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"Mitchell, Matthew I"
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Land grievances and the mobilization of electoral violence: Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire and Kenya
Recent studies have asked why elites resort to violence, yet many overlook the process and dynamics of mobilizing violence. How do politicians convince their supporters to fight? This article argues that in multi-ethnic and democratizing societies where land and property rights are weak and politicized, land grievances can provide leaders with a powerful tool to organize electoral violence. We develop a theory to show how land grievances can give rise to violent mobilization when leaders frame elections as a threat to the land security of supporters or an opportunity to reclaim land or strengthen land rights. Conversely, land grievances are ineffective when citizens do not believe that elections signal a credible threat to their land security or an opportunity to strengthen land rights. We further specify how the type of land grievance shapes the logic and form of violent action. Grievances based on land insecurity shape a preemptive logic of violence, while grievances based on competing land claims often shape an opportunistic logic of electoral violence. The article examines the validity of our theory using a comparative case study between zones of escalation and non-escalation of violence during post-electoral crises in Kenya (2007–08) and Côte d'Ivoire (2010–11). By observing the variation between positive and negative cases, the article identifies factors that foment and constrain the mobilization of election violence.
Journal Article
The Political Economy of Cocoa in Nigeria: A History of Conflict or Cooperation?
Nigeria became one of the largest cocoa producers in West Africa during the early twentieth century—a title that it continues to hold. Studies have examined the history of Nigerian cocoa farming and production, but not the sociopolitical nature of the economy of cocoa. This article helps fill this gap as it explores indigenous–migrant relations within the cocoa sector and the key historical developments to the country's land laws. In so doing, the article uses comparative data from conflict-ridden cocoa regions of Côte d'Ivoire and identifies factors that explain the more peaceful outcomes in Nigeria. This perspective helps provide new insights for understanding the past, present, and prospects for future conflict or cooperation in Nigeria's cocoa regions.
Journal Article
A Historical Institutionalist Understanding of Participatory Governance and Aboriginal Peoples: The Case of Policy Change in Ontario's Mining Sector
Objective. Natural resource policy has been a constant source of conflict between \"Aboriginal\" and \"non-Aboriginal\" stakeholders in Canada. We employ a historical institutionalist analysis to examine the extent to which changes to the Canadian Constitution in 1982 and Ontario's Mining Act in 2009 enabled Aboriginal communities to become equal partners in participatory governance arrangements in mineral resource sectors. Methods. We analyze primary sources consisting of federal and provincial legislation and in-person interviews conducted across Ontario in 2010. Results. The existing Canadian mining policy paradigm, while under significant pressure, has not yet been displaced by a new policy paradigm that would better accommodate the interests of Aboriginal stakeholders. Consequently, Aboriginal peoples' mineral resource claims are likely to remain unresolved. Conclusion. We suggest how a policy paradigm that both improves Aboriginal-state relations and reduces uncertainty in the mining sector offers a promising political foundation for participatory governance and cooperative engagement between stakeholders.
Journal Article
Insights from the Cocoa Regions in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana: Rethinking the Migration–Conflict Nexus
Although many scholars have noted the salience of mobility throughout the African continent, there has been little systematic investigation into the link between migration and conflict. Most scholarship has tended to see migration as primarily a by-product of conflict and not as a security issue in its own right. In analyzing and contrasting the different migration–conflict trajectories across two similar case studies—Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana—this article attempts to develop an empirically informed theoretical framework for understanding the nexus between migration and conflict in Africa and to shed light on key intervening variables linking migration processes with violent outcomes.
Journal Article
Land tenure reform and politics in post-conflict Côte d'Ivoire: a precarious peace in the western cocoa regions
Although Côte d'Ivoire recently emerged from a long period of protracted conflict, peace is indeed precarious. This is particularly the case in the country's western cocoa regions, where tensions between indigenous and migrant populations continue to pose a threat to Côte d'Ivoire's economic and political recovery. These tensions revolve around longstanding land disputes that culminated in violent attacks in the late 1990s, early 2000s and in the recent 2010-2011 post-election crisis. Using insights from field work in 2012 conducted in the cocoa regions, this article explores the issue of land tenure reform and politics in post-conflict Côte d'Ivoire. In so doing, it considers the legal and political dimensions of land tenure in the cocoa regions and the highly controversial 1998 land law. This provides the crucial context for analysing the historical and enduring nature of these disputes, the critical importance of land reform in contemporary Côte d'Ivoire and the relationship between the \"land question\" and peace at both local and national levels.
Journal Article
The Contentious Politics of Impact and Benefit Agreements: A \Sons of the Soil\ Conflict Perspective
This paper expands upon recent literature on Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBAs) to examine the contentious politics around this emerging form of governance. The paper breaks from previous studies as it adopts a new conceptual and theoretical approach to study the potential conflict dynamics surrounding IBAs. In doing so, it employs a \"sons of the soil\" conflict perspective to analyze the extent to which IBAs could serve to either fuel or prevent the outbreak of conflict between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous stakeholders. The paper draws upon recent developments in land use planning from the Province of Ontario, Canada, to serve as an empirical illustration of the potential conflictual dimensions of IBAs. Specifically, it examines the Government of Ontario's efforts to promote sustainable natural resource development in the northern regions of the province through the adoption of the Far North Act-an Act that has generated much controversy since its adoption in 2010. While the analysis is more exploratory than confirmatory, the findings underscore the critical need for more research on the conflictual dimensions surrounding IBAs.
Book Chapter
Rethinking the Migration-Conflict Nexus: Insights from the Cocoa Regions in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana
In recent years, International Relations scholars have begun to consider migration as an explanatory variable, recognizing its potential role in contributing to the outbreak of violent conflict. Despite the theoretical and empirical contributions resulting from this scholarship, the growing literature privileges a narrow category of migrants –involuntary migrants – failing to capture the role of the millions of voluntary migrants that might be part of the migration-conflict nexus. While some efforts have been made to explore the broader relationship between migration and security, this work focuses on developed countries, national security, and international migration. In short, this has led to the development of a new research agenda that bears little relevance to the African context (and other developing regions) where internal security and internal migration are much more prominent issues.This dissertation addresses these gaps by examining the migration-conflict nexus in the cocoa regions in two West African countries − Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. These countries are excellent candidates for comparative analysis as both have a great deal in common in terms of their natural resources, geographies, cultures and relations to the world market. These countries also provide fertile ground for comparison as although they share similar migration histories, there have been fundamentally different outcomes in terms of migration-producing conflict. Whereas there have been violent outbreaks of conflict targeting migrants in Côte d’Ivoire leading to a protracted civil war, instances of violent conflict in Ghana’s cocoa growing regions are rare.By analyzing and contrasting the different migration-conflict trajectories across these cases, the dissertation develops an empirically-informed model for explaining migration-conflict dynamics in Africa and beyond. While the findings highlight the need to take migration seriously as a security issue in its own right, they also reveal the critical role of the following intervening variables in influencing the diverging outcomes: differences in state-society relations; diverging land tenure regimes; variations in state capacity and exogenous shocks; and contrasting experiences with autochthony discourses. Notwithstanding the empirical focus on migration-conflict dynamics in the Ivoirian and Ghanaian cocoa regions, the model developed herein provides important insights beyond these regional contexts.
Dissertation
Global Indigenous Politics: A Subtle Revolution
Global Indigenous Politics: A Subtle Revolution Sheryl Lightfoot New York : Routledge , 2016, pp. 264.
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