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Political developments in Africa continue to manifest that disjuncture between progress and stalemate. There continues to be a co-existence between change and stasis in many areas of African society. This is a sort of static dynamism where great hope inspired such developments as citizens electing new governments in countries like Malawi and Zambia, only to encounter deliberating despair marked by the destruction of Somalia by a ravaging terror-linked and externally driven conflict in the form of drones and bombings, the stubborn growth of terror in Mozambique, terror in the Sahel deepening. The incidence of political corruption put into the spotlight by the South African commissioning probing the so-called state capture, and the extradition of a former Mozambican finance minister for trial in the U.S. adds the gloom that threatens to dim hopes.

An ironic feature of contemporary South African politics is that while the organisations representing Black Consciousness (BC) ideas remain weak and fragmented, a revival in BC ideas, values and practices in official and civil society discourses seems evident. BC organisations dominated anti-apartheid politics in the 1970s, but their startling decline, particularly their weakened state under post-1994 democracy, calls out for analytical attention. In the 1999 and 2004 elections, the Azanian People's Organisation (Azapo) was the leading BC organisation. Together with the smaller Socialist Party of Azania (Sopa), Azapo received dismal support. Moreover, Azapo has split into three smaller organisations. Efforts to merge the three have so far faltered. One cannot conclude, however, that the obvious failure of BC political parties to challenge the ANC and the historically white political parties at the polls means that we should dismiss these organisations' ideologies as ineffective and lacking in influence. The resurgence of BC ideas at the level of civil society, at a time when we might expect BC to be anachronistic, is intriguing. It is also the subject of this chapter.

This article contributes to rethinking African politics by viewing the continent's development as an intellectual process in which resources are created for the satisfaction of human needs. Central to this process is the primacy of production of resources over their distribution and consumption. Therefore, development as an intellectual process in which society's resources are created to ensure a better life for its citizens is a central task. The best, most effective and progressive way to do justice to this task is to put the people at the centre of development in advocacy, debate and policy. The dominant and yet incorrect view that Africa's economic sectors such as mining and agriculture are drivers of its economy and development should be replaced with the indispensable role of its human capital under the leadership of intellectuals in its economy and development. This role should be recognised in theory and practice. The point is that economic sectors derive their importance to economy and development from human beings using their knowledge, skills and determination in deploying their resources to achieve tactical and strategic objectives. Therefore, African intellectuals, creators of leaders and institutions and organisations, producers and disseminators of knowledge, producers and providers of evidence and forces dominating the possession and utilisation of human capital without whose organic input no organisation or social force can achieve and sustain its strategic objectives, are indispensable to a rethinking of African politics of development they must lead. Their weapons in this role are their leadership of and role in institutions and organisations and individual knowledge and talents as proud continental assets throughthe mediation of parties under their leadership in deploying Africa's natural resources, mainly mineral and agricultural resources, in putting the continent and its people first in terms of development.

The ability of International Relations theory to 'travel well' to other parts of the world has become one of the central questions within the discipline. This article argues that a Foucauldian-derived 'analytics of government' framework has particular advantages in overcoming some of the difficulties IR theory has faced abroad. These advantages include a methodological focus on specific practices of power at their point of application; attention to similarities between practices of power that cut across perceived binaries such as the domestic and international, and public and private; and an illumination of the ways in which practices of freedom are combined and interrelate with forms of coercion and violence. This argument is illustrated in the context of debates about the applicability of Foucauldian theory to African politics, through examples drawn from Bayart's work on globalisation, the power of development partnerships, and violence and civil war. It argues that deploying governmentality as an analytical framework, rather than seeing it as a specifically neoliberal form of power relation, can not only facilitate the application of IR theory outside Europe and North America but can also help develop a broader perspective on genuinely world politics. © 2012 British International Studies Association.

The spate of democratic wave that blew across the continent of Africa in the 1990s came with the hope of economic transformation and an end to the decades of backwardness, poverty and want. Prior to this period, democratic governance was the exception rather than the norm. Military high command across the continent dictated the pace for many decades and most times falling short of the messianic appeal thatdrew them into politics and governing with their diktat nature and abuse of human rights, the economies of most countries of the continent where the military juntas were entrenched, experienced stall and retrogression, creating contrition for grumbling by the weakened civil society in these countries. However, the turn in the dynamics of the international system following the collapse of communism and insistence of the continent"s development partners on democratization, compelled many of the military juntas to retreat back to their barracks, thus opening the space for inflow of investments which is in dire need to reverberate the ailing economies. But after a brief spell of power in the hands of the civilian authorities, the lustre of power seem to be drawing some elements in the military high command to the old scenarios which resemble a reverse wave of democratization, thus allowing the gains of civilian advancement to be lost while the countries relapse. One of the expected areas of relapses with the resurgence of the military back in power is in capital flows into the countries for development purposes. The examines these issues and concludes that the resurgence of military rule in the West African sub-region is a set back to the development of the countries in the sub-region

The spate of democratic wave that blew across the continent of Africa in the 1990s came with the hope of economic transformation and an end to the decades of backwardness, poverty and want. Prior to this period, democratic governance was the exception rather than the norm. Military high command across the continent dictated the pace for many decades and most times falling short of the messianic appeal thatdrew them into politics and governing with their diktat nature and abuse of human rights, the economies of most countries of the continent where the military juntas were entrenched, experienced stall and retrogression, creating contrition for grumbling by the weakened civil society in these countries. However, the turn in the dynamics of the international system following the collapse of communism and insistence of the continent"s development partners on democratization, compelled many of the military juntas to retreat back to their barracks, thus opening the space for inflow of investments which is in dire need to reverberate the ailing economies. But after a brief spell of power in the hands of the civilian authorities, the lustre of power seem to be drawing some elements in the military high command to the old scenarios which resemble a reverse wave of democratization, thus allowing the gains of civilian advancement to be lost while the countries relapse. One of the expected areas of relapses with the resurgence of the military back in power is in capital flows into the countries for development purposes. The examines these issues and concludes that the resurgence of military rule in the West African sub-region is a set back to the development of the countries in the sub-region

As a political, social, and cultural ideology, Pan-Africanism has been a complex movement attempting to ameliorate the dehumanizing effects of "the global Eurocentric colonial/modern capitalist model of power," which Anibal Quijano (2000) refers to as "the coloniality of power." The destructive forces of the coloniality of power--beginning with the transatlantic slave trade--that led to the dispersal and displacement of millions of Africans subsequently facilitated the creation of Pan-African political and cultural consciousness. Thus, this dissertation examines diverse articulations of Pan-African politics of cultural struggle as a response to racist and sexist oppression and economic exploitation of Afro-descendants. I am specifically interested in the formation of international politico-cultural movements, such as the Black Arts movement, Négritude, and the Pan-African Cultural Revolution and their ideological alignments to political liberation struggles for the emancipation of people of African descent. With varying degrees of revolutionary commitment, intellectuals in each of these movements utilized literary and cultural production to raise the political consciousness of Africans and Afro-descendants to combat forces that oppressed their communities. To demonstrate this, my dissertation historicizes and analyzes the numerous Pan-African festivals, congresses, and conferences, which occurred between 1965 and 1977, while interrogating the specific manifestations of "translocal" contacts and linkages between movement intellectuals. I chose to focus on these years because they roughly correspond with the historical time period known as the Black Arts movement in North America (1965-1975), which had a vibrant, yet understudied Pan-African worldview. Moreover, while Pan-Africanism gained considerable traction after World War II, it was particularly between 1966 and 1977 that intellectuals aligned with Négritude and Pan- African Marxism competed for ideological hegemony of the movement on the African continent and in the African Diaspora.

In modern African politics, terrorism and failed state syndrome have became prevalent and a challenge to democratic values and virtues of good governance, posing great threat and stress to the survival of domestic political systems. This increasing political stress is a product of competition and struggle for power and supremacy among players in the executive and legislative organs of government, which has reduced the parliament to a rubber stamp of power seekers as well as the use of electoral violence as instruments of regime change. Therefore, this study seeks to examine the root cause of political struggle and problems of good governance in Africa by analyzing the variables of intra elite crisis in the parliament and the quest for establishment of spheres of influence by players in the executive arm. The rivalry between both elites has created tremendous problems of governance and the desires of incumbent presidents to elongate their tenure by using the legislature to amend the constitution to suit their third term bid as was seen in Burundi. The games theory is used as a tool of analysis to describe the roles of elites in the intra power struggle for the control of the parliament which has made modern legislatures in Africa a new theater for proxy wars of domestic power seekers resulting in the collapse of parliamentary values and the ascendency of executive authoritarianism. This has made legislature in Africa weak and unstable culminating in the democratization of disempowerment of the citizens from the benefits of good governance, promoting poverty, political exclusion, apathy and frustration. Therefore, we conclude that intra elite struggle for power has provided the political mechanism for reshaping and influencing the legislative processes and powers of the parliament to satisfy the self interest of power seekers. I. S Ladan-Baki | C. Enwere "Intra-Elite Conflict and Problems of Governance in Nigeria: Imperatives of Games Theory in African Politics" Published in International Journal of Trend in ...

Co-editado por Yahya H. Zoubir -director de investigación en Geopolítica en la Kedge Business School de Marsella- y Gregory White -profesor de Relaciones Internacionales en el Smith College de Massachusetts, este trabajo tiene el objetivo de generar la atención del mundo académico anglo-americano por el Norte de África, tras décadas de priorizar los estudios sobre Oriente Medio y de entender a esta área sólo como parte de la esfera de influencia europea, especialmente de Francia. El volumen complementa y da continuidad a un trabajo previo de 2008 (North Africa: Politics, Religion and the Limits of transformation, editado por Y. Zoubir y Haizam Amirah).

This paper examines the way local Kenyan politics have affected implementation of the Standard Gauge Railway. It points to initial and immediate development opportunities for local content, jobs, and skills while arguing for a more rigorous assessment of the SGR's economic development potential. Unless Kenya overhauls its governance framework on the issues outlined in this paper, infrastructure projects risk overshooting initial budgets. This may also reduce the willingness of neighboring countries or foreign investors to engage in future initiatives in Kenya.

Using the lenses of realism, liberalism, the English School and constructivism, this book explains how the divisions and differences in African identities affect African international politics. This book explores the African condition in the twenty-first century. It analyses how geographical, racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious and power differences shape continental and intercontinental relations in Africa through the creation of identities and values which militate against intra-continental or regional relations. The author assesses inclusionary and exclusionary, rational and irrational relationships, interactions and non-interactions which occur between geographical, linguistic, racial and religious entities in Africa. He suggests that, in these moments, one entity will negatively relate, interact or refuse to interact with another entity for the gains of the former and to the detriment of the latter or even to the detriment of both entities. Divided into two parts, the first part of the book employs an ecumenical approach to discuss the divisions and differences that disunite Africa as a continent and Africans as a people and how they affect African international politics. Part II goes on to explore how this 'othering' can be superseded by non-discriminatory, unifying and positive identities and values. Examining the possibility of creating identities and values that can unite Africa as a continent and Africans as a people, this book will be of interest to scholars of African politics, international relations and political theory.

In 2018 Abel Kinyondo, Zim Nwokora and I co-authored a paper entitled 'Development in Africa' which was eventually published by World Affairs. In the article we claimed that the development progress that countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had experienced was the result of several factors.

This thesis analyses conflict dynamics in West Africa and assesses the role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as a security organisation in its response to armed conflict. In so doing, it argues that conventional approaches misinterpret key feature of the civil wars in the "Greater Mano River Area" which includes Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d'Ivoire. It demonstrates that the progression and spread of conflict is engendered primarily by transversal political structures. The thesis utilises a critical international society approach to consider patterns of security and insecurity across the sub-region of West Africa. However, rather than accepting that West African politics operates within a single, comprehensive international society, it argues instead that it should be understood at two levels. One level is state-centric international society, where West African inter-state relations can largely be explained according to existing constructivist paradigms. At the second level is "transversal" society that cuts across state borders, generating a regional, normative structure that prescribes and constrains behaviour within and between communities outside of the international society framework. The thesis proceeds in two parts. In the first section it works towards an understanding of the transversal politics of regional conflict in the Greater Mano River Area. Conflict is nominally internal, and centralised state authority is the object of both attack and transformation. However, a close examination of civil violence in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d'Ivoire reveals that it cannot be completely understood without recognising the non-state structures of authority and domination that disrupt the traditional domestic/international divide. The transversal communities generated by conflict create a regional cycle of violence that is resistant to efforts made to resolve it. The second section of the thesis is concerned with the ability of ECOWAS to foster durable peace. As West Africa's key ...

As we noted in a previous post, Africa has 145000 High Net Worth Individuals whose assets are worth about 800 billion. Overall Africans' net worth is estimated in 2.2 trillion US dollars. The number of HNWIs has increased considerably in the past decade and is expected to grow nearly as much in the next decade.

What we do when we refer to the legal past of our countries? These actions can have a political effect. Hence a discussion during the 2019 Summer Academy of the mpilhlt, asking "What is the role of the legal historian when national histories, and constitutional histories, are used in public debates?"