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May 4, 2023 · Regarding longevity, federalism in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and South Africa is thriving, while it is too early to pass judgment regarding Somalia and South Sudan. Nigerian federalism has been working since independence, survived the civil war and military rule, and has broader public support as the return to a unitary system is a dead end ( Suberu ...
A point of view and a programme for racial harmony in South Africa, which claimed that devolution into federalist states would promote harmonious relations between the different population groups of South Africa. Several decades later, in 1974, the Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith, which stressed the federal concept, was signed. In 1977 the ...
May 11, 2023 · This chapter gives an overview of the practice of federalism in South Africa; the country’s climate change profile; the way the federal government system links up with the demands of climate change governance; and a case study of tangible decentralised climate governance practices and developments. The focus is specifically on the challenges ...
- Background
- The Federal Idea
- Devolution
- The Success of Devolution
- Current and Future Challenges
Kenya’s population of nearly 50 million (2017) is also ethnically fragmented: Kikuyu 22%, Luhya 14%, Luo 13%, Kalenjin 12%, Kamba 11%, Kisii 6%, and Meru 6%, with the remainder made up by 30 smaller groups (15%) and non-Africans (Asians and whites—1%) (Index Mundi, 2019). The colonial state of Kenya was ‘an artificial entity’ created by agreement a...
The federal idea has long been part of the constitutional debates and practices since at least the 1940s, drawing support from various interest groups at various times—at first European settlers in the 1940s and 1950s, then African ethnic minorities in 1964, and finally, devolution under the 2010 Constitution. Majimboism, the Swahili word for feder...
Unlike South Africa’s implicit ‘federal framework’, devolution is posited as a fundamental value and component of the new constitutional dispensation. The people’s legislative sovereignty is exercised through ‘Parliament and the legislative assemblies of county governments’, and the same applies to the executive (art. 1(4) Constitution). The ‘shari...
With devolution being a compromise between the devolutionists and the centralists, its implementation would be contested terrain when Uhuru Kenyatta and his Jubilee party won the 2013 elections with a wafer-thin majority against Odinga. Resistance to implementation was apparent from its inception, but two institutional features proved vital for the...
The challenge remains, as before, the ethnicization of politics, exacerbated by the centralization of power in the presidency. First, the splitting up of the main ethnic groups in smaller counties has not succeeded in diminishing the salience of ethnic identity. Although many argued that such identity is a construct, the salience lies in its ready ...
- Nico Steytler
- nsteytler@uwc.ac.za
Feb 24, 2007 · Read this article. A contingency model for constitutional development in South Africa is presented. Federalism is superior to unitarism in resolving South Africa's constitutional dilemma. However, neither federation nor confederation are considered appropriate. A third form of federalism is developed from the model which is termed ...
- Burgert Oosthuizen
- 1986
Sep 23, 2011 · He explores how South African and Ethiopian constitution-making employed federalism to accommodate ethnic diversity, arguing that federalism can accommodate diversity and unity. He explores institutional designs (prevention—South Africa, remediation—Ethiopia), applying three principles: recognition; self-rule; shared rule (95).
Dec 22, 2014 · The three large federations of Sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Nigeria, and South Africa) are defined by ethnic, religious, economic, geographic and demographic diversity – and when such diversity is territorially based, this often reflects itself in de facto asymmetry across the regions even while the constitutional blueprint follows a pro ...
