Tom De Herdt
Biographic Data
| ID | 160157 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tom De Herdt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tom |
| FAMILY NAME | De Herdt |
| SIGNATURE | DE HERDT T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Antwerp |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5288-7446 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 216 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Bureaucracy as Assemblage: Civil Service Reform, Administrative Legacies and the Politics of Informalization in the Democratic Republic of Congo
In its own evaluation of the civil service reform project that took place in the Democratic Republic of Congo between 2014 and 2021, the World Bank concluded that the project was ‘moderately unsatisfactory’. It explained this characterization by referring to complex political dynamics, including a waning political will at the highest level. Built on a conceptualization of the Congolese administration as a socially and historically situated assemb…
Development anthropology and social engineering: A plea for critical reformism
While ethnographic research can be carried out from a variety of political positionings, we plead for a ‘critical reformist’ stance, on the intersection of pure, applied and radical anthropology. We trace this positioning back to Max Weber and Karl Popper, for whom the essence of social science was to critically accompany policy processes by identifying all intended and unintended outcomes of policies. We also situate it in relation to various st…
Bureaucratic fragmentation by design? the case of payroll management in the democratic Republic of Congo
This paper examines the sources of bureaucratic fragmentation and coherence in the Democratic Republic of Congo by exploring the connections and tensions between interface bureaucracies and the back-office administration tasked with managing the public payroll system. Building on the ‘real governance’ literature and the notion of ‘infrastructural power’, we analyse the recent history of payroll management in Congo and especially its evolution ove…
Reshaping the reach of the state: The politics of teacher payment reform in the DR Congo
We analyse the politics of the reform of teacher payment modalities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in light of the uneven territorial reach of the DRC state. The reform focused on extending this reach by paying all teachers via a bank account, replacing long-standing shared governance arrangements between state and faith-based organisations with a public-private partnership. By using qualitative and quantitative data, we map the politi…
What Happens with Household Assets during Economic Collapse? The Case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1975–2010)
Many Congolese seem to have withstood their country’s protracted economic crisis relatively well, despite its length and severity. This study analyses whether and to what extent this livelihood paradox can be explained by a strategy of asset depletion. In general, this strategy seems not to have played an important role. Marked reductions in household asset stock were limited to some secondary urban centres. Explanations for this strategy’s limit…
Is informalization equalizing? Evidence from Kinshasa (DRC)
As a consequence of a concatenation of external and internal events, the economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has informalized to an unprecedented level over the last few decades. A comparison of budget surveys carried out in 1975 and 2004 respectively allows us to ascertain the effect of this process on income inequality and poverty in Kinshasa. We find that the extent of inequality in the capital city of the DRC has remained la…
Tracing Down Real Socio-Economic Trends From Household Data With Erratic Sampling Frames: The Case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
By means of the latest seven national household surveys of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this article uncovers the very volatile sampling frame used underneath all survey designs. As a result, the reliability of much associated survey information as well as any corresponding temporal analysis are seriously jeopardized. Relying on recent vaccination, school enrolment and election data, the article proposes a post-stratification technique t…
Reconstituting the role of indigenous structures in protected forest management in Cameroon
Governance with Empty Pockets: The Education Sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo
The education sector has virtually disappeared from the Congolese state budget since the mid-1980s. Yet schools have both managed to survive on school fees and to reproduce the public education sector, even though complete privatization would have been a realistic option. In this article, the authors understand this engagement with the state whilst simultaneously bending its rules as a negotiation strategy for better terms of inclusion in the sta…
Hybrid orders and practical norms
This chapter explains three layers of hybridity in the work of Max Weber. First, individual motives are usually hybrid; individuals are neither rational nor blind norm-followers but both, and much more. Second, the "regularities in conduct" generated by social relationships need to be understood as a hybrid of sometimes contradictory logics. And third, authority, including state authority, is usually a mixture of different sources of legitimacy. …
Real Governance and Practical Norms in Sub-Saharan Africa: The game of the rules
SCOPUS: ch.b
Real Governance and Practical Norms in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Game of the Rules
This Analysis and Policy Brief presents the main ideas of an edited volume on real governance and practical norms that was published this year at Routledge. The book traces the concept of practical norms back to the social science literature and the network of ideas from which it emerged, it extends the field of its application to other regions and sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa and it reflects on the concept’s usefulness for researchers engaged i…
Reliable, challenging or misleading? A qualitative account of the most recent national surveys and country statistics in the DRC
This paper presents a comprehensive assessment of the national information architecture in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 1970 and 2010. In general, “the numbers” can be qualified as poorly reliable, though an important distinction should be made between aggregate country statistics and microlevel survey data. Whereas the latter inherently contain the purer and less manipulated pieces of information, the former have proven to be t…
God and Caesar in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Negotiating church–state relations through the management of school fees in Kinshasa's Catholic schools
This article argues that state (re)construction and functioning involves negotiated governance between both state and non-state actors, in which power relations between local actors are not just implicitly present or co-influencing policies but are of uttermost importance to the formation of policy and state. One of the main non-state actors in African service delivery is the church. State and church are two major poles of power which determine –…
Real governance beyond the 'failed state: Negotiating education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the state administration has retreated from much of the public domain. The specific case of the education sector – a domain traditionally reserved for the state – shows how public services continue to be provided, and how the Congolese state continues to survive and transform itself. Although no overall power governs the system – there is no overall regulatory authority – this does not mean that the educ…
Capabilities in Place: Locating Poverty and Affluence in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
We argue that the capability approach can be very helpful in exploring the links between poverty and place, thereby providing a more accurate understanding of poverty processes. We demonstrate how Sen's list of 'conversion factors' allows one to incorporate but also to go beyond the usual description of the connection between place and well-being in terms of physical and social infrastructure. More in particular, we give emphasis on the role of p…
La survie de l'école primaire congolaise (RDC): Héritage Colonial, Hybridité Et Résilience
Ce texte tente de comprendre la pérennité de l’école primaire congolaise en dépit de la crise qui a marqué le pays pendant plus de 35 ans et en l’absence presque totale d’investissement public depuis les années 1980. Au-delà d’une lecture qui voit dans la résilience du champ scolaire congolais les effets de sa privatisation, ce texte analyse plutôt les arrangements contemporains du système scolaire à la lumière de son héritage. La survie du champ…
Regulation, Cross-border Trade and Practical Norms in West Nile, North-Western Uganda
This article describes how cross-border trade in West Nile, north-western Uganda to a large extent takes place outside of the legal framework. This does not mean that this trade is unregulated. We make use of the concept of 'practical norms' to show the existence of regulation within this trade, which diverges both from official norms and social norms ('moral economy'). The article describes how these practical norms emerged and how they are enfo…
L'AgencÉITÉ Relationnelle
well-being, capabilities, human development, relational poverty
The Capability Approach: Concepts, Measures and Applications
The capability approach developed by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has become an important new paradigm in thinking about development. However, despite its theoretical and philosophical attractiveness, it has been less easy to measure or to translate into policy. This volume addresses these issues in the context of poverty and justice. Part I offers a set of conceptual essays that debate the strength of the often misunderstood individual focus of th…
The circumstances of agency: A relational view of poverty
The human development paradigm that inspires the growing international consensus on poverty and development conceptually bounds our thinking about the problem of poverty and its solutions in particular and inappropriate ways. We question, among other things, the almost exclusive focus on individualistic wellbeing and ill-being, and the neglect of people's agency, in practice if not in theory. We propose to re-conceptualise freedom and poverty in …
The Political Complexity of Pro‐poor Policy Processes in the Mandara Mountains, Cameroon
We give more conceptual flesh and bones to the interconnections between social structures and individual agency by focusing on the way in which the people(s) inhabiting the Mandara Mountains in Far North Province of Cameroon have been affected by pro‐poor policy processes. We analyse the role of individual, collective and relational capabilities in such processes. The case‐study points to: (i) the importance of tracing capability deprivations bac…
La vulnérabilité vis-à-vis d'autres personnes: Leçons Pour Les Interventions Contre La Pauvreté
Si le niveau de vie des personnes est toujours en partie déterminé par le hasard, le risque ne relève pas seulement de la nature mais aussi du comportement d'autres personnes dont on dépend. Dans notre contribution nous cherchons à mieux circonscrire les possibilités d'éviter cette vulnérabilité relationnelle. Nous appliquons notre propos à des cas concrets d'aide au développement
War and the Political Economy of Kinshasa
The first visible connection we saw between the war in Eastern Congo-Zaire and livelihoods in the capital city of Congo was one of the 'sheets' or covers the United Nations had distributed in the Rwandan refugee camps in 1994 with the purpose of giving the homeless a semblance of a roof over their heads. Within months, these sheets began to travel around the country and some even appeared in the suburbs of the capital city, 2000 kilometres west o…
Poverty reduction as a local institutional process
Real Governance and Practical Norms in Sub-Saharan Africa: The game of the rules
SCOPUS: ch.b
Real governance beyond the 'failed state: Negotiating education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the state administration has retreated from much of the public domain. The specific case of the education sector – a domain traditionally reserved for the state – shows how public services continue to be provided, and how the Congolese state continues to survive and transform itself. Although no overall power governs the system – there is no overall regulatory authority – this does not mean that the educ…
Regulation, Cross-border Trade and Practical Norms in West Nile, North-Western Uganda
This article describes how cross-border trade in West Nile, north-western Uganda to a large extent takes place outside of the legal framework. This does not mean that this trade is unregulated. We make use of the concept of 'practical norms' to show the existence of regulation within this trade, which diverges both from official norms and social norms ('moral economy'). The article describes how these practical norms emerged and how they are enfo…
Poverty reduction as a local institutional process
La survie de l'école primaire congolaise (RDC): Héritage Colonial, Hybridité Et Résilience
Ce texte tente de comprendre la pérennité de l’école primaire congolaise en dépit de la crise qui a marqué le pays pendant plus de 35 ans et en l’absence presque totale d’investissement public depuis les années 1980. Au-delà d’une lecture qui voit dans la résilience du champ scolaire congolais les effets de sa privatisation, ce texte analyse plutôt les arrangements contemporains du système scolaire à la lumière de son héritage. La survie du champ…
Democracy & the money machine in Zaire
Whether or not Mitterand's famous thesis that ‘there can be no democracy without development and no development without democracy‘ 1 is correct, Zaire during the 1990s was a clear case demonstrating the absence of a close relationship between development and democratisation. On the contrary, the announcement that political leaders might be facing electoral defeat could be considered as one of the most important background elements determining the…
The reinvention of the market from below: The end of the women's money changing monopoly in Kinshasa
Zaïre's transition to the Third Republic (1990–1997) was characterised by the decline of the national currency and the economy's partial dollarisation. This article describes the origins of the different types of cambistes (informal money exchange brokers). It argues that the evolution of the market of foreign currency is not only determined by changes in economic opportunities, but also by different kinds of social identity the cambistes have ad…
Governance with Empty Pockets: The Education Sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo
The education sector has virtually disappeared from the Congolese state budget since the mid-1980s. Yet schools have both managed to survive on school fees and to reproduce the public education sector, even though complete privatization would have been a realistic option. In this article, the authors understand this engagement with the state whilst simultaneously bending its rules as a negotiation strategy for better terms of inclusion in the sta…
God and Caesar in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Negotiating church–state relations through the management of school fees in Kinshasa's Catholic schools
This article argues that state (re)construction and functioning involves negotiated governance between both state and non-state actors, in which power relations between local actors are not just implicitly present or co-influencing policies but are of uttermost importance to the formation of policy and state. One of the main non-state actors in African service delivery is the church. State and church are two major poles of power which determine –…
Economic Action and Social Structure: Cambisme' in Kinshasa
In the recent literature on institutions and social capital, there has been a renewed emphasis on the importance of social structure in explaining the performance of economic markets. Approaches to how this 'social structure' is conceived differ widely, however. This article examines the social structure and partitioning of the market in foreign currency in Kinshasa, based on fieldwork in the mid-1990s, and finds remarkable similarities with Geer…
Against all Odds: Coping with Regress in Kinshasa, Zaïre
Tracing Down Real Socio-Economic Trends From Household Data With Erratic Sampling Frames: The Case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
By means of the latest seven national household surveys of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this article uncovers the very volatile sampling frame used underneath all survey designs. As a result, the reliability of much associated survey information as well as any corresponding temporal analysis are seriously jeopardized. Relying on recent vaccination, school enrolment and election data, the article proposes a post-stratification technique t…
Reconstituting the role of indigenous structures in protected forest management in Cameroon
Reliable, challenging or misleading? A qualitative account of the most recent national surveys and country statistics in the DRC
This paper presents a comprehensive assessment of the national information architecture in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 1970 and 2010. In general, “the numbers” can be qualified as poorly reliable, though an important distinction should be made between aggregate country statistics and microlevel survey data. Whereas the latter inherently contain the purer and less manipulated pieces of information, the former have proven to be t…
Aid as an encounter at the interface: The complexity of the global fight against poverty
International development discourse has recently shifted its focus from top‐down economic adjustment to participative anti‐poverty policy. But, whereas the mainstream argument remains couched in a technical framework, we argue that the fight against poverty is inevitably political. Conceptualising the aid industry as a set of global–local interfaces, it follows that a closer look at ‘participation’ in anti‐poverty interventions is needed to come …
Aide d'urgence et notions locales d'équité: Analyse d'un programme d'aide nutritionnelle comme une interface sociale
In order to better understand the dynamics involved in emergency food aid programs, this paper analyzes the case of Kinshasa (1992–1995). The interaction between local health personnel engaged in the programme and the—potential, legitimate, and unintended—beneficiaries of the aid is central to this paper. The classical concepts of moral hazard and adverse selection, often cited in the current literature on target poverty programs, only partly cap…
Cooperation and fairness: The flood–Dresher experiment revisited
In this paper we set out to deepen our understanding of the importance of fairness in decision-making within the context of Prisoners' Dilemma games. A review of the “historic” Flood–Dresher experiment provides a useful empirical basis, as it allows us to look in considerable detail at how the experimental players made up their minds. We try out several game-theoretical readings of the experimental results, and find some value in Adam Smith's age…
Development anthropology and social engineering: A plea for critical reformism
While ethnographic research can be carried out from a variety of political positionings, we plead for a ‘critical reformist’ stance, on the intersection of pure, applied and radical anthropology. We trace this positioning back to Max Weber and Karl Popper, for whom the essence of social science was to critically accompany policy processes by identifying all intended and unintended outcomes of policies. We also situate it in relation to various st…
Bureaucratic fragmentation by design? the case of payroll management in the democratic Republic of Congo
This paper examines the sources of bureaucratic fragmentation and coherence in the Democratic Republic of Congo by exploring the connections and tensions between interface bureaucracies and the back-office administration tasked with managing the public payroll system. Building on the ‘real governance’ literature and the notion of ‘infrastructural power’, we analyse the recent history of payroll management in Congo and especially its evolution ove…
Is informalization equalizing? Evidence from Kinshasa (DRC)
As a consequence of a concatenation of external and internal events, the economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has informalized to an unprecedented level over the last few decades. A comparison of budget surveys carried out in 1975 and 2004 respectively allows us to ascertain the effect of this process on income inequality and poverty in Kinshasa. We find that the extent of inequality in the capital city of the DRC has remained la…
Capabilities in Place: Locating Poverty and Affluence in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
We argue that the capability approach can be very helpful in exploring the links between poverty and place, thereby providing a more accurate understanding of poverty processes. We demonstrate how Sen's list of 'conversion factors' allows one to incorporate but also to go beyond the usual description of the connection between place and well-being in terms of physical and social infrastructure. More in particular, we give emphasis on the role of p…
L'AgencÉITÉ Relationnelle
well-being, capabilities, human development, relational poverty
The circumstances of agency: A relational view of poverty
The human development paradigm that inspires the growing international consensus on poverty and development conceptually bounds our thinking about the problem of poverty and its solutions in particular and inappropriate ways. We question, among other things, the almost exclusive focus on individualistic wellbeing and ill-being, and the neglect of people's agency, in practice if not in theory. We propose to re-conceptualise freedom and poverty in …
La vulnérabilité vis-à-vis d'autres personnes: Leçons Pour Les Interventions Contre La Pauvreté
Si le niveau de vie des personnes est toujours en partie déterminé par le hasard, le risque ne relève pas seulement de la nature mais aussi du comportement d'autres personnes dont on dépend. Dans notre contribution nous cherchons à mieux circonscrire les possibilités d'éviter cette vulnérabilité relationnelle. Nous appliquons notre propos à des cas concrets d'aide au développement
The reinvention of the market from below: The end of the women's money changing monopoly in Kinshasa
Against all Odds: Coping with Regress in Kinshasa, Zaïre
The reinvention of the market from below: The end of the women's money changing monopoly in Kinshasa
The reinvention of the market from below: The end of the women's money changing monopoly in Kinshasa
Zaïre's transition to the Third Republic (1990–1997) was characterised by the decline of the national currency and the economy's partial dollarisation. This article describes the origins of the different types of cambistes (informal money exchange brokers). It argues that the evolution of the market of foreign currency is not only determined by changes in economic opportunities, but also by different kinds of social identity the cambistes have ad…
Democracy & the money machine in Zaire
Whether or not Mitterand's famous thesis that ‘there can be no democracy without development and no development without democracy‘ 1 is correct, Zaire during the 1990s was a clear case demonstrating the absence of a close relationship between development and democratisation. On the contrary, the announcement that political leaders might be facing electoral defeat could be considered as one of the most important background elements determining the…
Economic Action and Social Structure: Cambisme' in Kinshasa
In the recent literature on institutions and social capital, there has been a renewed emphasis on the importance of social structure in explaining the performance of economic markets. Approaches to how this 'social structure' is conceived differ widely, however. This article examines the social structure and partitioning of the market in foreign currency in Kinshasa, based on fieldwork in the mid-1990s, and finds remarkable similarities with Geer…
Aide d'urgence et notions locales d'équité: Analyse d'un programme d'aide nutritionnelle comme une interface sociale
In order to better understand the dynamics involved in emergency food aid programs, this paper analyzes the case of Kinshasa (1992–1995). The interaction between local health personnel engaged in the programme and the—potential, legitimate, and unintended—beneficiaries of the aid is central to this paper. The classical concepts of moral hazard and adverse selection, often cited in the current literature on target poverty programs, only partly cap…
Cooperation and fairness: The flood–Dresher experiment revisited
In this paper we set out to deepen our understanding of the importance of fairness in decision-making within the context of Prisoners' Dilemma games. A review of the “historic” Flood–Dresher experiment provides a useful empirical basis, as it allows us to look in considerable detail at how the experimental players made up their minds. We try out several game-theoretical readings of the experimental results, and find some value in Adam Smith's age…
Aid as an encounter at the interface: The complexity of the global fight against poverty
International development discourse has recently shifted its focus from top‐down economic adjustment to participative anti‐poverty policy. But, whereas the mainstream argument remains couched in a technical framework, we argue that the fight against poverty is inevitably political. Conceptualising the aid industry as a set of global–local interfaces, it follows that a closer look at ‘participation’ in anti‐poverty interventions is needed to come …
War and the Political Economy of Kinshasa
The first visible connection we saw between the war in Eastern Congo-Zaire and livelihoods in the capital city of Congo was one of the 'sheets' or covers the United Nations had distributed in the Rwandan refugee camps in 1994 with the purpose of giving the homeless a semblance of a roof over their heads. Within months, these sheets began to travel around the country and some even appeared in the suburbs of the capital city, 2000 kilometres west o…
Poverty reduction as a local institutional process
The Political Complexity of Pro‐poor Policy Processes in the Mandara Mountains, Cameroon
We give more conceptual flesh and bones to the interconnections between social structures and individual agency by focusing on the way in which the people(s) inhabiting the Mandara Mountains in Far North Province of Cameroon have been affected by pro‐poor policy processes. We analyse the role of individual, collective and relational capabilities in such processes. The case‐study points to: (i) the importance of tracing capability deprivations bac…
La vulnérabilité vis-à-vis d'autres personnes: Leçons Pour Les Interventions Contre La Pauvreté
Si le niveau de vie des personnes est toujours en partie déterminé par le hasard, le risque ne relève pas seulement de la nature mais aussi du comportement d'autres personnes dont on dépend. Dans notre contribution nous cherchons à mieux circonscrire les possibilités d'éviter cette vulnérabilité relationnelle. Nous appliquons notre propos à des cas concrets d'aide au développement
The Capability Approach: Concepts, Measures and Applications
The capability approach developed by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has become an important new paradigm in thinking about development. However, despite its theoretical and philosophical attractiveness, it has been less easy to measure or to translate into policy. This volume addresses these issues in the context of poverty and justice. Part I offers a set of conceptual essays that debate the strength of the often misunderstood individual focus of th…
The circumstances of agency: A relational view of poverty
The human development paradigm that inspires the growing international consensus on poverty and development conceptually bounds our thinking about the problem of poverty and its solutions in particular and inappropriate ways. We question, among other things, the almost exclusive focus on individualistic wellbeing and ill-being, and the neglect of people's agency, in practice if not in theory. We propose to re-conceptualise freedom and poverty in …
L'AgencÉITÉ Relationnelle
well-being, capabilities, human development, relational poverty
La survie de l'école primaire congolaise (RDC): Héritage Colonial, Hybridité Et Résilience
Ce texte tente de comprendre la pérennité de l’école primaire congolaise en dépit de la crise qui a marqué le pays pendant plus de 35 ans et en l’absence presque totale d’investissement public depuis les années 1980. Au-delà d’une lecture qui voit dans la résilience du champ scolaire congolais les effets de sa privatisation, ce texte analyse plutôt les arrangements contemporains du système scolaire à la lumière de son héritage. La survie du champ…
Regulation, Cross-border Trade and Practical Norms in West Nile, North-Western Uganda
This article describes how cross-border trade in West Nile, north-western Uganda to a large extent takes place outside of the legal framework. This does not mean that this trade is unregulated. We make use of the concept of 'practical norms' to show the existence of regulation within this trade, which diverges both from official norms and social norms ('moral economy'). The article describes how these practical norms emerged and how they are enfo…
Real governance beyond the 'failed state: Negotiating education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the state administration has retreated from much of the public domain. The specific case of the education sector – a domain traditionally reserved for the state – shows how public services continue to be provided, and how the Congolese state continues to survive and transform itself. Although no overall power governs the system – there is no overall regulatory authority – this does not mean that the educ…
Capabilities in Place: Locating Poverty and Affluence in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
We argue that the capability approach can be very helpful in exploring the links between poverty and place, thereby providing a more accurate understanding of poverty processes. We demonstrate how Sen's list of 'conversion factors' allows one to incorporate but also to go beyond the usual description of the connection between place and well-being in terms of physical and social infrastructure. More in particular, we give emphasis on the role of p…
God and Caesar in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Negotiating church–state relations through the management of school fees in Kinshasa's Catholic schools
This article argues that state (re)construction and functioning involves negotiated governance between both state and non-state actors, in which power relations between local actors are not just implicitly present or co-influencing policies but are of uttermost importance to the formation of policy and state. One of the main non-state actors in African service delivery is the church. State and church are two major poles of power which determine –…
Reliable, challenging or misleading? A qualitative account of the most recent national surveys and country statistics in the DRC
This paper presents a comprehensive assessment of the national information architecture in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 1970 and 2010. In general, “the numbers” can be qualified as poorly reliable, though an important distinction should be made between aggregate country statistics and microlevel survey data. Whereas the latter inherently contain the purer and less manipulated pieces of information, the former have proven to be t…
Hybrid orders and practical norms
This chapter explains three layers of hybridity in the work of Max Weber. First, individual motives are usually hybrid; individuals are neither rational nor blind norm-followers but both, and much more. Second, the "regularities in conduct" generated by social relationships need to be understood as a hybrid of sometimes contradictory logics. And third, authority, including state authority, is usually a mixture of different sources of legitimacy. …
Real Governance and Practical Norms in Sub-Saharan Africa: The game of the rules
SCOPUS: ch.b
Real Governance and Practical Norms in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Game of the Rules
This Analysis and Policy Brief presents the main ideas of an edited volume on real governance and practical norms that was published this year at Routledge. The book traces the concept of practical norms back to the social science literature and the network of ideas from which it emerged, it extends the field of its application to other regions and sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa and it reflects on the concept’s usefulness for researchers engaged i…
Reconstituting the role of indigenous structures in protected forest management in Cameroon
Political science (28 works) · Economics (24 works) · Politics (19 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Law (13 works) · Democracy (11 works) · Geography (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Political economy (9 works) · Poverty (9 works)