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Abstract:In the ongoing context of political liberalization, many African leaders have adopted the rhetoric of democracy while at the same time devising ways to limit political competition. This article focuses on one such strategy: the effort to disqualify or discredit political opponents based on challenges to their citizenship. In recent years, several African leaders have initiated court cases and produced evidence to question the right of opposition candidates and other critics to participate in the political process. By examining specific examples in Côte d'Ivoire, Zambia, and elsewhere, the article explores the implications of this strategy. While citizenship rights are clearly important in any democracy, their explicit manipulation for the ruling party's political purposes is a risky approach that threatens to slow or even reverse the process of democratization. In the end, a tactic initially designed to exclude specific individuals from the political process has the potential of fueling broader xenophobic sentiments and legitimizing exclusionary nation-building strategies. At best, the resulting widening of social cleavages reduces the likelihood of democratic consolidation. At worst, it plants the seeds for future political conflict and possibly even war.

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Do refugee movements cause the spread of conflict from one country to another and if so, under what conditions? This artice explores these questions by examining the contrasting cases of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania. The 1994 influx of Rwandan refugees into eastern Congo was a contributing factor in the outbreak of war there in 1996 and again in 1998. The 1994 refugee migration into western Tanzania, however, was relatively peaceful and did not generate further conflict. By exploring similarities and differences between the two cases, this artice develops several hypotheses about the conditions under which a massive refugee influx may result in the spread of conflict. In the end, the paper argues that refugees enter into an existing political context, creating new alignments and transforming old ones. In some cases, conflicts may result, each with its own dynamics, but in others they do not.

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