Political Infighting Research Articles

The Elections in Uganda, February 2016

On 18 February, Uganda conducted presidential and parliamentary elections. Incumbent president Yoweri Museveni of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) won the multiparty contest for a third consecutive time. If his reign as the NRM leader during Uganda's stint as a one-party state is counted, the February elections marked the beginning of Museveni's fifth overall term as president. The NRM continues to dominate parliament, having won a super-majority of the contested seats. Opposition members who competed for both the presidential seat and a seat in parliament contested the results of the election, and the primary opposition candidate Kizza Besigye was placed under house arrest. International observers questioned the integrity of the results, specifically in rural areas that were poorly monitored, and opposition strongholds in urban centres suffered logistical problems. The elections reconfirmed the strength of the NRM following years of political infighting.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2206 on Targeted Sanctions in South Sudan

In December 2013, civil conflict erupted between the Government of the Republic of South Sudan and opposition forces due to political infighting among the country’s political and military elites. On March 3, 2015, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted Resolution 2206 pursuant to its powers under Article 41 of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations. Resolution 2206 provides for targeted sanctions against specific individuals and entities deemed “responsible for or complicit in, or [as] having engaged in, directly or indirectly, actions or policies that threaten the peace, security or stability of South Sudan.” The stated purpose of the targeted sanctions, which consist of a travel ban and asset freeze for designated individuals and entities, is to “support the search for an inclusive and sustainable peace in South Sudan.”

Budaya Kritik Ulama Hadis Perspektif Historis dan Praktis

Sunnah, as the second source after Koran had been through several hard priod which stems from slander, emerge in the midst of Muslims since the death of caliph Othman b. ‘Affan. During that, the Sunnah of the Prophet become a tool for political infighting and it arose multi fanaticism, starting from the fanaticism of <em>madhhab</em>, race, class, and other fanaticism along with the break up of the Muslims into sects. This makes the Sunnah ainted. It was difficult to distinguish between an authentic hadith, <em>da‘îf</em> even <em>mawd</em><em>û‘</em>. It is difficult to distinguish whether the transmitters are <em>thiqah</em>, free from fanaticism, or other tendency, which caused the narrators unable to maintain the integrity of Sunnah. Since the codification campaign echoed the hadith, the scholars began the unification and selection of traditions in various ways, all were concentrated on the activities of criticism as an effort to authenticate hadith, chains. So, the common question of tradition at the time was whether the <em>isnâd</em> valid, whether the <em>matn</em> certainly valid as well. This paradigm emerged different disciplines related to the study, such as science of <em>isnâd</em>, <em>al-jarh</em><em> wa al-ta‘dîl</em>, <em>al-t</em><em>abaqât</em>, <em>al-‘ilal</em> and so forth

Back to Basics: Limitations of Research Influencing the Human Brain Project

In an effort to unravel the workings of the human brain the European Commission established the Human Brain Project (2013) however it has been subject to intense rescrutiny, criticism and political infighting. Accordingly the aim of this article is to provide a critical review of whether, at least from the technical perspective, such criticisms are justified. The author is in the privileged position of being able to do so because he heads a company which is in the unique position of commercialising a technology, developed by its Technical Director Dr. Igor Grakov (launched in its first commercial version in 1999), which is based upon a precise, sophisticated, and detailed mathematical model of the autonomic nervous system i.e. that cognitive input can be used as the data sets for a neural simulation technique and/or mathematical model which links brain function to the regulated function of the body’s physiological and/or functional systems, the organs which are essential components of these systems, and of the pathological changes to cellular and molecular biology which are the consequence of systemic dysfunction. In other words the Strannik technology developed by Dr. Grakov meets several of the key aims and objectives of the Human Brain Project. This article highlights (i) fundamental limitations of current diagnostic methods which will severely constrain the ability of researchers to reach a successful conclusion; (ii) fundamental limitations of medical research which ignore basic principles of chemistry and widely recognised (but unfashionable) phenomena; (iii) the assumption that there is a healthy and/or ‘unhealthy’ brain although clearly the health of the brain is influenced by stress, nutritional deficits and emergent pathologies; (iv) it questions the need for ‘big data’ rather than investment in the basic research to identify the fundamental scientific principles; and (v) it is critical of the way in which contemporary biomedical research overlooks the complex and wholistic way in which the body functions.

Taming the “Foreign Tigers”

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Thirty years after the launch of the reform and opening up policy, China finally implemented its first anti-trust law in 2008, a move lauded by an international law firm as a tremendous leap forward that brought the country squarely into the modern world of antitrust and competition 0) Yet, given the law's novelty on Chinese soil, few would have expected China to suddenly begin aggressively enforcing it. Since 2013, Chinese anti-trust regulators have become active in deploying the anti-trust law to initiate probes and impose hefty fines on industry associations, for- eign carmakers, eyewear makers, and baby formula manufacturers, mean- while justifying dawn raids on selected firms. Many of their high-profile targets are multinational firms that until then enjoyed a comfortable pres- ence in China. Facing tightened enforcement, foreign companies and cham- bers of commerce are complaining that regulators are using the law selectively against foreign firms and that investigations lack transparency and respect for the rule of law. Chinese regulators, on the other hand, argue that they are impartial towards domestic and foreign companies, and that they are merely enforcing the anti-trust law in order to create a level playing field for both domestic and foreign companies, benefit Chinese consumers, and bring China closer to the rule of law.Drawing upon this controversy, this article argues that China's rising anti- trust activism is explained by at least two factors. First, the Chinese state is pursuing an industrial policy to encourage indigenous innovation and grow national champions through a palette of regulatory tools. In this context, enforcement of anti-trust law emerges as an important policy tool not only to foster fair competition, but also to serve as a de facto interventionist measure to pressure foreign enterprises to cut prices and oblige them to contribute to the Chinese market and domestic companies. Second, the growing aggressiveness of anti-trust enforcement is possibly fuelled by in- ternal competition and political infighting among the three regulatory bod- ies, which are all striving to gain political capital under the current uncertain political dimate.The article will demonstrate that the resulting complaints from foreign companies and trade associations that they are being selec- tively targeted are not totally unfounded. To show that the enforcement of the anti-trust law is impartial, Chinese regulators must demonstrate its strength and willingness by striking hard against the monopolistic practices of domestic companies - particularly the powerful state-owned enterprises.Anti-monopoly law and recent enforcementAfter almost 15 years of drafting, China's Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) was finally promulgated in August 2007 and became effective one year later. Recognised as China's economic constitution, the AML is China's first com- prehensive competition law that oversees issues including merger control, monopoly agreements by multiple firms, and abuse of dominant market position. Its declared purposes include protecting market competition and the legitimate interests of consumers, and above all, protecting public in- terest and promoting the socialist market economy. The law is enforced by three governmental bodies. The National Development Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top planning agency responsible for the administrative con- trol of the economy, is tasked with overseeing pricing-related monopoly practices while retaining authority under the Price Law (1997). The State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC) takes care of non- pric- ing-reiated monopoly practices. The Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) is responsible for merger review and monopolisation in foreign trade. Apart from the three enforcement agencies, the State Council has established the Anti-Monopoly Commission. A consultation and coordination body with no substantive enforcement powers, the Commission is responsible for organ- ising, coordinating and supervising AML-related activities. …

Editor’s Page

Editor’s Page David C. Turpie How southern is Kentucky? Is Kentucky in the South? Is Kentucky of the South? These are questions that have perennially engaged commentators and scholars. A handful of new books examine Kentucky’s southerness, especially through its post–Civil War Confederate identity. Yet, Kentucky historians have traditionally viewed Kentucky as being exceptional—sometimes an exception within the South and sometimes one apart from it. Kentucky challenges historians to define the indefinable qualities of southernness. Where are the boundaries of the South? How are they defined? By state borders, by geographical features, by partisan affiliation, by linguistic similarity, by food, music, or folk culture? Are the boundaries of the South shaped by shared historical experience? If so, what events define southern history and southern culture? In the 1860s, Kentucky was a slave state that remained loyal to the Union. Which is more “southern,” slavery or supporting the Confederacy? How much of one or the other does it take to tilt the scales in favor of southernness? C. Vann Woodward, for what it is worth (and it is no stretch to say that his opinion is worth more than many), included Kentucky in his masterful Origins of the New South. In that volume and elsewhere subsequently, we learned that Kentucky eventually turned to racial segregation like its Deep South counterparts. Yet it was the only southern state that did not pass a poll tax or other laws designed specifically to disenfranchise African Americans en masse. Do the de jure trappings of Jim Crow, which were present to a much lesser [End Page 549] degree than farther south, outweigh the de facto results, which were—tragically—often the same for African Americans in Kentucky? So, again, how southern is Kentucky and how exceptional? The three articles in this issue each address these questions in some way. J. Michael Rhyne takes an innovative look at the last two years of the Civil War, when the commonwealth was wracked by political infighting and guerilla warfare. Rhyne writes that we should not view the war in the way it is traditionally viewed, as a war between states or sections. Instead, he argues, the war, in Kentucky at least, should be viewed as a war over federal authority. Most white Kentuckians remained loyal to the federal government, but following the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the recruitment of African American men in 1864, many in the commonwealth began to question federal authority, albeit from within the system unlike their Deep South counterparts. All suffered as a result of this internecine conflict, but especially African Americans. For his article, Nathan McGee has examined listener responses to the programming of John Lair’s Renfro Valley music complex. Born in Rockcastle County in the 1890s, Lair had dreams of show business success but had no musical abilities himself. Thus, he turned to songwriting, producing, managing, and emceeing. He got his break in Chicago in the late 1920s as the host of a country-music radio program. From there he moved to a radio station in Cincinnati for several years, but he always planned to return to his eastern Kentucky roots and broadcast radio programs from rural Appalachia. His dream became a reality in the late 1930s when he and his musical acts moved to his new Renfro Valley music complex in Rockcastle County. By then, Lair’s programs already had a huge following around the nation. As McGee points out, many southerners who had moved out of the region during the Great Migration tuned in to Lair’s programs to hear the sounds of home. For southern migrants living in the urban Midwest, listening to the home folks sing traditional tunes helped ease the transition to city life and mitigated the conflicts with native urban dwellers. [End Page 550] In his article, John Paul Hill provides a fascinating look at the political maneuverings that occur when a president nominates a controversial pick for the Supreme Court. About a year into his first term as president, Richard Nixon nominated Judge G. Harrold Carswell of Florida to fill a soon-to-be vacant seat on the highest court in the land. The Senate rejected his first nominee...

‘Before It Is Too Late’: Land Reform in South Vietnam, 1956–1968

Attempts by the U.S. government to enact land redistribution in the Republic of Vietnam began in the mid-1950s. At that time. land reform was a linchpin of U.S. foreign policy in Asia. Wolf Ladejinsky, author of the legislation that had virtually eliminated tenancy in occupied Japan, encountered political controversy in Washington and administrative challenges in Saigon in his attempt to bring about greater equality of land ownership in South Vietnam. This initial attempt to modify land tenure arrangements failed when redistribution stalled, far from complete, during 1961. Although new land reform legislation did not appear until 1970, the 1960s were by no means years of inaction on land reform. Years of behind-the-scenes efforts by American policymakers in Washington and Saigon culminated in the Land-to-the-Tiller Law, an ambitious but doomed attempt to complete the work that Ladejinsky had begun over a decade earlier. Documents from the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, many newly declassified, suggest that bureaucratic intrigue and political infighting within the Johnson administration and Congress both hindered and facilitated the emergence of a new land reform program in war-ravaged South Vietnam.

Anthropology and History

Anthropology and History Ayala Fader (bio) Introduction: An Anthropological Approach to Jews and Judaism I am a cultural and linguistic anthropologist who studies contemporary Jewish life in New York City. As a cultural anthropologist, my approach is an ethnographic one, which is distinguished by its emphasis on participant observation—that is, participating in and observing the everyday lives of those with whom I work. The majority of my research has been with ultra-Orthodox Jewish women and girls in Brooklyn, or, as I call them, “nonliberal” Jews.1 This has meant, for example, that I spent two years in a Hasidic girls’ school observing kindergarteners and first-graders. I visited with Hasidic women and children in their homes as they ate supper, played and did homework, and I attended a class for Hasidic brides, among many other activities. As I participated and observed, I also took field notes on these experiences, which created one body of data. I am also a linguistic anthropologist, which has shaped both my methodology and my analytic focus on language. In my research, I regularly record, transcribe and then analyze naturally occurring talk, creating another body of data. For example, in my book, Mitzvah Girls: Bringing Up the Next Generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn (2009), I not only included transcripts of interactions in homes, schools and other neighborhood contexts in Yiddish and English, but I also analyzed the distinctive languages that Hasidic men and women speak: Hasidic Yiddish and Hasidic English (called “Yinglish” by many in the community). In Mitzvah Girls, I used this focus on talk to theorize about nonliberal religions more generally: I argued that women and girls use language and other embodied practices (such as modest comportment or modest [End Page 1] fashions) to create an alternative religious modernity. This religious modernity includes an explicit critique of secular modernity—specifically, the notions of freedom, autonomy, pluralism and tolerance. I have also used the approaches of cultural and linguistic anthropology to study Jewish prayer, institution building and education in a synagogue study that I, together with ethnomusicologist Mark Kligman, conducted in New York City. Drawing on this research, I have written about Jewish spirituality—the emotional, individualized experience of God—and its relationship to ongoing neoliberal processes of gentrification in a Manhattan neighborhood (2007). Currently, I am working on two different projects—projects connected by their attention to digital media—that emerge out of my commitment to including Jews and Judaism in anthropological conversations about religion, politics and social change. The first, conducted with Owen Gottlieb, is an ethnographic study of Occupy Judaism, the Jewish inflection of Occupy Wall Street. We are exploring Occupy Judaism’s relationship to Occupy Faith and Occupy Wall Street; the ways in which social media, religious practice and political activism interact; and what all of this may tell us about religion and the public sphere in 21st-century urban America (nd. Fader and Gottlieb). The second, longer-term project involves a return to the world of nonliberal Judaism. My focus this time is the moral panic that indicates a moment of transition: many community members claim that the Internet is leading nonliberal Jews to stray off the derech (path, meaning to leave orthodoxy). This panic became very public in 2012, when some rabbinic authorities held an asifa (gathering) in the Citi Field baseball stadium in New York to warn of the dangers the Internet posed. Forty thousand attended and the event was covered in the Jewish and more mainstream media. Digital media, with its private access to knowledge is creating spaces to challenge to the moral authority of the leadership. In response, there has been increasing communal concern with “strengthening emune (faith), which has included changing cultural beliefs about media altogether (Fader 2013) I locate this moral panic in a broader historical context in order to understand processes of change in a nonliberal religious community. Increasing religious stringencies and political infighting among the leadership over the past fifteen years has led to a critical backlash among nonliberal Jews in their twenties and thirties. These Jews, men and women, are creating new forms of social life and community, facilitated by digital media. For example, I am finding...

Austerity and Democracy

This article focuses narrowly on three critical economic issues and their relationship to democratic transitions: economic crisis, economic growth and the middle class, and public expectations for social and economic opportunities. History provides compelling insights. First, short-term economic crises are often the proximate trigger of regime change. Second, economic growth under autocracy does not lead to political freedom, but the robust middle class that generally emerges as countries become more prosperous can prevent backsliding to authoritarianism once democracy is established. Third, the promise of political freedoms raises people’s expectations for material opportunities, so failure to deliver on these expectations makes a return to authoritarianism more likely. The transition from authoritarianism to democracy is notoriously difficult. Many countries that were at one time budding with democratic promise now appear mired in political infighting; others are trapped in downward spirals of poverty and unemployment. Substantive democracy, characterized by majority rule with strong minority and civil rights protections, comes only slowly for most transitioning countries. As reformers in countries around the world struggle to consolidate fragile democratic possibilities, and as the international community tries to support them, gleaning policy-relevant insights from the trajectories of other democratic transitions is now more important than ever. In order to distill practical lessons for policymakers and reformers, this article looks carefully at the statistical evidence and at landmark country transitions that occurred over the past 25 years—Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand, Poland, Ukraine, and South Africa—with a diverse range of experiences and outcomes. The evidence from the case studies and the statistical research helps clarify why some democratic transitions have succeeded while others have stumbled, and reveals several important insights. Equity, inclusion, and a strong middle-class are linchpins of an enduring social contract.

Prospects for good governance in Lebanon's nascent petroleum sector

There is increased interest in oil and gas exploration offshore Lebanon, but the country lags behind its neighbours in developing its resources. The institutional and legal framework necessary to this process has been slow to emerge as a result of political infighting. However, thanks to relatively high state administrative capacity and support from foreign technical advisors, an adequate framework for investment has been created. Future governance challenges relate to less satisfactory standards in terms of transparency and the risks of corruption.

Le Sueur in the Sioux country: rethinking France's Indian alliances in the Pays d'en Haut

This essay explores the career of Pierre Charles Le Sueur, an explorer, fur trader, soldier, and diplomat in the nominal service of the French Crown at the turn of the eighteenth century among the Indian peoples of the Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi Valley, the Pays d'en Haut. It uses Le Sueur's story to suggest a new explanation for the instability of France's Indian alliances in the Pays d'en Haut that brings current ethnohistorical accounts – which have largely emphasized the diversity of, and conflicts of interest between, Indian villages in the region – into conversation with revisionist works on Louis XIV's France which have similarly deconstructed monolithic portrayals of the “absolutist” state with which these peoples engaged. Le Sueur's story – his transition from a contraband trader, or coureur de bois, in the Pays d'en Haut to a prominent agent of French empire – reveals the layers of bitter political infighting within New France and Louisiana over control of the lucrative fur trade; the gambles and deception that often shaped the dealings of colonial agents with officials at Versailles; and, most importantly, the destabilizing effects that their schemes could have upon the Pays d'en Haut as trade routes conveying powerful means of war into the continental interior consequently shifted, offsetting tenuous balances of power between the very Indian peoples the Crown hoped to galvanize as allies. Exploring Le Sueur's risk-laden and ultimately ill-fated attempts to integrate the powerful Sioux peoples of the Upper Mississippi into existing networks of trade and diplomacy that had long been centered upon their enemies in the Great Lakes region reveals these alliance systems as the often tumultuous entanglement of two equally complex systems: the village politics of the Pays d'en Haut and patron–client networks linking these spaces with the court of Versailles.

Ground Zero – the socio-political minefield of symbolic architecture

Daniel Libeskind is today one of the architecture profession’s media elite. He took up his position in the list of ‘super star architects’ twenty ago and has remained in the spotlight of the press ever since. He has projects across the globe and has been awarded prizes by Time Magazine, The Goethe Institute, the American Institute of Architects and the RIBA. He was also appointed the first Cultural Ambassador for Architecture by the State Department of the United States in 2004. He has been both critically lauded and sardonically ridiculed. Tom Dyckhoff of the London Times refers to him as a ‘global brand’. His most high profile project to date has been The Jewish Museum of Berlin which, after various years of partial completion, was finally opened in full on September 11 2001. The opening day of Libeskind’s commemoration of the twentieth century’s act of horror par excellence then, was also the day of the twenty-first century’s most iconic terrorist act. The macabre irony was not lost on Libeskind himself but the competition that led to him being appointed master planner and architect of the Ground Zero project, turned out to be a dirty, personalised and publically aired media circus. It was a story of political infighting, tawdry economic deals and architectural brinkmanship. It culminated ten years ago this month with Libeskind’s ‘victory.’ In this interview Daniel Libeskind looks back over a decade of working on this project and muses on one of the most high profile, emotive and polemic architectural projects of recent times.

Surrealpolitik : The Experience of Chinese Experts in Democratic Kampuchea, 1975–1979

The literature on Chinese assistance to Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979), has tended to be divided into two approaches. The first rests on the argument that the Chinese revolutionary state—particularly the more radical phases such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution—provided both a blueprint and an inspiration for the Cambodian revolution. This approach suggests that Chinese experts in Democratic Kampuchea were akin to revolutionary comrades-in-arms who shared an ideological affinity as they worked alongside their Cambodian counterparts. The second approach focuses on a state-to-state level of analysis in which the human element is ignored altogether. In this article, by contrast, the author argues that the Chinese experience in Democratic Kampuchea was structured and constrained by the contradiction of technical imperatives in a milieu of deadly political infighting, as well as by the many institutional shortcomings on both the Cambodian and the Chinese sides. The author uses the petroleum refinery project at Kampong Som (Sihanoukville) to illustrate his argument.

NAMIBIA: Political Infighting

Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural SeriesVolume 49, Issue 6 p. 19310A-19310B PARTIES AND POLICIES NAMIBIA: Political Infighting First published: 13 July 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-825X.2012.04534.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume49, Issue6July 2012Pages 19310A-19310B RelatedInformation

Repairing a fractured pipeline: improving the effectiveness of agricultural R & D in the UK

ABSTRACT The enabling of a US Farm Bill affects not only American farmers, but producers and consumers across the world. The passage of the current farm bill has been marked by unusually contentious political infighting resulting in significant delay and, at the time of writing, uncertainty about the outcome. The author predicts ‘stark changes’ for US producers, with a drastically reduced safety net should market prices fall.

Problems of political transition in Ukraine: leadership failure and democratic consolidation

Democratisation and consolidation of a political system encompass a range of complex challenges, for which effective leadership is pivotal. However, the skills that a leader requires to break through and introduce change are not necessarily the same as those needed to maintain stability. This article examines the case of Viktor Yushchenko as president of Ukraine following the Orange Revolution. The negotiated transfer of power from the previous semi-authoritarian regime rendered consolidation difficult by limiting opportunities for a complete break. Within the residual ‘grey area’, a number of actors continued to participate and create tension. The regime that emerged was characterised by political infighting and instability, leading to the defeat of candidates associated with the Orange Revolution in the 2010 presidential elections. This article argues that the inability to move towards a consolidated democratic political system was due to the failure of the transitional leader, rather than the political and institutional configuration.

Joaquim Murtinho, banqueiro: notas sobre a experiência do Banco Rio e Mato Grosso (1891-1902)

O Banco Rio e Mato Grosso, fundado no Rio de Janeiro em 1891 e liquidado em 1902, foi a primeira instituição bancária a operar em Mato Grosso. Tendo como fontes documentos do próprio banco, este trabalho busca traçar sua trajetória e discutir suas vinculações com a economia e a política mato-grossenses. Conclui-se que a ação do banco nesse estado correspondeu a um amplo plano e contribuiu para o processo de modernização e de crescimento econômico - embora tal crescimento, limitado às atividades primário-exportadoras, tenha sido caracteristicamente excludente. Sugere-se também que as atividades econômicas, em Mato Grosso, podiam ser afetadas pelas disputas políticas internas.

Illinois Legal Developments Affecting Physicians and Hospitals

Over the last few years, Illinois health law has developed in a number of areas despite a near shutdown of Illinois’ legislative process because of political infighting among legislative and execut...

The 2009 Elections and Iran's Changing Political Landscape

Iran's June 2009 elections set into motion four processes that are central to the operations of the Islamic Republic regime. They include: the growing gap between large sections of Iranian society from the Islamic Republican state; the steady militarization of the political system; the unprecedented degree to which the Supreme Leader has become an active partisan in the increasingly bitter political infighting among regime insiders, and—most significantly—the violent disruption of an emerging set of “rules of the game,” that previously served as a safety check against excessive factional infighting. This last consequence of the election and its aftermath is likely to leave its most enduring imprint on the State. Specifically, the elections have taken Iran from manageable factionalism to the brink of complete political paralysis. As such, given the untenability of the State's present predicament, far-reaching changes are almost certain to come.

Challenges of establishing a Community Advisory Board (CAB) in a low-income, low-resource setting: experiences from Bagamoyo, Tanzania

ObjectiveCommunity Advisory Boards are now seen as standard practice for clinical vaccine and drug trials worldwide. In the past, most Community Advisory Boards (CABs) were established by activists and lobbyists to monitor HIV/AIDS vaccine and drug trials in developed countries. In Africa the first CAB was established in Uganda in 1990 in conjunction with an HIV vaccine project and has since been followed by others in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. In 2007, the Bagamoyo branch of the Ifakara Health Institute initiated the formation of a CAB. The aim was to properly educate and empower elected CAB members to become full partners in all research activities concerning the public within the Bagamoyo area.Methods and ResultsBeginning in 2007, staff visited each of the 24 villages within the study area to inform the communities about the proposed CAB and asked them to elect two individuals to represent their village on the CAB. The first attempt was hampered by community leaders selecting themselves, which led to inconsistent attendance, gender imbalance, and political infighting. New criteria for the selection of representatives were implemented to exclude governmental leaders, illiterate representatives and to promote a one-to-one gender balance. The newly appointed representatives underwent training and have participated in CAB meetings largely devoid of the negative issues previously encountered.ConclusionThe successfully established CAB has led to improved relations with the community and facilitated the recruitment of study subjects. Our experiences show that, it is possible to establish a non-specific CAB in a low-income setting.