Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa

Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa PDF Author: Lauren M. MacLean
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780511729843
Category : Borderlands
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Examines historically how the state role in mediating risk transforms reciprocity and citizenship in similar villages on either side of the Ghana Cote d'Ivoire border.

Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa

Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa PDF Author: Lauren M. MacLean
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780511729843
Category : Borderlands
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
Examines historically how the state role in mediating risk transforms reciprocity and citizenship in similar villages on either side of the Ghana Cote d'Ivoire border.

Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa

Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa PDF Author: Lauren M. MacLean
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139488139
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This book challenges previous assumptions about institutions, social capital, and the nature of the African state by investigating the history of political and economic change in villages on either side of the Ghana-Cote d'Ivoire border. Prior to European colonial rule, these Akan villages had very similar political and cultural institutions. By the late 1990s, however, Lauren M. MacLean found puzzling differences in the informal institutions of reciprocity and indigenous notions of citizenship. MacLean argues that divergent histories of state formation not only shape how villagers help each other but also influence how local groups and communities define citizenship and then choose to engage with the state on an everyday basis. She examines the historical construction of the state role in mediating risk at the local level across three policy areas: political administration, social service delivery, and agriculture.

The Politics of Non-state Social Welfare

The Politics of Non-state Social Welfare PDF Author: Melani Cammett
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801470323
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Across the world, welfare states are under challenge—or were never developed extensively in the first place—while non-state actors increasingly provide public goods and basic welfare. In many parts of the Middle East and South Asia, sectarian organizations and political parties supply basic services to ordinary people more extensively and effectively than governments. In sub-Saharan Africa, families struggle to pay hospital fees, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) launch welfare programs as states cut subsidies and social programs. Likewise, in parts of Latin America, international and domestic NGOs and, increasingly, private firms are key suppliers of social welfare in both urban and rural communities. Even in the United States, where the welfare state is far more developed, secular NGOs and faith-based organizations are critical components of social safety nets. Despite official entitlements to public welfare, citizens in Russia face increasing out-of-pocket expenses as they are effectively compelled to seek social services through the private market In The Politics of Non-State Social Welfare, a multidisciplinary group of contributors use survey data analysis, spatial analysis, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic and archival research to explore the fundamental transformation of the relationship between states and citizens. The book highlights the political consequences of the non-state provision of social welfare, including the ramifications for equitable and sustainable access to social services, accountability for citizens, and state capacity. The authors do not assume that non-state providers will surpass the performance of weak, inefficient, or sometimes corrupt states but instead offer a systematic analysis of a wide spectrum of non-state actors in a variety of contexts around the world, including sectarian political parties, faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, family networks, informal brokers, and private firms.

Accountability without Democracy

Accountability without Democracy PDF Author: Lily L. Tsai
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139466488
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 55

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Book Description
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.

The Scarce State

The Scarce State PDF Author: Noah L. Nathan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009261142
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
States are often minimally present in the rural periphery. Yet a limited presence does not mean a limited impact. Isolated state actions in regions where the state is otherwise scarce can have outsize, long-lasting effects on society. The Scarce State reframes our understanding of the political economy of hinterlands through a multi-method study of Northern Ghana alongside shadow cases from other world regions. Drawing on a historical natural experiment, the book shows how the contemporary economic and political elite emerged in Ghana's hinterland, linking interventions by an ostensibly weak state to new socio-economic inequality and grassroots efforts to reimagine traditional institutions. The book demonstrates how these state-generated societal changes reshaped access to political power, producing dynastic politics, clientelism, and violence. The Scarce State challenges common claims about state-building and state weakness, provides new evidence on the historical origins of inequality, and reconsiders the mechanisms linking historical institutions to contemporary politics.

Coups, Rivals, and the Modern State

Coups, Rivals, and the Modern State PDF Author: Beth Rabinowitz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110842046X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
Using extensive research, this book argues that successful African leaders consolidate their rule by developing strategic rural coalitions.

Boundaries, Communities and State-Making in West Africa

Boundaries, Communities and State-Making in West Africa PDF Author: Paul Nugent
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107020689
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 637

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Book Description
By examining three centuries of history, this book shows how vital border regions have been in shaping states and social contracts.

Africa's Return Migrants

Africa's Return Migrants PDF Author: Lisa Åkesson
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1783602368
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Many African migrants residing abroad nurture a hope to one day return, at least temporarily, to their home country. In the wake of economic crises in the developed world, alongside rapid economic growth in parts of Africa, the impetus to ‘return’ is likely to increase. Such returnees are often portrayed as agents of development, bringing with them capital, knowledge and skills as well as connections and experience gained abroad. Yet, the reality is altogether more complex. In this much-needed volume, based on extensive original fieldwork, the authors reveal that there is all too often a gaping divide between abstract policy assumptions and migrants’ actual practices. In contrast to the prevailing optimism of policies on migration and development, Africa’s Return Migrants demonstrates that the capital obtained abroad is not always advantageous and that it can even hamper successful entrepreneurship and other forms of economic, political and social engagement.

The Oxford Handbook of Historical Institutionalism

The Oxford Handbook of Historical Institutionalism PDF Author: Karl Orfeo Fioretos
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199662819
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 705

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Book Description
This volume offers an authoritative and accessible state-of-the-art analysis of the historical institutionalism research tradition in Political Science.

How Informal Institutions Matter

How Informal Institutions Matter PDF Author: Zeki Sarigil
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472903772
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
In How Informal Institutions Matter, Zeki Sarigil examines the role of informal institutions in sociopolitical life and addresses the following questions: Why and how do informal institutions emerge? To ask this differently, why do agents still create or resort to informal institutions despite the presence of formal institutional rules and regulations? How do informal institutions matter? What roles do they play in sociopolitical life? How can we classify informal institutions? What novel types of informal institutions can we identify and explain? How do informal institutions interact with formal institutions? How do they shape formal institutional rules, mechanisms, and outcomes? Finally, how do existing informal institutions change? What factors might trigger informal institutional change? In order to answer these questions, Sarigil examines several empirical cases of informal institution as derived from various issue areas in the Turkish sociopolitical context (i.e., civil law, conflict resolution, minority rights, and local governance) and from multiple levels (i.e., national and local).