Transition without Rupture: Sierra Leone's Transfer Election of 1996

Kandeh, Jimmy D.

doi:10.2307/524828

Cited by 13 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The democratic reforms initiated during the Betancur government (1982–1986) entailed the opening of the political space for previously excluded groups; the formation of new political parties, including those set up by former guerrillas; the expansion of local elections (Pardo, 2002); amnesty for political prisoners; and “dialogue among all key political actors (including representatives of the nation's guerrilla movements) and the establishment of ground rules for participation and democratic opposition” (Chernick, 1988: 53–54). Most strikingly, the Betancur government acknowledged past errors of the Colombian state and recognized that the lack of opportunities for political participation, poverty, inequality and injustice created an environment within which insurgents groups emerged and challenged the state (Kline, 1999; Pardo, 2002). As put by Pardo (2002: 3–4), “the Betancur government's search for peace could thus be seen as a kind of act of contrition by an establishment that recognized its errors, partially embraced the guerrillas’ concerns, and clearly demonstrated its willingness to make amends”.…”

Section: Democratization and The Willingness To Negotiatementioning

confidence: 99%

Democratization as an impetus for peace talks in civil wars

Arı

2022

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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Costs associated with recognizing an internal armed challenger as a legitimate bargaining partner deter governments from initiating peace talks. Yet peaceful termination of conflict requires formal negotiations between the belligerents. This article presents evidence that democratic reforms provide a window of opportunity for peace talks. Democratic reforms represent an opportunity to break away from the past policies of the state and render the conflict as an artifact of the preceding authoritarian institutions. The article contributes to the research field by enhancing our ability to predict negotiations. It also highlights that democratic reforms can be undertaken during an ongoing civil conflict.

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Section: Democratization and The Willingness To Negotiatementioning

confidence: 99%

Democratization as an impetus for peace talks in civil wars

Arı

2022

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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“…The APC also recruited marginalized (mostly urban) youth as professional thugs. Kandeh (1998), for instance, has noted how political elites before the war had taken advantage (and fostered the growth) of a class of urban "lumpen youth" as a cheap source of coercive power : "APC violence and thuggery relied almost exclusively on the recruitment of urban thugs and rural drifters. As Ismail Rashid (1997) points out, most of the thugs recruited by APC patrons in the 1960s and 70s came from peri-urban enclaves like Sawpit, Magazine and Kannikay -all in Freetown" (p. 359).…”

Section: Indirect Rule and State Weaknessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indirect Rule and State Weakness in Africa: Sierra Leone in Comparative Perspective

Acemoğlu¹,

Chaves²,

Osafo-Kwaako³

et al. 2014

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A fundamental problem for economic development is that most poor countries have 'weak state' which are incapable or unwilling to provide basic public goods such as law enforcement, order, education and infrastructure. In Africa this is often attributed to the persistence of 'indirect rule' from the colonial period. In this paper we discuss the ways in which a state constructed on the basis of indirect rule is weak and the mechanisms via which this has persisted since independence in Sierra Leone. We also present a hypothesis as to why the extent to which indirect rule has persisted varies greatly within Africa, linking it to the presence or the absence of large centralized pre-colonial polities within modern countries. Countries which had such a polity, such as Ghana and Uganda, tended to abolish indirect rule since it excessively empowered traditional rulers at the expense of post-colonial elites. Our argument provides a new mechanism which can explain the positive correlation between pre-colonial political centralization and modern public goods and development outcomes.

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“…Equally, the final results suffered from revelations of over-voting -where there are greater than 100% turnouts -particularly in the south and east where the new SLPP government and president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, drew much of their support. The 70% landslide for the Kabbah government in 2002 emerged when the party took rather undeserved credit for the culmination of the war, but the problems of over-voting and violence continued and the considerable advantages of incumbency were evident (Harris 2011, 94-103;Kandeh 1998).…”

Section: A Short History Of Elections In Sierra Leonementioning

confidence: 99%

Swings and roundabouts: the vagaries of democratic consolidation and ‘electoral rituals’ in Sierra Leone

Conteh

Harris

2014

Critical African Studies

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The history of the electoral process in Sierra Leone is at the same time tortuous and substantial. From relatively open competitive multi-party politics in the 1960s, which led to the first turnover of power at the ballot box, through the de facto and de jure one-party era, which nonetheless had elements of electoral competition, and finally to contemporary post-conflict times, which has seen three elections and a second electoral turnover in 2007, one can discern evolving patterns. Evidence from the latest local and national elections in 2012 suggests that there is some democratic consolidation, at least in an electoral sense. However, one might also see simultaneous steps forward and steps backward-'What you gain on the swings, you may lose on the roundabouts'. This is particularly so in terms of institutional capacities, fraud and violence and one would need to enquire of the precise ingredients-in terms of political culture or in other words the attitudes and motivations of electors and the elected-of this evolving Sierra Leonean, rather than specifically liberal type, of democracy. Equally, the development of 'electoral rituals', whether peculiar to Sierra Leone or not and whether deemed as consolidatory or not, has something to say as part of an investigation into the electoral element of democratic consolidation. i The literature on elections in Africa most often depicts a number of broad features, such as patronage, ethno-regionalism, fraud and violence, and it is the intention of this article to locate contemporary Sierra Leone, as precisely as possible, within the various strands of this discourse. Notions of democratisation, democracy and elections in Africa Cold War era modernising thinkers told us that a level of economic, educational and class development is necessary for substantive democratisation to occur-and it is only with post-Cold War liberal thinking that the cart and the horse have been switched round and it is considered that democracy can deliver development (for democracy following development, see Lipset [1960] and Moore [1966]; and for the inverse, see World Bank

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Transition without Rupture: Sierra Leone's Transfer Election of 1996

Cited by 13 publications

References 15 publications

Democratization as an impetus for peace talks in civil wars

Democratization as an impetus for peace talks in civil wars

Indirect Rule and State Weakness in Africa: Sierra Leone in Comparative Perspective

Swings and roundabouts: the vagaries of democratic consolidation and ‘electoral rituals’ in Sierra Leone

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