Traditional Political Institutions in sub-Saharan Africa: Endangering or Promoting Stable Domestic Peace?

Projektleiterin: Prof. Dr. Katharina Holzinger
In Zusammenarbeit mit Florian Kern und Daniela Kromrey
Lehrstuhl für Internationale Politik und Konfliktforschung, Universität Konstanz

http://www.polver.uni-konstanz.de/holzinger/forschung/drittmittelprojekte/traditional-institutions-in-sub-saharan-africa/

Zusammenfassung:

Viele afrikanische Länder sind noch immer durch anhaltende Instabilität, ausgeprägteDemokratiedefizite und wirtschaftliche Ineffizienz geprägt. In verschiedenen, wissenschaftlichen Ursachen- und Lösungsmodellen wird die Rolle traditioneller, politischer Institutionen dabei kaum beachtet. Die Bedeutung traditioneller Institutionen ist jedoch seit den 1990er Jahren, zeitgleich mit der Anzahl innerstaatlicher Konflikte, zunehmend gestiegen, wie die Studien des Afrobarometers und traditionelle Konfliktlösungsansätze in den Gacaca-Gerichten in Ruanda und in der südafrikanischen Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommission beispielhaft aufzeigen. Ziel des Forschungsprojekts ist es, systematische und umfassende Erkenntnisse über die Auswirkungen traditioneller, politischer Institutionen auf den inneren Frieden in den Ländern Sub-Sahara Afrika zu liefern.
Es sind grundsätzlich zwei Kausalpfade denkbar: sowohl eine befriedende als auch eine Konflikt generierende Wirkung traditionaler Institutionen ist möglich. Zentral für die Untersuchung ist dabei die systemische Verschiedenheit der staatlichen und der traditionellen Systemebenen voneinander, als auch deren formalrechtliche und informelle Interaktion. Führt die Koexistenz von tendenziell hierarchisch organisierten, traditionalen Subsystemen innerhalb eines demokratischen Staates zu Spannungen, die sich auch gewalttätig entladen können? Begünstigt eine formale Integration von traditionellen, politischen Institutionen eine friedvolle Gesellschaft? Oder ergeben sich durch die formale Interaktion konkurrierende Kompetenzbereiche?
Zur Beantwortung der Fragestellung wird eine qualitative, vergleichende Feldstudie durchgeführt. Die vier ausgewählten Fallbeispiele Nigeria, Namibia, Tansania und Uganda unterscheiden sich nicht nur bezüglich der abhängigen Variable des inneren Friedens, sondern zeigen zudem verschiedene formalrechtliche Integrationsmuster der inhärenten traditionalen Institutionen auf. So sind nur in Uganda und Namibia traditionelle Institutionen verfassungsrechtlich verankert. Dem Staatssystem ähnliche traditionelle Systeme finden sich nur in Tansania und Uganda wider, während in Nigeria und Namibia eine größere strukturelle Differenz besteht. Die Fallauswahl strebt gezielt die Abdeckung einer größtmöglichen Divergenz der beeinflussenden Faktoren an und wird dadurch auch dem explorativen Charakter des Forschungsprojektes gerecht.
In jedem der vier Länderwerden wir in einem ersten Schritt die verfassungs- und verwaltungsrechtliche Verankerung traditioneller politischer Institutionen erfassen. Danach sollen die staatlichen und traditionellen Systeme durch die Generierung einer gemeinsamen Typologie vergleichbar gemacht werden. Drittens soll das tatsächliche Ausmaß der Relevanz und des Einflusses traditioneller Akteure vor allem auf der lokalen Ebene evaluiert und erklärt werden. Diese Vorarbeiten werden in einem letzten Schritt dazu dienen die Interaktionsmodi (Konkurrenz, Kooptierung und Kooperation) zwischen den staatlichen und traditionellen Institutionen zu analysieren und auf deren Konflikt auslösenden oder hemmenden Wirkungen zu schließen.
Diese umfassende Analyse der Kausalmechanismen zwischen traditionellen und staatlichen Systemen und der resultierenden Effekte auf die Stabilität und Gestalt des inneren Friedens ist angesichts der hohen Konfliktneigung afrikanischer Ländern von hoher praktisch-politischer Bedeutung. Die Ergebnisse des Projektes versprechen daher einen neuartigen Erklärungsbeitrag zu den Problemen sub-Sahara Afrikas zu leisten.

Abstract

Most African countries suffer from three interdependent problems: lack of economic development, lack of democracy and personal freedom, and lack of domestic peace, up to the level of state failure. In post-colonial times, many efforts were undertaken to foster economic development, from both inside and outside Africa, but with far less success than in Asia or Latin America. Similarly, we seemed to witness a "third wave of democratisation". However, many of the new African democracies collapsed and fell back into authoritarianism and dictatorship. Finally, after the liberation wars of the 1960s, Africa experienced a great many inter- but even more intra-state wars. During the 1990s in particular, there was a rise in the number of civil wars and violent conflicts. Many explanations for either one of the three problems have been proposed, such as the history of colonialism, the climate, lack of resources, patronage systems, corruption, the rentier state, neo-patrimonialism, poverty, ethnic diversity, the resource curse, greed and grievances, and so on.
There is one factor, however, that is still remarkably under-researched, namely the traditional political institutions of African societies. The so-called traditional leaders, courts and authorities still play an important role in Africa and these forms of governance affect large parts of the population. The Afrobarometer surveys, as well as some prominent examples, such as the Gacaca courts in Rwanda or Ubuntu principles in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, indicate that traditional political and juridical institutions even seem to gain momentum. Research interest in these traditional institutions has consequently grown in the social sciences, whereas in earlier times indigenous African societies and their rules were the subjects of ethnologists and legal anthropologists. In particular, there are now studies of the potential traditional practises have for the resolution of conflict or in transitional justice.
However, an analytical line has not yet been drawn from the traditional political institutions to Africa’s big challenges, although it seems more than plausible that the widespread practise of these rules and customs will affect both the economy and the state. There have been no systematic attempts to analyse the relationship between traditional political institutions and democracy, nor its influence on peace and conflict. We thus suggest an innovative approach in peace research by introducing a traditional institutions perspective.
Focussing on peace and conflict, it is the aim of this project to generate systematic and deeper knowledge about the effects of traditional political institutions on domestic peace. Does the presence and practise of traditional governance contribute to domestic peace or does it rather stir conflict between indigenous communities and the state? More specifically: To what extent does the formal integration of traditional practises into the political and legal system of a country enable a peaceful social life? What is the effect of the informal interactions between state and traditional institutions? Does the coexistence of such different political institutions as democracy (or autocracy) at the state level and the various traditional institutions at the community level endanger a peaceful living-together? Is the similarity or dissimilarity of the respective institutions at both levels important when it comes to the question whether the co-existence is a more peaceful or more conflict-ridden one?
As the state of research is not yet far developed in this respect, the project has necessarily a somewhat exploratory character. We aim at answering the above questions with the help of a comparative case study design. Four countries shall be analysed which show variation on four important variables in our research design: Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and Namibia.
The main two variables according to which these countries have been selected are the formal integration of traditional institutions into constitutional or state law, one the one hand, and the dependant variable of the study, domestic peace, on the other. Uganda and Namibia show both a high level of formal integration, but in Uganda domestic peace seems endangered, which is not the case in Namibia. Nigeria and Tanzania have their traditional institutions not formally integrated, but again, Nigeria exhibits inner conflict, whereas Tanzania does not. Moreover, in order to learn something about the difficulty of co-existence of similar or dissimilar institutions at state and community level, we strive for variance with respect to the types of traditional political institutions. Finally, the significance of traditional institutions for the population varies over these countries: according to the Afrobarometer it is high in Uganda, low in Tanzania, and ranks average in Nigeria and Namibia. We distinguish four types: age set and village kinship (consensus systems) and absolute and restrained chief systems. In two countries we find important traditional institutions that are similar to the state system (Tanzania, Uganda), whereas in the others dissimilarity prevails (Namibia, Nigeria).
In each country we will in a first step analyse the formal integration of traditional institutions by observing international agreements on indigenous rights ratified, constitutions and national administrative law. It will be important whether and which legal rules govern traditional institutions at the decentralised level (mostly local). Second, the similarity and dissimilarity of state and traditional institutions has to be analysed in more detail. In a third step we strive to find out to what extent traditional institutions are actually practised – by which share of the population and in which intensity. Fourth, and most importantly, we inquire the interaction between traditional and state institutions at the central and local level with a view to the degree to which it causes conflict or supports peaceful cooperation. This serves also to find out what happens beyond formal integration rules.
Methodologically, we rely on the analysis of law and other official documents in the first step. For the other steps we plan to do interviews with state representatives on the one hand and representatives of traditional institutions on the other. This includes both the central level (the executive and/or parliamentarians, justices, chiefs) and the local level (local administrations, chiefs, population). At the local level we will select groups that represent different types of traditional governance and are both relevant in terms of population size and political significance.