The African State in a Changing Global Context


Book Description

During the first 25 years of independence, the African state was largely driven from within by the ambition to establish political order in a world where national sovereignty over issues of development was not in question. The theme of this book is that more is at stake today than in the past.




The Palgrave Handbook of Africa and the Changing Global Order


Book Description

This handbook fills a large gap in the current knowledge about the critical role of Africa in the changing global order. By connecting the past, present, and future in a continuum that shows the paradox of existence for over one billion people, the book underlines the centrality of the African continent to global knowledge production, the global economy, global security, and global creativity. Bringing together perspectives from top Africa scholars, it actively dispels myths of the continent as just a passive recipient of external influences, presenting instead an image of an active global agent that astutely projects soft power. Unlike previous handbooks, this book offers an eclectic mix of historical, contemporary, and interdisciplinary approaches that allow for a more holistic view of the many aspects of Africa’s relations with the world.




The Rise of Multipartyism and Democracy in the Context of Global Change


Book Description

Lumumba-Kasongo examines those forces that contributed to the fate of multiparty democracy in Africa. The forces include the state, political parties, ethnicity, nationalism, religion, underdevelopment, and the global market. Multipartyism in Africa is not necessarily democratic. However, the processes toward multipartyism can produce democratic discourses if they can be transformed by popular and social movements. As the author points out, almost all social classes have demanded some form of democracy. Yet the sociological meanings and teleological perspectives of those forms of democracy depend on an individual or group's economic and educational status. The dynamics of the global context, as reflected in the adoption of the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and the stability programs of the International Monetary Fund, are likely to produce non-democratic conditions in Africa. Lumumba-Kasongo challenges the existing paradigms on democracy and development, so the book is of considerable interest to scholars and policy makers involved with African politics and socio-economic development.




Remapping Africa in the Global Space


Book Description

"What are the benefits and risks for Africa’s participation in the globalisation nexus? Remapping Africa in the Global Space is a visionary and interdisciplinary volume that restores Africa’s image using a multidisciplinary lens. It incorporates disciplines such as sociology, education, global studies, economics, development studies, political science and philosophy to explore and theorise Africa’s reality in the global space and to deconstruct the misperceptions and narratives that often infantilise Africa’s internal and international relations. The contributions to this volume are a hybrid of both ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’ perspectives that create a balanced critical discourse that can provide ‘standard’ paradigms that can adequately explain, predict, or prevent Africa’s current misperceptions and myths about the African ‘crisis’ and ‘failure’ status. The authors provide a holistic, and perhaps, anticolonial and anti-hegemonic perspective that can benefit a wide spectrum of academics, scholars, students, development agents, policy makers in both governmental and non-governmental organisations and engage some alternative analyses and possibilities for socio-politico and economic advancement in Africa. The book provides up-to-date scholarly research on continental trends on various subjects and concerns of paramount importance to globalisation and development in Africa. “The book is brilliant! Remapping Africa in the Global Space: Propositions for Change explores Africa from the perspective of academics specialised in subject matters pertaining to the continent. In this age of globalisation, I find this book invaluable. It is a good read as it dissects analyses and presents issues affecting the continent in an articulate and cogent way. I highly recommend its use in academic institutions!” – Magnus Mfoafo-M’Carthy, Assistant Professor, Lyle S. Hallman Faculty of Social Work; Fellow of Tshepo Institute for the Study of Contemporary Africa, Wilfrid Laurier University, Kitchener, Canada “More than anything else, Remapping Africa in the Global Space: Propositions for Change speaks to the complex, multifaceted, and interfused character of the development challenges and prospects of Africa. Indeed, few books have examined contemporary Africa as comprehensively and insightfully as this edited volume; it is widely welcomed in the African academic, scholarly and research arena.” – Joseph Mensah, Professor of Geography, York University, Toronto "







Globalization and Urban Development


Book Description

Most research on globalization has focused on macroeconomic and economy-wide consequences. This book explores an under-researched area, the impacts of globalization on cities and national urban hierarchies, especially but not solely in developing countries. Most of the globalization-urban research has concentrated on the "global cities" (e.g. New York, London, Paris, Tokyo) that influence what happens in the rest of the world. In contrast, this research looks at the cities at the receiving end of the forces of globalization. The general finding is that large cities, on balance, benefit from globalization, although in some cases at the expense of widening spatial inequities.




The Crisis of the African State


Book Description

This book focuses on security problems facing the twenty-first-century African state. Through multiple essays, the authors explore both current and past security issues associated with tribal warfare and jihadist terrorism within a rapidly changing global context where state sovereignty and institutional capability is in decline. Historic and modern situations have coalesced to create unique security challenges for many African states. A comprehensive analysis of how Islamic radicalism, tribal conflicts, and globalization merge to complicate African security is frequently missing from the literature. These three forces conjoin in some African countries to create vexing security challenges. Amy Chua's excellent book, World on Fire, explores some of these issues albeit in a very general way.1 However, given the lack of a systematic exploration of these issues, the authors of this volume hope to make such a contribution. We also aspire to illuminate how tribal animosity, civil war, and reconciliation are being handled in select African countries. We shall accomplish these goals using a state-centric focus.




Africa in World Politics


Book Description

The sixth edition of Africa in World Politics focuses on challenges African states face in constructing viable political economies in contexts both of familiar domestic challenges and an unprecedented mix of engagements, opportunities, and threats emanating from a turbulent and rapidly changing international order. This text, including new chapters on Nigeria and the influence of party politics on economic development, remains an invaluable resource for students of African politics seeking to navigate the continent's complex political and economic landscapes. Revised chapters consider both the extent and the limits of continued healthy growth rates in many countries; the impacts of investments by China and other BRICS countries; plateaus and some reversals in progress on human rights and democratization; dimensions of chronic state weakness deepened by insurgencies, including some that are connected to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State; and peacebuilding efforts struggling to uphold responsible sovereignty in the Sudans, the Great Lakes region, and elsewhere.




China and Africa in Global Context


Book Description

This title studies the relationship between China and Africa by reviewing this history and current state of interactions, offering a valuable addition to the often heated and contentious debate surrounding China's engagement in Africa from a Chinese angle. Comprised of four parts, the book covers a kaleidoscopic range of topics on Sino-Africa relations based on materials from different languages. The first part looks into early historical contact between China and Africa and historiography of African Studies in China in recent decades. Part Two contains a broad probe into the origin, dynamics, challenges and cultural heritage of China's policies towards Africa. The third part explores the issue of development cooperation from both the theoretical and practical point of view, with a focus on the case of Chinese medical teams in Africa and China's technology transfer to the continent. The final part illustrates bilateral migration, discussing the history and life of Chinese immigrants in Africa and the African diaspora in China. The insights in this book as well as real life case studies will make this work an indispensable reference for academics, students, policy makers and general readers who are interested in international issues and area studies, especially China-Africa relations, China's rise and African development.




Africa and International Relations in the 21st Century


Book Description

This book examines key emergent trends related to aspects of power, sovereignty, conflict, peace, development, and changing social dynamics in the African context. It challenges conventional IR precepts of authority, politics and society, which have proven to be so inadequate in explaining African processes. Rather, this edited collection analyses the significance of many of the uncharted dimensions of Africa's international relations, such as the respatialisation of African societies through migration, and the impacts this process has had on state power; the various ways in which both formal and informal authority and economies are practised; and the dynamics and impacts of new transnational social movements on African politics. Finally, attention is paid to Africa's place in a shifting global order, and the implications for African international relations of the emergence of new world powers and/or alliances. This edition includes a new preface by the editors, which brings the findings of the book up-to-date, and analyses the changes that are likely to impact upon global governance and human development in policy and practice in Africa and the wider world post-2015.