Gerhard Anders

In the shadow of good governance : an ethnography of civil service reform in Africa

This book traces the implementation of the good governance agenda in Malawi from World Bank policy documents to the individual experiences of civil servants who responded in unforeseen ways to the reform. It presents a fine-grained ethnographic account of what African civil servants actually do, both at home and the office.

Testifying about 'Uncivilized Events': Problematic Representations of Africa in the Trial Against Charles Taylor

The article presents an anthropological analysis of witness testimony about ritual murder, cannibalism, and secret societies in the trial against Charles Taylor in The Hague. In the first part, a comprehensive in-depth analysis of the testimony of one prosecution witness serves as a case study to illustrate the difficulties of assessing the veracity of witness statements on alleged atrocities linked to African religious and spiritual beliefs. The second part contextualizes the testimony heard in the trial against Charles Taylor by drawing on historical sources and the academic literature on West Africa. The analysis reveals striking parallels between the prosecution narrative and colonial representations of Africa as a mysterious and savage place.

The normativity of numbers in practice: technologies of counting, accounting and auditing in Malawi's civil service reform

Contemporary technologies of governing employed in international development rely on the normativity of numbers, and their use of numbers and collection, as conditions for financial support by international financial institutions. This article examines how the normativity of numbers worked in practice during the implementation of civil service reform in Malawi. It reveals a contradiction between the lofty rhetoric of greater efficiency and transparency achieved through the introduction of new technologies and the messy realities of everyday bureaucratic practices, corruption and haphazard implementation.

Transition and justice : negotiating the terms of new beginnings in Africa

Transition and Justice examines a series of cases from across the African continent where peaceful ‘new beginnings’ were declared after periods of violence and where transitional justice institutions helped define justice and the new socio-political order. Offers a new perspective on transition and justice in Africa transcending the institutional limits of transitional justice Covers a wide range of situations, and presents a broad range of sites where past injustices are addressed Examines cases where peaceful ‘new beginnings’ have been declared after periods of violence Addresses fundamental questions about transitions and justice in societies characterized by a high degree of external involvement and internal fragmentation

The normativity of numbers in practice

Contemporary technologies of governing employed in international development rely on the normativity of numbers, and their use of numbers and collection, as conditions for financial support by international financial institutions. This article examines how the normativity of numbers worked in practice during the implementation of civil service reform in Malawi. It reveals a contradiction between the lofty rhetoric of greater efficiency and transparency achieved through the introduction of new technologies and the messy realities of everyday bureaucratic practices, corruption and haphazard implementation.

Law at its limits: interdisciplinarity between law and anthropology

The social-scientific study of law is a heterogeneous, interdisciplinary field where social scientists and legal scholars come together. Whilst sharing a keen interest in the law as social fact, both shaping and being shaped by ideas and behaviour, they do so drawing on different epistemological and methodological foundations. Especially, between legal studies and socio-cultural anthropology, there seems to be a divide in terms of research questions, epistemology and methodology. These differences led Geertz to conclude that legal anthropology ought not to fuse legal studies and anthropology to form a ‘centaur discipline’. Franz von Benda-Beckmann, trained both as lawyer and anthropologist, took issue with this dictum and saw legal anthropology in terms of ‘riding the centaur’. This article will examine different approaches addressing the relationships between the law, legal anthropology and the social-scientific study of law in light of his work.

The normativity of numbers in practice: technologies of counting, accounting and auditing in Malawi's civil service reform: THE NORMATIVITY OF NUMBERS IN PRACTICE

Contemporary technologies of governing employed in international development rely on the normativity of numbers, and their use of numbers and collection, as conditions for financial support by international financial institutions. This article examines how the normativity of numbers worked in practice during the implementation of civil service reform in Malawi. It reveals a contradiction between the lofty rhetoric of greater efficiency and transparency achieved through the introduction of new technologies and the messy realities of everyday bureaucratic practices, corruption and haphazard implementation.

Conclusions: The State In Society

The detailed ethnographic account of the various aspects of civil service reform reveals two contradictions underlying the governance reforms promoted by the World Bank and the IMF. The first one is the contradiction between the principles of ownership and conditionality. The second is the one between two conflicting conceptions of the state informing good governance policies. It is seen as both a modernizing influence and as an obstacle to the development of society. The author shows how the indeterminacy resulting from these contradictions created considerable room for manoeuvre for my informants who struggled to come to terms with the almost complete over- haul of Malawis political and economic order during the 1990s.Keywords: Africa; civil service; IMF; paradoxical policies; World Bank