Articles

In this article — across two experimental studies — the authors find evidence that Sub-Saharan African politicians who commit to climate change policies may lose electoral support. Electorally important swing voters with weak party affiliations are least likely to support party statements about climate change. Interviews with standing elected officials from Malawi and South Africa corroborate the experimental findings. The combined results suggest voter preferences may hinder the successful implementation of climate change policy in Sub-Saharan African democracies.

Alliances between local combatants and neighboring rulers played a crucial role in the Congo Wars. Yet the transnational dimensions of the conflicts remain understudied. Case studies reveal that the rulers of Angola, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe intervened in Congo to secure their own political survival. They forged alliances to thwart domestic rebels supported by foreign rulers or to gain access to resources that could ensure the loyalty of domestic elites.

Governance is performance-the delivery of high quality political goods to citizens by governments of all kinds. In Africa, as everywhere else, those political goods are security and safety, rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and human development. The Ibrahim Index of African Governance, created at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, evaluates forty-eight sub-Saharan African countries according to fifty-seven variables.

Hurricane Katrina devastated our region in 2005. With the help of volunteers, we have been rebuilding. If oil prices rise high enough to make travel unaffordable for volunteers, our resurrection will falter.

In a public hearing last week, the New Orleans City Council tangled with the Office of Recovery and Development and Administration over a state tax credit program to promote cultural activities. Some council members felt their districts were being ignored. The mood turned contentious. As a result of this debate, approval of funding for the city's 17-zone recovery plan was put off -- at Dr. Ed Blakely's request -- for at least another week.

Should foreign peacekeepers be deployed to Kenya? In spite of the involvement of high-profile facilitators, like former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, killings are continuing in what was once one of Africa's most stable countries.

G. John Ikenberry, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, and Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, participated in a debate at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University on May 8, 2007. Christopher Lydon hosted the debate.