Transnational conflicts and the politics of scalar networks: Evidence from Northern Africa

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 28, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 593-612

  Bank, André ^a   Van Heur, Bas ^b  

^a PHILIPPS UNIVERSITY MARBURG   (Germany)

^b TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COMPLEXITY; ETHNOPOLITICS; GLOBALIZATION; POLITICAL CONFLICT;

AFRICA; MOROCCO; NORTH AFRICA; WESTERN SAHARA;

EID: 34247237161     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: 13602241     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436590701193031     Document Type: Article

References (68)

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30. The Ethiopian system of land distribution was actually much more complicated and involved a system in which many peasants did possess the land, but where the state distributed so-called gult privileges to loyal subjects. This enabled these actors to enjoy judicial rights over the peasants inside their territory, collect tribute from them and maintain a private army for their own security as well as that of the central state. See G Ellis, 'The feudal paradigm as a hindrance to understanding Ethiopia', Journal of Modern African Studies, 14 (2), 1976, pp 275 - 295.
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35. Such localised Sahrawi resistance came, for example, from Ma al-'Ainain, a religious scholar and tribal sheikh, and his followers in 1898, as well as from di.erent Sahrawi tribes in 1934. Ma al-'Ainain was later to become a symbol for Sahrawi national resistance. Critics argue, however, that contrary to this popular image he was a loyal subordinate of the Moroccan sultans. See A Maghraoui, 'Ambiguities of sovereignty: Morocco, The Hague and the Western Sahara dispute',Mediterranean Politics, 8 (1), 2003, p 119.
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40. Shelley,Endgame in the Western Sahara, p 168.
41. Hodges, Western Sahara,p 153.
42. Ibid, pp 153 - 154.
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44. Hodges, Western Sahara,p 158.
45. Ibid, pp 158-161.
46. Ibid, p 163.
47. Ibid, p 163. The Polisarios flag, coloured red, white, green and black, also closely resembles the Palestinian.
48. C Clapham, 'Controlling space in Ethiopia', in W James, DL Donham, E Kurimoto & A Triulzi (eds), Remapping Ethiopia: Socialism & After, Oxford, Athens, OH and Addis Ababa: James Currey, Ohio University Press and Addis Ababa University Press, 2002, p 15.
49. T Zitelmann,Nation der Oromo: Kollektive Identitaäten, Nationale Kon.ikte, Wir-Gruppenbildungen, Berlin: Das Arabische Buch, 1994.
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52. Besides the OLF, the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) consisted of the Oromo People's Democratic Organisation (OPDO), the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromia (IFLO), the United Oromo People's Leadership (UOPL) and the Oromo-Abbo Liberation Front (OALF).
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54. The term 'spatial ontologies' is taken from D Harvey,The Condition of Postmodernity, pp 301 - 302.
55. It was above all the Moroccan King Hassan II who claimed that, at least from the 17th century on, the large majority of Sahrawi tribes pledged allegiance to his ancestors, the Alaoui sultans, thereby emphasising the allegedly centuries-old sovereign Moroccan authority over the Western Sahara. On pre-Spanish historical relations and their linkages to current a.airs, see, among others, Maghraoui, 'Ambiguities of sovereignty', pp 117 - 119. This basic line of argumentation has not substantially changed under Hassan's son and successor King Muhammad VI, who has reigned since 1999.
56. We cannot go into detail here, but see K Mohsen-Finan, 'The Western Sahara dispute under UN pressure',Mediterranean Politics, 7 (2), 2002, pp 1 - 13;
57. J Mundy, 'Autonomy and intifadah: New horizons in Western Saharan nationalism', Review of African Political Economy, 108, 2006, pp 255-267.
58. T Shelley,Endgame in the Western Sahara, p 167.
59. This focus on Polisario is not to deny that there is also a strong interest among state actors in the Western Sahara conflict above all the Moroccan king and the army, his prime backer to maintain the status quo of comprehensive political-economic control. Over the past 30 years and more and thanks to the subsequent 'Moroccanisation' of the territory through extraction and investment, the 'fate' of the Western Sahara is intimately connected with the 'fate' of the monarchy. It can thus be speculated whether the Moroccan regime would survive future independence of the Western Sahara politically.
60. For a complete list of the states recognising the SADR in the early 1980s, see Hodges, Western Sahara, p 308.
61. The term 'judicial sovereignty' is taken from Jackson, Quasi-States.
62. T Shelley, Endgame in the Western Sahara, p 45.
63. S Zunes, 'Indigestible lands? Comparing the fates of Western Sahara and East Timor', in IS Lustick & T Callaghy (eds), Right-Sizing the State: The Politics of Moving Borders, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp 289 - 317;
64. and Stephen & Mundy, 'A battlefield transformed', pp 10 -16.
65. Zunes, 'Indigestible lands?'. For an account of political development in East Timor, see S Philpott, 'East Timor's double life: Smells like Westphalian spirit',Third World Quarterly, 27 (1), 2006, pp 135 -159.
66. Stephen & Mundy, 'A battlefield transformed', p 28.
67. Shelley,Endgame in the Western Sahara.
68. Ibid, p xi.