Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The maintenance of social security and the rule of law in Africa is not only threatened by conflicts arising at the critical interface between state law and folk law but also by a growing influx of law coming from across the borders. Not only the UN-conventions of international human rights but also economic and political regulations and international agencies such as the WTO, the World Bank, bilateral development organisations or transnationally operating NGOs play an increasing important role in social and economic relations in small-scale settings within non-western nation-states.
This presentation focuses on one aspect of this wide range of problems, i.e. programmes on the promotion of the rule of law and democracy in Africa, as they have been labelled by many international development agencies since the mid 90ies. On the basis of a case study referring to the planning process of distinct epistemic communities within two international development agencies, the German and the Swiss development agencies, the normative framing of political projects and its impact on the legal and political decision-making in two African countries shall be analysed.