Democracy Index 2024 and Africa

The Economist Intelligence Unit has just released its "Democracy Index 2024."   The index provides a snapshot of the state of democracy in 165 independent states and two territories.  The index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties.  Each country is classified as one of four types of regime: full democracy (25 countries), flawed democracy (46), hybrid regime (36), or authoritarian regime (60).

The index ranks 50 African countries.  The only one in the full democracy category is Mauritius (#20).  Six are flawed democracies: Botswana (#35), Cabo Verde (#37), South Africa (#43), Namibia (#58), Ghana (#65), and Lesotho (#70).  Sixteen are hybrid regimes and 27 are authoritarian regimes.  In Africa, the Central African Republic (#164) is at the bottom and Sudan is not much better (#162).

By comparison, the United States is a flawed democracy at number 28 and China is an authoritarian regime at number 145.

Land Conflict in Somalia

 The Rift Valley Institute and the Somalia Stability Fund published a major study in December 2021 titled "Land Conflict in Somalia."

Land conflict in Somalia is shaped by--and has shaped--the historical trajectory of the country.  In particular, the land management and agricultural development policies of the Siad Barre regime continue to influence some of the current dynamics of land conflict in Somalia.

A critical challenge in designing an appropriate framework for land conflict transformation in Somalia is the system of legal pluralism that currently characterizes land governance and management.

Judicial Reform in Kenya's Southern Rift Valley

The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law published in 2015 a study titled "Access to Justice, Impunity and Legal Pluralism in Kenya" by Jurg Helbling, Walter Kalin and Prosper Nobirabo.  The authors argue that legal pluralism reforms of the judiciary aimed at facilitating access to justice are suitable to address cases of functional impunity if such reforms manage to restore the trust of people in state institutions.  They are likely to fail where the reasons for impunity and its underlying conflicts are structural in nature.