3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/45
Browse
6 results
Search Results
Item Organised hypocrisy as a pattern of behaviour in the African Union’s Peace and Security Architecture : the solemn declaration to ‘Silence the guns in Africa by 2020’(2020-05) Swana, ZimkhithaA critical challenge arises when intergovernmental organisations are managed hypocritically at the expense of existing policy frameworks. The AU is recognised as having the most extensive continental peace and security institutions. However, conflict has remained a perennial issue in Africa and it is unlikely that the deadline that the organisation set to bring an end to violent conflict will be met by December 2020. Mainstream literature has provided challenges such as lack of political will, lack of resources or lack of opportunity as a few of the reasons why the AU suffers lack of implementation at times. However, the underutilised theory of organised hypocrisy aims to point out the structural, institutional incoherence which cause the organisation not to behave as expected. Organised Hypocrisy is no moral judgement, rather it is an evaluation of the relationship between organisational structures and institutions which enable or disable the organisation to deliver on the promises it makes. Organised hypocrisy allows the AU to continue to operate even in unfavourable circumstances, such as continuing to exist on a large proportion of external funding, disharmony and disingenuity among member states or unclear organisational cooperation and coordination within the organisation, subunits, and partners. Guided by the theory Organised Hypocrisy, this study uses process tracing as a method of inquiry to form an empirical basis for the analysis of the ways in which the AU did not behave as expected which may have promoted or prevented the achievement of the promise to Silence The Guns in Africa by 2020. Using the case of Burundi and citations of other cases of intervention in the African Union, the organisation does not yet have the operational capacity required to deliver on the promises. The organisational culture and the behaviour of member states do not cohere with all the principles of the AU and its predecessor; they are the biggest enemy of progress in the AU.Item Assessing the role of South Africa in Burundi(2013-08-29) Pillay, GeevanayagiThis paper assesses the role of South Africa in the Burundian conflict between1999- 2004. This paper analyses the role of Third Party intervention and the role played by the international community in resolving the Burundian civil war. The main purpose of this research paper is to investigate the role played by external actors in African civil conflicts and in this case, specifically looking at South Africa’s leading and challenging role in resolving the civil conflict in Burundi. The research design that has been followed in this paper was a qualitative approach. This approach was utilised to collect information which is sensitive in nature so as to explain the circumstances surrounding the conflict and the resolution thereof. The information was then collected and then analysed to provide a qualitative explanation of the events that had occurred and issues surrounding Third Party intervention. Respondents were informed that their confidentiality of the interviews would be respected. This investigation was guided by assessing South Africa’s efforts in the management and facilitation of the peace process in Burundi in partnership with key external parties such as the UN, AU and Regional Initiative for Peace in Burundi. An assessment was also conducted around the limitations and the level of success encountered by South Africa’s involvement in pursuit of diplomatic, political and military initiatives. In the literature survey, conflict resolution, mediation and Third Party intervention forms the framework of this research paper. This paper proves that South Africa played an instrumental part in the Burundi civil conflict, in which their participation, be it foreign policy initiatives, diplomatic efforts and military power or the central mediation role by South African president Nelson Mandela. This paper discusses that the Burundi conflict did not occur simply due to the animosity that existed between ethnic groups however this was a large contributing factor and the struggle for political power explains the root cause to the Burundi civil conflict and the manner in which politicians manipulated ethnicity, past injustices and policies of divide and rule as mechanisms and tools to gain power thus ensuring economic advantage at the expense of others.Item Natural resources and the crisis of nation-building in Africa: the case of oil and violence in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria(2012-03-13) Orievulu, Kingsley StephenThe preponderance of intrastate violent conflicts in natural resource rich states has been attributed to a number of causal mechanisms. Theorists of conflicts thus tend to explain these conflicts using different approaches, notably path dependency and rational choice. These approaches examine issues such as ethnicity and political marginalization, weak but repressive state capacity, strategic dilemmas, foreign instigators of conflict, and the very pervasive theory of the resource curse. Natural resources usually lie at the heart of many of these conflicts and the resource curse theory has helped explain the effects of states’ dependence on the primary resource sector. This resource curse is therefore corroborated by the rational choice approach which insists that economic incentives explain the upsurge in rebellious activities within natural resource rich but poor and dependent states, especially in Africa. This research interrogates the rational choice approach of Collier and Hoeffler against the backdrop of issues in the Niger Delta conflict. It argues that the greed versus grievance theory remains inadequate in the light of the historical and sociological circumstances underlying political struggles in the region. The research report concludes that an integrated but eclectic approach be applied in the study of this crisis.Item Money, conflict and reciprocity in rural black families in South Africa.(2009-03-03T09:09:39Z) Gouveia, Joanne AilsaThere is a rich body of literature examining multiple aspects of money in the social sciences yet the role of money in organising and shaping family interactions in the South African context appears limited. The aims of this research were to explore money and its link to conflict in the family and develop an understanding of how money is organised in and influenced by culture and gender in rural Black families in South Africa. Ten women undergraduate students were selected, using nonprobability snowball sampling, to participate in individual semi-structured interviews. Detailed biographical information was collected alongside responses to ten open ended money related questions. Interviews were transcribed and thematic content analysis was used to identify and analyse themes in the data both within and across the ten interviews. The research was dominated by five key findings the most significant being a relative lack of conflict between the interviewees’ family members in general and specifically with regard to money. This was influenced by the shared hierarchy of priorities within the family that informs and directs the allocation of resources. The authority of parents related to a particular set of social and cultural norms determined familial interaction influencing the limited expression of conflict. The presence and significance of reciprocity in the interviewees’ families was widely accepted within an extended family structure and exhibited no striking generational differences in adherence to the generalised norm of reciprocity. The interviewees’ families also displayed a marked lack of gendered difference in the allocation of resources among family members. The study while achieving its goal of providing some understanding of how money works in a particular group of rural Black families highlights the need for further exploration of money and conflict in the family in the South African context.Item Ethnic or class conflict? : The politics of conflict in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya(2008-10-21T10:56:46Z) Shilaho, Westen Kwatemba GodwinThe aim of this report is to attempt to find out the genesis of the persistent conflict in Kibera informal settlement, Nairobi Kenya. A number of defining factors in Kibera such as religion, ethnicity, economic factors and citizenship are analyzed in an effort to understand the 2001 conflict. One of the salient findings is that Kibera had been a precarious settlement since colonialism and its volatility in post independent Kenya was a perpetuation of what the colonialists established. There is focus on the theories of ethnicity as a prism for interpreting politics of conflict in Kibera. None, however, could adequately account for the 2001 conflict. The conflict defied the drama of monocausal explanations. However, the prebendary brand of politics dominant in Kibera served to entrench poverty while enriching a select few. From both historical and archival information concerning land, land had been under contestation in both colonial and post colonial periods not only in Kibera but also in Kenya as a whole. Lack of political will within successive governments to address the land question in Kibera is one of the leitmotifs of this report. From the analysis of data gathered from the field, it emerged that at the core of the 2001 conflict, was a struggle over land ownership and other resources thereto. Populist politics was largely to blame for the clashes in the area in 2001. The running theme is that as long as there was massive poverty in Kibera, it would be hard to contain persistent tensions in the settlement.Item Music as a vehicle in conflict transformation and social integration in South Africa(2006-11-16T09:11:50Z) Ameck, Gillian Ayong;Music has always played an important role in the lives of mankind; the quest for freedom by black people across the world is a typical example. During the days of slavery and later the civil rights struggle in the US, the struggle for independence by African states and the fight against Apartheid, music was used as an instrument of resistance. Through music, black South Africans emerged from conscious and subconscious subjugation to rescue their psyche from alienation. Today they express their cultural self-confidence in ways very different from the generations with firsthand experience of apartheid. Conflict has always been an important contributor to music of resistance. Over the past hundred years, however, violent attempts by men to dominate each another have intensified (The two Great Wars and the Cold War, genocides, ethnic and religious clashes). In this same vein, so too have efforts to thwart such attempts. Conflicts exist at all levels, within and between individuals, communities, nations and cultures. For a society still in the process of transformation, conflict in South Africa has also taken a new dimension with focus now on social conflict (for example Crime, drugs, poverty and the generation gap) in the field of daily life also including racial conflict, affirmative action, ethnic conflict, economic conflict and others with less and less focus on political conflict. The benefit of post- 1994 South Africa is the freedom of expression it offers. This is a freedom that, 20 years ago, was a luxury for blacks living in a country torn apart by apartheid; a freedom to have pride in themselves, a freedom to express their cultural selfconfidence. The first place this freedom became visible was on the music scene in the form of new infectious, irresistible form of dance and music. Musicians use their music as a medium to demonstrate most of these societal conflicts that exist in South Africa. Peace researchers, peace workers, and others have worked over several decades to promote an alternative culture and an alternative approach to dealing with conflicts – one based on recognising the positive, constructive, and creative opportunities available in any conflict situation. In this regard I would like to dwell on music as a creative way of dealing with conflict.