Investing in Authoritarian Rule: Punishment and Patronage in Rwanda's Gacaca Courts for Genocide Crimes (Cambridge Studies in Law and Society)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 12/11/2015
EAN 9781107084087, ISBN10: 1107084083
Hardcover, 390 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm
Language: English
This book shows how Rwanda's transitional courts that tried genocide crimes - the gacaca - produced social complicity and cemented authoritarian rule. It is unique for its in-depth investigation of the courts' legal operations: confessions, denunciation, and lay judging, and shows how targeted incentives such as grants of clemency, opportunities for private gain, and career advancement drew the masses into the orbit of the ethnic minority-dominated regime. Using previously untapped data, it illustrates how a decade of mass trials constructed a tacit patronage-driven relationship in which the interests of the citizenry became tied to the authoritarian elite that had discretionary power to grant or withdraw those benefits at will. The operation of law in individual behavior and authoritarian control presented in this volume will be of use to students and scholars in the social sciences, and practitioners interested in criminal law and transitional justice.
Introduction
Part I. Clientelist and Authoritarian Legacies
1. A history of clientelism in Rwanda
2. The RPF
an unrivaled patron
Part II. Formal and Informal Rules of the Game
3. The mental map
shared expectations of rule
4. The gacaca court
deciding innocence and guilt
Part III. Consolidating Authoritarianism
5. Confessions
surrendering the right to rule
6. Denunciations
local space and local control
7. Judges
political cooptation at the grassroots
Conclusion.