common perception in Ghana that Accra Hearts of Oak is the soccer club of the National Democratic Congress, and Kumasi Asante Kotoko that of the New Patriotic Party. In this paper we explore the roots of these perceptions by examining the social history of these two clubs specifically, and the Ghanaian soccer league system in general, with an eye for the actors, practices and events that injected political airs into purportedly ‘apolitical’ athletic competitions. With this social history clearly defining the popularly perceived ‘us’ versus ‘them’ of the Hearts/Kotoko rivalry, we analyse on the basis of a modest survey some of the assumptions these widely held stereotypes rely upon. We find that ethnicity and location matter both in terms of predicting one's affinity for a given soccer club and partisan inclinations. These factors do not, however, completely dispel the relationship between sports and politics as spurious. Though not conclusive, there is enough evidence collected in the survey to suggest that one's preferred club, even when controlling for ethnicity and location, does have an effect on one's partisan leanings, or perhaps vice versa. This finding highlights the independent role that often-understudied cultural politics can play.

This article uses interviews with former student activists in Sierra Leone to explore what ideals motivate students to participate in political action. In Sierra Leone, students used the military as a cover for their own democratic programme, initially by encouraging a coup that they wanted to partake in, later by joining the officer corps themselves. I challenge the notion that student interactions with the urban lumpenproletariat and ‘militariat’ serve as evidence for their desire to cloak a lack of ideals in popular violence; rather I argue that coalitions are built as needs must to push a particular agenda, whether or not the agenda is known to all participants. In this case, that agenda was to ensure that an idealistic intelligentsia had economic and political futures that they had been denied under a paternalistic dictatorship. In essence student activism was elitist, not popular.

Dominic Ongwen is an indicted war criminal and former child soldier in one of the world's most brutal rebel organisations, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Ongwen is at once victim and perpetrator: what justice strategy is relevant? I introduce the concept of complex political perpetrators to describe youth who occupy extremely marginal spaces in settings of chronic crisis, and who use violence as an expression of political agency. Ongwen represents a troupe of young rebels who were ‘bred’ in the shadows of illiberal war economies. Excluded from the polity, or rather never having been socialised within it, such complex political perpetrators must be recognised in the debate on transitional justice after mass atrocity, lest cycles of exclusion and violence as politics by another means continue.

The recent involvement of China in sub-Saharan Africa is challenging and changing the world geostrategic scene. In the article, we analyse the agreements between the Congolese government and a group of Chinese state-owned enterprises. A number of public infrastructure works will be financed with Chinese loans. To guarantee reimbursement, a Congolese/Chinese joint venture will be created to extract and sell copper, cobalt and gold. These are the biggest trade/investment agreements that China has so far signed in Africa. This article seeks to contribute to the discussion regarding the agreement's impact on internal development in Congo. Does it create a ‘win-win’ situation for all, or is it an unequal exchange? We outline the internal and international debates and analyse several noteworthy characteristics of the agreements. In conclusion, we present a balanced view on the likely impact on Congo's short-term and long-term development.

This article examines the institutional politics of law enforcement in Nigeria by focusing on illegal drug control since the mid 1980s. It assesses the available academic research on law enforcement governance, and contrasts it with an in-depth case study of drug law enforcement. The case study confirms views of the politicised nature of law enforcement. However, it goes beyond the patron–client centred approach to politics prevalent in the literature on African policing. The article adds an institutional dimension to the study of law enforcement governance, highlighting processes of centralisation, exclusion and shifting bureaucratic interests that have been central to the development of Nigerian drug law enforcement. It is based on previously inaccessible data from inside Nigerian drug law enforcement.

In 2005, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf defeated George Weah to become President of Liberia and the first woman elected to head an African country. Women voters were widely credited with her victory. This paper quantifies this claim by analysing newspaper content during the election period to gauge civil society group activity. It finds that consistency in their activities may have allowed women's groups to surpass other civil society groups in impacting the election. Activity levels of women's groups remained stable between the election and run-off periods, unlike other major group types whose activity level dropped by between 37% and 70%. It concludes that the environment surrounding the 2005 election was conducive to participation by women because of their existing, latent power in many spheres; their long experience as peacebuilders; the decimation of conventional social and political structures; Liberian women's experience in leadership positions; the failure of multiple male-dominated efforts; and the presence of a well-qualified female candidate.

Using fieldwork data collected in Eritrea, Rome, Milan and Stockholm, and supplemented by human rights organisation reports and discussions with key informants in four cities in the UK, this article examines the extent to which the Eritrean national service and its concomitant Warsai-Yikaalo Development Campaign qualify as forced or compulsory labour as defined by the relevant international conventions.

Previous research on anti-corruption reform in Africa falls into two camps. The first explores ‘best practices’ and policy approaches to controlling corruption, while the second focuses on the politics of anti-corruption ‘reform’, arguing that official anti-corruption campaigns aim to mollify donors while using corruption charges instrumentally to undermine rivals and shore up personal loyalty to the president, and thus have no chance of controlling corruption. This paper suggests that, while the neopatrimonial context is a very significant limiting factor in anti-corruption reform, limited progress is possible. Examining the motivations and effects, intended and unintended, of anti-corruption reforms in Kenya and Nigeria, it finds that while the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission has indeed been politically marginalised and largely ineffectual, the more autonomous and activist, but politically instrumentalised, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria has had a measure of success. The analysis suggests that this is explained by the EFCC's independent prosecutorial powers and the institutionalisation strategies of its chairman.

The pressures of economic crisis and reform that have gripped African societies have been accompanied by a proliferation of new religious movements. Amid concerns about the political impact of religious revivalism, little attention has been devoted to their economic implications. Focusing on the remarkable coincidence between the withdrawal of the state, the rise of religious movements, and the dramatic expansion of the informal economy, this paper examines the role of religious revivalism in processes of informal economic governance and class formation in contemporary Africa. Against the background of the historical role of religion in the development of market institutions across the continent, it traces the dynamics of religious revivalism and informal economic regulation in two regions of Nigeria. Rather than representing a return to occultist or patrimonial impulses, new religious movements reveal distinctly Weberian tendencies. However, modernising tendencies fostered within the informal economy by popular religious revivalism are being stunted by the relentless pressures of liberalisation, globalisation and pseudo-democratisation. Progressive religious tendencies among the poor are being instrumentalised by religious entrepreneurs and political elites, undermining fragile processes of entrepreneurial class formation taking place within the informal economy.

This paper examines inter-ethnic conflict over grazing land previously accessed as common property. It presents results of a study undertaken in Mieso district of eastern Ethiopia where two ethnic groups maintain different production systems – pastoral and agropastoral. The historical change in land use by one of the ethnic groups, resource scarcity, violation of customary norms, power asymmetry and livestock raids are among the factors that have contributed to the recurrence of conflict. Particularly important is the role of raids in triggering conflict and restricting access to grazing areas. Socio-economic and political factors are responsible for power asymmetry and the increasing scale of raids. An increase in the frequency of violence and a decline in the capacity of customary authority in conflict management advance the role of the state in establishing enforceable property rights institutions. This will succeed only if policies and interventions are redirected at suppressing incentives for violence, establishing new institutional structures in consultation with clan elders of both parties, and building internal capacity to monitor conflict-triggering events.

The efforts of American activists to pressure Asian corporations in Sudan have to date resembled a struggle to find the light switch in the dark, or swimming against a strong current. While the impact of the divestment campaign in the United States has been increasingly evident, its effectiveness in producing actual results in Sudan remains suspect. Thanks to China and a trio of Asian national oil companies, oil still flows in Sudan. The campaign's activities have failed to incorporate Sudan's wider international political and economic relations into its strategy. It has rather paradoxically sought to pressure state-owned corporations through financial market divestment. The nature of its Asian targets, reluctant Western investors and a distracted American government have obstructed the campaign from having a resounding impact in Sudan.

During 1999–2007, a labour-led but broad-based socio-economic rights movement, which focused on a pro-poor (and therefore highly popular) anti-fuel price hike message, persuaded and/or pressured Nigeria's federal legislature, the National Assembly, to: mediate between it and the Executive Branch of Government; take it seriously enough to lobby it repeatedly; re-orient its legislative processes; explicitly oppose virtually all of the Executive Branch's fuel price hikes; and reject key anti-labour provisions in a government bill. Yet the movement did not always succeed in its efforts to influence the National Assembly. This article maps, discusses, contextualises and analyses these generally remarkable developments. It also argues that while many factors combined to facilitate or militate against the movement's impact on legislative reasoning, process and action during the relevant period, this movement's ‘mass social movement’ character was the pivotal factor that afforded it the necessary leverage to exert considerable, if limited, influence on the National Assembly.

The long-standing debate about the proper role for Africa's traditional leaders in contemporary politics has intensified in the last two decades, as efforts to foster democratisation and decentralisation have brought competing claims to power and legitimacy to the fore, especially at the local level. Questions persist as to whether traditional authority and democratic governance are ultimately compatible or contradictory. Can the two be blended into viable and effective hybrid systems? Or do the potentially anti-democratic features of traditional systems present insurmountable obstacles to an acceptable model of integration? Survey data collected by the Afrobarometer indicate that Africans who live under these dual systems of authority do not draw as sharp a distinction between hereditary chiefs and elected local government officials as most analysts would expect. In fact, popular evaluations of selected and elected leaders are strongly and positively linked. They appear to be consistently shaped by each individual's ‘leadership affect’, and by an understanding of chiefs and elected officials as common players in a single, integrated political system, rather than as opponents in a sharply bifurcated one. Moreover, there is no evident conflict between supporting traditional leadership and being a committed and active democrat. Rather than finding themselves trapped between two competing spheres of political authority, Africans appear to have adapted to the hybridisation of their political institutions more seamlessly than many have anticipated or assumed.

Smallholders now grow most of Malawi's main export crop – burley tobacco. Based on nineteen months' fieldwork in the Central Region, this article offers a sociological interpretation of why some smallholder growers spend a proportion of burley income on conspicuous consumption in rural towns and trading centres. This practice can be seen as a form of inculcated behaviour whereby smallholders reproduce elements of one model of success in this region: that of the Malawian tobacco bwana (boss/master). The article discusses implications from this form of potlatch behaviour by describing the contrasting fortunes of two non-farm rural enterprises, examining data on how tobacco production and ‘cooling off’ is viewed by wives, and comparing the crop preferences of husbands and wives. It concludes by suggesting that the concept of conspicuous consumption may provide an alternative prism to the instrumental lens of neo-patrimonialism through which to view apparently unintelligible investment decisions in African economies.

China's 21st-century re-entry into Africa has been made with considerable new fanfare and in a manner that contrasts sharply with the Maoist ideologist policy of the 1960s. However, how the Chinese perceive Africa, as expressed by the online community, has been little studied. In a country where full democracy and complete freedom of expression are still lacking, online communication arguably plays a particularly significant role. When it comes to topics in China which are not frequently addressed in the public domain, the flow of information among the online community is paramount in shaping public perceptions. The result of systematic qualitative research on the online community in China, this paper aims to bridge the gap between formal studies of Sino-African relations and online perceptions. Reconstructing the online image of Africa is essential in understanding not only contemporary Sino-African relations from the popular perspective but also the distorted nature of information that circulates in Chinese cyberspace.