Conflict Resolution and the Challenge of Self- Governance in Africa (And Other Regions) Political Science Y673, Spring 2004 January 14, 2004.

Conflict Resolution and the Challenge of Self-

Governance in Africa (And Other Regions)

Political Science Y673, Spring 2004January 14, 2004

Overview of this Session

• About the Seminar (Y673)

• About the Workshop

• About the Consortium for Self-Governance in Africa (CSGA)

• About doing Institutional Analysis

The Seminar

• Seminar Overview

• Key Question Asked

• Bodies of Literature to be Used

• Seminar Requirements

• Preview of Weekly Sessions

About the Workshop

• Founding of Workshop

• Basic Themes of Workshop Research

• Workshop-Affiliated Programs

The Consortium for Self-Governance in Africa (CSGA)

• Mission and Objectives

• Members

• Research Interests

• Activities: Past, Current and Future

Institutional Analysis at the Workshop

• Workshop’s approach

• The Institutional Analysis and Development Framework

• DECIDERS Framework (to be presented by Mike McGinnis)

Seminar Overview

• Seminar will apply theoretical concepts & analytic tools of institutional analysis to better understand capabilities & limitations of mechanisms of dispute resolution and potentials for establishing self-governing orders.

• Focus on Africa, but not exclusively. Similar challenges exist in other regions

Key Question

• Can African countries & developing countries elsewhere establish and sustain self-governing orders?

• To address question, use analytic tools of institutional analysis to:– Understand how contemporary governing orders are

constituted; their capabilities and limitations– Understand constitutional alternatives to failing orders– Explore existing capabilities, potentials and limitations

within societies

Two Approaches to Governance(stylized)

State-Centered Approach

Community/People-Centered Approach

Focuses on political institutions: elections, courts, bureaucracies, etc.

Sees social institutions as foundation for governance (Tocqueville)

Leaders tend to exploit top-down institutions

Public entrepreneurs build institutions that enhance local capabilities

Decentralization empowers local extensions of central government; limited community involvement

Self-Governance builds upon indigenous and local institutions, nested within supportive structures built from bottom up

Two Approaches to Governance (cont.)

State-Centered Approach

Community/People-Centered Approach

Ethnicity as tool for partisan political mobilization and conflict

Ethnicity as source of social capital and collective action

A common language is imposed by ruling elite for nation-building

Language diversity utilized by public and private actors

Foundations of Y673 Seminar

Bodies of Research Literature

• Institutional Analysis (Workshop)• Dispute/Conflict Resolution (IR,

Comparative Politics, Anthropology and Law)

• African Governance • Work of members of Consortium for Self-

Governance in Africa (CSGA)

Institutional Analysis (Workshop)

• Understanding constitutional foundations of governing orders– Theories of sovereignty– Self-governance as goal and polycentricity as means

• Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework– Models of Decisions: Boundedly rational– Types of goods, attributes of community, rules-in-use– operational, collective and constitutional choice levels– understanding Institutions (rules)

• A grammar of Institutions• Institutions as social capital

Dispute/Conflict Resolution

• From IR:– Models of conflicts– Institutions and processes of CR– International development institutions and regimes

• From Legal Anthropology– Ethnographies of traditional systems of dispute

processing– Legal pluralism

African Governance

• Over-centralized & autocratic governments

• Contemporary crisis of governance, failed states and ongoing conflicts

• Flaws of decentralization and democratization processes

• Potentials for self-governance

How Seminar will proceed

• First Five Weeks (Jan 14 – Feb 11):– introduction, concepts, theories and analytic

frameworks

• Next Seven Weeks (Feb 18 – April 7):– crisis, challenges, and capabilities

• Last Three Weeks (April 14 – April 28)– regional conflicts, peacebuilding and

international development support

Seminar Requirements

• Complete assigned readings– Essential readings are listed

• Weekly memos– On a thought, puzzle or issue arising from or triggered

by any of the weekly readings

• Research paper– On any aspect of a governance challenge or dispute

resolution in some specific context

• Mini-conference– May 1 and 3, 2004

Readings for Seminar:Weeks 2 and 3

• Hobbes and theories of sovereignty– Hobbes– Ostrom

• Tocqueville’s approach to the study of constitution of order in human society

• Barbara Allen• Sheldon Gellar• Vincent Ostrom

Week 4Patterns of conflict Resolution:

Indigenous, Plural and International• McGinnis’ review of literature

• Nature of conflicts and the conception of law:– Mary Parker Follett and “Constructive Conflict”– Sally Falk Moore and the conception of law in

Anthropology– Peter Ekeh and the meaning and enforcement

of sanctions in two publics

Week 5Social Capital and Potentials for

Self-Governance • Foundations of social capital

– E. Ostrom and T.K. Ahn

• Community collective action units: social capital as foundations for democratic self- governance and self-reliant development– Ayo– Gellar

• Social capital as building blocks for post-conflict reconstruction– Sawyer

Week 6:Origins and Nature of Governance

Crisis• Legacies of colonialism, decolonization and false

quest for development– Ake – Doornbos

• Failure to establish control over territory and legitimate rule over population– Herbst

• Top-down institutions for delivery of public goods– Wunsch

Week 7: Governance Challenges in Central

AsiaReadings to be announced

Nazif Shahrani to make a presentation

Baqui Zai to lead participation

Week 8:Problems with Decentralization &

Local Government• Summary discussion of decentralization: types,

goals, dimensions, challenges• Smoke

• Decentralization of control over natural resources: – Understanding what property rights and capacities are

devolved to local communities• Agrawal and E. Ostrom

– Need for constitutional transfers and nesting resource management in larger system of democratic local governance

• Ribot

Week 9Citizenship, Identities, and

EducatonAfrican state-building project and the conception of

citizenship:– bifurcation of citizen identity: Citizens and Subjects

• Mamdani

– Social dislocation, transformed property rights and the creation of “lumpen” youth: Neither citizen nor subject

• Fanthorpe

– Conceptions of citizenship as product of interaction among ethnic identity, political authority, and legitimacy: “civic-republican” citizenship vs. “liberal democratic” citizenship

• Ndegwa

Week 10:Islam, Abrahamic Religions, and

Democratic Governance

Readings to be announced

Nazif Shahrani to make presentation

V. Ostrom to lead participation

Week 11:The Place of Language in

Democratic Self-Governance

• Analyzing the place of language in democratic governance– V. Ostrom

• Language, democracy and development in Africa– Obeng, Prah, Wafula

V. Ostrom will conduct seminarEric McLaughlin will lead participation

Week 12:Civil Society and Democratization

Beyond Elections• Polycentricity and democratic governance

• V. Ostrom

• Local self-governance and community development:– Experience from Andean Ecuador

• Korovkin

– From Nigeria• Barkan

Week 13:Understanding Rebel Movements

and Coping with Regional Conflicts

Understanding systems of conflict: Exploring interconnection among processes of peacemaking, rebellion and post-conflict reconstruction

Mike McGinnis

Week 14:Peacebuilding as Process of

Constitutional Choice

• Making peace settlements hold– Hartzell, Walter

• Grounding peace settlements and peacebuilding processes in local communities– Spears

• Truth and Reconciliation as people-centered peacebuilding– Tutu

Week 15International and Regional Orders

and the Prospects for Local Governance

Understanding interconnections between international organizations and local level of governance: FAO and local forest users communities– Marilyn Hoskins

The Workshop and Institutional Analysis

• Founding

• Basic themes of Workshop Research

• Workshop-Affiliated Programs– IFRI– CIPEC

Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis

• Established in 1973 at IU-Bloomington

• Network of affiliated scholars– Faculty, students and visiting scholars– Collaboration with many institutions

• Series of research programs– Diverse topics (no master plan)– Common themes and approach to research

• Scientific rigor and policy relevance

Basic Themes of Workshop Research

• Public Economies– Formal and informal networks of political, economic

and social institutions at multiple scales of aggregation

• Focus on patterns of Self-Governance– Conditions and consequences

• Polycentric Systems– Multiple layers, overlapping jurisdictions

(all studied in a multi-disciplinary manner)

Fundamental Assumptions

• Community self-governance is essential– Fundamental normative value– Foundation for liberty

• Local participation a practical necessity for sustainability

• Polycentricity makes use of economies of scale at all levels of aggregation. (not just “small is beautiful”)

• We can learn from a centuries of experience;– Appreciate wide diversity of institutional

arrangements– Not just “State vs. “market”

Long-Term Research Programs at Workshop

1. Local Public Economies– Water, Police, Employment Services

2. Management of Common Pool Resources– Water, Irrigation, Fisheries, Forests: IFRI, CIPEC

3. Constitutional Order and Governance– Constitutional foundations of order, development

assistance, conflict management, CSGA

4. Conditions for Collective Action– Experimental research

1. Local Public Economies

• Debates over consolidation in U.S. metropolitan (urban) area

• Analysis of police services

• Study of networks of public and non-profit organizations and production of employment services

2. Management of CPRs: What works? (E.O’s Design Principles)

• Wide participation in institutional design and processes of collective choice

• Clearly defined boundaries (membership, resources)

• Congruence with physical conditions• Consistency with community values• Incentives for regular monitoring• Graduated sanctions applied to rule violators• Easy access to dispute resolution mechanisms• Nested with supportive institutions (that grant

recognition of rights to organize)

Broad implications for Governance?

• Critical resources, thus political relevance• Challenges for governance:

– Conflicts among multiple user groups– Expansion of state, global economy environmental degradation– Sustainability over time

• Fundamental need to understand governance of multiple resources over long periods of time

International Forestry Resources and Institutions Research Program

(IFRI)• Forests as “public economy”—multiple

resources and overlapping users groups• Developed systematic coding form (physical,

social, economic, and institutional data)• Extensive field research• A dozen Collaborating Research Centers

(CRCs) around the world• Plan to develop time series data on forestry

resources and institutions

Center for Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental

Change (CIPEC)• Multi-disciplinary research program (NSF-

funded)• Originally focused on deforestation and

environmental change in Latin America• Expanding to cover other areas of the world• Biological and demographic data (in addition to

political, economic, social measures)• Extensive use of remote sensing and GIS

Governance of Multi-Use Resources: Initial Perspectives

• Global impact of human activities is shaped, in fundamental and systematic ways, by – Individual incentives– Governance systems

• Analysts need long-term monitoring of economic factors, environmental conditions, and institutional arrangements– Individuals researchers typically have short time

horizons– So do most funding agencies

3. Constitutional Order and Governance

• Historical and conceptual studies of macro-level public economies in several countries

• Shared sovereignty vs. unitary sovereignty(polycentricity vs. monocentricity)

• Political institutions not necessarily the most important explanatory factors (Tocqueville)

• Democratic self-governance possible in diverse cultures, but under diverse institutional arrangements

• Community property rights deserve protection

Development Assistance

• Development sector as public economy system of international and domestic public, private, and voluntary organizations

• Perverse incentives may occur:– International dev agency to “move the money”– Recipients to act strategically simply to get the money

• Local participation (co-production) essential for sustainable development

• Maintenance of infrastructure is a key indicator of success

Conflict Management

• “War economy” or “coercive sector” is a system driven by public and private actors

• Workshop-affiliated scholars involved in indigenous-based conflict resolution and constitutional negotiations in Southern Sudan, Somaliland, Liberia

• Analytic Task: systematic research on conflict management mechanisms (indigenous, traditional, informal, national and international)

• CSGA major focus of this research program

Future Research: Design Principles for Dispute Resolution

Mechanisms?• Maintain multiple forums for dispute resolution,

each with clear jurisdictional boundaries• Facilitate forum shopping, access to multiple

forums• Facilitate creation of new mechanisms or forums• Provide dispute resolution specialists with

incentives for continued participation in that role– Sensitivity to local values and power relations– Scope for autonomy and interest in

consistency

Future Research (cont)

• Sanctions should draw upon broader relationships between parties (or ties to broader community)

• Increase costs of using violence in disputes• Avoid monopolization of decision making

authority (in individuals or specific principles) for any forum

• Allow appeals of judgments and reform of institutions

4. Conditions for Collective Action

• Fundamental concern in all public economies (including laboratory experiments)

• Evaluate conditions for collective action beyond group size and heterogeneity

• Investigating broader interactions among trust, reputation, reciprocity, social capital– Agent-based models of complex networks

• Experiments reveal systematic deviations from theoretical expectations– Similar results in diverse cultural settings

Summary: Recurring Themes in Workshop Research

• Institutional analysis of public economies– Resource management– Public services– Informal sectors– Conflict management

• Conditions for community self-governance• Polycentric systems

All with policy relevance, scientific rigor, and multiple methods and levels of analysis

The Consortium for Self-Governance in Africa (CSGA)

• Network of teaching, research and research-action centers

• Established 2002

• Institutional members in Africa and U.S.

• Website http://www.indiana.edu/~csga

CSGA Mission

• To help the diverse peoples of Africa enhance their own capacities to govern themselves.

• Building upon ongoing enterprises in Africa, each member organization strives to realize a shared vision of democratic governance securely grounded in local culture

Overarching Objective

• To deepen understanding of Africa’s governance dilemmas and explore possibilities offered by the self-organizing potentials of African societies for developing and sustaining self-governing orders

CSGA Founding Members

• African Centre for Development and Strategic Studies (ACDESS), Nigeria

• African Studies Program, IU,• Associates in rural Development, Inc.

(ARD), Vermont• Centre for Advanced Studies of African

Society (CASAS), South Africa• Centre Universitaire Mande Bukari

(CUMBU), Mali

Founding Members (cont.)

• Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan (Nigeria)

• Institute for Contemporary Studies Press (ICS), San Francisco, Calif.

• Pan African Centre for Research on Peace and Conflict Resolution (Nigeria)

• Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IU

Other Members

Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Accra

• Department of Rural Technology, University of Conakry, Guinea

• Institute of Federalism and Local Government Studies, Ethiopian Civil Service College, Addis Ababa

• Department of Political Science, University of Sierra Leone, Freetown

• Department of Public Administration, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria

Research and Research-Action Goals

• Understanding patterns of indigenous, traditional, and local governance

• Understanding conflicts and conflict resolution mechanisms of local, national and regional scales

• Understanding the place of African languages in enhancing the constitution and the establishment or sustaining of democratic orders in Africa

Research goals (cont.)

• Developing and strengthening public entrepreneurship through the generation of relevant intellectual knowledge that can help communities draw upon the best of their own traditions, while remaining open to innovation and change, and thereby strengthen their capabilities for democratic self-governance.

• Exploring the possibilities of religion as a form of social capital that can enhance enlightenment and liberty, as Tocqueville put it.

• Understanding the complexities of multiple forms of identity as they bear upon citizenship, identity and collective action

Task for Education and Training

• Learn more about indigenous practices

• Develop frameworks for comparative analysis and evaluation

• Train scholars to apply frameworks in further studies (multi-disciplinary)

• Share findings with local communities

• Civic education based on comparative evaluation of indigenous knowledge

Current Activities of Members

• Community centers as centers of learning (Mali)

• Studies of neighborhood associations (Nigeria)

• Indigenous technology and community development (Guinea)

• Peacebuilding (Sierra Leone)

• Civil service training (Ethiopia)

Current activities (cont.)

• Indigenous mechanisms of conflict resolution (Eastern Nigeria)

• Development and Harmonization of orthographies for languages in Southern and West Africa (CASAS)

• Evaluation of natural resource management policies & practices (ARD)

CSGA-Focused activities of Workshop

• Research exchange

• Research resource generation (with colleagues elsewhere)

• Coordination

Publications

• Ayo, S. Bamidele, 2002. Public Administration and the Conduct of Community Affairs Among the Yoruba In Nigeria.

• Duany, Julia Aker. 2003. Making Peace & Nurturing Life

Research nearing completion

• Gellar, Sheldon, Democracy in Senegal: Tocquevillean Analytics in Africa

• McGinnis, Michael, Organizing for Rebellion and for Peace in the Horn of Africa

• Sawyer, Amos, Beyond Plunder: Constitutional Foundations for Peace in Liberia

Research in progress

• Hoskins, Marilyn is writing on her experiences in community forestry

• Joseph, Sam is doing a practitioner’s guide to peacebuilding

Projects for 2004 - 2009• Create data base for comparative analysis

of local self-governance (neighborhood, community-based associations, indigenous governance)

• Workshops for practitioners• Build research capacity

– Support training of grad students– Visiting scholar exchange– Publications

Workshop Approach to Institutional Analysis

• The IAD Framework used as theoretical foundations for a variety of empirical studies

• Shows how physical and material conditions, rules-in-use and community attributes jointly shape policy outcomes

• Draws from multiple disciplines: economics, anthropology, political science, etc.

• Allows for multiple levels of analysis: operational, collective choice, constitutional levels

• Allows for investigation of configural or interactive relationships

General Elements of Institutional Analysis*

Evaluations

Context Action Arena Incentives Interactions Outcomes

Figure 2.2: A Framework for Institutional Analysis

Context Physical/Material Conditions Action Arena Attributes of Action Perceived Patterns of Community Situations Incentives Interactions Actors Evaluative Criteria Rules-in-Use

Outcomes Source: Adapted from E. Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker (1994: 37).

Innovative Analytical Distinctions

• Nature of Goods– Private goods, public goods, CPR

• Production vs. provision– Both processes occur at multiple scales of

aggregation

• Polycentric system of governance – Allows for mixing and matching production

and provision at multiple scales

Understanding Rules

• Rules as shared understandings with reference to enforced prescriptions about what is required, permitted, prohibited

• Rules assign responsibility to other actors to impose costs on rule violators

• Understanding the source(s) of rules and the enforcement of rules is fundamental to the understanding of rule-ordered relationships

Important Rules for Institutional Analysis

• Identify rules-in-use (working rules) as against rules-in-form

• Examine how rules-in-use affect variables in action situation

Types of Rules

• Boundary rules (define membership, entry and exit)

• Position rules (determine who undertakes specialized/specific tasks)

• Authority rules (assign sets of actions that actors at positions must, may or may not take)

• Scope rules (determines latitude of actions to be taken, what is considered “off-limits”

Types of Rules (cont.)

• Aggregation rules (determines how actors are configured to make choices; level of control of an actor at a position)

• Information rules (determines access to information; who should know what)

• Payoff rules (determine monitoring, benefits, sanctions)

ADICO Grammar of Institutons(Crawford and E. Ostrom)

• Grammar for Institutions Statements

A: Attributes of actors to which it applies

D: Deontic statement (may, must, must not)

I: Aim of statement (object, action, outcome)

C: Conditions under which statement applies

O: Or Else: consequences of violation

ADICO (CONT.)

• Helps us distinguish shared strategies (AIC), norms (ADIC), and rules (ADICO)

• Strategy specifies action (I) of actors (A)in all circumstances (C)

• Norms add intrinsic costs for violating deontic logic (no roles assigned)

• Rules assign responsibility to other actors to impose costs on rule violators– Roles defined with responsibility for enforcing the “Or

Else” component of rules

ADICO (CONT.)

• ADICO statements fit together configurally into mutually constitutive networks

• Normative systems (belief system)– Network of ADICO statements– No agents assigned responsibility to punish norm

violation, but may be specialized roles involved• Rule System as definition of formal

organizations– Network of ADICO statements, each “or else”

statement linked to some actor assigned the role of enforcing sanctions

– Organizations as network of roles (linked by rules)

DECIDERS Framework

• See Michael McGinnis, Varieties of Institutional Analysis: The DECIDERS Framework (Y673 seminar syllabus)