Reconstituting the State in Africa

Reconstituting the State in Africa

Author: G. Kieh

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2007-02-05

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0230606946

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Contributors to this volume highlight the failure and socio-economic and political problems of post-colonial African state and make constructive and convincing suggestions of how the problems can be addressed. They do not argue for the scrapping of the state but its reconstitution in ways that will enable it to be people's-oriented.


Democratization in Africa

Democratization in Africa

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1992-02-01

Total Pages: 94

ISBN-13: 0309047978

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The global movement toward democracy, spurred in part by the ending of the cold war, has created opportunities for democratization not only in Europe and the former Soviet Union, but also in Africa. This book is based on workshops held in Benin, Ethiopia, and Namibia to better understand the dynamics of contemporary democratic movements in Africa. Key issues in the democratization process range from its institutional and political requirements to specific problems such as ethnic conflict, corruption, and role of donors in promoting democracy. By focusing on the opinion and views of African intellectuals, academics, writers, and political activists and observers, the book provides a unique perspective regarding the dynamics and problems of democratization in Africa.


State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa

State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa

Author: Richard A. Joseph

Publisher: Lynne Rienner Pub

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 527

ISBN-13: 9781555875336

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This volume explores the important dimensions of state formation and erosion, social conflict, and the gains and setbacks of democratization in contemporary Africa. It looks at the dominant patterns of political restructuring since the upheavals of the early 1990s.


Elections and Conflict Management in Africa

Elections and Conflict Management in Africa

Author: Timothy D. Sisk

Publisher: US Institute of Peace Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9781878379795

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Elections have emerged as one of the most important, and most contentious, features of political life on the African continent. In the first half of this decade, there were more than 20 national elections, serving largely as capstones of peace processes or transitions to democracies. The outcomes of these and more recent elections have been remarkably varied, and the relationship between elections and conflict management is widely debated throughout Africa and among international observers. Elections can either help reduce tensions by reconstituting legitimate government, or they can exacerbate them by further polarizing highly conflictual societies. This timely volume examines the relationship between elections, especially electoral systems, and conflict management in Africa, while also serving as an important reference for other regions. The book brings together for the first time the latest thinking on the many different roles elections can play in democratization and conflict management.


Our Continent, Our Future

Our Continent, Our Future

Author: P. Thandika Mkandawire

Publisher: IDRC

Published: 2014-05-14

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 155250204X

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Our Continent, Our Future presents the emerging African perspective on this complex issue. The authors use as background their own extensive experience and a collection of 30 individual studies, 25 of which were from African economists, to summarize this African perspective and articulate a path for the future. They underscore the need to be sensitive to each country's unique history and current condition. They argue for a broader policy agenda and for a much more active role for the state within what is largely a market economy. Finally, they stress that Africa must, and can, compete in an increasingly globalized world and, perhaps most importantly, that Africans must assume the leading role in defining the continent's development agenda.


A New Paradigm of the African State

A New Paradigm of the African State

Author: M. Muiu

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2009-01-05

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 0230618316

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Offers a historical, multidisciplinary perspective on African political systems and institutions, ranging from Antiquity (Egypt, Kush and Axum) to the present with particular focus on their destruction through successive exogenous processes including the Atlantic slave trade, imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism or globalization.


Ubuntu and the Reconstitution of Community

Ubuntu and the Reconstitution of Community

Author: James Ogude

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2019-05-16

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 0253042143

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Ubuntu is premised on the ethical belief that an individual's humanity is fostered in a network of human relationships: I am because you are; we are because you are. The essays in this lively volume elevate the debate about ubuntu beyond the buzzword it has become, especially within South African religious and political contexts. The seasoned scholars and younger voices gathered here grapple with a range of challenges that ubuntu puts forward. They break down its history and analyze its intellectual surroundings in African philosophical traditions, European modernism, religious contexts, and human rights discourses. The discussion embraces questions about what it means to be human and to be a part of a community, giving attention to moments of loss and fragmentation in postcolonial modernity, to come to a more meaningful definition of belonging in a globalizing world. Taken together, these essays offer a rich understanding of ubuntu in all of its complexity and reflect on a value system rooted in the everyday practices of ordinary people in their daily encounters with churches, schools, and other social institutions.


The African State

The African State

Author: Abdi Ismail Samatar

Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13:

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The African state is more essential than ever for the sustainability of the long march towards political, economic, and cultural development. This volume captures the diversity of African states and leadership by examining eight states from northern, western, eastern, and southern Africa. Contributing African scholars transcend current thinking on the nature of the state and its role in transforming the fortunes of the continent. They establish a conceptual framework that allows for a complex but concrete and integrated analysis of the African state. Leader, regime, administration, and commonwealth provide the four key factors for identification of state types in Africa. Different combinations of these factors produce various types of states ranging from Botswana's relatively integral political system to the "cadaverous" Somali state. States examined in this collection include: Botswana Ethiopia Ghana Libya Nigeria South Africa Sudan All of the book's contributors have done substantial scholarly works on their respective countries. Their essays provide practical means of assessing reform programs intended to enhance state effectiveness. This book will be of great value not only to scholars, but also to policy makers and others concerned with the construction of a positive future for the African continent.


Contesting Sovereignty

Contesting Sovereignty

Author: Joel Ng

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-07-22

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1108490611

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Examines and compares diplomatic practices and normative change in the African Union and ASEAN.


Instructional Cinema and African Audiences in Colonial Kenya, 1926–1963

Instructional Cinema and African Audiences in Colonial Kenya, 1926–1963

Author: Samson Kaunga Ndanyi

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-03-14

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 1793649251

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In Instructional Cinema and African Audiences in Colonial Kenya, 1926–1963, the author argues against the colonial logic instigating that films made for African audiences in Kenya influenced them to embrace certain elements of western civilization but Africans had nothing to offer in return. The author frames this logic as unidirectional approach purporting that Africans were passive recipients of colonial programs. Contrary to this understanding, the author insists that African viewers were active participants in the discourse of cinema in Kenya. Employing unorthodox means to protest mediocre films devoid of basic elements of film production, African spectators forced the colonial government to reconsider the way it produced films. The author frames the reconsideration as bidirectional approach. Instructional cinema first emerged as a tool to “educate” and “modernize” Africans, but it transformed into a contestable space of cultural and political power, a space that both sides appropriated to negotiate power and actualize their abstract ideas.