Browsing by Author "Bernadeta, Killian"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Finnish Aid and Rural Development in Southern Tanzania: Empowering the Poor?
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2009) Bernadeta, Killian
    For almost four decades, a significant amount of Finnish aid to Tanzania has been spent supporting various projects in the two southern regions of Mtwara and Lindi. Beginning mid-1990s up to mid-2005, the Finns implemented a program known as Rural Integrated Project Support (RIPS), designed to empower rural communities in Mtwara and Lindi to own and control the development process. Based on fieldwork in villages in Mtwara and Lindi, this article sets out to examine the extent to which the Finnish intervention in participatory-development planning has resulted in the empowerment of the rural populations. The article argues that, rather than leading to empowerment of the rural communities, the RIPS program reproduced and consolidated the power of the government bureaucracy. These findings challenge the assumed relationship between participatory approaches and the reality of peoples’ empowerment.
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    In Search of security without guns: The role of grassroots institutions in addressing Conflict and Mitigating Conflict in Tanzania
    (The African Review, 2018-06) Bernadeta, Killian; Parestico, Pastory
    Over recent decades there has been an increasing recognition that a sizeable share of justice and security provision takes place outside state structures. Consequently, there has been a mounting interest in studying non-state actors in security and justice provision including grassroots community structures. Although there is a plethora of studies on the role of grassroots security institutions in Africa, such studies remain largely gender-blind. This article contributes to the existing knowledge on community organized-security mechanisms by exploring the manner in which gender roles and relations are socially constructed at the grassroots structures of justice, peace and security.
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    A Proposed Structure of the Union in Tanzania: Political Parties at a Crossroad
    (Brill, 2014) Bernadeta, Killian
    This article focuses on the implications of a particular constitutional design of decentralization on the behaviour of political parties as representative institutions. As Tanzania seeks to enact a new constitution, the proposed changes in the Draft Constitution of 2013 on the structure of the United Republic of Tanzania will most likely lead to new trends on how political parties organize, compete, cooperate and mobilize electoral support. The article argues that whereas a two-tier government model has been able to compel political parties to forge broad-based fronts thereby leading to national stability, on the other side, it has not adequately addressed issues and interests of the constituent governments partly due to its centralized party system. The proposed three-government model has expanded avenues of people’s participation in decision-making processes but without addressing the mechanisms through which political parties will be compelled to promote coalition-building, national consensus and political stability.
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    The Quest for Free and Fair Elections: The Permanent Voters’ Register (PVR) in Tanzania
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2006) Bernadeta, Killian; Ng'wanza, Kamata
    Historically, every time there was an election in Tanzania a fresh voter registration was conducted. This turned to be not only a tedious and expensive exercise but also it was fraudulent. After the re-introduction of multipartyism questions were raised on the fairness of this system of registering voters. Recommendations were made that a permanent voter register be introduced to address some of the problems caused by a less sophisticated and easy to manipulate temporary voter register. Prior to the 2005 General Elections, for both the Union and Zanzibar Governments, a permanent voter register was introduced. The way the exercise was conducted, both in the mainland and Zanzibar, is the subject of this article. Attention is paid to whether or not the voter register creates a foundation for free and fair elections. Our analysis shows that the exercise of registering voters itself, especially in Zanzibar, was in no way free and fair, hence creating a weak foundation on which to build subsequent electoral stages.
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    The Role of the West in Promoting Democracy in East Africa
    (Brill, 2009) Bernadeta, Killian
    This article sets out to provide a general assessment of the extent to which democracy promotion programmes of the Western donor countries to the East African countries facilitate the attainment of meaningful democratic institutions and processes. Based on the trends and content of democracy promotion programmes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda since the adoption of the multi-party politics in the 1990s, the article attempts to show that rather than enhancing popular participation, democracy promotion programmes by Western donor countries and multilateral and organizations are largely intended to achieve political order and macroeconomic stability rather than democracy per se. Technical and procedural support to democracy promotion tends to underplay the influence of the underlying structural and political factors inherently entrenched into the political system. As a result, the bulk of democracy promotion fund is mainly directed at reforming the state without necessarily democratizing it.
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    The State and Identity Politics in Zanzibar: Challenges to Democratic Consolidation in Tanzania
    (Taylor & Francis Group, 2008-05) Bernadeta, Killian
    A group of islands off the coast of East Africa, Zanzibar has been a semi‐autonomous part of the United Republic of Tanzania since 1964. Despite a common language (Swahili), religion (Islam), and a high rate of intermarriage among the islands' multi‐racial communities (including Africans and individuals of Arab, Persian, and Indian descent), Zanzibar politics has been marred by political conflicts that have culminated into political stand‐offs, violence and lack of social and civic peace. At the core of these conflicts is the politicization of racial identity by leaders seeking the legitimacy to rule. Thus, unlike in Tanzania mainland, struggle for the control of the state in Zanzibar has been intense, deadly and zero‐sum. Indeed, the distinctive character of the Zanzibar state itself makes it appealing for the political elites to politicize ethno‐racial identities in order to claim legitimacy to rule. Two other things are at stake regarding the Zanzibar state: namely, the identity of the state (whether it is an Arab or African state) and sovereignty of the state (Zanzibar vs. Tanzania). This political instability threatens not only Zanzibar's relatively new democratic institutions, but also the Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar and the prospects for democratic consolidation in Tanzania.
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    Women’s marginalization in participatory forest management: Impact of Responsibilization in Tanzania
    (Elsevier, 2020-09) Bernadeta, Killian
    This paper analyses the consequences of responsibilization for women in natural resource management in Southern Tanzania. Participatory forest management (PFM) and Participatory Land Use Planning in Southern Tanzania provide a case study to interrogate how responsibilization impacts on the existing social order in a given community. As the study findings show, participatory initiatives have not fully reached rural women who are still under-represented and insufficiently equipped to participate in public decision-making, which maintains women's marginalization. In Tanzania there has been progress in community rights for forest management. Following the Forest Policy (1998) and Forest Act (2002), Tanzanian villages can establish Village Land Forest Reserves and manage and utilize natural resources for the benefit of the community. The success of decentralized forest governance depends on the interplay between power, authority and social relations. This is determined by the capacity of communities to participate and by the government's responsiveness to the people's voice. Based on our case study, women do not have equal opportunities to raise their voice like men, and women are marginalized in the decisions made about forest management and in the distribution of benefits from the natural resources with which their communities are endowed. This has policy implications in the sense that processes and structures of decentralized forest governance seem unable to address the needs of women.