Approximately seventy-five percent of the world's population lives in countries where asset exchange upon marriage is obligatory. Rising brideprice—money or gifts provided to a woman's family by the groom and his family as part of marriage arrangements—is a common if overlooked catalyst of violent conflict. In patrilineal (and some matrilineal) societies where brideprice is practiced, a man's social status is directly connected to his marital status. Brideprice acts as a flat tax that is prone to sudden and swift increases. As a result, rising brideprice can create serious marriage market distortions that prevent young men, especially those who are poor or otherwise marginalized, from marrying. This phenomenon is especially evident in polygamous societies, where wealthy men can afford more than one bride. These distortions incentivize extra-legal asset accumulation, whether through ad hoc raiding or organized violence. In such situations, rebel and terror groups may offer to pay brideprice—or even provide brides—to recruit new members. Descriptive case studies of Boko Haram in Nigeria and various armed groups in South Sudan demonstrate these linkages, while an examination of Saudi Arabia's cap on brideprice and its efforts to arrange low-cost mass weddings illustrates the ways in which governments can intervene in marriage markets to help prevent brideprice-related instability. The trajectory of brideprice is an important but neglected early indicator of societal instability and violent conflict, underscoring that the situation and security of women tangibly affect national security.

Abstract:Current classification systems create typologies of authoritarian regimes that may overlook the importance of national policies. Rwanda and Ethiopia in particular are perplexing case studies of post-1990s governance. Both nations are characterized by high growth economies with significant state involvement and the formal institutions of democracy, but deeply troubling patterns of domestic governance. This article proposes a new category of authoritarianism called “developmental authoritarianism,” which refers to nominally democratic governments that provide significant public works and services while exerting control over nearly every facet of society. The article then reflects upon the durability and implications of this form of governance.

Across the globe, states have attempted to contain COVID-19 by restricting movement, closing schools and businesses, and banning large gatherings. Such measures have expanded the degree of sanctioned state intervention into civilians' lives. But existing theories of preventive and responsive repression cannot explain why some countries experienced surges in repression after states in Africa initiated COVID-19-related lockdowns. While responsive repression occurs when states quell protests or riots, “opportunistic repression” arises when states use crises to suppress the political opposition. An examination of the relationship between COVID-19 shutdown policies and state violence against civilians in Africa tests this theory of opportunistic repression. Findings reveal a large and statistically significant relationship between shutdowns and repression, which holds after conditioning for the spread and lethality of the disease within-country and over time. A subnational case study of repression in Uganda provides evidence that the increase in repression appears to be concentrated in opposition areas that showed less support for Yoweri Museveni in the 2016 elections. Opportunistic repression provides a better explanation than theories of preventive or responsive repression for why Uganda experienced a surge in repression in 2020 and in what areas. The results have implications for theories of repression, authoritarian survival, the politics of emergency, and security.

Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, better known as “Boko Haram,” is the most violent phenomenon of the Nigerian Fourth Republic. It is responsible not only for a regional food crisis that has devolved into famine in some areas, but also the displacement of millions and the deaths of tens of thousands of people. The insurgency in Nigeria began as a dissident religious sect’s venting of local grievances in Maiduguri, the capital of the northeastern Borno State. The movement was founded at the turn of the century by Mohammed Yusuf, a Salafist preacher notorious for his rejection of Western education and government employment. Boko Haram only gained significant international attention in the aftermath of the 2014 abduction of more than 270 schoolgirls from their dormitory in the remote town of Chibok, but the group did not always employ such deplorable tactics. Although policymakers in capitals the world over have been eager to emphasize the group’s connections to international terrorist groups, the movement is localized and often more akin to an African insurgency than to a prototypical terrorist organization. The group’s initial years were characterized by relatively benign activities like the provision of social services, punctuated by occasional bouts of criminality that, over time, escalated into a series of targeted assassinations that provoked federal government response. A series of violent actions ultimately transformed Boko Haram from a largely nonviolent fundamentalist religious movement into the lethal and resilient force it is today, known internationally for its brutality: notably, the group’s interactions with the Nigerian security sector, categorized by indiscriminate state violence; leadership changes within the insurgency’s ranks that elevated Abubakar Shekau following Mohammed Yusuf’s execution; and regional trends in weapons flows and ideological currents.

is a student of political science writing under a pen name.Nobody was surprised that the late President John Magufuli and his ruling party won Tanzania's 2020 general election. Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM)-then the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU)-has been in power since independence in 1961, and has never come close to losing power nationally. What did surprise many foreign commentators and academics was the size of the victory, the strategies used to bring it about, and the continued closing of political space even after the votes were tallied. Despite CCM officially winning 84 percent of the presidential vote and 97 percent of legislative seats, a number of senior opposition-party members were arrested after the vote. Following a decade of putative democratization, the events of 2020 laid bare the crude authoritarian logic of the ruling party, and highlighted how ready, willing, and able it is to resort to coercion.Some blamed this authoritarian turn on President Magufuli himself, who died unexpectedly five months after the election. 1 Yet his tenure did not take CCM off a democratizing path that it was never on in the first place, and it is unlikely that a different figure at the head of this party and government would have given Tanzania a free and fair election. Focusing on Magufuli obscures the authoritarian foundations of CCM rule. While academic analysis has tended to explain the ruling party's durability on the basis of its relative coherence, its clientelism, the resonance of its nation-building message, and the unifying legacy of first president Julius Nyerere, CCM rule has always had coercive characteristics. It is this, and not only the government's policies and rhetoric, that explains how CCM has bucked the trend of dominant parties losing power following prolonged economic decline.