Author: Olusola Ogunnubi Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing ISBN: 1527561941 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 246
Book Description
This collection of essays examines the subject of power politics in Africa, paying special attention to the interests of African regional powers, as well as their capabilities and strategies in the international arena. It provides a theoretical bridge between concerns for militarised national interest, perpetual distrust and insecurity, struggles for power and hegemony in power politics, and the spirit of pan-African solidarity, brotherhood, consensus, cooperation and integration. It is on these bases that this volume offers rich empirical insight into leading regional powers in Africa with special attention given to Nigeria and South Africa. It serves to contribute African perspectives to the field of International Relations, particularly regarding power politics, which is important in terms of Africanising the narratives of a subject matter that is largely considered as Eurocentric in African and other non-Western societies.
Author: Philip Roessler Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1107176077 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 419
Book Description
This book models the trade-off that rulers of weak, ethnically-divided states face between coups and civil war. Drawing evidence from extensive field research in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo combined with statistical analysis of most African countries, it develops a framework to understand the causes of state failure.
Author: Oluwaseun Tella Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 100040224X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 264
Book Description
This book investigates the ways in which soft power is used by African countries to help drive global influence. Selecting four of the countries most associated with soft power across the continent, this book delves into the currencies of soft power across the region: from South Africa’s progressive constitution and expanding multinational corporations, to Nigeria’s Nollywood film industry and Technical Aid Corps (TAC) scheme, Kenya’s sport diplomacy, fashion and tourism industries, and finally Egypt’s Pan-Arabism and its reputation as the cradle of civilisation. The book asks how soft power is wielded by these countries and what constraints and contradictions they encounter. Understandings of soft power have typically been driven by Western scholars, but throughout this book, Oluwaseun Tella aims to Africanise our understanding of soft power, drawing on prominent African philosophies, including Nigeria’s Omolúwàbí, South Africa’s Ubuntu, Kenya’s Harambee, and Egypt’s Pharaonism. This book will be of interest to researchers from across political science, international relations, cultural studies, foreign policy and African Studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/ 9781003176022, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license
Author: Jeffrey Herbst Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 9780691010281 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 296
Book Description
Theories of international relations, assumed to be universally applicable, have failed to explain the creation of states in Africa. There, the interaction of power and space is dramatically different from what occurred in Europe. In his groundbreaking book, Jeffrey Herbst places the African state-building process in a truly comparative perspective, examining the problem of state consolidation from the precolonial period, through the short but intense interlude of European colonialism, to the modern era of independent states. Herbst's bold contention--that the conditions now facing African state-builders existed long before European penetration of the continent--is sure to provoke controversy, for it runs counter to the prevailing assumption that colonialism changed everything. In identifying how the African state-building process differs from the European experience, Herbst addresses the fundamental problem confronting African leaders: how to extend authority over sparsely settled lands. Indeed, efforts to exert control over vast, inhospitable territories of low population density and varied environmental and geographical zones have resulted in devastating wars, millions of refugees, and dysfunctional governments perpetrating destructive policies. Detailing the precise political calculations of distinct African leaders, Herbst isolates the basic dynamics of African state development. In analyzing how these leaders have attempted to consolidate power, he is able to evaluate a variety of policy alternatives for dealing with the fundamental political challenges facing African states today.
Author: Ali AlʼAmin Mazrui Publisher: Africa World Press ISBN: 9781592211616 Category : Africa Languages : en Pages : 498
Book Description
Power, Politics, and the African Condition is the third volume of The Collected Essays of Ali A. Mazrui, which will provide readers with a broad spectrum of Ali. A. Mazrui's scholarly writings. The third volume is centered on issues of power and politics at the nexus of Africa's domestic affairs and its international concepts about the disequilibrium of power in the international system and the problems that Africa has confronted globally because of it. Mazrui focuses the reader's attention on the impact that the colonial legacy and African tradition had on state formation, leadership, Africa's political economy, violence and conflict resolution while presenting some of his most interesting and even controversial ideas for building "Pax Africana." Spanning nearly forty years, Mazrui's essays are classic and contemporary statements on the diagnosis and treatment of what he called "The African Condition."
Author: Devon Curtis Publisher: Ohio University Press ISBN: 0821444328 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 373
Book Description
Peacebuilding, Power, and Politics in Africa is a critical reflection on peacebuilding efforts in Africa. The authors expose the tensions and contradictions in different clusters of peacebuilding activities, including peace negotiations; statebuilding; security sector governance; and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. Essays also address the institutional framework for peacebuilding in Africa and the ideological underpinnings of key institutions, including the African Union, NEPAD, the African Development Bank, the Pan-African Ministers Conference for Public and Civil Service, the UN Peacebuilding Commission, the World Bank, and the International Criminal Court. The volume includes on-the-ground case study chapters on Sudan, the Great Lakes Region of Africa, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the Niger Delta, Southern Africa, and Somalia, analyzing how peacebuilding operates in particular African contexts. The authors adopt a variety of approaches, but they share a conviction that peacebuilding in Africa is not a script that is authored solely in Western capitals and in the corridors of the United Nations. Rather, the writers in this volume focus on the interaction between local and global ideas and practices in the reconstitution of authority and livelihoods after conflict. The book systematically showcases the tensions that occur within and between the many actors involved in the peacebuilding industry, as well as their intended beneficiaries. It looks at the multiple ways in which peacebuilding ideas and initiatives are reinforced, questioned, reappropriated, and redesigned by different African actors. A joint project between the Centre for Conflict Resolution in Cape Town, South Africa, and the Centre of African Studies at the University of Cambridge.
Author: William Tordoff Publisher: Indiana University Press ISBN: 9780253215451 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
The author provides extra coverage of both North and South Africa and of such key issues as debt, the AIDS epidemic, the position of women and the politics of patronage."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Leonardo Arriola Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0192652966 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 240
Book Description
Women and Power in Africa: Aspiring, Campaigning, and Governing examines women's experiences in African politics as aspirants to public office, as candidates in election campaigns, and as elected representatives. Part I evaluates women's efforts to become party candidates in four African countries: Benin, Ghana, Malawi, and Zambia. The chapters draw on a variety of methods, including extensive interviews with women candidates, to describe and assess the barriers confronted when women seek to enter politics. The chapters help explain why women remain underrepresented as candidates for office, particularly in countries without gender-based quotas, by emphasizing the impact of financial constraints, fears of violence, and resistance among party leaders. Part II turns to women's experiences as candidates during elections in Kenya and Ghana. One chapter provides an in-depth account of a woman's presidential bid in Kenya, demonstrating how gendered ethnicity undermined her candidacy, and another chapter presents a novel evaluation of the media's coverage of women candidates in Ghana. Part III turns to women as legislators in Namibia, Uganda, and Burkina Faso, asking whether women engage in substantive representation on gendered policy issues once in office. The chapters challenge the assumption that a critical mass of women is necessary or sufficient to achieve substantive representation. Taken together, the book's chapters problematize existing hypotheses regarding women in political power, drawing on understudied countries and variety of empirical methods. By following political pathways from entry to governance, the book uncovers how gendered experiences early in the political process shape what is possible for women once they attain political power. Oxford Studies in African Politics and International Relations is a series for scholars and students working on African politics and International Relations and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on contemporary developments in African political science, political economy, and International Relations, such as electoral politics, democratization, decentralization, the political impact of natural resources, the dynamics and consequences of conflict, and the nature of the continent's engagement with the East and West. Comparative and mixed methods work is particularly encouraged. Case studies are welcomed but should demonstrate the broader theoretical and empirical implications of the study and its wider relevance to contemporary debates. The series focuses on sub-Saharan Africa, although proposals that explain how the region engages with North Africa and other parts of the world are of interest. Series Editors: Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy and International Development, University of Birmingham; and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, Professor of the International Politics of Africa, University of Oxford.
Author: Patrick Chabal Publisher: Springer ISBN: 1349124680 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 314
Book Description
'This book will rightfully head many a reading list...'C.Allen, British Book News Power in Africa casts a fresh look at contemporary Black African politics. It reviews the merits and failings of existing interpretations of Africa's post-colonial society and offers a new approach to its understanding. It has two main aims. First, to present a comparative conceptual framework which places Africa's politics within its appropriate historical context. Second, to offer an explanation of what is actually happening in Africa - beyond the clichs of a dark continent perennially in crisis.
Author: Daniel N. Posner Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1316582973 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
This book presents a theory to account for why and when politics revolves around one axis of social cleavage instead of another. It does so by examining the case of Zambia, where people identify themselves either as members of one of the country's seventy-three tribes or as members of one of its four principal language groups. The book accounts for the conditions under which Zambian political competition revolves around tribal differences and under which it revolves around language group differences. Drawing on a simple model of identity choice, it shows that the answer depends on whether the country operates under single-party or multi-party rule. During periods of single-party rule, tribal identities serve as the axis of electoral mobilization and self-identification; during periods of multi-party rule, broader language group identities play this role. The book thus demonstrates how formal institutional rules determine the kinds of social cleavages that matter in politics.
Author: Olusola Ogunnubi
Author: Philip Roessler
Author: Oluwaseun Tella
Author: Jeffrey Herbst
Author: Ali AlʼAmin Mazrui
Author: Devon Curtis
Author: William Tordoff
Author: Leonardo Arriola
Author: Patrick Chabal
Author: Daniel N. Posner