Vibeke Wang

Executive dominance and the politics of quota representation in Uganda

Quota policies securing the presence of marginalised groups in decision-making bodies have been adopted across sub-Saharan Africa. These policies are frequently understood through the lens of a pluralist perspective. This stance is not appropriate in African regimes characterised by executive dominance. Through a qualitative study of official documents, newspaper articles and interviews conducted during two field studies in Uganda in 2005 and 2010, this article shows how the understanding of quota policies in Africa may gain from the corporatist debate on interest representation. The analysis reveals that the incumbent National Resistance Movement has employed the reserved seat policy strategically to maintain its dominant position, and that strategies for using the quota system have evolved gradually over time in response to key political events, and the interests of group activists at the local and national levels with vested interests in its survival.

Foreign Aid to Transitional Justice: The Cases of Rwanda and Guatemala, 1995–2005*

Although transitional justice (TJ) has been an area of significant donor engagement for more than a decade, little is known about the scope, trends, and experiences of that engagement. This study examines patterns and priorities of the aid that was given from 1995 through 2005 in support of transitional justice in Rwanda and Guatemala. It is based on statistical data from 15 donors and on interviews with 20 donor officials. The size of the TJ aid to the two countries in this period was modest, only accounting for about 5% of total development aid. While security sector reform received the bulk of the TJ assistance, the distribution of the remaining assistance was diverse. In Rwanda it targeted retributive justice processes including criminal courts and gacaca, while in Guatemala it focused on restorative justice institutions such as truth commissions and reparations. In Rwanda most of the TJ aid went directly to the government, and donor priorities by and large reflected government priorities. In Guatemala donor loyalties first and foremost lay with the peace accords, and donor commitment to certain TJ mechanisms was often not matched by a similar commitment on the part of the government. While Guatemala received more TJ support immediately after the end of the conflict, in Rwanda aid levels rose most prominently in the last half of the post-genocide period. While identifying trends such as these is a vital first step to fill the knowledge gap, further research is required to understand how transitional justice aid works across cases, over time and for different actors.

Substantive Representation: From Timing to Framing of Family Law Reform in Morocco, South Africa and Uganda

This chapter argues that an essential factor affecting the prospects of successful substantive representation of women is whether or not the protagonists of family law reform are able to frame their claims in a manner that is acceptable to both the public and the ruling elite. It adopts a “thick” conception of substantive representation which takes into account how representation occurs as well as its outcome. Through a “most different” comparative strategy, the authors study how and through what mechanisms family law reforms in Morocco, South Africa and Uganda occurred. In Morocco, the 2004 family law reform was more comprehensive and closer to the original feminist demands because the process received the blessing of the Moroccan king and was pushed through in a top-down manner. In the case of South Africa and Uganda, however, the initial law reform proposal had to undergo more substantial changes in scope and content, as more veto players needed to be on board for the proposal to be successfully enacted. The analysis finds that women’s feminist claims for equality have been negotiated to gain cultural resonance through processes of framing and reframing the claims to appeal to critical audiences. Pro-women actors, such as women activists inside and outside government, took center stage in this process. Additionally, male actors—who acted as intermediaries or leveraged the key government positions they held—also played vital roles in ensuring that legislation was enacted. This indicates that while the timing of a legal reform proposal is important, the framing of the reform campaign is also critical.

Counter-mobilization against child marriage reform in Africa

Legislating a minimum age of marriage at 18 has stirred counter-mobilization in some, but not all, countries where religious or traditional institutions enjoy constitutional authority. To explore differences between states regarding likelihood of counter-mobilization, we investigate two cases in Africa. In Sudan, a government-led child marriage reform initiative has sparked counter-mobilization by conservative religious actors, while a similar initiative in Zambia has not caused visible counter-mobilization among traditional groups and has gained the support of many chiefs. With the literature on doctrinal gender status issues as theoretical background, we argue that the nature of law—codified versus living—is a factor in these distinct trajectories. We further identify variations in two mechanisms, legal power structure (centralized vs decentralized) and type of political battle (interpretation vs administration), that link nature of law to variation in the likelihood of counter-mobilization.

Why the Gender of Traditional Authorities Matters: Intersectionality and Women’s Rights Advocacy in Malawi:

Traditional leadership often coexists with modern political institutions; yet, we know little about how traditional and state authority cues—or those from male or female sources—affect public opinion. Using an original survey experiment of 1,381 Malawians embedded in the 2016 Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI), we randomly assign respondents into one of four treatment groups or a control group to hear messages about a child marriage reform from a female or male traditional authority (TA) or parliamentarian. In the sample as a whole, the female TA is as effective as the control (i.e., no endorsement), while other messengers elicit lower support (i.e., backfire effects). Endorsements produce heterogeneous effects across respondent sex and patrilineal/matrilineal customs, suggesting the need for tailored programs. Our paper adds an intersectional approach to the governance literature and offers a theoretical framework capable of explaining the impact of state and traditional endorsements across policy domains.