Out of Office

This post is bittersweet.

I'm going to be shutting down my blogging - which has obviously suffered over the past few weeks - for a while. Simply put, I thought I could maintain my 'day job,' my personal research, and my blogging all while preparing for my wedding in early June. I have finally come to accept that this is impossible, and it's clear that the unfortunate victim is maintaining this site.

So other than one update (this week I should have a new article in Think Africa Press, which I'll post here), it's goodbye for at least five weeks.

Metaphors and Miracles in Ondo

When non-Pentecostals talk about charismatic Christianity, the tendency is to assume that belief in intercession and the like is metaphorical. This is particularly so when Westerners are looking at Africa. In my limited study of religion in Nigeria, I've come across quite a few statements to the effect of "they cannot possibly believe..." or "they say this, but it's actually a reaction to material conditions" such as poverty.

While society, the economy, politics, etc help bring about changes in religious thinking, it's wrong to blow this wide open into a determinative relationship, whereby charismatism is essentially angst and the vocalization of such beliefs a sort of coded language. Once again, in Ruth Marshall's words:

The central problem in analyses that rely upon an interpretation of symbolic, metaphoric, or metonymical discourses and practices is that the relationship relies upon treating practice as a text, and establishing between practice and its interpretation a relationship of intertextuality… To say that religion and witchcraft speak about material processes is one thing… But to assert that religion and other forms of spirituality have these processes as their object, and to imply that the precise form they take can be understood from an apprehension of these processes themselves is to assert something altogether different, something for which the evidence is invariably lacking… The argument that sees religious and spiritual practices principally as local interpretations or resistances to destabilizing global forces operates on tacit assumptions that still consider religion as performing a second-order process of adjustment.

This understanding makes for a much more accurate reading of such cases as cropped up in Vanguard last week, with "The Lazarus Miracle in Akure: How 67-Year Old [sic] Grandma Resurrected After 12 Days."

[T]his is the story of Mama Victoria Gbemisola Babatunde (née Bolarinwa) who was certified dead on January 7, this year but is now back to life, hale and hearty.

She would have been buried almost immediately she was certified dead.

But something delayed the burial: The nationwide strike against the removal of fuel subsidy made it impossible for the children to gather to arrange her burial.

A date was eventually fixed and the children were on their way for the burial when they learnt that she had resurrected!

There's certainly a political aspect to this, highlighted by the democratic power of protest against the removal of the fuel subsidy, but it clearly cannot be read as just a veiled social critique.

"I Was Tortured at the Hands of Those Goons"

After a very interesting twitter debate with Jeremy Weate over Nigerians' belief in the 'prosperity gospel', I had planned on doing a write-up of the complex issues of cognitive biases, this-worldly versus other-worldly agency in the public sphere, and gullibility among charismatics. That post will have to wait until later this week.

Stories coming out of Uganda indicate that the FDC Women's League leader, Ingrid Turinawe, was making her way to a protest when she was arrested and abused by the police. Worse, it appears that the violence had heavy sexual overtones:

To my surprise, as I followed the mayors, police again blocked me and demanded that I come out of the car. They began pulling me out of the car while pressing my breasts...

They overpowered me and dragged me into their tinted van. What was shown or captured on camera was minimal because there were men in that van, they pulled my hands from the back and pressed my breasts and pierced me in the feet while taking me to Kawempe Police Station. I even lost a nail.

These are particularly shocking claims. Unfortunately for the police, the evidence seems to show that the violence was even worse than she describes: the pictures of the "pressing" don't make for easy viewing. "Wrenching" might be more appropriate.

Beyond the matter of flagrant illegality, this incident carries political import. Unsurprisingly, this turn of events has angered most Ugandans and particularly women, who - if twitter and the blogosphere are anything to go by - see this as just another case of governmental impunity and abuse. More specifically, it says that the regime is willing to violate a woman's dignity (and physical wellbeing) just to serve quotidian political ends. State security has apparently grown to such importance that individual security is negligible, even if only to silence (literally) everyday protests. Today, bras exposed and carrying placards, about 15 women protested in front of the local police station. Six were arrested.

What's interesting is that this outrage is not sparked by continued spending on military technology amid infrastructural decay. It is not over an election that saw the NRM hand out cash to voters and party officials in such large quantities that the economy is still suffering from the sudden liquidity one year later. It is not from the extrajudicial killings and torture at Luzira. To be sure, all of these certainly don't go over well. But the sheer brutality of the assault, the insignificance of the act that sparked it, and the fact that the attack was specifically designed to humiliate one of the country's foremost female opposition voices -- all make this a potential turning point.

Over at Africa is a Country, Dan Moshenberg compares this affair to events in Mali and Malawi, noting the role of women in both regime changes. This may be overreaching, as he admits. But the salient point is that such events, while seemingly wilting in comparison to the same elite's worst abuses, often stand out. The Arab Spring, we are constantly reminded, was sparked not by Mubarak's incomprehensible corruption, nor by basically anything from Qaddafi's four-decade rule, nor by patriarchy, patrimony, or human rights abuses in general. It was a Tunisian street vendor's self-immolation, a result of humiliation inflicted by a low-level agent of state authority, that set in motion the long-festering forces for change.

Museveni is an intelligent man with a long history of working his way out of seeming crises, so I've no reason to believe this won't blow over quickly. The BBC reports that the police have apologized and opened an inquiry. Yet the violence against Turinawe could be a game-changer. The majority condemn the attack; most, the institution; and many, the regime.

This, as much as anything in the last year, could be the last nail in the regime's coffin.

A Comparativist's Challenge

Independence in Tanzania presented a particular challenge for the legal system, as customary, Islamic, and common law all needed merging. Infrastructure was poor, and the country had a relatively undeveloped bar association and legal literature. Yet today the judicature is effective and widely perceived as legitimate, and it exercises a large measure of restraint over the other branches of government.

Meanwhile, in Uganda, a relatively smaller Muslim population (today at 10-15%, compared to 35% in Tanzania) made such challenges slightly easier to overcome. Despite this advantage, the same pressures that were exerted on the judiciaries across Africa, and particularly in former British colonies, weighed too heavily on the institution, causing judicial independence and effectiveness to collapse. Following Museveni's ascent to power, Uganda's judges once more regained their ability to operate relatively insulated from political and interpersonal pressures, but have been mostly incapable of constraining the NRM.

Finally, the Nigerian story is well known. A particularly pluralist society, the country carved out distinct spheres for Islamic, customary, and common law as elsewhere in newly-independent Africa, yet never failed to break away from - or exercise power over - political interests. This, despite one of the best-developed legal literatures on the continent and a wealth of talented legal minds.

So why the divergent paths? Widner, for one, thinks that personal dispositions of leaders has a lot to do with it. I think that's true to an extent; it's hard to argue that the differing personalities and goals of Nyerere, Amin, and Buhari (for instance) were immaterial.

The explanation must go further than this. I'm just starting to think about it, so I'm open to suggestions. At first blush, I'm not sure simply "pluralism" or "religion" can explain away differences across the former British Africa, despite the temptation to chalk up Nigerian failure to the country's faith-based conflict. A second option would be the difference between one-party and multiparty states, but this runs the risk of breaking down if we accept a crude dichotomy and try to make it fit across the continent. Third, we could say that the varying institutional settings and legal principles dictated the course of judicial development, but it's also hard to make this case when all three countries were grounded in common law, and a particularly British conception at that, all relying on the same bastardized, England-by-way-of-India magistrate system. A fourth possibility would be the role of global politics, particularly the Cold War context, as dictating the challenges and opportunities each country faced and thus the direction it took; all, however, were in similar positions vis-a-vis the West and the Soviet Union. Finally, we could just accept it as historical accident that these countries enjoyed different levels of legal success. But this leaves us with no idea as to how to pursue effective judicial reform.

My hunch is (lamely) that it was a mix of such factors, as well as others, of which I haven't yet thought. Institutional paths do diverge as each country makes good, or misses, the narrow opportunities for reform. Prudential leadership that recognizes these chances and drafts good policy is key. But without a political environment that allows such proposals to be implemented, it's all for naught. This is where the state-party and international systems come in. Accident and happenstance round out the process: small differences - single sentences, at times - can make or break a particular bill in limiting police powers or increasing governmental accountability. Over time, these cross-country differences snowball into the divergent results we see today.

But I'm sure there is at least one book project lurking in these questions.

An E-Book Well Worth Your $2.99

Rarely do I post just to link to online resources, but I have to pass on Beyond Kony 2012, an e-book edited by Amanda Taub of Wronging Rights. Contributors include Teddy Ruge, Adam Branch, Laura Seay, Alanna Shaikh, Daniel Kalinaki, and others. If you haven't already heard, it's a pay-what-you-want system, so the book is actually available for free (with a recommended price of $2.99).

Also, today I was directed to "Making Sense of Kony," a site that pulls together academics working on Northern Uganda. Its purpose is to pass on information and scholarship dealing with the political economy of the region and the LRA. It includes many of the contributors to the e-book, as well as familiar faces such as Mareike Schomerus, Chris Blattman, Alex de Waal, and Tim Allen. It is also worth your time.

Enjoy.

While I Was Out

I took a week off from blogging to sort out some personal work. Here's a few notes from the time I've been gone.

Former Nigerian governor James Ibori has been sentenced to 13 years for money laundering. Most interesting to me, as Alex Thurston points out, is that his defense was entirely political, essentially just the claim that "I helped my state, so what I took was deserved." Rarely do we get such an unalloyed sample of what legitimacy and authority mean for the Nigerian political elite. The job is one of balancing inclusion and exclusion from economic resources: Ibori thinks he was fair in recompensing himself and his close associates because he paired self-enrichment with (what basically amounts to) patronage and pork-barrel spending.

In Rwanda, Victoire Ingabire has decided to stop attending her trial, essentially announcing that she doesn't believe the court capable of delivering justice as a result of undue political influence. She's almost certainly right. Just this week, the bench rejected her petition to review the Genocide Ideology law because she didn't attach a copy of the law itself to the plea. This, besides the fact that the law was enacted in 2008 and the crimes of which she is accused allegedly occurred in 2007. So even if Ingabire is guilty of collaboration with the FDLR (which I must admit I find hard to believe), it is clear that the case is proceeding without any respect for justice.

That said, while I agree with her assessment that the court is sliding toward kangaroo status, I don't think much will come out of her refusal to attend. Whatever verdict results, Ingabire won't (as I suspect she intends or hopes) become a martyr for oppression in Rwanda. The government is too secure, both domestically and internationally. It won't be an Aung San Suu Kyi situation.

Meanwhile, Ugandan MPs are trying to reinstate term limits. This is actually one move I think may be worthwhile. Unlike the impeachment of Museveni that they sought last month, limits on presidential tenure are feasible - particularly if the opposition is willing to negotiate with NRM parliamentarians and indeed Museveni himself. It would be a definite improvement if, for instance, these MPs agreed to instate a two-term limit, starting now, allowing M7 to contest 2016 but guaranteeing his exit by 2021. That's a long way off, and the man may be long gone from office by then, but the legacy of the bargain - institutionalized controls on the presidency - may be worth the concession. In any case, it'll be interesting to see if this is another opposition stunt or a genuine effort to drum up enough votes to change the law.

Finally, from the DRC: Tshi Tshi has formed a new coalition, the MPP, after the UDPS dismissed the elected MPs who took up office against his will - fully 33 of the 41 who won a seat for the party. Meanwhile, in the east, Amani Leo has been suspended, while it appears the FARDC defections have been brought under control; the net result has been a tightening of Bosco Ntaganda's breathing space. I have to say, I am impressed with how tidily the government was able to resolve this potentially destabilizing turn of events. Still, the problem is essentially the same, as Jason Stearns argues: the FARDC will keep within its long history of predation and fragmentation so long as soldiers are used as agents of higher-ranking officers' extralegal commercial enterprises.

Institutions Matter! We Just Don't Know Why.

Recently, there's been a bit of debate over the blogosphere surrounding the Acemoglu and Robinson's new book, Why Nations Fail. After giving it a broadly positive review, Matt Yglesias described a "niggling concern":

So that's the story. To get rich you need to either land on a bunch of oil (Qatar) or else have the kind of inclusive institutions that allow for "creative destruction" and widespread opportunity. They don't deny that countries with extractive institutions (the Soviet Union in the 1950s, China in the 2000s) can grow rapidly, but this kind of extractive growth isn't sustainable.

I don't disagree with any of that, but I have some qualms with the idea that this properly defines the difference between the nations that are failing and the ones that aren't. As detailed in the book, Colombia doesn't have good institutions and this helps explain why its GDP per capita is $10,000 while Sweden's is $40,000. On the other hand, Colombia's $10,000 is way better than Syria's $5,000 or Yemen's $2,500 or Ethiopia's $1,000. Huge numbers of people live in countries like China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh that are poorer than Colombia. Is the question of "why nations fail" really best described as why Colombia isn't more like Denmark than why Pakistan isn't more like Colombia? People have done a lot of conceptual work with the distinction between catch-up growth (applying modern technology to nonmodernized societies) and frontier growth (pushing the boundaries of innovation forward) often in a rhetorical register that seems designed to downplay catch-up growth. But catch-up growth alone—in other words, a well-executed program of growth under extractive institutions—would massively ameliorate most of the world's most severe problems. It would also reduce the perceived labor market threat to working classes in rich countries and create much larger markets for sophisticated products and thus bolster innovation.

Acemoglu and Robinson responded. 

It would indeed be a mistake to just focus on the differences between countries with the most inclusive institutions and those with the most extractive institutions. Almost all countries are in shades of gray, and that matters enormously for the prosperity of their citizens.

Moreover, they claim, extractive growth can "take countries quite far." This depends on two conditions: a measure of state centralization and a ruling elite comfortable enough for Schumpeterian creative destruction and institutional opening.

For me, however, this really exemplifies just how sterile the debate is. First of all, there's a real question of theoretical clarity when we speak of inclusivity. As I've written in the Ugandan context, who defines what is "inclusive"? To use their phrasing, at what point do we say "the state is indeed centralized enough, and the elite are sufficiently comfortable with glastnost"? How would that even be measured? More generally, how do we decide if an institution has genuinely given access to citizens writ large versus simply buying off or co-opting key constituencies or leaders? Even barring these difficulties, the question remains: over how long a period of time? Institutions are never settled, they are in a constant state of contestation and upheaval. Sometimes the result is gradual change (the United States' slow financialization in the last 5 decades); elsewhere it is immediate (Mobutu's Zairianization program).

Just to make myself clear: the charge may be made that I'm simply intellectually lazy and others are more able and willing to define such parameters. Perhaps, but my point is that this is an impossible undertaking. Economic institutions are constantly renegotiated. Even if we can decide on "inclusive," it cannot hold for any timeframe that allows for broad-based comparison. The very nature of institutions is that they are not simply constructs with which we people must 'deal.' They are living things, ever-changing, built on constant struggle over ideas, language, and often violent clashes. They are also actors in themselves: they are not just exclusionary, they actively exclude and are thus not to be taken as impartial structures because they have their own interests. Institutions are also arenas for conflict, the site of other battles. So deciding on a definition of "inclusive" will always be a fraught affair at best.

Second, for this reason, the best we can say is that some countries with more inclusive institutions sometimes grow faster than some countries with less inclusive institutions... sometimes. Of course there's no single route to economic development, and Acemoglu and Robinson are not claiming they've unlocked the single secret to riches. Yet, as I've tweeted and written about previously, this doesn't move us beyond what's been understood in the literature for over a decade. It does not get us any closer to theoretical, much less practical, understanding of sparking economic growth.

Third, there's an important pernicious effect on the debate: rather than moving us to think, harping on "inclusive institutions are good" stops cognition and ends the discussion. As Matt over at Aid Thoughts writes about a related A-R post (on Rosenstein-Rodan and the "Big Push"),

I understand that Acemoglu and Robinson consider institutions to be the chief determinant of everything since the beginning of time, but arguing that the Rosenstein-Rodan prediction is wrong because it ignored institutions is a little like arguing that a car missing all four wheels won’t drive because – damn it – it’s also missing four tires.

Chris Blattman touches on the same point:

If it’s war, quite obviously I fall on their side.

But I suppose I am not sure who we would fight against. I would have guessed most development economists agree that political stability and "good institutions" matter a great deal, and they quibble mainly over primacy, or perhaps which institutions...

Mostly, I think, theirs would be a war on neglect: the failure to study and understand institutions, rather than a rejection of their importance. That is probably the greatest gap in the field, one that the experiments revolution helps fill a little, but far from completely.

The fact that we still say things like "institutions matter" and don’t really have much hard proof for what specific institutions and why is a symptom of the problem.

I suppose the institutional perspective would instead ask why development economists aren’t pursuing the question with more vigor. I suspect it has something to do with a poor fit with the kind of empirical methods economists are allowed to employ and still maintain intellectual respectability.

That's certainly true. It's also a travesty.

Institutional economics has a rich tradition, and there's much to be learned from folks such as Peter Evans, John Toye, Jonathan di John, Erik Reinert, and Ha-Joon Chang, to name but a few prominent scholars that come immediately to mind. The problem is, as CBlatts notes, that in the world of academic economics (though admittedly less so in DevEon), in order to be "respectable" one almost needs to be doing large-N quantitative analyses and the like. Qualitative, historical, sociological, and other methods of inquiry are shunned. Economists don't address the "right" challenges because such problems don't gel with the right methodologies, inverting the normal relationship of question dictating answer. This is not an attack on economists themselves. Instead, it is a bundle of structural forces within the scholarly community - getting hired, published, and tenured - that has literally closed off one of the most interesting and important research avenues in the field.

This problem has been known for decades. There is no solution that I can offer that hasn't already received a full airing. For now, however, we can at least move away from harping on "inclusive institutions" as the determinant of development.

Unquote

If rules, transactions and values are ambiguous and negotiable, then economic activity cannot necessarily be explained in terms of decisive choices or efforts to gain exclusive control over goods and resources. If access to resources and opportunities depends on one's ability to negotiate, people may be more interested in keeping options open than cutting them off, and in strengthening their ability to participate in and influence negotiations rather than acquiring exclusive control over resources and severing connections which are not immediately profitable. As we will see in the following chapters, the literature on African rural economic life is filled with examples of farmers who prefer not to register their land rights, even though it is legally and administratively feasible to do so; employers who don't dismiss redundant or unproductive workers; laborers who work without pay, though hiring-out is an option; lenders who do not charge interest, and borrowers who pay back more than they owe. Such behaviors are not simply the results of backwardness or altruism. Rather... they reflect people's efforts to keep their options open and to mobilize potential allies and supporters.

Sara Berry, No Condition is Permanent.

"Nigeria's Religious Fundamentalism"

My new article at Think Africa Press. Here's the basic idea.

Policies gaining currency among certain circles – such as guiding legislation with putatively Biblical principles or establishing an Islamic state – thus appear part and parcel of the radical agenda that fuels violence. Political elites both in Nigeria and around the world decry this turn to hard-line religiosity.

Yet while it is useful to recognise the confluence of this new 'fundamentalism' with faith-based zealotry elsewhere, it is equally imperative that analysts understand new forms of religious consciousness in Nigeria (and around Africa) on their own terms.

To head off the inevitable criticism: I know that Pentecostalism broadly defined and Igbo conversion to Islam are in no way parallel developments. While the Born-Again boom is one of the most important political and religious developments in the country's recent history, Muslim Igbo still only number in the tens of thousands. Yet the idea is to show that in either case, conversion to what appears a more 'fundamentalist' version of Christianity or Islam is not only linked to religious beliefs, but also to political, social, and economic choices about community and morality. This holds whether we're talking about 40 million Born-Agains or 10,000 Igbo Muslims -- and indeed, Izala, Aladura, etc.

The key point is turning this sort of social tranformation into a constructive force for political, administrative, and bureaucratic transformation. All are institutions, and all overlap and influence one another. If the ideals of religious revival can be mobilized to real reform of the state - as opposed to shifting alliances to try and capture it -- then Nigeria may see some benefit. Of course, I am unable to provide many specifics on how to make this work. But I leave that to the infinitely more capable hands of Nigerian activists themselves.

More on *Political Spiritualities*

I'm happy to see that Ruth Marshall accomplished her aims in analyzing/describing Nigerian Pentecostalism in terms which Born-Agains would recognize and accept as representative of themselves.

Today I'm going to post some passages with which, I'm guessing, Born-Agains would probably take issue. To skip to the punchline: the Pentecostal revolution is in many ways the mirror image of the radical Islamic reformist project that was taken up and expanded over the same timeframe (1970s-current), predominantly in northern Nigeria.

First, there's this:

Both projects are inspired by a 'quest for justice,' and they both address the problem of government of the self and others in terms of a challenge to dominant modes of political subjectivation through a politics of piety or righteousness.

While Pentecostals urge prayer, fasting, and Bible study, Izala urges... prayer, fasting, and Qur'anic study. Both aim to reform individual followers' behavior/morality, and thus the public space - as I outlined in my earlier summary of the book. Both see this as the only way to overcome forms of subjection and suffering that they've sustained since independence, and indeed since the beginning of the colonial encounter.

Second:

The simultaneous rise of the Born-Again movement and radical Islamic reformism should not be seen as coincidental. While initially concerned with the revitalization or restoration of their respective religious traditions, and largely inspired by the intensification of transnational relations, both movements arise from within the same social classes, are products of post-colonial educational institutions, and seek to create moral and political renewal and order form the chaos of the oil-boom years through religious revival. Their competing projects were bound to clash, and constant provocation from both sides has meant that the bid for converts and for political representation has taken increasingly violent forms.

That is to say, they both seek a revitalization through links with global reformist communities (Born-Agains in the American heartland and Iranian Shi'a purists). Both found their initial followings among the Western-educated, and both boomed with the suffering of the 70s and 80s. And as the two both see conversion to their project as the only way to save the country, their objectives will always come up against one another.

And finally,

Both the Born-Agains and Muslim reformers conjure the devil in the name of the other. Both project political visions whose internal articulations are opposed to a representation in which power and violence are separate from right. Both emerge form the institutions and imaginaries of the colonial period, and both have engaged in complex and contradictory ways with the governmentality of postcolonial Nigeria. Both draw on increasingly intolerant global religious forms in order to carry out a project of rupture with the past. And yet both find their original impetus and popular plausibility in a quest for order, justice, and mastery; both spring from a desire to give a new account of the self and to liberate themselves form the history of enchantment, bondage, and subjection that is seen as having brought the old individual and collective subject into being. Both express a political spirituality, a quest for a new mode of distinguishing the true and the false through a new mode of governing the self and others.

This wraps together the few points made above.

Marshall is very clear in that the two have numerous differences, particularly in how they've evolved and how they're linked (or not) to prevailing power networks in Abuja. But it's impossible to dismiss - as many Born-Agains in the southern press do - the idea that both movements are equally 'legitimate', whether as a political identity or as a passive community of citizens.