The Nordic Africa Institute – Publications

On 9 June 2017 Namibia became poorer. A moral beacon physically left behind the people, whose right to live in freedom and dignity was his core motivation throughout most of his 92 years. (Herman) Andimba Toivo Ya Toivo – Toivo is Finnish for hope – was active until the end. He had just returned from a trip with his close friend and fellow inmate on Robben Island Helao Shityuwe – another largely ignored and little recognized icon in Namibia’s struggle for liberation. Hours later, at his home, Ya Toivo died in his sleep. The article combines a portrait of Ya Toivo and his legacy with the heroic narratives at play when the history of the liberation struggle is rewritten for political purposes.

This article presents an anatomy of power relations and policymaking within the ranks of the former liberation movement South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) in Namibia. It summarizes the features of Namibia's dominant party state and argues that Namibia is a case of competitive authoritarian rule. Our analysis documents how the first generation of SWAPO activists, in exile after the early 1960s, has since independence in 1990 remained the most influential segment of the former anti-colonial movement. This continuity is personified in the country's third president, Hage Geingob, and parts of his team in cabinet. Despite some gradual and increasingly visible shifts in the composition of SWAPO MPs, the party's first generation has so far remained largely in control of the country's political affairs. Analysing the background of the ministers serving since independence also shows that a second generation of SWAPO activists, in exile after the mid-1970s, gradually expanded their influence and took over leading positions. Given the dominance of SWAPO and the lack of any meaningful political opposition, a new leadership depends on upward inner-party mobility. Given the limited scope for a younger generation to move into higher offices, the strengthening of democracy through new leadership and innovative thinking is very limited. Rather, politics tends to be reproduced through established networks and bonds with a low degree of permissiveness, which reinforces the nature of the competitive authoritarian regime under the control of ‘old men’.

Africa’s leapfrogging information and communication technology development is fueled by mobile broadband. The number of mobile-broadband subscriptions on the continent has increased more than 15 times over the past six years, a growth rate that is three times the global average. However, there are also worrying trends, such as a growing digital divide between men and women, and between urban and rural areas.

Mit dem Ende des Kalten Krieges 1989, der Unabhängigkeit Namibias 1990 und dem Sturz des Apartheidregimes in Südafrika 1994 begann für viele Länder des südlichen Afrikas eine Zeit relativer Stabilität und des politischen Pluralismus. Die Friedensdividende erfüllte jedoch nicht die in sie gesetzten Erwartungen. Der Demokratisierungsprozess der Southern-African-Development-Community-Staaten (SADC) verläuft unübersichtlich; eine Wende hin zu autoritären Tendenzen zeichnet sich bei einigen Mitgliedstaaten ab.

With the end of the cold war, the independence of Namibia in 1990 and the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa in 1994, the Southern African region entered an era of relative political stability and competitive multi-party politics. But the peace dividend proved unable to finance the hopes and promises, and more and more political analysts point to the “mixed bag” of democratisation processes. 

African scholars argue that Africa’s intellectual agenda has largely been set by Euro-American interests and that this reflects former colonial relationships and geopolitical power. They worry that they are being crowded out of setting their own intellectual agenda.

Concerns over Zambia’s public debt, in particular from China have attracted debate on debt sustainability, Chinese loans and the role of the International Monetary Fund.

In opaque and unregulated financial markets, there can be strong incentives for banks to provide loans even when the appropriate guaranties or assessments are lacking. This is part of the Mozambican debt story, according to NAI researchers Navarra and Rodrigues. In this case, the consequences are most likely to be borne by Mozambican people, strongly affecting their living conditions.

Holy water has a central role in shaping the understanding and beliefs of holiness in general, but how does holy water work, and what defines holy water? By analyzing holy water in three different religious traditions—Christianity in Northern Europe, Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, and Hinduism—the aim is to discuss the metaphysical essence of water in human understanding and ideas of holiness embodied in water. On the one hand, holy water represents purity and has to be protected from defilement, but on the other hand, many holy rivers are severely polluted. This seeming paradox will be analyzed by focusing on actual beliefs and uses of holy water in ritual and religious practices. Holy water transmits purity and holiness, but it also transfers, transports, and transforms impurities. In the process of obtaining spiritual purity, devotees may pollute the holy because holy water is believed to have a divine agency. By comparing ritual practices and beliefs in three distinct religious traditions in Europe, Africa, and Asia, it is possible to enhance the understanding of the ways holiness and holy water are perceived to work in cultural-specific religious worldviews based on essential capacities of water cross-culturally. This directs the attention to the structuring mechanisms at work because water is conceptualized and used as holy in remarkably similar ways in many religions.

Death matters and the matters of death are initially, and to a large extent, the decaying flesh of the corpse. Cremation as a ritual practice is the fastest and most optimal way of dissolving the corpse’s flesh, either by annihilation or purification, or a combination. Still, cremation was not the final rite, and the archaeological record testifies that the dead represented a means to other ends – the flesh, and not the least the bones – have been incorporated in a wide range of other ritual contexts. While human sacrifices and cannibalism as ritual phenomena are much discussed in anthropology, archaeology has an advantage, since the actual bone material leaves traces of ritual practices that are unseen and unheard of in the contemporary world. As such, this book fleshes out a broader and more coherent understanding of prehistoric religions and funeral practices in Scandinavia by focusing on cremation, corpses and cannibalism.

Violent political revolt has been common in independent Uganda. For a long time such revolts were exclusively expressed as rural-based rebel groups fighting the government. Since the mid-2000s, however, this seems to have come to an end. Instead, urban riots, very rare in the past, have become much more common. This article analyses the changing patterns of types and location of violent political revolt in Uganda under the National Resistance Movement. It argues that the earlier prevalence of rural rebellions can be explained by the combination of a coercive and militarised state, and weak and ethnically factionalised political forces who took their violent resistance to rural regional bases. Over time, however, government counter-insurgency became more effective and the conditions for insurgency were undermined by withdrawal of external support. Furthermore, the reintroduction of multi-party politics in 2005 opened up new avenues for political expression. The changes to the political system were however more nominal than real in many respects. While the rebel option had become less attractive and feasible, a series of social, economic and political grievances remained which were only partly channelled through party politics. They also found expression through sporadic urban violent revolt.

Multiparty elections have become the bellwether by which all democracies are judged, and the spread of these systems across Africa has been widely hailed as a sign of the continent’s progress towards stability and prosperity. But such elections bring their own challenges, particularly the often intense internecine violence following disputed results.While the consequences of such violence can be profound, undermining the legitimacy of the democratic process and in some cases plunging countries into civil war or renewed dictatorship, little is known about the causes.

By mapping, analysing and comparing instances of election violence in different localities across Africa – including Kenya, Ivory Coast and Uganda – this collection of detailed case studies sheds light on the underlying dynamics and sub-national causes behind electoral conflicts, revealing them to be the result of a complex interplay between democratisation and the older, patronage-based system of ‘Big Man’ politics.

Essential for scholars and policymakers across the social sciences and humanities interested in democratization, peace-keeping and peace studies, Violence in African Elections provides important insights into why some communities prove more prone to electoral violence than others, offering practical suggestions for preventing violence through improved electoral monitoring, voter education, and international assistance.

Post-war democratization has been identified as a crucial mechanism to build peace in war-ridden societies, supposedly allowing belligerents to compete through ballots rather than bullets. A byproduct of this process, however, is that military leaders often become an integral part of the new democratic system, using resources and networks generated from the previous war to dominate the emerging political landscape.

The crucial and thus-far overlooked question to be addressed, therefore, is what effect the inclusion of ex-militaries into electoral politics has on post-war security. Can 'warlord democrats' make a positive contribution by shepherding their wartime constituencies to support the building of peace and democracy, or are they likely to use their electoral platforms to sponsor political violence and keep war-affected communities mobilized through aggressive discourses?

This important volume, containing a wealth of fresh empirical detail and theoretical insight, and focussing on some of Africa's most high-profile political figures – from Paul Kagame to Riek Machar to Afonso Dhlakama – represents a crucial intervention in the literature of post-war democratization.

This article examines the transformations to urban social stratification inAngola during the last decades. The analysis is centered on the indicators of socialdifference throughout these years: the racial criteria of the colonial times; the politicalprecedence in the first years after independence; and the multi-criteria of thepostwar period. Based on research conducted before and after the end of the civilwar in 2002, the article explores the construction and reconfiguration of urban societytoday, providing evidence of increased social mobility—despite the poverty anddeeper inequalities—and of the importance of economic and residential criteria.

The Okavango region is currently part of a transboundary project extending to three neighboringcountries—Angola, Namibia, and Botswana. This article discusses the unequal trajectory and presentconditions for such cross-border cooperation, with a particular focus on Angola. Angola’s disadvantageousposition is above all due to the lasting effects of war that adversely hindered the developmentof structures and resources to engage in such joint programs. The central argument is that theinequalities pose particular challenges to the country to accompany the pace of the neighboringcountries. The article looks at the fragilities focusing on institutional resources, Angolan policy background,existing dedicated institutions, and human resources, as they are major concerns for post-warreconstruction. On the other hand, it poses questions regarding resilience effects on local levellivelihoods and on the future environmental management of the Okavango. This article is based ona literature and documental review and on data from fieldwork where local communities have to relymore heavily on the available natural resources in absence of others.

In São Tomé and Príncipe, both the size of the informal economy and the scope of the mechanisms of organization and representation are little known. A research conducted recently showed that the almost always limited and irregular incomes generated in this sector are also associated with precarity and a lack of social protection mechanisms. While initiatives led by the state and supported by international funders positioned unions as privileged organizations for representing and supporting the workers in this sector, the limited results generated opportunities for the creation of sectoral bottom-up initiatives. The discussion is then focused on the areas addressed by the initiatives of specific sectors and types of activity – taxi and motorbike drivers and money exchangers – comparing the outcomes with those of the unions in terms of increased social protection and representation.