Suchergebnisse

The popular expectation that the oil-rich but underdeveloped Niger Delta of Nigeria would become more stable & less volatile with the inauguration of civilian democratic rule has proved erroneous. This development calls for a fundamental rethinking of existing assumptions about community-based anomie & the political violence embarked upon by nascent community-based movements in the region. This is particularly true regarding the struggle by Ijaw ethnic oil communities against environmental degradation, socioeconomic & cultural strangulation, & political marginalization by the Nigerian state & multinational oil companies. Much of the existing literature has focused on the high-profile Ogoni struggles to the neglect of those embarked upon by the Ijaws, reputed to be the fourth largest ethnic group in Nigeria & spread over six states along the country's Atlantic seaboard. Adapted from the source document.

Dreizehn kurze Beiträge befassen sich schwerpunktmäßig mit der jüngsten politischen Entwicklung in Nigeria seit dem neuerlichen Übergang zur Demokratie von den Kommunalwahlen 1998 bis zu den Präsidentschaftswahlen 1999 (tabellarische Ergebnisübersicht aus den Einzelstaaten S.6). Der Frage, inwieweit demokratische Wahlen die Herrschaftsstrukturen des alten Systems wirklich aufbrechen können, wird ebenso nachgegangen wie Problemen des ethnischen Regionalismus und einem angestrebten Wandel der institutionalisierten Machtverteilung. Die Zukunft der föderalen Struktur Nigerias und Aspekte der politischen Ökonomie bilden weitere Schwerpunkte neben einem kritischen Resümee von Wahlkampfbeobachtern 1998 und 1999 sowie einer Betrachtung über das Interesse der westlichen Welt an den Wahlen bzw. der Demokratie in Nigeria. Die Situation der nigerianischen Presse und die Bildung politischer Parteien während der Übergangsphase finden in den Darstellungen ebenso Berücksichtigung wie Aspekte des öffentlichen Bewusstseins (kollektives Gedächtnis und selektiver Gedächtnisverlust) in der jüngsten nigerianischen Geschichte, Perspektiven der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung sowie die Fortschritte zivilgesellschaftlicher Organisationen. (DÜI-Ply)

The end of the cold war has made democratization, and its barest essential component elections, imperative for all nondemocratic forms of government. This is to be expected, given the dismal failure of the socialist alternative even in the first socialist country, the former Soviet Union. The United States, which is not only the foremost democracy in the world but also the only superpower, has been in the vanguard of democracy salesmanship. Africa, the continent with the least democratic space, has not been left out, as witnessed by President Bill Clinton's unprecedented tour of the continent in March 1998.Understandably, Nigeria, arguably the most important country in Africa, was left out of the tour, since it was then under the obnoxious, undemocratic, and oppressive military regime of the late General Sani Abacha.

This is a broad examination of the issue of youth violence in twenty-first-century Africa, looking at the context within which a youth culture of violence has evolved and attempting to understand the underlining discourses of hegemony and power that drive it. The article focuses specifically on youth violence as a political response to the dynamics of (dis)empowerment, exclusion, and economic crisis and uses (post)conflict states like Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria to explain not just the overall challenge of youth violence but also the nature of responses that it has elicited from established structures of authority. Youth violence is in many ways an expression of youth agency in the context of a social and economic system that provides little opportunity.

"This is a broad examination of the issue of youth violence in twenty-first-century Africa, looking at the context within which a youth culture of violence has evolved and attempting to understand the underlining discourses of hegemony and power that drive it. The article focuses specifically on youth violence as a political response to the dynamics of (dis)empowerment, exclusion, and economic crisis and uses (post)conflict states like Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria to explain not just the overall challenge of youth violence but also the nature of responses that it has elicited from established structures of authority. Youth violence is in many ways an expression of youth agency in the context of a social and economic system that provides little opportunity." (author's abstract)

This is a broad examination of the issue of youth violence in twenty-first-century Africa, looking at the context within which a youth culture of violence has evolved and attempting to understand the underlining discourses of hegemony and power that drive it. The article focuses specifically on youth violence as a political response to the dynamics of (dis)empowerment, exclusion, and economic crisis and uses (post)conflict states like Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria to explain not just the overall challenge of youth violence but also the nature of responses that it has elicited from established structures of authority. Youth violence is in many ways an expression of youth agency in the context of a social and economic system that provides little opportunity. Adapted from the source document.