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Publications (25)
This special issue introduction provides a historical perspective in order to contextualize the political economy of Africa’s emergent middle class. In doing so, three overarching research questions are discussed to better understand the middle class’ transformative potential. First, who constitute...
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– A Harbinger of Political Change?
South Africa has seen a significant increase in the size of the black middle class in the post-apartheid period, but the attitudinal consequences of indicators of the middle class, as of 2011, are inconsistent and modest in size. While members of the middle class are no more likely to hold...
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– Implications for Food System Transformation
We examine the implications of the rise of a middle class in East and Southern Africa for food consumption patterns and the food system. A unique classification of food items shows that highly processed food has one-third of the purchased food market, with comparable shares in rural and urban areas...
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– The Middle Class, Private Sector and Economic Outcomes in Africa
Political scientists have generally seen two key features of African political economies—a relatively small or absent middle class, and a middle class that is unusually embedded in the state—as key explanations of the troubled political and economic trajectories of many African societies. This paper...
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– Evidence from Kenya
Barrington Moore’s famous line ‘no bourgeoisie, no democracy’ is one of the most quoted claims in political science. But has the rise of the African middle class promoted democratic consolidation? This paper uses the case of Kenya to investigate the attitudes and behaviours of the middle class...
– Going Beyond Greed versus Grievance
Recent years have seen a surge of research into the causes of conflict together with its development effects, as well as the design of peace initiatives, peace-keeping and programmes of reconstruction, reconciliation and democratization in ‘post-conflict’ societies. This research deals with a highly...
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We argue that the conflicts in the Caucasus are the result of the abrogation by the elite of the earlier, Soviet era, social contract. This process was accompanied by the collapse of the formal economy; evidenced by huge national income compression, falling public goods provision, and growing...
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– The Regional Dimensions
Contemporary Africa reveals a range of causes, consequences and responses to conflicts which are increasingly interrelated as well as regional in character, as around the Great Lakes/Horn. Their economic and non-state features are undeniable, leading to some promising possibilities in terms of...
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– Economic Development, Public Policy and Conflict Containment
Conflicts within the Malaysian federation have been rooted in socio-economic disparities and the struggle for control of natural resource rents, which State Governments previously had exclusive control over, as originally provided for by the federal constitution. The advance of fiscal centralization...
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– The Collapse of the Oslo Accord
Since October 2000 Israel and the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have become entangled in a bloody confrontation. This paper focuses on the economic relationship between the Israeli economy and the Palestinian economy of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the ways in which this has...
Previous UNU-WIDER research has shown that the risk of internal conflict is high in low-income societies rich in natural resources and characterised by ethnic fragmentation. Yet for each country in conflict there are many others with similar characteristics that are at peace. Understanding why some...
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This paper discusses some of the principal issues relating to the reconstruction of the financial sector in conflict-affected countries, focusing on currency reform, the rebuilding (or creation) of central banks, the revitalization of the banking system, and its prudential supervision and regulation...
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– the Role of Corruption in Conflicts
Corruption is endogenous to many political structures and serves key functions beyond the self-interest of public officials and politicians. Like violence, corruption participates in political ordering and, although corruption may in itself play a corrosive role on economies and rule-based...
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– Rethinking “Transition” in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union
Informal systems of relationships may be the most appropriate unit of analysis for understanding the patterns of development of many aspects of corruption, organized crime, markets, and the state. The lack of attention to informal systems can produce unanticipated and undesired outcomes in reform...
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Of the 41 HIPCs, 11 are classified by the IMF and World Bank as conflict-affected. Can debt relief reduce the level of violent conflict in these countries? By providing additional resources to finance broad-based public spending, debt relief could help to redress the grievances that contribute to...
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Warlords compete for turf that provides them with rents and ‘taxable’ resources but they can also offer a semblance of security within their respective territories. This article first examines two economic models of warlord competition. Because such competition takes place through the use of force...
Displaying 16 of 25 results