Citizen Attitudes Toward Traditional and State Authorities: Substitutes or Complements?

Windt, Peter van der; Humphreys, Macartan; Medina, Lily; Timmons, Jeffrey F.; Voors, Maarten

doi:10.1177/0010414018806529

Cited by 29 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Looking at electoral politics in South Africa, de Kadt and Larreguy (2018) show how chiefs' alignment with the incumbent party (African National Congress) improves the latter's electoral performance. Finally, for communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, van der Windt et al (2019) find that citizens' support for TPI and the state can go hand in hand in a complementary fashion: where support for the state increases, so does support of TPI.…”

Section: Literature On Resurgence Of Tpimentioning

confidence: 95%

Explaining the Constitutional Integration and Resurgence of Traditional Political Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa

2020

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Social scientists have recently observed a ‘resurgence’ of traditional political institutions on the constitutional level in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, the scope and causes of the resurgence remain unclear. We base our analysis on original data on the degree of constitutional integration of traditional institutions and on their constitutional resurgence since 1990 in 45 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. We test six theoretical explanations for constitutionalization: former colonial rule, democratization, state capacity, economic development, foreign aid and settlement patterns. First, we verify the broad resurgence of traditional political institutions on a constitutional level. Second, our analysis suggests that, particularly in former British colonies, traditional leaders were able to translate the arrangements of British colonial rule as well as the advantages of a country’s deconcentrated settlement pattern into greater constitutional status. Third, settlement patterns proved important for traditional leaders to gain or increase constitutional status – leading to a constitutional resurgence of traditional institutions.

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Section: Literature On Resurgence Of Tpimentioning

confidence: 95%

Explaining the Constitutional Integration and Resurgence of Traditional Political Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa

2020

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“…The first article by Holzinger et al (2019) overcomes the first data challenge through an original data collection effort on indigenous rights, customary law, and traditional political institutions for all UN member states. The second article by van der Windt, Humphreys, Medina, Timmons, and Voors (2019) tackles the second inferential challenge by providing an estimation strategy for identifying how demand for traditional political institutions and demand for state institutions relate.…”

Section: A Revised Perspective On Traditional Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…van der Windt et al (2019) make a different type of contribution, providing a critical conceptual and inferential advance in understanding whether traditional institutions and state institutions are viewed by citizens as substitutes or complements. The authors argue that the compatibility between these two sets of institutions cannot be inferred from correlations between levels of support for traditional leaders and the state.…”

Section: A Revised Perspective On Traditional Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traditional Political Institutions and Democracy: Reassessing Their Compatibility and Accountability

Baldwin

Holzinger

2019

Comparative Political Studies

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This article revisits prominent frameworks for understanding traditional political institutions which make pessimistic assessments about their compatibility with democracy. Traditional political institutions are often assumed to be unaccountable because they are led by undemocratic leaders who are not subject to electoral sanctioning. However, drawing on new information from the TradGov Group dataset, an expert survey on the contemporary practices of more than 1,400 ethnic groups that currently have traditional political institutions, we show that these institutions contain their own distinct mechanisms of accountability. In a majority of cases, decision-making is consensual and leaders must account for their actions in various ways. We challenge the electoral accountability framework for understanding the quality of traditional leaders’ performance, instead arguing that traditional political institutions can be compatible with democracy and even accountable to their citizens insofar as they adopt inclusive decision-making processes and their leaders have strong nonelectoral connections to the communities they represent.

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“…Where the state fails to provide order, traditional leaders and community organizations commonly step in (Cammett and MacLean, 2014;Van der Windt et al, 2019;Blattman et al, 2014;Henn, Henn). When it comes to security and justice, however, non-state actors sometimes undermine the use of and trust in the government (e.g., Berman and Laitin, 2008;Cammett and MacLean, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

State-Building on the Margin: An Urban Experiment in Medellín

et al. 2022

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Medellin's government wanted to raise its efficacy, legitimacy, and control. The city identified 80 neighborhoods with weak state presence and competing armed actors. In half, they increased non-police street presence tenfold for two years, offering social services and dispute resolution. In places where the state was initially weakest, the intervention did not work, mainly because the government struggled to deliver on its promises. Where the state began stronger, the government raised opinions of its services and legitimacy. If there are indeed low marginal returns to investing in capacity in the least-governed areas, this could produce increasing returns to state-building.

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Citizen Attitudes Toward Traditional and State Authorities: Substitutes or Complements?

Cited by 29 publications

References 49 publications

Explaining the Constitutional Integration and Resurgence of Traditional Political Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa

Explaining the Constitutional Integration and Resurgence of Traditional Political Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa

Traditional Political Institutions and Democracy: Reassessing Their Compatibility and Accountability

State-Building on the Margin: An Urban Experiment in Medellín

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