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The acknowledgement of politics and institutions in developing countries is well in line with debates not only in the area of development effectiveness but also regarding new public management. Results-Based Approaches (RBApps), conceptually framed within these two debates, are designed to support outcome- and impact-oriented development goals. They link the achievement of results to monetary and/or non-monetary reward mechanisms. However, so far, development cooperation partners have mainly applied RBApps in the form of Results-Based Finance and Results-Based Aid. Through the provision of a conceptual framework, this paper embeds RBApps between different tiers of government within the discussion and applies Rwanda as a case study to it. Along the lines of Rwanda's Domestic Performance Approach Imihigo, the article argues that development co-operation should be more proactive in considering these approaches, as they might be crucial in terms of sustainability and serve as a promising entry point for programmes supported by development partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with Theogene Rudasingwa, former Ambassador of Rwanda to the U.S., is presented. Rudasingwa talks about his background and experience working in Rwanda. Topics include relationship between the U.S. and Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, President Kagame's role in the plane shoot-down, and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

This article examines the impact of electoral gender quotas in post‐war Burundi and Rwanda on women's political representation. First, it looks at the evolution in descriptive representation by studying the number of female representatives and the prestige of their positions in the legislative and executive branches of government. The results show that, in both Rwanda and Burundi, the number of female political representatives significantly increased with the introduction of gender quotas, with their presence in parliament and ministries consistently exceeding 30 per cent. While women disproportionally end up in ministries of relatively lower prestige, the gap with men has been closing over time, as more women have joined the executive branches of power. The study considers whether such an increase has been accompanied by a positive evolution in the way ordinary women perceive their political representation. Despite a general improvement in perceived political representation across the population, the article finds there is not a significant difference between women and men and the study explains this finding by analysing the intersectionality of ethnicity and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gacaca transitional justice process in Rwanda has strong proponents and sharp critics. At the core of these critiques is the argument that gacaca has been used by the government in Rwanda to consolidate political power around a single narrative of the conflict and the dominant political party. This article advances this critique by arguing that it was not simply the implementation of gacaca which was used for a specific political purpose, but rather the process itself which was structured in a way to consolidate political order for the Rwandan Patriotic Front government. Through the Rwanda case, this article advances an understanding of transitional justice adoption which focuses on the ways in which governments use transitional justice as a tool of political order. Within this framework, transitional justice is adopted to address security, resource, and legitimacy challenges for a post-conflict or post-transition government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the past decade, Rwanda has made great strides as a country to identify and reduce barriers associated with gender and stereotypes; however, problems still exist that have yet to be tackled regarding gender, including cultural gender norms, lack of access to extension and agricultural services, lack of access to financial support (through credit), and higher rates of illiteracy, especially for women. Although much progress has been made in the area of nutrition in Rwanda, stunting and malnutrition continue to exist at high rates throughout the country. Furthermore, gender and nutrition issues often go hand-in-hand. The "One Cow per Poor Family" program (commonly referred to as GIRINKA) was implemented to address two important issues: increasing income and reducing malnutrition. This paper is a brief review of the GIRINKA project from a gendered perspective and offers recommendations for implementing organizations on how the program might more actively address the needs of women and children related to nutrition and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a capability analysis of Rwandan development policy. It is motivated by impressive progress on human development indicators in combination with highly centralised policymaking, giving ambiguous signs regarding a capability approach. It is based on extensive original empirical material, along with large numbers of official documents and academic sources. The analysis is structured around three issues that concern the relation between individual agency and government policy, and that are debated among capability scholars as well as in relation to Rwandan development policy: participation, transformation and paternalism. The finding that Rwandan development policy reflects an approach very different from a capability approach is not surprising, but establishes that the assumed link between human development indicators and the capability approach needs to be questioned. This brings our attention to shortcomings in any quantitative measurements of development, or in the use of and importance attached to them, as well as to the problem of assuming that certain outputs go hand in hand with certain processes. While this is valid for contexts far beyond Rwanda, it also sheds light specifically on the polarisation that exists in the scholarly debate on Rwanda. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we develop and expand the rebel-to-ruler literature to go beyond ‘rebel transformations’, in order to examine the transformation and militarisation of the entire post-genocide society in Rwanda. Through a historical and socio-political analysis of the military’s influence in post-genocide Rwanda, we argue that the adoption of military norms and ethos, drawn from an idealised and reconstructed pre-colonial history rather than simply an insurgent past, motivates the military’s centrality and penetration of all society’s sectors, economically, politically and socially, with the ultimate aim of retaining power in the hands of the rebels turned rulers. As such, the case demonstrates the need for an expansion of the rebel-to-ruler literature (1) beyond its concern with parties and regime type to a broader palette of governance effects and (2) beyond its singular focus on insurgent past and towards a longue-durée understanding of complementary causes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT This article argues that current schisms in the research on post-genocide Rwanda are not sui generis but symptomatic of a broader set of separations within our understanding of development. Both the research on Rwanda and the most prominent intellectual responses to the rise of neoliberalism in development research have generated separations between a concern with rights and individual agency and structural transformation. The article sets out a way to reconcile key aspects of this separation and offers three empirical themes that provide original insights into Rwanda's apparent determination and partial success in pushing ahead with a bold strategy of capitalist transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A paradox in current international development cooperation is comprised by the simultaneous insistence on national ownership and far-reaching donor involvement through policy dialogue. In order to better understand this combination of a strong ownership ideal and extensive donor presence, this article explores how national and external actors portray the process of formulating and revising development policies and programmes in an aid recipient country. The study is based on original empirical material from national as well as external actors involved in the aid relation in Rwanda which, despite heavy aid dependence, is known to have achieved relative policy independence. Analysed in relation to three strands of critical thought in previous research, findings show that, in Rwanda, the very top political leadership is actively involved in initiating and formulating policies; that there are instances of negotiation as well as strong disagreements between national and external actors; and that, rather than donors seeking to retain control, Rwanda is depicted as setting its own agenda and effectively managing its donors. The paradox of an ownership ideal combined with donor involvement is thus met by an apparent tendency among national as well as external actors to emphasise national ownership while toning down donor influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rwanda's upcoming August 2017 presidential election provides a unique opportunity for the international community to reflect upon the past and contemplate the future of a nation that has struggled with intense ethnic factionalism for much of its history. In particular, incumbent President Paul Kagame's bid for a third-term is cause to consider the merits and dangers of his continued rule. While Kagame is often hailed for his role in ending the 1994 civil war and ushering in an era of stability and economic growth, in recent years his regime has faced widespread criticism for rampant human rights abuses, repression of civil liberties, growing income inequality, clandestine involvement in regional conflicts, and suppression of political opposition. Despite strong evidence for many of these allegations, to date Kagame and his ideologues have escaped any major international censure by virtue of his brash indignation toward any indictments and his willingness to utilize the memory of genocide to deflect criticism. However, closer analysis of the Kagame government reveals that in many ways it is recreating the economic, social, and political conditions that have in the past led to the proliferation of ethnic tensions and heralded outbreaks of violence. Therefore, it is a critical juncture for the international community to consider intervention prior to the 2017 elections to compel more substantive democratization characterized by ethnic power-sharing in order to forestall any potential resurgences of violence and ensure that Rwanda continues on its path towards reconciliation and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revue Tiers Monde is the property of Librairie Armand Colin and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of African Studies Review is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The political settlements literature [Khan, M.Political Settlements and the Governance of Growth-enhancing Institutions. School of Oriental and African Studies Working Paper, 2010. Accessed June 19, 2014. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/9968; North, D., J. Wallis, and B. Weingast.Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009] has assigned a privileged role to rents as instruments used by ruling elites to maintain political stability. Since then, there has been some attempt [Hickey, S.Thinking about the Politics of Inclusive Development: Towards a Relational Approach. Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre Working Paper No. 1, 2013; Hudson, D., and A. Leftwich. 2014.From Political Economy to Political Analysis. Development Leadership Programme Research Paper 25, Birmingham] to highlight how ideas may play a similarly important role in contributing to political stability. This article explores how ruling elites in Rwanda responded to a ‘critical juncture’ in 2012 when donors withdrew foreign aid after they alleged that the Rwandan Patriotic Front government was supporting rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ruling elites then used an idea –Agaciro(a Kinyarwanda word, which means dignity or self-respect) – as one instrument to maintain political stability and legitimise its revised development programme in Rwanda. Ruling elites have also used the rhetoric aroundAgaciroto target the younger generation in Rwanda. This paper argues thatAgacirois symbolic of the vulnerabilities faced by ruling elites in Rwanda today. These vulnerabilities are a specific outcome of the Rwandan developmental strategy, which combines neoliberal market-led reforms, with some developmental state-like policies. TheAgaciroconcept was also operationalised, with the creation of an Agaciro Development Fund (AgDF) in 2012. The AgDF was legitimised on the basis of a commitment to self-reliance (among elites) during a time where symbolic coalition building among elites was important for political stability. However,Agacirois also used to project the country’s development strategy (particularly in relation to entrepreneurship and financial inclusion) as one of opportunity, instead of acknowledging the severe inequality that has been associated with development in Rwanda thus far. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses the participation entailed in the Rwandan practice of household performance contracting, and discusses likely effects. Participation constitutes an intrinsic part of development practice and theory. Approaches and aims, however, differ, for example, between community members making decisions and being informed, and between empowerment and efficiency. The Rwandan government, eloquently ascribing to the participation discourse, has launched a number of programmes alluding to traditional participatory practices. One of these is performance contracting,imihigo, presented as involving the population in formulation, implementation and monitoring of national policy. As part of the programme, every head of household signs a contract, committing to, within a specific timeframe, reach a number of detailed targets. In order to investigate local experiences and perceptions of householdimihigo, officials and residents in two communities have been interviewed. Responses are analysed in light of participation theories, with regard to in what and how residents participate, and what the likely effects are. Findings show that householdimihigotargets derive from the state, that poor people are made to concentrate their efforts to reaching these targets, also at the expense of more immediate needs, that residents are closely monitored on partly highly personal issues, and that individual households' performance is publically announced. The system is found to entail participation in the implementation of national policy, but not in formulation or monitoring. It is argued that, while householdimihigoincreases efficiency and possibly government legitimacy, it does not provide for local relevance or empowerment, but rather constitutes a governing tool. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Summary Dominant party systems trigger controversy about how the EU should engage with them. The examples of Ethiopia and Rwanda show that the willingness of authoritarian governments to engage with the EU on democratic reforms varies widely. The paper argues that the type of challenge to regime survival that authoritarian governments face affects both their coercive strategies and their openness to engaging with the EU, giving the EU different entry points to support reforms. Yet, due to EU domestic factors and difficulties with ‘reading’ authoritarian regimes’ logic of political survival, the EU has problems making use of this dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1994 genocide, Rwanda has emerged as a global model for the promotion of women in society. Today, Rwanda has progressive gender-sensitive laws, more girls than boys in primary school, and the world's highest percentage of women in parliament. But has this national-level progress manifested in an actual improvement in the lives of ordinary Rwandan women? If not, what has prevented these rights-based empowerment efforts from taking hold? Drawing from interviews with 152 women at all levels of Rwandan society, this article illustrates the contradictory and complicated nature of women's empowerment efforts. It identifies three paradoxes that capture how efforts to promote women can be undermined by deeply rooted social processes. First, women are granted new rights but cannot access them unless they are married, which further reinforces their dependence on men. Second, policies aim to empower women through education but have unintended consequences that create new forms of oppression. Third, in order to advance the image of a modern Rwanda, the government restricts women's labor, further entrenching their poverty. Each of these paradoxes suggests that efforts to remedy women's subordination may actually end up reinforcing it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rwanda and Burundi have both emerged from civil wars over the past 20 years and foreign donors have provided significant contributions to post-conflict reconstruction and development in the two countries. Yet, although Rwanda and Burundi share several important characteristics, their post-conflict social, political and economic trajectories have been different. This article argues that the nature of the ruling parties in Rwanda and Burundi is key to understanding the countries’ relationships with donors. Rather than seeing aid as an exogenous factor, causing particular development outcomes, it shows how local party elites exert considerable agency over the aid relationship. This agency is influenced by a number of different local contextual factors, including how the parties were established, how they evolved and the ways in which their civil wars ended. Thus, the article provides an analysis of how local context matters in understanding donor–recipient aid relationships, and how the ruling party in Rwanda (the RPF) and in Burundi (the CNDD–FDD) emerged from their respective conflicts with different relationships with international donors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Theories of social movement emergence posit "threat" as an important concept in explanations of mobilization. This article uses the case of the 1994 Rwandan genocide to investigate whether threats that stem from mass violence can also have a mobilizing effect. Drawing from interviews with 152 women in Rwanda, I reveal how threatening conditions created by the genocide and civil war initiated a grassroots mobilization process among women. This mobilization featured women founding and joining community organizations, engaging in new forms of claims making toward state institutions, and eventually running for political office. Two mechanisms facilitated this process: the social appropriation of feminine values for the reconceptualization of women as legitimate political actors, and the brokerage of connections between individual women, organizations, and government institutions by foreign actors. I conclude by suggesting that this mobilization served as a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the meteoric rise of women in Rwanda's politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Far reaching decentralisation reform has been launched in Rwanda, intended to contribute to socioeconomic development as well as to reconstruction and reconciliation. While the reform is well in line with the international trend of a ‘local turn’, the Rwandan government makes a point of not letting donors or other external actors set the agenda. Determined to formulate its own policies, thus claiming ‘national ownership’, it has, within the frame of decentralisation, launched several development programmes to be locally implemented and to promote local participation and downward accountability. However, the reform and programmes are designed and decided upon in a top-down manner by the central national leadership. This article analyses local experiences and perceptions of decentralisation and related programmes, and investigates whether and how such reform provides for local participation and downward accountability. It concludes that nationally owned reform is not necessarily an alternative to externally initiated and driven reform; neither local participation nor downward accountability was enhanced. The study builds on official policy documents and semi-structured interviews with Rwandan residents and local officials. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Debate on the 'securitization' of aid and international development since 9/11 has been anchored in two key claims: that the phenomenon has been driven and imposed by western governments and that this is wholly unwelcome and deleterious for those in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world. This article challenges both of these assumptions by demonstrating how a range of African regimes have not only benefited from this dispensation but have also actively encouraged and shaped it, even incorporating it into their own militarized state-building projects. Drawing on the cases of Chad, Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda-four semi-authoritarian polities which have been sustained by the securitization trend-we argue that these developments have not been an accidental by-product of the global 'war on terror'. Instead, we contend, they have been the result of a deliberate set of choices and policy decisions by these African governments as part of a broader 'illiberal state-building' agenda. In delineating this argument we outline four major strategies employed by these regimes in this regard: 'playing the proxy'; simultaneous 'socialization' of development policy and 'privatization' of security affairs; making donors complicit in de facto regional security arrangements; and constructing regime 'enemies' as broader, international threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite widespread reference in international development discourses to the importance of "effective states," the meaning of effectiveness is often unclear. This article presents a theoretical framework for analyzing state effectiveness and evaluates it through a comparative empirical study. Focusing on efforts to regulate and tax the lucrative informal urban transport sector, it maps out the landscape of institutions and political interests that underpinned remarkably effective outcomes in Rwanda and serial failure in Uganda in the decade 2000-2010. The article argues that the divergent outcomes are not so much a function of differing bureaucratic capacity as the interaction between factors such as the credibility of government policies, sources of legitimacy, and the role of "infrastructural power," and how these are mediated through differences in political space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the 1994 genocide, the government of Rwanda embarked on a 'deethnicization' campaign to outlaw Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa labels and replace them with a pan-Rwandan national identity. Since then, to use ethnic labels means risking accusations of 'divisionism' or perpetuating ethnic schisms. Based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork in the university town of Butare, I argue that the absence of ethnic labels produces practical interpretive problems for Rwandans because of the excess of possible ways of interpreting what people mean when they evaluate each other's conduct in everyday talk. I trace the historical entanglement of ethnicity with class, rural/urban, occupational, and moral distinctions such that the content of ethnic stereotypes can be evoked even without ethnic labels. In so doing, I aim to enrich understandings of both the power and danger inherent in the ambiguous place of ethnicity in Rwanda's 'postethnic' moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's representation in national legislatures varies widely around the world. In 2012, only Rwanda and Andorra had achieved parity in women's representation in the national parliament, with 56% of the Rwandan Chamber of Deputies being female and exactly half the Andorran General Council represented by each sex. In many other countries, women still have little representation in the national legislature, despite being almost 50% of the population. A large body of research has emerged to try to explain the wide variation across countries, with most of it focusing on cultural, socioeconomic, and electoral explanations (e.g., McDonagh 2002; Norris 1985; Reynolds 1999; Rule 1987; Tripp and Kang 2008). Recent scholarship, however, has suggested that the legislature itself is a gendered institution that marginalizes women and argues for greater attention to understanding exactly how legislative institutions affect women's representation (Beckwith 2005; Chappell 2006; 2010; Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995; Hawkesworth 2003; 2005; Krook and Mackay 2011; Schwindt-Bayer 2010). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of History in Africa: A Journal of Method is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the leadership style of Rwandan President Paul Kagame. Topics include the colonial roots of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, authoritarian aspects of Rwanda's government under Kagame, and economic development since the genocide. The lack of democracy in Rwanda is addressed in relation to Rwanda's economic success under Kagame.

Using Stephen J. Stedman's concept of spoilers as the main analytical framework, this paper offers insights into the failure of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in terms of civilian protection for a lengthy period in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. This failure arises not only from peacekeepers' failure to fully analyse the ambiguous status and relationship of spoilers and neighbouring states that are hostile to the peace process but also the United Nations' and peacekeepers' continuing support of spoilers and neighbouring states in three areas of implementation: military integration, military operations, and complacency regarding the chronic culture of impunity for key spoilers. Such support calls into question the neutrality of mediators and of the United Nations. The vicious cycle of violence created by spoilers and neighbouring states is likely to continue unless the United Nations develops appropriate preventive and proactive measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children and youth, in whom visions of national development are invested, are central to post-conflict state-building efforts. In the case of Rwanda, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) has initiated an ambitious programme of state re-engineering that seeks to transform Rwanda into a knowledge-based economy and thereby achieve middle-income status by 2020. Success or failure of this imagined future is largely contingent on the 65% of the population under age 25. Through cross-analysis of three research studies, this paper explores how RPF policies have converged with the lives of children and youth, so as to get a pulse on the post-genocide micro-social environment and thereby examine the effectiveness of the RPF's governance. This approach provides key insights into these dynamics by assessing how the RPF's policies related to children's rights, school-based education and transitions to adulthood have affected the lives, expectations and aspirations of young people. It is argued that the RPF's commitment to rapid reconstruction and development, such as universal access to education, has resulted in promising developments for young people, and has generated high aspirations for the future. However, the purposive imposition of the government's goals is predicated on a specific vision of a promised future that is often at odds with young people's daily realities. This dynamic risks generating a new sense of exclusion and foreclosing opportunity for many young people. Thus, as the RPF moves forward with its Vision 2020 goals, it must do so with a nuanced and astute assessment of how these policies interact with young people's experiences and shape expectations. While young people largely subscribe to the RPF's visionary approach to development, where it contradicts their daily realities, young people's responses weigh heavily on the possibility of the vision of either the RPF – or young people – being fully realized. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rwanda has made important progress since the start of the decentralization process in 2000. Local government enjoys an unprecedented range of competences and resources. With the exception of the provincial level, elections are generalized, something novel in the history of the traditionally centralized Rwanda. This, however, conflicts with widespread analysis that decentralization, instead of empowering the local level, has improved control from the centre through top-down policy-making and control of local governments and the population. This article aims to improve our understanding of the paradoxical nature of Rwandan decentralization. To do so, it first analyses the Rwandan decentralization process by disaggregating it into administrative, financial and political dimensions. This demonstrates that, in all three dimensions, decentralization is characterized by the heavy role of the centre, and the promotion of tightly monitored, technocratic and depoliticized local governments. The article then explains such design by focusing on the political elite's perception of its environment. It argues that the vulnerability collectively experienced by the political leadership, rooted in the experience of the genocide, its search for legitimacy, the volatile international environment, and the dependency on international aid, has spurred it to design local institutions in a way that promotes swift implementation of its development agenda and limits local political entrepreneurship and elite capture at local level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article attempts – for the Rwandan case – to answer a fundamental question of state-builders in Africa: to what extent and how is authority broadcast over people? There is much controversy concerning the nature of governance by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in contemporary Rwanda. This article moves beyond existing knowledge on local government structures and practice by analyzing over 350 life histories of rural Rwandans collected in 2011. It will be explained that these data provide an insight into the ‘subjective realm’ of governance experience and function as a social commentary on the nature of governance during the era of RPF regime consolidation: 2000–10. An immediate observation – based on a simple word frequency count executed on the total sample of life stories – is the high presence of ‘authority’ in the lives of Rwandans. This insight points towards a significant degree of state reach under the RPF in Rwanda, contrary to what is often observed in Africa. In addition, the findings identify an overall perceived improvement in basic service delivery but also reveal the often authoritarian nature and, at times,overreach of underlying governance practice. The observed state–society relations are qualified by examining a number of life story narratives. The article concludes with reflections on the methodological, theoretical and policy implications of the observed dialectic of state reach and overreach discernible in the lives of peasants in contemporary Rwanda. It calls for a reconsideration of ‘state fragility’ both in the Rwandan case and globally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rwanda's genocide trials through the gacaca community courts, between 2002 and 2012, have attracted substantial critique and also become a key vehicle for analysing wider political and social dynamics, including policy-making under the Rwandan Patriotic Front. A common criticism of gacaca is that it allowed the Rwandan state to deploy the language of devolved, popularly owned justice while further centralizing and consolidating state power. Based on fieldwork conducted over ten years, including more than 650 interviews and observations of 105 gacaca hearings, the article responds to this criticism and argues that while we should be sceptical of the Rwandan government's overly romantic depiction of gacaca as organic, decentralized justice and critical of other dimensions of state policy, we should be equally sceptical of characterizations of gacaca as simply another means for the state to entrench its power and influence in the countryside. This article contends that both perspectives are reductionist and fail to acknowledge the complex ways in which Rwandan citizens engage with the state and participate in government-initiated community-level processes such as gacaca. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The scholarship on Rwanda interprets a large swathe of rural activities as types of resistance to government policies instituted by the current ruling party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). This paper presents a detailed life history of an elderly rural man who actively resisted ethnically discriminatory violence in Rwanda in 1973, 1990 and 1994. His decision not to participate in the state-supported violence provides an archetypal example of active resistance and allows for an analysis of what it means to resist state power in a particular time and place. This ethnographic research provides one route to nuance the current interpretations of resistance in Rwanda. It proposes that the dominant accounts of peasant resistance, which draw heavily on the theoretical work of James C. Scott, often neglect power differentials within rural communities, and fail to take adequate account of the normative dimensions that underpin an individual's decision to resist. It concludes with a call for a more careful analysis of how and why people resist state power in Rwanda. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the collapse of Rwanda's state institutions in 1994, including the state's security apparatus, the military has been at the centre of the country's politics and development. Crucial to the political and economic strategy of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) is the national army. However, analysis is scarce on the politics of the Rwandan military and how it has been constituted and forged since the RPF came to power. This paper seeks to address this under-researched area by investigating the processes used by the government of Rwanda to develop its national defence forces. In doing so it avoids simplistic narratives such as ethnic subjugation and instead highlights the unique factors leading to the creation of today's RDF and how it has been forged through various socialization experiences such as training, fighting together and peacekeeping as well as an emphasis on welfare and political education. Furthermore, it is posited that the military reflects the broader political landscape in Rwanda, and that decision-making is underscored by concepts of tradition, liberation and modernity. How these concepts interrelate is the key to understanding the military in Rwanda, but also wider governance mechanisms and strategies employed by the RPF. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Phil Clark examines the critical challenges facing Rwanda's RPF party. Architect of a remarkable post-genocide national rehabilitation, the party's very successes now poses a threat to the emergence of a genuinely democratic political space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its 2008 World Development Report, the World Bank pleaded for a ‘Green Revolution’ for sub-Saharan Africa, pointing particularly to the importance of including smallholder farmers. This article focuses on the banana cropping system in Rwanda, and on the agricultural innovations introduced within this system. We first consider macro-level innovations that are designed to promote a modernized agricultural sector and that correspond to the rationale of the Green Revolution. We analyse how such ‘top-down’ innovations are received on the ground and show how smallholders seek to evade new government policies when they fail to reflect local economic and social realities. This demonstrates how some rural Rwandans are challenging the authority of the government in disguised ways in order to protect their local livelihoods. The Rwandan experience should inspire continent-wide Green Revolution policies to take account of the risk-coping rationale of small-scale farmers and their capacity to innovate ‘from below’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The massacres that took place in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 1996 and 2003 have posed an interesting challenge to the global community, specifically to its more powerful members. Ironically, the Tutsi-dominated government of Rwanda enjoys international recognition and benefits based on the genocide, Rwanda suffered in 1994, but continues to deny the same benefit to Hutus as they were accused of leading a counter-genocide campaign then in the DRC. While the people of the DRC, as well as human rights activists, call for justice for all who were affected, the government of Rwanda, strongly backed by a number of powerful international powers, opposed attempts by the international community to pin charges of genocide perpetrated by its army in the DRC on it. Because of the clear negation of the genocide report by the Rwandan government, the nature of human rights, human rights violations, and genocide criteria proposed and defended by key members of the international community in relation to the mass killings in the DRC are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the years immediately after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Kigali was a site of continuing crisis amid extraordinary levels of urban population growth, as refugees returned to Rwanda in their millions. Yet unlike many post-conflict cities that spiral into endemic crime and instability, it was rapidly securitised in the context of political consolidation and large amounts of foreign aid, and hailed by the UN as a ‘model, modern city’. This paper analyses the government’s approach to securitising Kigali, interrogating how its rapid trajectory from epicentre of conflict to carefully planned showcase for development has been achieved. It is argued that Kigali bears the weight of many of Rwanda’s development aspirations and keeping it secure and orderly is viewed as critical by the government. After examining the national and local processes through which the government has aimed to achieve ‘secure urbanisation’, the potential longer-term implications of its urban development strategy are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Adoption of gender quotas is significant in addressing women's political underrepresentation. While low levels of women's parliamentary presence is a global phenomenon, in the past decades developing countries have been at the forefront of gender quota adoption. This article analyzes the process of quota adoption during postconflict reconstruction, a reality that is prevalent in much of the developing world. It argues that the context of postconflict reconstruction provides quota advocates with unique opportunities to demand women's political presence. This article considers the quota adoption processes of two developing countries, Rwanda and Afghanistan, in the context of their postconflict reconstruction, with a particular emphasis on the actors and factors involved. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on the demographic transition from high to low birth and death rates which occurred in Rwanda during the early 21st century. Particular focus is given to reproductive health care and family planning. According to the author, the transition was largely driven by the country's political leadership, who wished to promote economic development by reducing population growth. Other topics include ideal family size and access to contraceptives.

An interview with Rwandan President Paul Kagame is presented. He discusses the nation's economic strategy in light of the 1994 genocide. Asked about relations with developed nations, he advocates for increased international trade. The role of regional organizations is addressed in light of the organization East African Community. Human rights and democracy are noted, particularly the alleged lack of press freedom in Rwanda. The role of women in Rwandan politics is mentioned.