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Foresight Papers
Civil Wars and State Formation: Violence and the Politics of Legitimacy in Angola, Côte d’Ivoire and South Sudan
Civil wars destroy existing political orders, shape new ones, and play crucial roles in the dynamics of state formation. This working paper is based on a 2-year research project reflecting on the social construction of order and legitimacy during and…
Journal Article
Maintenance Space: The Political Authority of Garbage in Kampala, Uganda
In the name of cleaning up Kampala’s political institutions and public space, the Kampala Cap ital City Authority (KCCA), was established in 2010. To legitimize its contested and explicitly antipolitical authority, it made garbage collection and beautification its top priority,…
Background Reports
Crisis Responses, Opportunity and Public Authority during Covid‐19’s First Wave in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan
Discussions on African responses to Covid-19 have focused on the state and its international backers. Far less is known about a wider range of public authorities, including chiefs, humanitarians, criminal gangs, and armed groups. This paper investigates how the pandemic…
Background Reports
Competing Networks and Political Order in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A Literature Review on the Logics of Public Authority and International Intervention
This CRP synthesis paper presents an overview of shifting dominant narratives on the Congo wars and the major findings of a systematic qualitative literature search on conflict and violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in relation to the…
Journal Article
Vigilantes, Witches and Vampires: How Moral Populism Shapes Social Accountability in Northern Uganda
Strange murders have occurred in northern Uganda. Blood is said to have been removed from the victims, and there are tales about child sacrifice and terrifying witchcraft. An ‘election’ was organised to select the culprit, known as ‘Mr Red’, and…
Journal Article
Authority that is customary: Kitawala, customary chiefs, and the plurality of power in Congolese history
This paper uses the history of the religious/healing movement Kitawala in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a lens to explore the relationship between forms of state-sanctioned “customary” authority and alternative nodes of “authority that is customary.” Focusing on three…
Journal Article
Courses au pouvoir: the struggle over customary capital in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
This article analyses the production and reproduction of traditional chieftaincy in war-torn eastern DRC through the case of a succession dispute in Kalima (South Kivu). Kalima has seen two decades of political instability and violent conflict involving numerous local, national…
Background Reports
Indirect Rule in Armed Conflict: Theoretical Insights from Eastern DRC
Building on the analogy between armed factions in contemporary conflict settings and states in the making, this paper explores the conditions under which indirect rule emerges in contexts of armed conflict, and the consequences that this governance arrangement has on…
Journal Article
Maternal Vaccination in Uganda: Exploring Pregnant Women, Community Leaders and Healthcare Workers’ Perceptions
This research used qualitative methods to explore pregnant women, community leaders, healthcare workers, and programme managers’ perceptions of maternal vaccination in Kampala, Uganda. The authors found that public health messaging should target all community members, including partners and parents of…
Blog
In Uganda memories of Ebola spur resistance to COVID-19 public health efforts
Responses to COVID-19 vary across Uganda, with northern regions seeing resistance to public health efforts to enforce quarantine. For some communities the location of isolation and treatment centres, in particular, has caused public outrage, reviving memories of the 2000 Ebola…
Blog
When ‘a People’s War’ Turns Against Them: Reflections on Uganda’s ‘War of the Wananchi’ against COVID-19
With the incumbent President facing a critical election in early 2021, the truths over COVID-19 in Uganda became highly contested, as measures announced in the name of the people against COVID-19 began to double as interventions against the spread of…
Journal Article
COVID-19, Public Authority and Enforcement
The securitization of health is not a new phenomenon. However, global responses to the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa reveal the extent to which epidemic preparedness and response is now shaped by geopolitical concerns. This commentary describes how enforcement…
