African Studies Commons^™

No. 03: Making Up The Numbers: Measuring “Illegal Immigration” To South Africa, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

The extent of South Africa’s “illegal immigrant” problem continues to confound. Numbers in the millions continue to be casually thrown around by officials, politicians, and the local and foreign press. The study on which these millionaire estimates are based has been widely discredited. But those who are critical of the study and skeptical of the inflated numbers are unable to come up with alternative numbers. Their response is usually that the extent of undocumented migration is, by definition, unknowable. True as it might be, this response unfortunately does not help very much. In this paper, the author attempts to break …

No. 05: Counting Brains: Measuring Emigration From South Africa, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

Official South African statistics on the magnitude of emigration from the country seriously undercount. In this paper, the authors have devised an innovative methodology which reveals the extent of the undercount but also provides important insights into the volume and sectoral distribution of emigrants. One of the common strategies suggested for countering some of the negative consequences of “brain drain” is the mobilization of diaspora networks. The paper provides an introduction to one such network, the SANSA project. The paper was written by Mercy Brown, David Kaplan and Jean-Baptiste Meyer of the Development Policy Research Unit of the University of …

No. 06: The Point Of No Return: Evaluating The Amnesty For Mozambican Refugees In South Africa, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

In the 1980s, civil war in Mozambique forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes and seek refuge in neighbouring countries, including South Africa. Formal refugee status was granted only after the civil war ended, with the signing in October 1992 of a Tripartite Agreement between Mozambique, South Africa and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The majority of these former Mozambican refugees clearly wish to remain in South Africa, as few took advantage of a UNHCR offer of free repatriation to Mozambique in the early 1990s. In 2000, an estimated 200-220 000 former Mozambican refugees …

No. 22: Immigration, Xenophobia And Human Rights In South Africa, Jonathan Crush

Southern African Migration Programme

In 2000, the Southern African Migration Project (SAMP) entered into a partnership with the Roll Back Xenophobia Campaign of the South African Human Rights Commission. The two cooperated in offering a series of country-wide training workshops for media and journalists at which the results of SAMP research into media xenophobia was presented and discussed. This publication is the second product of that partnership. The paper sets out to critically review and examine the evidence for the argument that xenophobia is widespread and growing in South Africa. While it is important to document the scale of the problem and the enormity …

No Easy Walk: Advancing Refugee Protection In South Africa, Jeff Handmaker

Southern African Migration Programme

South Africa only began accepting individual applications for political asylum in 1994. A policy designed to recognize former Mozambican refugees for the purposes of a repatriation program became the (awkward) basis of the asylum procedure up until April 2000. Criticized by some, a lively discussion raising often-contradictory views began in 1996, leading to a policy reform process culminating in the Refugees Act in December 1998. The Act only came into force at the beginning of April 2000. This article analyzes the process of policy development in South Africa, focusing on practical and theoretical challenges facing the government in the implementation …

Property Rights And The Role Of The State: Evidence From The Horn Of Africa, Sandra F. Joireman

Political Science Faculty Publications

This study applies extant theories of property rights change to three land tenure systems in Imperial Ethiopia. Two of the areas underwent changes in property rights after experiencing changes in the value of land; one did not. A data set of litigation over land rights is used in conjunction with case studies to understand the mechanisms motivating or impeding property rights change. Amendments to the role of the state are suggested and two conclusions are reached: (1) that movement towards greater specificity of land rights did not always occur; and (2) the changes in property rights that occurred were imposed …

Inherited Legal Systems And Effective Rule Of Law: Africa And The Colonial Legacy, Sandra F. Joireman

Political Science Faculty Publications

The question of whether particular types of legal institutions influence the effectiveness of the rule of law has long been answered with conjecture. Common law lawyers and judges tend to believe that the common law system is superior. This opinion is based on the idea that the common law system inherited from the British is more able to protect the rights of the individual than civil law judicial systems. Quite the opposite point of view can be found in lawyers from civil law countries, who may view the common law system as capricious and disorganised. This paper compares the effectiveness …

Kabou Dechire Le Certificat D'Innocence De L'Afrique? (Review Of Et Si L'Afrique Refusait Le Développement By Axelle Kabou), Kasongo Mulenda Kapanga

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

Pourquoi I' Afrique est-elle sous développée? En repondant a cette question, Axelle Kabou fait d'une pierre deux coups. D'abord, elle émet une thèse d'après laquelle I'Afrique refuserait de se développer à cause de sa léthargie. Ensuite, elle fait un réquisitoire severe en désignant du doigt I' Africain lui-meme comme source de son retard. Le refus de développement, explique-t-elle, vient d'une fausse conception manichéiste qui voit en I' Afrique une antithèse de I' Europe. Par consequent, tout emprunt des valeurs européennes indispensables au développement est vu avec méfiance. C'est ainsi qu' «à peine sortie du monde manichéiste pré-colonial, I' Afrique a …

Gender Inequalities In Nigerian Politics, Cecilia C. Okoronkwo

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Concept Of Human Rights In Africa, Paul J. Magnarella

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of Human Rights in Africa: The Conflict of Implementation by Richard Amoako Baah. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000. 123pp.

The title of this book is somewhat more expansive than its contents. The author, a native Ghanaian who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee and teaches government at South Texas College, reports on an interesting study of human rights/human dignity conceptualizations among the Akan people of Ghana. The Akan constitute about 60% of Ghana’s 14 million people and consist of five major groups: Fanti, Ashanti, Akim, Brong, and Akwapim. A sizable Akan population also lives …