TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 2

REGIMES IN AFRICA 4

REGIME TYPES AND CONFLICT IN AFRICA 5

CASE STUDIES OF UGANDA AND KENYA 8

Totalitarian Regime and Conflict in Uganda. 9

Authoritarian Regime and Conflict in Kenya 11

CONCLUSION 17

REFERENCE: 19

INTRODUCTION

With the work of Mansfield & Snyder (1995) the discussion of the link between regime type and conflict has moved beyond the perception of democracy as a peaceful end point. According to Cederman (2001), once democratization is discerned as a dynamic process that sees unstable times before leading to a more robust, less conflict-prone society, it becomes necessary to study the linkages between regime-type transition and conflict. Wimmer (1997) affirms that while stable democracies are unlikely to wage war with other democracies, a countries that are on the uncertain path towards new social order may very well see conflict between groups with opposing interests. A number of theoretical models have been put forward, ranging from conflict theories driven by economic opportunity with a claim to universal validity (Fearon & Laitin 1997; Collier & Hoeffler 2004) among others, to localized analyses focusing on specific regions, countries or communities that are based on historical links and social settings unique to the conflict location. The relationship between regime type and civil conflict has been widely studied.

Hegre et al. (2001) have demonstrated an inversed U-shaped relation between the level of democracy and the incidence of civil war over time, concluding that semi democracies are indeed the most prone to civil strife. At both extremes, in autocracies and democracies, civil wars are rare – and even rarer under a democracy than under an autocracy. However, in a semi- democracy, they argue, the combination of both grievances and the opportunity to rebel is at its peak. In a democracy, grievances are generally less common and more moderate while there are plenty of possibilities to express these grievances and to secure change through channels other than violence. In an autocracy, on the other hand, grievances are likely to be great and frequent but state repression may prevent them from being openly expressed. In a semi-democracy, both grievances and opportunities for violent conflict exist. This suggests that violent opposition is more likely in regime types that fall between autocracy and well-functioning democracy

What is clear from the historical experiences of other countries and regions of the world is that democracy and good governance doesn’t come by chance; rather they emanate from concrete political struggles waged by dominated groups in the society.

Today, the most popular way to classify a political regime is to perhaps decide to what extent it is democratic. Since authoritarian regimes often are considered the ant-thesis of democracy, or more precisely a regime lacking the properties associated with democracy, this paper will use totalitarian and authoritarian (semi -democracies) as the major types of regimes applied by governments in Africa and a source of societal conflicts in Africa, to explain the absence of democracy and vice versa (Mukiru, M 2006)

This is deliberate focus on the relevant political level (local, national or regional) and avoiding a premature classification into broad categories.

Seven countries in the Horn of Africa regions are selected for the occurrence of intra and inter state violent conflict during periods of political restructuring. These include; Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti Uganda and Kenya.

This paper utilizes pragmatic examples from Africa, to extensively demonstrate the continuation of particular regime types and the scope to which have been a source of societal conflicts.

The paper proceeds in various stages: initially, it looks at the general regimes in Africa during and after colonization, followed by a brief description of regime types and conflict seven countries of the Horn region Africa. Uganda and Kenya picked for case studies under different regime types (totalitarianism in Uganda while authoritarians in Kenya).

A special focus on the link between regime-type change—in particular democratization—and the occurrence of societal conflict as stated in deferent literature. The paper puts a critical conclusion that, it is essential to confront the problem of endogeneity and take the interactions between political systems and conflict into account. Then finally, a list of references is presented.

REGIMES IN AFRICA

Kisian’ngani (2008) commenting on democracy in Africa says that colonial rule had certain fundamental pillars. Through carefully conceived “divide and rule policy”, colonialism was implanted to secure the exploitation of African’s human and material resources in addition to promoting ethnic hostilities among African communities

Colonial rule was both dictatorial and intolerant. The police, jailed or summarily detained without trial, killed those who challenged the colonial rule. Africans paid taxes without representation, provided cheap labor, influential public jobs went to whites African productive lands were alienated and given to Europeans and education opportunities for Africans were scarce. Africa belonged to the white people.

After their independence, many African countries for instance, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan Eritrea, Djibouti Zimbabwe, Uganda and Kenya soon shared a common political characteristic: one party regimes and quite often dictatorial governments in which political leaders tended to consolidate power for life for their personal privileges and honor.

Since the end of colonialism, the ideas of justice, liberty, democracy and economic prosperity that inspired independent struggles in many African countries have not materialized. Wars of liberation were quickly succeeded by vicious civil wars or bitter discord between various factions of former independent movements. Where there have not been civil wars, the society has been plagued by brutal repression, corruption, obsession with personal power, nepotism and tribalism (Essefa and Wachira 1996:1).

Africa is increasingly associated with hunger, abject poverty, war, dictatorship and the AIDS epidemic. The continent is being marginalized or ignored more by the world community.

Essefa and Wachira (1996) argue that Africa currently seems to suffer from a great leadership void. Some of the 1st generation post colonial African leaders who founded the organizational African union (OAU) provided a continental vision that inspired Africans struggling to define their place in the community. The generation of African leaders that followed failed to sustain the original dreams or create their own vision of the future of the continent.

Essefa and Wachira (1996) advance that most of these leaders were guided by nepotism and tribalism. However it is important to note that some of the African countries are experiencing some sense of democratic maturity example Ghana as advanced by the international media, BBC.

According to Kisian’ngani (2008), it need to be recognized the struggle for independence which began in the 1890s when the colonial rule was imposed on Africa people was never concluded after independence but continues till today.

REGIME TYPES AND CONFLICT IN AFRICA

Political regimes can be broadly divided into three types. Democracies almost never go to war with each other, and because they have political structures and procedures for addressing grievances, have relatively few internal conflicts. Autocracy / totalitarianism (dictatorship) tend to suppress ruthlessly any dissent or rebellion, and so they too also have relatively few armed conflicts. The third category, anocracies, which are neither fully democratic nor wholly authoritarian, experience most armed conflicts

http://www.miniatlasofhumansecurity.info/en/files/miniAtlas_part5.pdf

According to Diamond and Plattner, M (1997) most of the countries in Africa operate ‘semi-authoritarian regimes’ because they have the facade of democracy; that is, they have political systems, they have all the institutions of democratic political systems, they have elected parliaments, and they hold regular elections. They have nominally independent judiciaries. They have constitutions that are by and large completely acceptable as democratic institutions--but there are, at the same time, very serious problems in the functioning of the democratic system. Semi-authoritarian regimes are very good at holding multi-party elections while at the same time making sure that the core power of the government is never going to be affected. In other words, they are going to hold elections, but they are not--the regime is not going to lose those elections. Semi-authoritarian regimes intimidate voters, as it happened in the recent elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Semi-authoritarian regimes manipulate state institutions for self-ends—governments don’t respect the laws, and don’t work through institutions.

Semi-authoritarian regimes amend constitutions anytime they want.

Semi-authoritarian regimes will not introduce fully participatory, competitive elections that may result in their loss of power, and some are even unsure of how far they really want to go toward political pluralism in their countries. African politics is generally speaking, a matter of personality, not programs Linz, J. and Stepan, A, (1996).For example, during the Obasanjo administration the prevailing idea was that the president was the father of the nation, the big man, or Kabiyesi, that is, no one dared question him.

This has led to societal conflicts across these countries for instance, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti Uganda and Kenya

In Somalia the situation remains as chaotic as it has been since Said Barre left in haste in 1991. The breakdown of public authority and its dispersion into clan and warlords has been the single most alarming development in Somalia. The invasion by Ethiopia backed by the current US Government against the IUCs opened the floodgate again for the warlords to resurface and embolden themselves in Somalia.

In Sudan there is even more alarming development such as genocide and even modern day slavery in the Darfur area where apparently culturally ’Arabized Africans’ attack other Africans with the connivance if not active support of the militias by the Bashir Government in Sudan that have been responsible for murdering and uprooting whole communities. The crises in Darfur continues to go on despite protests by the UN, EU, the Africa Union, USA, Britain and global civil society and human rights organizations.

According to Alier, A. (2003), the Sudanese Peace Initiative that was signed on the 16th November 1988 by the leader of DUP Moulana Mohamed and SPLM leader John Garang was in vain. It had been drawn up to pave way for the convening of constitutional conference rather than addressing itself directly to the substantive issues of conflict. More worrying is the often repeated stories that practices and instances of slavery still exist in Sudan and Mauritania. The practice of selling humans in the 21st century is indeed one that Africans must never tolerate, as indeed they must never tolerate dictatorship.

In Eritrea, opposition is severely punished. Eritrea remains in a no-war, no-peace state with Ethiopia since the outbreak of the large-scale war in 1998. Being together with Ethiopia or living separately did not seem to make any difference in relation to bringing about a normalized and peaceful relation amongst such geographically contiguous close neighbors. Each side accuses the other of supporting forces trying to destabilize it. It is thus one of the most confounding dilemmas trying to make sense and to searching for what would work to bring about an amicable relationship between the two warring regimes that continue to hurt the people by their inexplicable actions to stay belligerent for the long haul.

Kenya has its own ethnic tremor that may again erupt into violence unless the democratic institutions outpace the ethnic agitators in the course of time. The democratic transition from KANU-dominated rule to the NARC coalition is a great historical achievement in democracy. Whilst the issue in Kenya is sustaining democratic transition, the issue in the rest of the Horn of Africa is the rudimentary absence of any credible security order to experiment with democracy and development. Kanyinga (2007) comments on political change in Kenya write that after independence, the Kenyan society was de-racialised but not de-tribalised. The state institutions were ethnicised rather than reformed. These fueled violence in Kenya following 2008 post election disputes.

Museveni, Y. (1997) laments that Uganda has also faced election problems, involvement in the fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the destabilizing armed resistance from the Lord Resistance Army, and its current involvement in the Somalia conflict by placing troops in support of the Ethiopian and American Governments’ pursuit to track Islamists in IUCs and their external allies.

These are some of the intra and inter state conflicts that have and are still being experienced in the Horn of Africa regions due to the semi- authoritarian and or semi- democratic regimes in Africa

CASE STUDIES OF UGANDA AND KENYA

How then can a regime type be a source of conflict within societies?

According to http://dss.ucsd.edu, Regime types refer to forms of governments and political systems that are usually categorized in different ways. The systems are not usually exclusive, and often have overlapping definitions. Examples include autocracy, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism among many others that cannot be exclusively differentiated from one another and are sometimes all considered to be forms of dictatorship. However, there are democratic regimes, which are not necessarily forms of dictatorship for instance direct democracy and indirect democracy.

Baylis, J. & Smith, S. (2006) commenting on regime theory, they say is a theory within international relations derived from the liberal tradition that argues that international institutions or regimes affect the behavior of states or other international actors. They go ahead to urge that indeed, regimes are by definition, instances of international cooperation. In this context, the argument is that the term regime can be defined in two ways: In politics, a regime is the form of government which encompasses a set of political socio-economic and cultural issues which regulates the operation of government and its interaction with society while from an international; perspective “regimes” concerns international regulatory agencies, which lie outside of the control of national governments. This means then that is different forms of political regimes that are overlapping just like definitions are.

Having looked at the regime and regime types, the paper goes further to explore the role of the regime types in causing conflicts within the society. What then is conflict as put in the context?

Vogt (2007) defines conflict as incompatibility that concerns government and or territory where the use of armed force between two parties of which one is the government or state. He stresses that it’s important to note that a regime type tends to affect the type of political conflict in a country. On the other hand, Auvinen (1997) argues that the regimes inability to provide economic goods and to allow a democratic participation in the making of the political decision can be a source of both intrastate and interstate conflicts. The best example is drawn from Africa where by after their independence, many African countries soon shared a common political characteristic: one party regimes and quite often dictatorial governments in which political leaders tended to consolidate power for life for their personal privileges and honor.