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April 20, 2026

We designed the turf for soccer’s biggest World Cup ever – here’s how we created the same playing experience across 3 countries

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By John N. Trey Rogers, Professor of Turfgrass Research, Michigan State University

World Cup pitches take a beating. AP Photo/Bernat Armangue

With 104 matches in 16 stadiums across Canada, the United States and Mexico, the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be soccer’s biggest event ever.

It’s our job as turfgrass researchers hired by FIFA, the game’s governing body, to make sure those pitches feel the same for players and that the grass thrives.

That’s not so simple. In fact, it seemed like an impossible challenge at first.

Picking the right turf

The scale of this job was unprecedented: three distinct climatic zones, over 3,100 miles between the farthest stadiums, and venues ranging from stadiums open to the heat of Mexico City and Miami to enclosed NFL stadiums in Dallas and Atlanta, to the cooler climates of Boston and Toronto.

Despite the unique situations of each stadium, FIFA has a long list of rules for how the fields must be built. The grass has to be real but reinforced so it can handle a lot of games and ceremonies. Each field needs an automatic irrigation system, good drainage, built-in vacuum and vents to keep the grass and soil aerated, and artificial grow lights to keep the grass healthy.

Each host city is responsible for figuring out how to meet these requirements.

Right now, eight of the 2026 host stadiums normally use artificial turf – how will they temporarily switch to real grass for the World Cup?

Even trickier, five of the stadiums have domes, which means the grass gets less sunlight. How can they keep the grass alive for eight weeks?

How can we make sure that a player competing in Philadelphia has the same on‑field experience as a player competing in Guadalajara or Seattle?

The new turfgrass goes down in New England’s Gillette Stadium near Boston. WCBV.

Our team at the University of Tennessee and Michigan State University has spent the past five years researching these questions to provide guidance to the host cities. Here, we’ll explore some of the most important questions we faced: which grass to grow, how it’s grown, how we plan to make it even stronger, and how to move it safely to each stadium.

Growing the grass

Typically, sod is grown on native soil. When harvested, the roots are cut, which shocks the plant and can delay root reestablishment for several weeks.

That wouldn’t work for the World Cup because games may take place within just 10 days of installation. If the roots can’t become established fast enough, the grass will be weaker and more prone to damage.

To address this, we decided to use sod grown on plastic with sand as a base.

Think of it like growing grass in a plastic tray, but on a much larger scale. When the roots reach the plastic, they spread sideways and intertwine, forming a dense rooting system. Because the roots stay intact during harvest, the sod experiences minimal stress and can be ready to play almost immediately after installation.

Sod for sports fields is typically grown in a base of sand to provide quick drainage and prevent the grass from getting compacted as the roots become established.

The problem is that growing grass in 2 inches of sand on a plastic sheet comes with risks. Because of the plastic, a single heavy rainfall while the grass is becoming established can wash the exposed sand away.

For warm‑season sod farmers – those that grow grass that thrives in high temperatures – sand washing away is less of a concern because the Bermudagrass they grow establishes quickly. On the other hand, cool‑season sod farmers usually grow Kentucky bluegrass, which germinates slowly compared to other turfgrass species, increasing the risk of washouts.

We decided to mix a faster‑germinating species – perennial ryegrass – with Kentucky bluegrass grown on plastic and then tested various seeding ratios. We found that an 84% Kentucky bluegrass and 16% perennial ryegrass mixture produced a stronger sod than pure Kentucky bluegrass alone four months after seeding. Since 2025, these findings have been used on sod farms across North America, beyond those growing grass for the World Cup.

Stabilizing the surface

“One World Cup game is equal to a Super Bowl,” FIFA officials like to remind us. Since each field will host a lot of games and ceremonies, including up to nine games over six weeks, the fields need to be extremely strong.

To make them tougher, we mix plastic fibers into the natural grass, which creates a hybrid turfgrass system. As the grass grows, its roots wrap around these plastic fibers, which helps to keep the surface stable and firm. These fibers are also colored to match the natural grass, so even if the real grass wears down, they help the field stay green.

Hybrid turfgrass systems can be created in two ways: by stitching plastic fibers into an existing grass field or by laying down a carpet of plastic fibers that is then filled with sand and seeded to grow new grass.

Stitched systems have been used in World Cup games for a long time, but carpet systems are still fairly new to the tournament – they have been used only in the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

We tested eight carpet systems to see how they performed and found that all could be successfully grown on plastic. All the surface performance tests – ball bounce, rotational resistance and surface hardness – on these eight carpets also met FIFA standards.

One type of carpet was chosen by three host cities for their stadiums: Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.

Getting the sod from farm to stadium

Most of the stadiums – 14 of them – will have sod that is grown on plastic, then rolled up and shipped to the venue during spring 2026. Some of the grasses won’t have to travel far, but some will be shipped in refrigerated trucks across the country. Since the sod remains fully intact after harvest, it can withstand long travel times.

Five of those stadiums don’t get enough sunlight, so they will use cool-season grasses that require less light than warm-season grasses.

While the open-air stadium in Miami will use Bermudagrass, the domed stadium in Houston, despite being at a similar latitude, will use the Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass mix. That means cross-country trips from cool-season sod farms in Denver and Washington to domed stadiums in the southern regions is essential.

It’s wild to think that this is all necessary, but the length of the tournament and unique stadium environments call for innovation.

The University of Tennessee was the prime awardee of the FIFA grant. Michigan State University is a subawardee. John N. Trey Rogers is the principal investigator for the Michigan State work.

Jackie Lyn A. Guevara is affiliated with Michigan State University. She received compensation through a FIFA grant awarded to Michigan State University.

John Sorochan is the principal investigator for the FIFA grant at the University of Tennessee.

Ryan Bearss works for Michigan State University

– ref. We designed the turf for soccer’s biggest World Cup ever – here’s how we created the same playing experience across 3 countries – https://theconversation.com/we-designed-the-turf-for-soccers-biggest-world-cup-ever-heres-how-we-created-the-same-playing-experience-across-3-countries-279536

April 20, 2026

Cities helping cities rebuild: How local partnerships are shaping Ukraine’s recovery

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Tamara Krawchenko, Associate Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria

The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe recently called for local and national authorities to work together to help Ukraine recover and rebuild four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country.

The message is clear: cities and regions must lead, and their counterparts around the world should help them do it. The congress also calls on Russia to pay for the damage it has caused, pointing to frozen Russian assets worldwide as one source for those funds — an acknowledgment that recovery cannot wait for the war to end, since communities are already rebuilding under fire.

As a lead author of the report underpinning the congress’s call to action, I want to explain why it matters and why Canada, in particular, has both the track record and the responsibility to step up.

The scale of what needs to be done

The numbers are almost impossible to absorb. By the end of 2024, direct damage to Ukraine’s buildings and infrastructure had reached approximately US$176 billion, with more than 2.5 million households destroyed or damaged.

Total aggregate economic losses from the invasion are estimated at more than US$1.1 trillion. Nearly 6.8 million Ukrainians have also sought refuge abroad, the largest displacement of people in Europe since the Second World War.

Behind every statistic is a community struggling to survive — a mayor trying to keep schools open under missile attacks; a municipal council managing hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons with dwindling resources; a city engineer repairing the same water system for the third time after it was bombed yet again.

Local and regional authorities across Ukraine face these situations every day. And it is precisely because the challenges are so local — tied to specific communities and capacities — that the response must also be local.

Ukrainian decentralization reforms since 2014 have expanded the fiscal capacity of the country’s municipalities, enabling them to respond to the unprecedented shocks of war far more effectively than before. In fact, local budget revenues quintupled between 2014 and 2021.

Russia’s invasion disrupted these reforms.

Why city-to-city networks are different

The call to action by the congress asks local and regional authorities in Council of Europe member states to use “existing co-operation platforms and bilateral partnerships to offer practical support to their Ukrainian counterparts.”

It’s an appeal for cities that have solved difficult problems — managing mass displacement, rebuilding after disaster, reforming service delivery — to share what they know with Ukrainian cities doing the same under fire.

City-to-city partnerships are fundamentally different from top-down aid. They are peer relationships built on what scholars call horizontal assistance — the exchange of practical knowledge and structural social capital between cities navigating similar challenges.

Research on municipal technical exchanges, including a study of Seattle’s city-to-city delegations, shows these networks generate direct benefits: lower costs of accessing policy information, facilitation of collective action and long-term institutional ties that outlast any individual project cycle.

As the researchers who conducted the Seattle research point out, the exchanges “disseminate information, and through the personal relations they initiate, have a potential for influencing future resource decisions among cities and countries.”

This matters enormously for Ukraine. The most effective city networks are those oriented toward concrete policy transfer such as sharing regulatory frameworks, governance tools and public administration practices.

Ukrainian cities need exactly this: working models of how to manage housing allocation for displaced persons, how to deliver trauma-informed social services and how to rebuild energy infrastructure with built-in resilience.

Canadian municipal engineers who might advise a Kharkiv counterpart on water system resilience wouldn’t just be delivering aid — they’d be sharing hard-won professional knowledge among equals. That knowledge sticks in ways that consultant reports rarely do.

The lessons of past reconstruction

History offers clear guidance on what works. Comparative analysis of post-war and post-disaster reconstruction experiences identifies local community engagement and bottom-up leadership as the single most consistent factor separating successful from failed reconstruction.

Top-down donor interventions that bypassed local institutions, as in Iraq after 2003, produced waste, duplication and projects misaligned with community priorities. By contrast, programs that genuinely incorporated recipient input — like the post-Second World War Marshall Plan — achieved lasting results.

The review by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) of Ukraine’s recovery architecture echoes this: Ukraine’s reconstruction ecosystem remains fragmented, with co-ordination gaps among federal government departments, international donors and local authorities.

City-to-city networks can help fill that gap at the most practical level by channelling directly applicable knowledge to the local officials who most need it.

Canada’s proven record, and its moment

Canada has been here before. Beginning in 2010, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), financed by the Canadian government through Global Affairs Canada, built exactly this kind of peer network in Ukraine through the Partnership for Local Economic Development and Democratic Governance.

The $19.5-million, six-year initiative worked directly with 16 Ukrainian cities to strengthen local democracy, support small and medium-sized businesses and advance decentralization.

FCM’s municipal experts worked alongside counterparts in cities like Lviv and Dnipro, co-publishing Ukraine’s first municipal guide to local economic development and helping local governments design collaborative regional projects. A key partner throughout was the Association of Ukrainian Cities, a key municipal advocacy organization.

That program ended, but the relationships it built did not. And the decentralization reforms it supported are now widely credited — by the congress’s call to action itself, the OECD and scholars of Ukrainian resilience — with giving Ukrainian local authorities the capacity to respond as effectively as they have to the shocks of war.

The case for reinvestment

The congress explicitly notes in its call to action that decentralization reforms “have played a crucial role in Ukraine’s wartime resilience.” That is, in part, a legacy of Canada’s investment.

A new, scaled-up commitment through FCM building on existing relationships with the Association of Ukrainian Cities — drawing on FCM’s international programs expertise and connecting Canadian municipal professionals to their Ukrainian peers across the priority domains the resolution identifies (like in housing, social and mental health supports, economic recovery, emergency management, community energy and citizen participation) — would represent a return to a proven formula.

The congress’s call to action urges deeper, more focused work on local recovery and reconstruction. City-to-city partnerships stand out as one of the most cost-effective and sustainable tools: they share practical knowledge that endures, strengthen institutions over the long term and recognize Ukrainian cities as active participants in their own reconstruction.

Canada helped build local government capacity in Ukraine before the war. The Council of Europe’s Congress has now called on the world to do so again. Canada should answer that call.

The author served as a contributing expert to the Council of Europe Congress Report CG(2026)50-10prov, adopted at the 50th Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in March 2026.

– ref. Cities helping cities rebuild: How local partnerships are shaping Ukraine’s recovery – https://theconversation.com/cities-helping-cities-rebuild-how-local-partnerships-are-shaping-ukraines-recovery-280205

April 20, 2026

Exploring conversational AI and poetry but not as we know it

Source: The Conversation – France – By Thierry Poibeau, DR CNRS, École normale supérieure (ENS) – PSL

What do the large language models behind human-like conversational AI really know and what does it mean to live alongside them?

A new book Understanding Conversational AI by Thierry Poibeau offers a critical and interdisciplinary exploration of large language models (LLMs), examining how they reshape our understanding of language, cognition and society. Drawing on philosophy of language, linguistics, cognitive science and AI ethics, it investigates how LLMs generate meaning, simulate reasoning and perform tasks that once seemed uniquely human from translation to moral judgement and literary creation.

The book explores the limitations of these models, their embedded biases and their role in processes of automation, misinformation and platform enclosure while reflecting on how they prompt us to revisit fundamental questions: What is understanding? What is creativity? How do we ascribe agency or trust in a world of synthetic language?

Recent findings are suggesting that non-expert poetry readers prefer AI works to poems written by humans. Thierry Poibeau reminds us how “aesthetic judgment in poetry often involves elements that are not easily codifiable, such as originality, emotional resonance, metaphorical depth, and cultural embeddedness”. Poibeau sheds light on why AI-generated poems can be appealing, by highlighting how literary value is “shaped by evolving norms within particular reading communities, making judgments of poetic merit historically contingent and socially negotiated”.

AI Poetry in motion

Excerpts from Understanding Conversational AI

“The arrival of AI-generated poetry raises fundamental questions about whether current evaluation criteria, often rooted in human experience, intentional expression, and historical context are adequate for assessing texts produced through large-scale statistical recombination.

As large language models generate increasingly fluent and plausible verse, their outputs may challenge existing notions of aesthetic authenticity, precisely because they blur the boundary between craft, imitation, and genuine creative insight.

These systems are capable of reproducing recognizable poetic forms, stylistic conventions, and affective tones, raising the question of how such texts should be evaluated when traditional assumptions about authorship and intention no longer clearly apply.

However, despite this formal competence, recent studies reveal recurrent stylistic tendencies characteristic of large language model–generated poetry. GPT-4, for instance, shows a strong preference for quatrain structures, a frequent reliance on iambic meter and end rhyme, and a tendency to employ recurring lexical choices such as heart, whisper, or dream.

These outputs often reflect a flattening of emotional and metaphorical complexity, favoring literal formulations and conventional poetic tropes over ambiguity, innovation, or semantic depth.

In comparison to human poetry, LLM-generated verse appears more homogeneous and less nuanced, and is less capable of producing the kinds of conceptual tension or unexpected imagery often found in more original human compositions.

In addition to these stylistic patterns, recent reader evaluation studies suggest that some AI-generated poems are judged comparably to human-authored texts when assessed blind.

However, once authorship is disclosed, evaluations tend to decline, indicating a persistent skepticism toward machine-generated poetry. This reception dynamic highlights the ongoing tension between the formal fluency of AI-generated verse and readers’ perceptions of authenticity and creative agency.

Interestingly, readers often find AI-generated poems easier to interpret. They can more readily grasp the images, themes, and emotions, which are typically presented in a more accessible and transparent manner than in the often denser and more ambiguous work of human poets.

As a result, readers may develop a preference for these texts and mistakenly interpret their own ease of understanding as evidence of human authorship. When the machine origin of the poem is revealed, this interpretation shifts, and the same textual features that previously facilitated comprehension may be reinterpreted as signs of superficiality or lack of depth.

Such findings should be interpreted with caution. They do not demonstrate that AI-generated poetry is superior in literary quality, but rather that it tends to conform to familiar forms and accessible conventions. In contrast, human-authored poetry frequently relies on layers of complexity, allusion, and ambiguity that demand substantial background knowledge in literature, history, and poetic traditions. Interpreting such works is a cognitively demanding task, and it is therefore problematic to ask lay readers to evaluate poetry in a meaningful way without accounting for differences in expertise and interpretive competence.

Beyond questions of evaluation, the reception of AI-generated poetry raises broader issues of attribution, disclosure, and creative ownership. Literary institutions, publishers, and competition organizers increasingly require authors to disclose the use of AI tools, reflecting uncertainty about how machine-generated texts should be situated within existing frameworks of creativity and value.

The discomfort that emerges when readers discover that a poem was generated by a machine is not merely a reaction to deception but an indication that aesthetic judgment remains deeply entangled with assumptions about intention, experience, and authorship.”

Thierry Poibeau is Director of Research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Paris and head of the LaTTiCE laboratory in Paris, France.

He is a member of PRAIRIE-PSAI (Paris AI Research Institute – Paris School of Artificial Intelligence) and is also an affiliated lecturer at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (DTAL) of the University of Cambridge. He works on natural language processing (NLP), particularly focusing on information extraction, question answering, semantic zoning, knowledge acquisition from text, and named entity tagging.

A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. Get the newsletter!

Thierry Poibeau is a member of PRAIRIE-PSAI (Paris AI Research Institute — Paris School of Artificial Intelligence) and has received funding in this capacity.

– ref. Exploring conversational AI and poetry but not as we know it – https://theconversation.com/exploring-conversational-ai-and-poetry-but-not-as-we-know-it-280284

April 20, 2026

Women working in Uganda’s pig sector: how challenging prejudices can unlock opportunities – research

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Esther Leah Achandi, Post Doctoral Fellow- Gender, International Livestock Research Institute

In some communities in Uganda, women aren’t supposed to work with pigs. This stems from restrictive social and gender norms, some of which are rooted in culture and religious beliefs.

Until recently, eating pork was associated with drunkards because the meat was typically served alongside home-brewed alcohol in local bars. That’s changing, as “pork joints” become popular everyday eating places. What’s more, pigs are unfairly thought of as dirty and therefore some people think the people who work with them must be dirty too. Women, in particular, according to prevailing social norms, are meant to keep themselves clean.

The pig sector is growing rapidly in east Africa on the back of rising demand. Uganda is one of three top pork producers in Africa, after Nigeria and Malawi. The country also has the highest per capita consumption of pork in the region, estimated at 3.4 kilograms per person per year. This has led to job opportunities in pig farming, trading, butcheries, food stalls, artificial insemination, and feed and veterinary supply shops.

Across Africa, social and gender norms determine whether a woman can work, what kind of work she can do, where she can work, with which animals, and how much she gets paid. This is the case in Uganda. In some parts of central Uganda, while the management – and cleanliness – of piggeries have improved, resulting in better perceptions about pig hygiene, lingering prejudices have meant women working in the pig industry have little bargaining power and lower incomes, and may feel pressured to work covertly. All this results in missed opportunity for women to develop professional skills and support their families, and reduced food safety for everyone.

In 2022/2023 we conducted a study in two districts to understand how local gender norms affected women in the pig farming sector. The findings revealed that women faced restrictions in conducting artificial insemination, castrating animals, taking sows to boars for mating, and transporting pigs on motorcycles. Additionally, certain activities – including slaughtering, trading livestock, producing feed, and owning large farms – were deemed inappropriate for women.

We also found systemic barriers such as lower wages, lack of control over income, restricted physical mobility, and exclusion from influential networks blocked them from fully reaping the benefits of the sector.

These findings led us to launch a range of interventions in the districts. Working with the international NGO Ripple Effect, my team at the International Livestock Research Institute and I trialled a range of interventions in Uganda’s Masaka and Mukono districts.

The results, evaluated a year later in December 2025, showed that social norms can be both accommodated and transformed for the benefit of all. For example, radio shows and conversations challenged widely held sentiments and sought to normalise roles that were taboo for women – such as providing pig insemination services to other farmers and contributing to a growing pig sector.

Our findings have lessons that are of value across many industries and in many places.

Doing things differently

We worked with pig farmers, business people, regulators and community members in five different communities to address the restrictive norms that prevented women from engaging in pig businesses. The work was carried out in Masaka district (south-west of Kampala) and Mukono district (east of the capital).

The interventions we put in place included:

providing women farmers with weigh-bands to estimate live pig weights and make sure they weren’t being cheated
offering training for women farmers to help them negotiate better prices and animal services
providing branded lab coats and badges to certified professionals to help combat the lack of respect for women in technical roles like artificial insemination
providing aprons, head wraps and boots to women working in slaughterhouses and butcher shops, so they would not be seen wearing dirty clothes.

These interventions provided solutions to accommodate existing norms without directly challenging them.

We also trialled some interventions aimed at transforming gender norms. We organised broadcasts on local radio talk shows, featuring a panel discussion between gender officers from Ripple Effect, community leaders and local men who explained why they supported their wives and daughters to work in the pig industry.

For instance, in one broadcast, one local leader shared his family’s story:

My wife rears pigs in large numbers, and I help her look for markets. When I travel, I bring her feeds for them. A home without money is unhappy. Piggery projects are family enterprises … When a woman earns an income, her husband is relieved financially; an empowered woman is a responsible woman.

We also held large community meetings, and used recordings from these shows to spark dialogue about these issues.

The changes

Over a year we observed changes.

Women butchers, farmers and artificial insemination agents felt more confident and accepted, and their services were sought after, especially by other women.

They were able to negotiate higher prices for their pigs. They invested their savings in their piggeries; some were able to use the profits to buy their own land and build houses.

There has been movement towards policy changes, too. Traditionally, pigs have had to be killed in official slaughterhouses – male-dominated spaces. Women did not feel welcome there, and men felt women would not be able to cope with the practical act of slaughter.

After our work in the sector, including inspection officials, authorities are now allowing some women to slaughter their pigs at home.

Lessons

Norms are powerful. Any efforts to improve livelihoods, boost community health, or grow a particular industry will be shaped by these norms. Ignoring them is a recipe for failure, while understanding them – and, where appropriate, moving beyond them – can benefit a whole community.

To transform restrictive norms, both men and women must be included in dialogues that encourage critical curiosity about their impacts. Religious, political and community leaders – people who often enforce these unwritten rules – must also be part of the conversations and solutions.

Radio talk shows and social media can showcase women successfully performing traditionally masculine tasks and supportive men, to normalise new behaviours and reduce shaming. And something as simple as professional clothing can send a signal that women are competent – and clean.

Gender norms can change, and these social changes can have practical and economic effects. Livestock development, as we have seen in Uganda’s pig industry, can be an entry point to promote gender equality.

At the same time, removing barriers to women’s participation can boost families’ incomes, bolster rural industries and alleviate poverty.

Challenge norms, empower women, and everyone benefits.

Esther Leah Achandi received funding from the CGIAR Sustainable Animal and Aquatic Foods (SAAF) Science Program, with funding from CGIAR Trust Fund donors. We would like to thank all funders who support this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund:
www.cgiar.org/funders.

– ref. Women working in Uganda’s pig sector: how challenging prejudices can unlock opportunities – research – https://theconversation.com/women-working-in-ugandas-pig-sector-how-challenging-prejudices-can-unlock-opportunities-research-277751

April 20, 2026

Political violence in South Africa is driven by a power elite trying to establish dominance – new research

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Ivor Chipkin, Associate lecturer, University of Pretoria

For much of the past two decades, South Africa’s recurring waves of protest have been interpreted through a dominant lens: the failure of the post-apartheid state to deliver services to its poorest citizens. Rising unemployment, corroding infrastructure and inadequate housing are the familiar explanations offered.

We are political scientists who have been analysing protests and protest data for years. In a recent article we propose that the overall pattern of protest activity in South Africa cannot be explained by socio-economic conditions alone. It tracks the internal power struggles of the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC).

This has led us to a new reading of state capture.

As we set out in a paper in 2025, state capture in South Africa is often reduced to a phenomenon of large-scale corruption. The focus has been on the way that private businesses, working with politicians, repurposed legislative and administrative processes to serve their interests and disable the criminal justice system to avoid consequences.

The conventional understanding casts state capture as looting: the opportunistic and organised theft of public resources by politically connected networks and enabled by a compromised presidency.

We do not contest the reality of this pillaging. But we argue that it was also something more structurally purposeful. State capture, in our account, was the mechanism by which former president Jacob Zuma sought to forge a “power elite” in the ANC.

This is a term we borrow from the sociological tradition of C. Wright Mills to refer to a small cohesive group that is able to make decisions with national consequences in political, military and economic institutions. In contrast a politically connected network may have influence but is too diffuse to exercise power as such.

The power elite matters because it explains who really makes the biggest decisions in society and why democratic institutions do not always fully control those decisions.

The argument we’re presenting has consequences for how the country understands what state capture is, and the trajectory of South African democracy itself.

Protests as a barometer

Drawing on data from the South African Police Service, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, and the Institute for Security Studies, we identify a striking pattern. Protest events rose sharply from around 2006, reaching what some researchers called “insurrectionary proportions” by 2011.

Then they stabilised and began to decline between roughly 2013 and 2017. This period coincided with the consolidation of Zuma’s hold on power and the height of state capture.

After 2018, protests surged again to unprecedented levels. In 2021, the country
experienced its worst civil revolt since the end of apartheid.

The socio-economic conditions typically cited to explain protest – unemployment, inequality, poor service delivery – do not follow this same pattern. They did not improve during the 2013-2017 lull. If anything, they worsened. As our paper records, municipal audit outcomes deteriorated sharply by the end of the period.

Inequality, measured by Gini coefficients across South Africa’s major
cities, remained essentially unchanged. The exception was Cape Town, where inequality seems to have declined.

The stabilisation of protest activity, we conclude, cannot be attributed to improvements in the living conditions of poor South Africans.

Something else was suppressing the mobilisation of discontent.

Our answer draws on political sociology and on comparative work on elite formation in Africa and beyond. We conclude that protests are instruments of elite competition. This includes the tactical deployments of professional agitators by local politicians and their networks contesting for control of resources, positions and patronage within the ANC.

When these competitions are acute and unresolved, they spill outward as protests. When they are contained, protest subsides.

The how

By repurposing state-owned enterprises away from their public mandates, the Zuma network generated enormous rents that were then used for private enrichment and to finance factional political activity. This included paying for party rallies, sustaining provincial and regional networks, creating sympathetic media infrastructure, and distributing cash and contracts to potential opponents in exchange for loyalty or silence.

The result was a temporary stabilisation of what had been a fractured and contested elite terrain.

Between roughly 2013 and 2017, a group of politically aligned operators was able to discipline internal competition, in part by allocating positions in government, state-owned enterprises and the party apparatus.

Those who would not be bought were expelled, marginalised, or subjected to violence. We note that political assassinations rose sharply during Zuma’s second term. Evidence before the Zondo Commission into state capture pointed to the deployment of armed units under presidential operational control.

The relative “stability” observable in protest data between 2013 and 2017 was the successful suppression of elite competition through corruption, patronage and coercion. The modest improvement in municipal spending was the result of elite power exercised over administrative systems.

The unravelling under Ramaphosa

If Zuma’s presidency saw the construction of a power elite, Cyril Ramaphosa’s has seen its unravelling.

The consequences have been severe.

At the ANC’s 54th national conference in December 2017, Ramaphosa narrowly defeated Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for the party presidency. Zuma’s internal compact then began to fracture. The spike in protest activity that followed was almost immediate.

Ramaphosa was not prepared to deploy corruption and violence as political solutions. But without an alternative basis for managing elite competition, the ANC’s internal fissures deepened.

There were symptoms of this disintegration in 2023:

the establishment of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party by Zuma
its performance in the May 2024 general election – it emerged as the third-largest party nationally.

Gatekeeping became decentralised and unregulated. Elite contestation began migrating out of the party system altogether.

A sobering conclusion, and hint of hope

We conclude that some of it will be pushed towards organised crime. Mafia-type networks, we suggest, should be expected to grow.

There is, however, a more hopeful possibility. The reason the ANC has functioned as the primary arena for elite competition is that it has controlled access to the “gate” – the allocation of positions in the state, the civil service and state-owned enterprises.

Remove that control, and the character of elite competition changes. This is precisely what is at stake in the amendments to the Public Service Act of 1994. Signed into law by Ramaphosa on 26 March 2026, it was gazetted on 1 April 2026.

The legislation aims to:

reduce executive discretion over appointments in the public service
insulate civil service recruitment and operations from party-political interference.

If implemented, political parties will be compelled to compete for support through policy and performance rather than patronage. Elite competition will shift to the public administration system itself. Ideally, this will be governed by merit, transparency and professional standards.

We are cautious about the prospects for this reform. History is not encouraging and the political conditions are challenging.

But if it can end gatekeeping, new legislation like the Public Service Amendment Act will change the elite social terrain in South Africa.

Ivor Chipkin and Jelena Vidojević are affiliated with New South Institute

Jelena Vidojević does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Political violence in South Africa is driven by a power elite trying to establish dominance – new research – https://theconversation.com/political-violence-in-south-africa-is-driven-by-a-power-elite-trying-to-establish-dominance-new-research-280504

April 20, 2026

Intimate partner homicide has clear warning signs – and is often preventable, research shows

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Kathryn Spearman, Assistant Professor of Nursing, Penn State

Taking away access to firearms is one of the few effective interventions for reducing intimate partner homicide. Nastco/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Dr. Cerina Wanzer Fairfax was an accomplished dentist and a loving mom to two teenage children. On April 16, 2026, she was killed by her estranged husband, former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who then killed himself, according to news reports. This apparent intimate partner murder-suicide has garnered widespread media attention because of Justin Fairfax’s public profile.

As if to prove how pervasive such incidents are, just three days later, on April 19, 2026, eight children were killed in a mass shooting related to intimate partner violence in Louisiana. Seven of the children were shot by their father, who also killed another child and wounded his wife and another woman in the same attack, according to news reports. Both wounded women were mothers of some of the seven children.

Two-thirds of mass shootings in the United States are linked to domestic violence, and 40% of the victims in domestic violence-related mass shootings are children. The terms domestic violence homicide and intimate partner homicide are often used interchangeably, but the former includes all killings within a household or family, while the latter specifically refers to murders related to a current or former partner.

I am a public health nurse scientist who studies risk factors for intimate partner homicides and post-separation abuse. Research consistently shows that the period of separation and divorce is when the risk of intimate partner homicide is highest.

Tragically, the warning signs that precede homicides by an intimate partner are common but often misunderstood or unrecognized. All too often, escalating behaviors during separation may be chalked up to a “messy divorce” or “custody battle.” But such language obscures patterns of danger that are recognizable, predictable – and, importantly, preventable.

Clear warning signs for domestic violence homicides

Four of the most dangerous warning signs that a woman is at risk of being murdered by an intimate partner are firearm access, separation, prior nonfatal strangulation and stalking. Other red flags that indicate a partner may kill include unemployment, substance use, problematic drinking, controlling or jealous behavior, abuse during pregnancy, rape and prior threats of suicide or with weapons.

The pattern of behavior matters. These risk factors have been studied extensively and are best understood not in isolation but in how they interact.

Several elements in the Fairfax case were red flags that should have prompted intervention: Justin Fairfax’s unemployment, problematic drinking and firearm access; a prior concern for suicide; and a separation that involved an ongoing family court case for divorce and child custody. The warning signs were there: Dr. Cerina Wanzer Fairfax was in danger.

A police car parked on the street and a small group of people standing in front of an open door of a suburban home. — Law enforcement officers secure a crime scene at the home of former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax on April 16, 2026.
Alex Wong/Getty Images via Getty Images News

Who is most at risk?

Nearly five women are murdered in America every day by a current, former or estranged intimate partner. Intimate partner homicide is a leading cause of mortality for women of reproductive age, and Black women are murdered at disproportionately higher rates. The vast majority of adult victims of intimate partner murder-suicides – 95% – are women. The killer is almost always a man, the weapon is most often a gun, and these incidents occur most often in the home.

The uncomfortable truth is that the home is the most dangerous place for women.

Children are not spared from this danger. Research shows that children are at risk if their mothers are at risk, and intimate partner violence is also a leading cause of death of American children. What’s more, 40% of children who are murdered in a domestic violence mass shooting are killed by a parent – someone who should love and protect them – most often in their homes.

Turns out, home is the most dangerous place for children too.

Children who survive their mothers’ murder find their bodies or witness the homicide in about 70% of cases.

Cerina Wanzer Fairfax’s teenage son found her and called 911. Behind these heartbreaking details is trauma that is difficult to comprehend. The needs and long-term outcomes of child survivors of intimate partner homicide, like the Fairfax children and those who may have witnessed the Louisiana mass shooting, remain largely invisible in the research on domestic violence. Addressing this research gap is essential for communities to respond effectively to support the needs of children who are surviving devastating grief.

Separation is the most lethal time

Contrary to common misperception, leaving an abusive relationship does not end the abuse – nor does it necessarily lead to safety. About half of murders of women by an intimate partner occur as or after a woman tries to leave the relationship or when she is involved in civil family law proceedings, including civil protective orders, child custody, separation and divorce. Physical separation, such as moving out, coupled with legal separation is associated with the greatest risk.

The gunman in the Louisiana case was separating from his wife, and the duo had a court appearance scheduled for the day following the shooting, according to news reports.

Separation is particularly risky from a controlling partner, or perhaps more aptly worded, from someone who is losing control. Women who leave a controlling male partner are nine times more likely to be murdered.

The judge in the Fairfax custody proceedings noted that Justin Fairfax had purchased a gun in 2022 with money designated for their children’s activities. People who engage in abusive behaviors may directly or indirectly threaten their partners with firearms, which can often include subtle threats toward their children.

Assessing risk and accessing interventions

Guns and separation are a deadly combination. Research shows that in about 3 in 5 cases of murder-suicide perpetrated by men with a firearm, family court is somehow involved. In other words, the homicide perpetrator was participating in legal proceedings relating to separation, divorce or child custody.

This evidence points to family court proceedings as a place where interventions could work. Research shows that domestic violence protection orders, which allow courts to remove firearms from people identified as being at high risk for using violence against a partner, reduce the risk of intimate partner homicide-suicides. Removing firearm access is one of the few effective interventions for reducing intimate partner homicide.

Researchers have developed tools that can help advocates and legal professionals identify women most at risk as well as help women recognize their own risk. A particularly well-tested one is the danger assessment, which can be used in health, legal and advocacy settings.

But screening on its own is not enough. Women at high risk need to be connected to safety planning resources. People who may be concerned for themselves or a loved one can use an app such as MyPlan, which incorporates the danger assessment and provides safety planning suggestions.

Intimate partner homicides follow a pattern of known, predictable risks. And predictable patterns are very often preventable. The warning signs are well studied. Translating that knowledge into consistent recognition and response across courts, law enforcement and communities is where the work remains.

Kathryn Spearman has received funding for her research from Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and The Pennsylvania State University Child Maltreatment Solutions Network.

– ref. Intimate partner homicide has clear warning signs – and is often preventable, research shows – https://theconversation.com/intimate-partner-homicide-has-clear-warning-signs-and-is-often-preventable-research-shows-280984

April 20, 2026

There is something wrong with the asylum process for LGBTQ+ people – but it’s not fake claimants

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Raawiyah Rifath, Lecturer in Law, University of Exeter

A 2023 protest against the then-government’s asylum policies. Loredana Sangiuliano/Shutterstock

An undercover investigation by BBC News has found evidence of people falsely claiming to be gay to gain asylum in the UK. The findings are concerning. But rather than assume this means all asylum applicants are lying, it’s worth asking why people might be drawn to this route.

There is good reason for the UK and other countries to offer refuge to LGBTQ+ asylum seekers. Extensive evidence from organisations such as Human Rights Watch and UNHCR shows that LGBTQ+ people in countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh face imprisonment, family and community violence, police harassment and so-called honour-based abuse. This is precisely why sexual orientation is recognised as a basis for protection in international refugee law.

Sexual orientation claims make up a very small proportion of overall asylum applications. Only 2% of all asylum claims made in 2023 included sexual orientation as part of the reasoning.

Proving to the Home Office that someone is LGBTQ+ isn’t an easy feat. The BBC investigation repeats an adviser’s claim that “there is no check-up”. In reality, the Home Office conducts an intensive refugee status determination process. This involves two interviews, and places the burden of proof on the claimant to show that they require protection from persecution.

In recent years, sexuality in asylum claims has come to be about identity, rather than behaviour. This view – which is often about how people see themselves or what protests or nightclubs they attend – isn’t necessarily consistent with how applicants understand their own sexuality.

Research suggests that decision-makers often rely on narrow, formulaic expectations of how an LGBTQ+ person “should” behave, rather than properly assessing the risk of persecution. For example, one of our research participants, a Ugandan refugee, said that her having been previously married to a man (in a forced marriage), was taken as evidence that she was not a lesbian.

The asylum process makes stereotypical performances of credibility easier to read for decision-makers, compared to the ambivalent and fluid reality of LGBTQ+ lived experience. It privileges linear emotional journeys and open and visible participation in LGBTQ+ spaces. This is often through a western lens of what sexual orientation as an identity means.

For example, research has shown that perceptions of homosexuality being at odds with religion means religious LGBTQ+ asylum seekers face additional suspicion.

This creates incentives for legal experts, charity workers and advisers to package LGBTQ+ claimants into institutionally recognisable categories. In other words, it is the assessment process itself that produces the conditions in which “coached” identities are viewed as a way through the asylum system.

Fabricating a claim is not easy, however: it is risky, expensive and often unsuccessful. One of the BBC’s core examples, “Ali”, was ultimately not successful in securing refugee status in the UK. Since the passage of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, an even higher standard of proof has applied to all asylum claims.

A culture of disbelief

Research in refugee and migration studies has consistently shown evidence of a widespread culture of disbelief by authorities towards people seeking asylum. This is particularly true in the case of those basing their claims on their sexual orientation.

Asylum systems are sceptical by design. Applicants undergo long, detailed interviews. They must demonstrate consistency and plausibility, and face significant rejection rates. In the UK, the initial grant rate for the year ending December 2025 was 42%, meaning most claims were rejected (many of these are later granted on appeal).

At the same time, a lack of accessible information about the asylum system as well as affordable legal advice and representation mean that applicants are easily misled or exploited by bad faith actors.

The BBC investigation exposes a handful of cases, but there is no credible evidence that fraudulent claims in this category are widespread. When similar allegations were made by former home secretary Suella Braverman in 2023, the Home Office was unable to provide evidence of systemic abuse.

More than anything, the BBC’s report is evidence of a regulatory issue in the legal system that should be addressed. But it is likely to cast suspicion over LGBTQ+ asylum claims more broadly, reinforcing the idea that people seeking asylum are trying to “game the system”. It says little about the structural conditions that shape these claims in the first place. These include an underfunded legal aid sector, and the lack of safe and managed routes for refugees, forcing people into precarious and informal systems in the first place.

Rather than leading to better decision-making by the Home Office, panic over fake claimants could create a harsher atmosphere where those with well-founded fear of persecution may find it even harder to be protected.

Raawiyah Rifath has received funding from the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health.

Alex Powell and Calogero Giametta do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. There is something wrong with the asylum process for LGBTQ+ people – but it’s not fake claimants – https://theconversation.com/there-is-something-wrong-with-the-asylum-process-for-lgbtq-people-but-its-not-fake-claimants-280838

April 20, 2026

Southport inquiry: schools are key to safeguarding, but their job is getting harder

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Colin Diamond, Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Birmingham

Sir Adrian Fulford’s report into the July 2024 attack in Southport that killed three young girls does not pull any punches. He concluded that the UK’s safeguarding model had completely failed, with no agency taking lead responsibility. He referred to “an inappropriate merry-go-round” of state agencies, none of which took responsibility for the risks posed by 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana.

There were red flags about Rudakubana for several years before the attack. This included him carrying knives to school with the stated intention to use them, attacking fellow pupils, telling police that he had considered poisoning people, and a browsing history obsessed by violence and death.

The Southport inquiry reveals the pivotal role of schools in these situations – they have deep knowledge and understanding of their pupils and families. But of course, they cannot do it alone. Their powers and duties are rightly rooted in education.

The weakness in the system is not what schools are doing in relation to safeguarding – it is that when they attempt to escalate concerns (in this case via three Prevent referrals), they are not always picked up.

While Fulford praised schools’ efforts to intervene, the inquiry found that there had been gaps in information-sharing between schools, and overdependence on individual designated safeguarding leads.

Schools, broadly, have a deeper understanding of a child’s behaviour than other agencies involved with safeguarding. They see their pupils for 190 days a year, while interactions with other agencies are occasional or even one-off. But they are frustrated by different thresholds for intervention in other agencies.

We saw this with Southport. Rudakubana attended school almost 100% in years 7 and 8. He and his family were well known to the school. Fulford reported extensively on the levels of interaction between all three secondary schools which Rudakubana attended. But staff from one school felt that they were going round in circles, as no other agency would take responsibility for the risks which he was presenting. That included local authorities, the police and social care. Arguably, the voice of schools should be given more weight more than they are now when multiple agencies are invited to discuss a case.

How schools’ jobs are getting harder

Within a school, the designated safeguarding lead is responsible for managing referrals to statutory agencies, maintaining confidential records and helping staff recognise and report safeguarding concerns of any nature, from child protection to radicalisation. A 2024 government consultation revealed growing pressure in the system, with greater numbers of more complex referrals. Typically, schools will have pupils from more than one local authority area which complicates the role. While training is mandatory, it is of variable quality.

Schools must discharge their legal Prevent Duty. Teachers need to look out for the signs of radicalisation and engagement with extremist ideology. It goes way beyond traditional subject boundaries and exam teaching. And all schools are inspected by Ofsted on how effectively they keep their pupils safe.

The Southport inquiry reveals that this is becoming an even more complex role.
Rudakubana’s school referring his case to Prevent, the specialist police officers did not escalate concerns, because Rudakubana did not present a coherent ideology. While his conversations with teachers and online behaviour suggested obsessions with violent death, he was not obviously aligned with any ideology. There was no political or religious agenda per se.

His motivations were unclear and confusing, yet they were sufficient for the three schools involved to raise concerns with other agencies numerous times from 2019-24.

This suggests that Prevent is out of step with the issues schools deal with on a day-to-day basis. Referrals where no ideology was identified now comprise the largest number of Prevent referrals . A review of Prevent and its interactions with schools in now overdue.

We also know that Rudakubana had a form of autism which the inquiry found “manifestly fell into the cohort of those … whose individual characteristics mean that their autism does carry an increased risk of harm to others”.

It is important to state that there is no evidence that autistic people are more likely to commit violent acts than neurotypical people. However, specific autistic traits can make some more susceptible to non-violent extremism, radicalisation or the adoption of extremist views, particularly in online environments. Working to affect change with autistic pupils who have deeply embedded obsessions with violence requires the highest level of specialist skills.

In the English school system, professional development and provision has not kept up with the demand generated by increased numbers of pupils with complex needs. The government is currently consulting on proposals to overhaul the Send system in England.

Schools’ responsibilities in relation to safeguarding have grown in recent years. At the same time, they find themselves dependent on other organisations to fully discharge their duties. This is the fundamental weakness in the system. While schools did not share information between themselves fully effectively, their subsequent efforts to alert other agencies to the risks Rudakubana presented were not taken seriously.

The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. It will be of no great solace to school leaders whose work is praised by Fulford to know that if their advice and warnings had been heeded by all the other agencies, the Southport killings would not have happened.

Colin Diamond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Southport inquiry: schools are key to safeguarding, but their job is getting harder – https://theconversation.com/southport-inquiry-schools-are-key-to-safeguarding-but-their-job-is-getting-harder-280855

April 20, 2026

After 27 years in power, Welsh Labour’s dominance may soon be over

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nye Davies, Lecturer in Politics, Cardiff University

Welsh Labour is in unfamiliar territory. While winning elections in Wales had become routine since 1922, the upcoming Senedd (Welsh parliament) election has thrown the party into uncharted waters, with the prospect of finishing a distant third.

So much is new about this election. The Senedd has been expanded from 60 to 96 members, alongside the introduction of a new electoral system which changes how members are elected, making this a contest like no other in the devolution era.

But it is not just the Senedd that is transforming. More than a century of Labour dominance now appears under serious threat, with Plaid Cymru and Reform UK emerging as beneficiaries of a potentially seismic realignment.

Polling suggests a stark outcome: around 12 seats for the party that has dominated Welsh political life, down from 29 at the last election. And that’s despite the Senedd’s expansion.

In trying to breathe new life into the party, Welsh Labour claimed in late 2025 to be ushering in a new generation of Senedd members. The upcoming election suggests otherwise, with more of the same and mostly familiar faces. At the centre of it all, the party’s leader, Eluned Morgan, is not just fighting a monumental battle for her party but for her own seat too.

Dominance and decline

The collapse of dominant parties can often appear sudden. Just five years ago, Welsh Labour was celebrating one of its best Senedd election results. Labour was still in a triumphant mood as recently as two years ago, dominating the 2024 general election and wiping out the Conservatives in Wales.

Yet the political mood has shifted dramatically. Vaughan Gething, a former Welsh Labour first minister, was forced out in 2024 following controversy over campaign donations. This fuelled perceptions of instability and corruption within the party. Declining confidence in the Welsh government and an electorate increasingly weary after more than two decades of uninterrupted Labour rule have left the party’s prospects looking bleak.

The pandemic has also played a role. It raised public awareness of the powers held by the devolved Welsh government, which includes health and education. While undoubtedly a positive in terms of political knowledge, it means Welsh Labour is less able to point the blame for problems towards Westminster.

Policies such as the introduction of a default 20mph speed limit in urban areas, alongside reforms affecting farming, have provoked vocal backlash among sections of the electorate.

Welsh Labour’s impending defeat also points to something deeper and much longer term. The Senedd currently has 40 members elected in constituencies by first-past-the-post, and 20 regional members elected proportionally across five regions. This limited proportional representation has meant that the fundamental changes happening within Wales haven’t been fully captured by previous elections. This would include declining loyalty in traditional Labour strongholds, generational shifts, and the gradual rise of rival parties like Plaid Cymru and Reform reshaping the political landscape.

History and international comparisons also tell us that the dominant party eventually wears itself out in office, failing to keep up with the society in which it is rooted.

Through positioning itself as the natural party of Wales, Welsh Labour has consistently attempted to cling to its historic position.

References to party figures like Aneurin Bevan, the founding of the NHS, and appeals to solidarity and community sound increasingly hollow in a nation that has borne the brunt of deindustrialisation and austerity for decades. Rather than forging a new, positive future, Welsh Labour has become stuck in its own past.

Internal tensions

The party has also been hampered by internal tensions. Welsh Labour has long been split between those sceptical of further devolution and those who support expanding the powers of the Senedd. It’s a divide that often surfaces in tensions between its representatives in Westminster and those in Cardiff Bay.

Labour MPs in London have at times been dismissive of constitutional demands from their Senedd colleagues. Meanwhile, Welsh Labour Senedd members routinely express frustration at what they see as hostility from the UK leadership.

Eluned Morgan’s voice appears lost. She claims to be speaking for Wales within the party, but is regularly ignored by Keir Starmer and his team.

Since devolution in 1999, Welsh Labour’s success has rested partly on its ability to project a distinctively Welsh identity. Since Labour returned to power at the UK level in 2024, this emphasis on “standing up for Wales” has faded.

Channel 4 News – Welsh Labour focus on cost of living for Senedd elections.

Against this backdrop, Welsh Labour needed something substantial to present to the electorate when it launched its manifesto in March. One of the centrepieces trailed in the press was a pledge to freeze taxes if re-elected. While such a freeze may be welcomed by voters, it is ultimately emblematic of a party promising little more than continuity. In effect, freezing taxes means keeping things as they are.

After 27 years of Labour-led government in Wales, public frustration is evident. The pressures of long-term incumbency, internal party strains and shifting political dynamics have converged to challenge Welsh Labour’s claim to govern. As its century-long dominance appears to be drawing to a close, Welsh Labour can no longer easily present itself as the natural party of Wales.

Nye Davies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. After 27 years in power, Welsh Labour’s dominance may soon be over – https://theconversation.com/after-27-years-in-power-welsh-labours-dominance-may-soon-be-over-279620

April 20, 2026

ICE’s heavy-handed immigration enforcement was tried once before – by Arizona’s notorious sheriff Joe Arpaio in the early 2000s

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jonathan van Harmelen, Visiting Assistant Professor, Oberlin College and Conservatory

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio orders undocumented immigrants handcuffed together and moved into a separate area of Tent City in Phoenix on Feb. 4, 2009. AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File

For the past 13 years, Maricopa County in Arizona has attempted to reform its sheriff’s department after Joe Arpaio made it into a national flash point for extreme immigration tactics. After a legal immigrant sued Arpaio and the county Sheriff’s Office, a federal district court ruled in 2015 that Arpaio and his deputies relied on racial profiling to target Latinos.

Arpaio was at the center of that suit. From 2006 to 2017, he implemented his own immigration detention program, instructing deputies to detain anyone who did not carry a valid identification and did not speak English. One U.S. Department of Justice attorney characterized Arpaio as overseeing “the worst pattern of racial profiling by a law enforcement agency in U.S. history.”

Federal oversight has since aimed to reform the sheriff’s department and improve trust with the county’s Latino residents, which had been destroyed under Arpaio’s tenure.

As a historian of U.S. immigration, I believe Arpaio’s immigration detention methods are clearly echoed in the hardline immigration policies devised by presidential aide Stephen Miller. That’s evident in actions by immigration agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection that have been described as inhumane by some lawmakers and civil rights groups.

A blueprint for ICE facilities

From his election to sheriff in 1993 until 2017, Arpaio made constant headlines for his creation of a tent jail and his heavy-handed immigration enforcement tactics.

Using surplus army tents from the Korean War to house up to 1,700 inmates, Arpaio built Tent City in August 1993 to address overcrowding in Phoenix jails. By the time the jail closed in 2017, Sheriff Paul Penzone estimated that running Tent City cost taxpayers US$8.5 million annually.

Tent City was initially used for detaining criminals, but after 2009, Arpaio used the facility for housing detained immigrants.

News reports said Arpaio forced inmates to wear pink underwear and often fed them expired food and undrinkable water. The tents did little to shield inmates from the Arizona desert, where temperatures rose to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, (54 degrees celsius) at times. Tent City stirred a national uproar.

Several inmates form a line under the sun. — Immigrant inmates line up at the Maricopa County Tent City jail in Phoenix on March 11, 2013.
John Moore/Getty Images

Starting in 2006, Arpaio and Maricopa County sheriffs engaged in a pattern of “unlawful discriminatory police conduct directed at Hispanic persons,” according to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Kappelhoff. During these operations, he directed deputies to detain people suspected as being undocumented immigrants without legal immigration authorization.

Arpaio’s deputies explicitly targeted Latino drivers in their traffic stops. A Department of Justice investigation concluded that Arpaio used race as a criteria for stopping and detaining Latino drivers. Legal U.S. residents and U.S. citizens were occasionally arrested in these sweeps.

Phoenix News-Times journalist Stephen Lemons in January 2009 noted that, during operations, some Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies wore ski masks and carried assault rifles while conducting immigration sweeps.

Camp East Montana

Tent City appears to be an early version of the detention facilities used by ICE today, where detainees have complained of squalid conditions and poor food.

ICE currently detains some 70,000 people in 224 detention centers nationwide. Of those, two camps, Camp East Montana near El Paso, Texas, and Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, are eerily similar to Tent City.

Camp East Montana is the most recent of these new facilities. Opened in August 2025, the 60-acre detention center has become one of the largest ICE facilities in the U.S., holding 5,000 detainees.

Several tents are seen at an outdoor prison. — Hardened tents are seen at the Camp East Montana immigrant detention center near El Paso, Texas, on Feb. 13, 2026.
AP Photo/Morgan Lee

Like Tent City, Camp East Montana was constructed using tents that do little to shield inmates from the elements. The Washington Post reported in September that the facility’s poor food, shoddy living quarters and exposure to the desert sun violated 60 federal regulations.

The cost of inhumane policies

During Arpaio’s tenure, his office faced 6,000 federal lawsuits.

Those included a $9 million payout to the parents of Charles Agster III, after a federal jury found Arpaio and jailhouse nurses negligent in his death. And they included a $2 million payout to the parents of Brian Crenshaw after the disabled man died following an altercation with a sheriff’s detention officer.

The most costly, though, was the 2013 ruling in Melendres v. Arpaio. U.S. District Judge Murray Snow found Arpaio guilty of racial profiling. The ruling placed Arpaio’s office under federal monitoring with orders to overhaul the department. As a result, Maricopa County residents have paid $323 million to reform the department.

Arpaio left office in January 2017. Months later, Tent City closed. After a failed attempt to run for U.S. Senate in 2018, Arpaio retired from politics.

But I believe that the resemblance between Arpaio’s fixation on immigration and Trump’s deportation campaign remains.

Since Trump’s second election, ICE and CBP agents have followed Arpaio’s playbook. Along with erecting tent jails for detaining immigrants, agents have used racial profiling during immigration raids. Consequently, hundreds of U.S. citizens have been detained during raids and protests.

On April 2, 2026, Judge Jennifer Thurston ruled that CBP agents violated court orders and “again detained people without reasonable suspicion” – tactics similar to those used by Arpaio.

Arpaio’s policies foreshadowed Trump’s deportation policy: one that uses racial profiling and shows little regard for human rights.

As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in her dissent in Noem v. Vazquez-Perdomo in 2025, many Latinos now carry proof of citizenship out of fear of racial profiling.

In July 2017, a federal court found Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt for violating a 2011 federal order to stop detaining people solely on suspicion of illegal immigration status.

A month later, before Arpaio’s sentencing, Trump pardoned Arpaio. He described the sheriff as a “great American patriot” who had “done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration.”

Jonathan van Harmelen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ICE’s heavy-handed immigration enforcement was tried once before – by Arizona’s notorious sheriff Joe Arpaio in the early 2000s – https://theconversation.com/ices-heavy-handed-immigration-enforcement-was-tried-once-before-by-arizonas-notorious-sheriff-joe-arpaio-in-the-early-2000s-279310