The Politics of Trade and Industrial Policy in Africa


Book Description

This book maps the process and political economy of policy making in Africa. It's focus on trade and industrial policy makes it unique and it will appeal to students and academics in economics, political economy, political science and African studies. Detailed case studies help the reader to understand how the process and motivation behind policy decisions can vary from country to country depending on the form of government, ethnicity and nationality and other social factors.




Political Science in South Africa


Book Description

The book describes and evaluates the state of the discipline of political science and international relations in South Africa. Fourteen South African political scientists present their own appraisals of various aspects of the study of Politics in South Africa, in the 20th year of the country's post-Apartheid existence. This book




African Politics in Comparative Perspective


Book Description

This revised and expanded second edition of African Politics in Comparative Perspective reviews fifty years of research on politics in Africa and addresses some issues in a new light, keeping in mind the changes in Africa since the first edition was written in 2004. The book synthesizes insights from different scholarly approaches and offers an original interpretation of the knowledge accumulated in the field. Goran Hyden discusses how research on African politics relates to the study of politics in other regions and mainstream theories in comparative politics. He focuses on such key issues as why politics trumps economics, rule is personal, state is weak and policies are made with a communal rather than an individual lens. The book also discusses why in the light of these conditions agriculture is problematic, gender contested, ethnicity manipulated and relations with Western powers a matter of defiance.




Selected Themes in African Political Studies


Book Description

Against the background of a long and continuing record of political instability in Africa, this edited collection presents a multi-disciplinary approach to selected issues in African political studies. The contributions explore a range of political and conflict situations, discuss efforts to develop indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms and consider some of the key political and economic issues facing the continent. The specific country studies illuminate the diversity of the African continent and indicate the ways in which the political and socio-economic contexts of African states bear directly upon the ability of states to solve political and economic challenges. The volume seeks to present and promote novel analytical frameworks, conceptual approaches and empirical accounts of relevance to scholars working on Africa and to practitioners and policy makers in politics, governance and peace initiatives in Africa.




What Politics?


Book Description

What Politics? Youth and Political Engagement in Africa examines the diverse experiences of being young in today’s Africa. It offers new perspectives to the roles and positions young people take to change their life conditions both within and beyond the formal political structures and institutions. The contributors represent several social science disciplines, and provide well-grounded qualitative analyses of young people’s everyday engagements by critically examining dominant discourses of youth, politics and ideology. Despite focusing on Africa, the book is a collective effort to better understand what it is like to be young today, and what the making of tomorrow’s yesterday means for them in personal and political terms. Contributors are: Ehaab Abdou, Abebaw Yirga Adamu, Henni Alava, Päivi Armila, Randi Rønning Balsvik, Jesper Bjarnesen, Þóra Björnsdóttir, Jónína Einarsdóttir, Tilo Grätz, Nanna Jordt Jørgensen, Marko Kananen, Sofia Laine, Naydene de Lange, Afifa Ltifi, Ivo Mhike, Claudia Mitchell, Relebohile Moletsane, Danai S. Mupotsa, Elina Oinas, Henri Onodera, Eija Ranta, Mounir Saidani, Mariko Sato, Loubna H. Skalli, Tiina Sotkasiira, Abdoulaye Sounaye, Leena Suurpää, and Mulumebet Zenebe. What Politics? Youth and Political Engagement in Africa is now available in paperback for individual customers.




Africa


Book Description

The question usually asked about Africa is: 'why is it going wrong?' Is the continent still suffering from the ravages of colonialism? Or is it the victim of postcolonial economic exploitation, poor governance and lack of aid? Whatever the answer, increasingly the result is poverty and violence. In Africa: The Politics of Suffering and Smiling Patrick Chabal approaches this question differently by reconsidering the role of theory in African politics. Chabal discusses the limitations of existing political theories of Africa and proposes a different starting point; arguing that political thinking ought to be driven by the need to address the immediacy of everyday life and death. How do people define who they are? Where do they belong? What do they believe? How do they struggle to survive and improve their lives? What is the impact of illness and poverty? In doing so, Chabal proposes a radically different way of looking at politics in Africa and illuminates the ways ordinary people 'suffer and smile'. This is a highly original addition to Zed's groundbreaking World Political Theories series.




Dictators and Democracy in African Development


Book Description

This book argues that the structure of the policy-making process in Nigeria explains variations in government performance better than other commonly cited factors.




The Paradox of Traditional Chiefs in Democratic Africa


Book Description

This book shows that powerful hereditary chiefs do not undermine democracy in Africa but, on some level, facilitate it.




A Dictionary of African Politics


Book Description

With over 400 A-Z entries, this new dictionary provides clear and authoritative definitions of terms within the fast-growing field of African Politics. It includes coverage on elections, parties and judiciaries, but also popular protest, gender-relations, the politics of development, and Africa's international relations. Entries comprise of major events and figures within African Politics, including the East African Community and independance, as well as covering key terms of particular relevance to Africa such as neopatrimonialism, queue voting, and post-conflict power sharing. Written by a world-leading political scientist working on the area of African politics, this dictionary is an essential guide for both undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as academics, journalists, and researchers working on African politics alike.




Property and Political Order in Africa


Book Description

In sub-Saharan Africa, property relationships around land and access to natural resources vary across localities, districts, and farming regions. These differences produce patterned variations in relationships between individuals, communities, and the state. This book captures these patterns in an analysis of structure and variation in rural land tenure regimes. In most farming areas, state authority is deeply embedded in land regimes, drawing farmers, ethnic insiders and outsiders, lineages, villages, and communities into direct and indirect relationships with political authorities at different levels of the state apparatus. The analysis shows how property institutions - institutions that define political authority and hierarchy around land - shape dynamics of great interest to scholars of politics, including the dynamics of land-related competition and conflict, territorial conflict, patron-client relations, electoral cleavage and mobilization, ethnic politics, rural rebellion, and the localization and "nationalization" of political competition.