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AbstractSocial cash transfers (CTs) have expanded considerably in Africa over the last decade. While the largest programmes are run by public institutions, non-state actors are increasingly becoming involved, but have attracted less academic attention. CTs are particular in that they are more fungible and liquid than other types of welfare provision, meaning that they are more difficult to control for both providers and governments. This article explores state strategies in relation to CTs by non-state actors focusing on when and how they are politicized. We analyse politicization from two intertwined vantage points. Firstly, we argue that the distributional logic in a society’s social contract contributes to understanding how and when cash transfers become politicized. We analyse the distributional logic along a continuum from universalist to partisan and apply this analytical lens to Tanzania and Uganda. Secondly, we suggest that politicization is intertwined with how the states coordinate non-state-CTs. We show that in Tanzania non-state-CTs are integrated into the state’s framework of social protection, while in Uganda they primarily operate on the margins of the state. In both cases, however, the state retains control over non-state-CTs and uses them politically, albeit in different ways, in order to maintain its relations with important constituencies. Hence, our analytical framework, which combines analysis of the distributional logic in the social contract and the mode of coordination, enables us to unpack when and how non-state-CTs are politicized, as well as how the tensions between governments and non-state-CTs have been handled differently in the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When describing the essential features of the Russian peasantry, Gorky draws attention to the concepts of cruelty and, as a result, pity, which are necessary for understanding its actions. Cruelty, which goes hand in hand with the use of violence and power, is one of the existentials of the people's being. This being spreads across the vast expanses of the Russian Empire, which is characterized as a non-state formation, that is, as a formation not oriented toward the consolidation of a single ethnos, one with a multiethnic territory, with servitude (serfdom), and with hybrid leadership. The ability to order people around contributes to the creation of a model of hybrid power: this model, oriented toward the emergence of a "new people" implicitly subordinate to the sole ruler, led to the emergence of Europeanized slaves and slaveowners who made use of and at the same time strongly opposed entry into the stable life of new classes and estates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nigeria faces a serious set of new security threats. In the south and the northeast, respectively, there are insurgencies led by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, among others, as well as Boko Haram. These insurgencies are related to a complex set of insecurities in Nigeria: poverty, income inequality, corruption, crime, and youth militias. The Nigeria state thus far has not been able to effectively address these security issues. This article examines the potential of traditional rulership in Nigeria to positively contribute to the struggle against insecurity and its consequences. It finds that there may be promise in the institutions of traditional rule. Yet, because traditional rulers have been often co-opted by the state, they have lost much of the legitimacy it needs to fulfill that potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]