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Jul 22, 2024 | 
democracyinafrica.org | Gabrielle Lynch |John B. Nakuta |Mesrob Vartavarian
On 5 July 2024 a range of high profile commentators, leaders and journalists came together to discuss Dr Sishuwa Sishuwa’s important new book, Party Politics and Populism in Zambia: Michael Sata, 1955 – 2014.
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Jul 17, 2024 | 
democracyinafrica.org | Mesrob Vartavarian |Gabrielle Lynch |Nic Cheeseman
South Africa’s purported Government of National Unity (GNU) is, at best, an aspirational objective that requires national-level negotiations between various stakeholders within and without formal political institutions. Balancing the priorities of these various interests whilst reviving a sluggish economy will require further hard bargaining and the formulation of a developmental strategy that prioritizes industrial manufacturing.
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Jul 17, 2024 | 
t.ly | Mesrob Vartavarian |Gabrielle Lynch |Nic Cheeseman
South Africa’s purported Government of National Unity (GNU) is, at best, an aspirational objective that requires national-level negotiations between various stakeholders within and without formal political institutions. Balancing the priorities of these various interests whilst reviving a sluggish economy will require further hard bargaining and the formulation of a developmental strategy that prioritizes industrial manufacturing.
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Jul 10, 2024 | 
democracyinafrica.org | John B. Nakuta |Shamira Ahmed |Graham Joseph |Mesrob Vartavarian
The Namibian high court recently the country’s colonial-era “sodomy law”, which had made consensual sexual acts between men a criminal offence. The court declared that the common law offences of “sodomy” and “unnatural sexual offences” were unconstitutional. This ruling follows a separate decision in 2023 where Namibia’s supreme court ruled to recognise certain same-sex unions contracted outside the country.
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Jul 1, 2024 | 
democracyinafrica.org | Nic Cheeseman |Shamira Ahmed |Graham Joseph |Mesrob Vartavarian
Democracy in Africa’s own Nic Cheeseman – aka Fromegahomme – has been interviewed by ABC News about recent events in Kenya. What caused them, how has the government responded, and what comes next? You can watch the interview here:Prof Cheeseman also has a new article out that speaks to how the intersection of youth, urbanization and democratic experience is changing Kenyan politics – and also the limits of that change.
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Jun 28, 2024 | 
democracyinafrica.org | Nic Cheeseman |Shamira Ahmed |Graham Joseph |Mesrob Vartavarian
DIA’s own Nic Cheeseman has written a new column on the prospects for the coalition government being formed in South Africa, drawing on research on the pros and cons of presidential coalitions across the world:“South Africa’s 2024 general elections saw voters give the ruling African National Congress a proverbial bloody nose. After years of poor economic performance and rampant corruption, the flow of supporters abandoning the party went from a stream to a fast flowing river.
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Jun 20, 2024 | 
democracyinafrica.org | Mesrob Vartavarian |Shamira Ahmed |Graham Joseph |Joleen Steyn Kotze
In my new article, I engage with recent debates on how police officers and township residents grapple with violent crime under a democratic dispensation in South Africa. Police forces are increasingly countering criminality through periodic displays of spectacular violence, while township dwellers, deprived of social services and public security, punish malefactors themselves. By all indications, the results have not been positive.
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Apr 19, 2024 | 
t.ly | Mesrob Vartavarian |Asafika Mpako |Mikhail Moosa |Matthias Krönke
How is it that, despite a long history of anticolonial struggle, South Africa has been so hospitable to oligarchic rule? The loosening of formal colonial control in the early twentieth century tightened white minority rule, while the advent popular democracy in 1994 enriched a select number of well-connected ANC politicians and consigned the black majority to griding poverty.
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Feb 25, 2024 | 
onlinelibrary.wiley.com | Mesrob Vartavarian
REFERENCES (2012) Marikana: A View from the Mountain and a Case to Answer. Auckland Park: Jacana Media. (2007) A Country at War with Itself: South Africa’s Crisis of Crime. Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers. (2005) The Dirty Work of Democracy: A Year on the Streets with the SAPS. Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers. (1994) Black and Blue: Policing in South Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (2014) Short-Changed? South Africa since Apartheid.
