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Oscar Gakuo Mwangi (National University of Lesotho, Roma)
Conflict and Power Struggles in Homogenous States: A Case Study of Lesotho
The Kingdom of Lesotho provides a very interesting scenario when it comes to the question of ethnicity, politics and power. Lesotho is not a multi-ethnic state. It is basically a “single/mono-ethnic state,” consisting primarily of one ethnic or linguistic group, namely the Basotho. Yet despite it being a “mono-ethnic state” Lesotho has similar characteristics to a multi-ethnic state with regard to conflict and power struggles. Since its independence, the country’s political processes and system have been characterized by intense power struggles including violent political conflict. The question therefore becomes: why would Lesotho, a mono-ethnic state have the same characteristics of a multi-ethnic state with regard to power struggles? This paper intends to answer this question by challenging some of the ethnic models of power legitimation in the political practice of contemporary states and quasi-states. It will argue that it is not only multi-ethnic states in developing countries that are prone to conflict or power struggles, as is often pointed out in most the literature dealing with ethnic politics but also in mono-ethnic states, such as Lesotho. The paper points out that other factors, such as religion, clannism, traditionalism and modernity also play a crucial role when it comes to conflict and power struggles in such states. Special reference is given to Lesotho.
Adefemi V. Isumonah (Uiversity of Ibadan, Nigeria)
Ethnic Opposition Politics in Nigeria: A Historical Perspective
Nigeria has passed a long way in ethno-regional struggle for power and resources. In this spoils system, any group that is outside power suffers terribly. Thus, the fear of being in the opposition is the beginning of wisdom. An ethnic or sub-national group must decide whether it will be in the opposition in quest for the state that meets their taste or tow thepragmatist line by playing second fiddle to the group that dominates or is likely to capture power at the centre but will certainly not address issues of concern to it. All except the Hausa-Fulani have complained about the structure and distribution of state power and resources. The main issues to groups that perceive themselves to be marginalized, then, are the regional distribution of political power and personnel in thesecurity forces that are critical to control of power at the centre through 'true' federalism or confederation and the control of economic resources particularly oil resources found in the Niger Delta region inhibited by ethnic minorities. Meanwhile, the centre that was for long dominated by the Hausa-Fulani and now under the presidency of a Yoruba man has remained un-favourably disposed to addressing these issues as in recent times clamoured by southern groups through constitutional changes. The choice of opposition politics means a rejection of affiliation of the group to the political party or alliance with the government dominated by another group that is not likely to address these issues. What is the choice of each group as reflected by its patterns of political affiliation and alliances over the years? Are there groups that fear opposition politics? Who is afraid of opposition politics? What are the implications of fear of opposition politics for the well being of each group and the making of a "progressive" state? What are the costs and benefits of opposition politics? The proposed paper seeks answers to these questions employing a historical method.
Yekutiel Gershoni (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
Tradition in the Service of a Military Regime: The Case of Liberia
The military regime that toppled the Americo-Liberian government on 12 April 1980 set up the goals of forming a modern and free society, and a democratic government as opposed to the authoritarian one-party state established by the Americo-Liberian minority who ruled the country for 133 years. The formation of a new constitution, the establishment of an election commission, and lifting the ban on political activities, seemed to be steps taken in order to fulfill the declared goals. However, the new military rulers, in particular the head of state, Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe, decided, contrary to their previous promises, not to transfer the political rule to a democratically elected civilian government but to remain in power. That decision undermined the legitimization and popularity of the military government. In order to overcome that deficiency, Samuel Doe and his close aids implemented a two-prone policy. The former was a strong dependence on the state machinery and the power of the military in order to win the elections, which took place on 15 October 1985. The latter was heavy reliance on African ritual as a means of regaining legitimization and securing their ruling position. The paper will concentrate on the latter. Relying on official documents, interviews, newspapers and secondary sources, it will describe how sorcery, human sacrifice and other African traditional rituals became an effective means widely used to protect both personal, physical security and political positions of the new military rulers. The paper will analyze the reasons for the effectiveness of these African rituals on the mindset of the political opponents, to the point that the belief that Doe was protected by a metaphysical power prevented the insurgent forces of the National Patriotic Front from storming the Executive Mansion in August 1990 when the civil war erupted.
Fatma Al-Sayegh (The United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain)
The United Arab Emirates: A Model for Multi-ethnic State and Quasi-state
Since its establishment in December 1971, the UAE able to present a unique model of quasi, multiethnic state. Despite the domination of the Arab tribal element on the political structure of the state, the economic structure reflects a different character. The presence of large ethnic communities in the UAE necessitates a certain modification of the political, economic and legal systems to suit the social needs. The UAE political system differs from that of the rest of the Gulf monarchies. The difference lies in the fact that the UAE political system is divided into federal and local levels. This allows each individual emirate the freedom to introduce whatever laws and regulations to suit its developmental needs. As a society, the UAE has proved its ability and viability to foster many ethnic groups that lived side by side with each others and rarely grudged each others privileges. The political system respected the cultural and ethnic diversity and worked hard to promote the idea of a multi-ethnic state. Despite the unique demographic structure of the society in which natives makes a mere 20% of the total population and immigrants made the rest, no ethnic clashes have ever occurred. This could be attributed to the free nature of the society, which is based on trade and entrpot, and also due to the basic character of the UAE’s major city -states like Dubai and Sharjah, which always looked more like cities-states than idependent emirates. It is this historical link, which makes the UAE’s experience really unique. As far economic wealth is concerned, the UAE seemed to have blessed with great natural wealth at the federal level, but on state level, this wealth was not spread evenly among the Emirates. It was concentrated in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. But despite this disadvantage, the attractions of the federation were manifest to all. Due to the rapid development of the UAE basic infrastructure and its great oil wealth, the UAE was able to attract thousands of immigrants from all over the world. With the influx of foreigners and the increasing contents with the outside world, the UAE needed a legal code was required to cover the activities of non-Muslim immigrants. Beside Islam, the Indian Legislature and the Bombay Legislature were used. This study, therefore, is an attempt to explore and analyze the nature of the UAE society, its multiethnic background, and the political system and its efforts at power Legitimation. How the UAE is preserving its identity, and at the same time presenting a cosmopolitan society that appears attractive to many immigrants is the focus of this study. The legal status, which each ethnic group as subject to the law, and the collective rights of these ethnic minorities will also be studied.
Ambrish Dhaka (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India)
Ethno-geopolitics and State Structuration: Yugoslavia and Afghanistan Compared
The paper presents a comparative study of two major disintegrations of statehood as seen from their commonality in creation of statelessness aided by external intervention and concomitant collapse of nationalism among the multi-ethnic societies. How does one recognize a particular processual stage of supra-ethnic consciousness necessarily culminating into a nation-state and then its further dwindling into particularistic and sub-ethnic consciousness? The need to read the organization of community spaces often referred as ethnoscapes is brought forth by these two unique nations- Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. Both the countries saw their full cycle of existence within the geopolitical necessities often changing with the world order. The consolidation and disintegration of state and its associated nationality as an object of study has been primarily gauged though this paper. Yugoslavia was a unique example of transformation from civic political state to multi-ethnic nationhood. Though most of the Eastern Europe countries found their nationalist underpinnings shaky after the collapse of Soviet Union; countries like Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia found their society increasing under duress from ethnicization of socio-political attributes. The political ethnicity engineered to the effect led the break down of state into several newer states whereby ethno-nationalist consciousness determined state structuration. Afghanistan is another state that had large-scale external intervention that led to the collapse of state and governance. Initial differences in ethno-political setup under monarchy had some hierarchy among ethnic groups that was shaken when attempts were made for transformation from ethno-political state to civic-political nation. Both the cases represent stark comparative set up where swing from one end of political ideology to another reflect mutually contracting results. This reveals certain theoretical and synoptic perception on the concept of nation and its “isms” underscored by unique socio-cultural ecumene often ignored alongwith their much important geo-cultural autochthonous units of national life that define themselves within a supra-national life. A nation is like a river basin with a grand base level that controls not only organization of several ethnoscapes and their downstream flows but also at times makes sufficient recuperation for political diastrophism occurring from within or extraneous sources.
Asbed Kotchikian (Cambridge University, UK)
The “(De)Nationalization” of Politics in Georgia
With the breakup of the Soviet Union and the start of independence movements in the South Caucasus in 1989-90, there was a tendency by the leadership to utilize nationalist policies as a means to legitimize their political power. While in Armenia and Azerbaijan the shift of power from Moscow to Yerevan and Baku respectively, occurred in relation to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, in Georgia, nationalist leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia was able to unite most of the Georgians by rallying them around anti-Russian sentiments and by utilizing Georgian national rhetoric. For instance Gamsakhurdia often accused his opponents of treason or involvement with the KGB and being agents of Moscow to justify his clampdown on the opposition. In Georgia, one could observe cycles of nationalization and denationalization in the political rhetoric. Depending on the leadership and on the shifting regional politics the “Georgianization” of domestic and foreign polices witnessed various levels of nationalist manifestations. Thus at the early years of independence, the Gamsakhurdia regime emphasized Georgian ethnic unity against internal (Abkhazia, South Ossetia) and external (Russia) challenges. It was only after the ascension to power of Eduard Shevardnadze that a new policy of denationalization took place in Georgia’s foreign policy. On the domestic front, the nationalist fervor gradually gave way to day-to-day politics (dealing with social and economic issues in the country) thus weakening the existing ethnocentric policies. This having said, it should be noted that the ethnic and nationalist rhetoric is still used by many Georgians during times of elections to rally support and as an alternative source of legitimacy. The proposed paper is an attempt to examine the aforementioned cycles of (de)nationalization policies in Georgia with some comparison with similar polices in its neighboring republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The paper will also examine the use/misuse of ethnic rallying at times of political campaigns and as a tool by opposition forces to gather legitimacy and popular support.
Vassiliy R. Filippov (Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies, Moscow, Russia)
Depolitization of Ethnicity in Russia: Where Lies the Hope?
Boris Yeltsin’s federative policy has some long-term consequences. In the ‘national’ republics of the Russiab Federation there have formed ethnocratic regimes in this or that degree. The ethnic elite keeps to protectionism in regard to the ‘title’ ethnic groups in the field of social, linguistic, cultural, demographic and confessional policy. In the absence of the financial (revenue) inspection on the side of the federal Center, side by side with the privileges in the budget relations and the using of the administrative resources during privatization have brought to the situation in which all the non-deficient branches of industry (first of all extractive industry) have turned out under the ruling families clans control. Vladimir Putin’s regional policy (the vertical power strengthening) allowed, to some extent, to soften the negative consequences of the ‘sovereignty parade’. The changes in the principle of the Federation Chamber formation have lessened the ethnocrats pressure on the Center federative policy, and largely minimized their ability to political consolidation. The formation of the federal regions has increased, to some extent, the Federal Center influence on the ministries and departments of the federal subordination (first of all – on the forces’ departments) in the republics. The changes in the budget relations between the Center and the regions have allowed lessening the level of the budget discrimination of the non-ethnic subjects of the Russian Federation. Bringing to conformity regional and federal legislation made it possible to lessen administrative pressure on the electoral process. Nevertheless, the above-mentioned novelty in the regional policy hasn’t changed the ethnic character of the home model of federalism and hasn’t shaken the ethnocratic foundation in the republics. The republican electorate, numerous and above all being operated on, makes it attractive for the Kremlin to have political unity with ethnocrats; and retaining the resources of the ethnic political mobilization makes it fear a conflict with them. After the elections one can expect the continuation of the federative modernization process. Certain optimism is suggested by the following: the formation of the new political elite in the federal regions; the overcoming of the regional political and economic closeness; an obvious process of ‘washing away’ of the republican property and Russian big business penetrating into the ‘national’ republics. Principally it has become quite possible: to change political and economic elite in the republics; to transfer the budget flows to the federal regions, a practicable status lowering of the ethnic state subjects of the Russian Federation, to level the ethnosocial proportions.
Elena O. Khabenskaya (Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies, Moscow, Russia)
Institualization of Ethnicity in Post-Soviet Russia: Problems and Prospects
“The ethnic revolt” of the early 1990th, “sovereignty parade” of “the national” republics of the Russian Federation, the rise of various ethnopolitical and ethnocultural minorities’ organizations (and of ethnic majority’s – some years later) – all this have brought the authority’s attention to the problem of the optimization of ethnic processes and the choice of ethnic politics basic concepts. Two projects were debated as alternatives: conservation of the principle of the ethnic-state self-determination or transition towards ethnocultural self-determination of individuals through the institution of ethno-cultural autonomy (ECA). With the extreme points of view on ‘the national question’ existing in the society (from the idea of the successive sovereignization of the "national" republics to the conception of the administrative and territorial division) there was suggested and succeeded the conception of ‘not instead but together’. Side by side with the "national" republics it was proposed that an institution for the national cultural autonomy should be created in order to provide all round ethnocultural development of ethnic diasporas, ethnic dispersed groups, and "non-title" ethnic minorities. This point of view was legitimized in 1996 in the Federal Law “On ethnocultural autonomy” which adoption hasn’t influenced either ethnocultural or ethnopolitical processes. The institution of ECA proved to be unable to make ethnic situation quieter in the country. In fact, it appeared to be not as much in necessity for the ethnocultural movement and its leaders (many of which considered it unnecessary to transform their associations into national cultural autonomy) as convenient for the regional authorities. The dialogue with the formal ECA leaders was just an outward show of an alleged effective ethnic policy. Retaining ‘national” republics in the Russian Federation structure, social privileges for the ‘title’ ethnic groups and discrimination of the ‘non-title’ groups of the population – all this remains a conflict provoking factor in Russia. As a result the rhetoric of the current election campaign clearly demonstrates the growing of the Russian Orthodox and russophilic motives in the slogans of a number of popular political parties and blocks. It’s obvious that unless a principally new conception of ethnic policy is formulated in the nearest future and unless the authority’s attention is transferred from the ethnocultural to the ethnopolitical and ethnosocial spheres, Russia might be plunged into recent interethnic conflicts.
Alexey G. Lutskiy (Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies,
Moscow, Russia)