Governing Africa

Governing Africa PDF Author: Thomas Kwasi Tieku
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442235314
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
The African Union (AU) is the leading international organization on the African continent. Established in 2001, it consists of fifty-four members, a ten-member Commission, political organs, such as the Assembly, Pan-African Parliament, and a body where civil society groups are represented. The AU seeks the political and socio-economic integration of the African continent and has emerged as a key player in international politics. Since its creation, the AU has tackled a wide range of issues, including health epidemics (Ebola), undemocratic change of governments, gender inequality, wars, poverty and climate change. It has also led military interventions in Burundi, Comoros, Sudan, and Somalia and adopted key legal instruments to prevent transnational terrorism, bad governance, human rights abuses, corruption and promoted economic development. Governing Africa shows how the AU has faced these challenges by providing a comprehensive and critical examination of AU's performance and role, explaining the innovative and homegrown solutions it has developed in the last decade. Going beyond the traditional security-centric discussion of AU, it analyzes other equally important issues that the AU has dealt with, such as human rights and democracy promotion. For those interested in global studies, the 3D model advanced in this book provides excellent theoretical model for studying IOs anywhere in the world. The first book to deal with the AU as a multi-dimensional, dynamic political organization, Governing Africa takes stock of AU’s successes and failures in its first decade.

Democracy, Good Governance and Development in Africa

Democracy, Good Governance and Development in Africa PDF Author: Mawere, Munyaradzi
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
ISBN: 9956763004
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

Book Description
Questions surrounding democracy, governance, and development especially in the view of Africa have provoked acrimonious debates in the past few years. It remains a perennial question why some decades after political independence in Africa the continent continues experiencing bad governance, lagging behind socioeconomically, and its democracy questionable. We admit that a plethora of theories and reasons, including iniquitous and malicious ones, have been conjured in an attempt to explain and answer the questions as to why Africa seems to be lagging behind other continents in issues pertaining to good governance, democracy and socio-economic development. Yet, none of the theories and reasons proffered so far seems to have provided enduring solutions to Africa’s diverse complex problems and predicaments. This book dissects and critically examines the matrix of Africa’s multifaceted problems on governance, democracy and development in an attempt to proffer enduring solutions to the continent’s long-standing political and socio-economic dilemmas and setbacks.

Land Issues for Urban Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Land Issues for Urban Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa PDF Author: Robert Home
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303052504X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
Sub-Saharan Africa faces many development challenges, such as its size and diversity, rapid urban population growth, history of colonial exploitation, fragile states and conflicts over land and natural resources. This collection, contributed from different academic disciplines and professions, seeks to support the UN Habitat New Urban Agenda passed at Habitat III in Quito, Ecuador, in 2016. It will attract readers from urban specialisms in law, geography and other social sciences, and from professionals and policy-makers concerned with land use planning, surveying and governance. Among the topics addressed by the book are challenges to governance institutions: how international development is delivered, building land management capacity, funding for urban infrastructure, land-based finance, ineffective planning regulation, and the role of alternatives to courts in resolving boundary and other land disputes. Issues of rights and land titling are explored from perspectives of human rights law (the right to development, and women's rights of access to land), and land tenure regularization. Particular challenges of housing, planning and informality are addressed through contributions on international real estate investment, community participation in urban settlement upgrading, housing delivery as a partly failing project to remedy apartheid's legacy, and complex interactions between political power, money and land. Infrastructure challenges are approached in studies of food security and food systems, urban resilience against natural and man-made disasters, and informal public transport.

African American Political Thought

African American Political Thought PDF Author: Melvin L. Rogers
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022672607X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 771

Book Description
African American Political Thought offers an unprecedented philosophical history of thinkers from the African American community and African diaspora who have addressed the central issues of political life: democracy, race, violence, liberation, solidarity, and mass political action. Melvin L. Rogers and Jack Turner have brought together leading scholars to reflect on individual intellectuals from the past four centuries, developing their list with an expansive approach to political expression. The collected essays consider such figures as Martin Delany, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Audre Lorde, whose works are addressed by scholars such as Farah Jasmin Griffin, Robert Gooding-Williams, Michael Dawson, Nick Bromell, Neil Roberts, and Lawrie Balfour. While African American political thought is inextricable from the historical movement of American political thought, this volume stresses the individuality of Black thinkers, the transnational and diasporic consciousness, and how individual speakers and writers draw on various traditions simultaneously to broaden our conception of African American political ideas. This landmark volume gives us the opportunity to tap into the myriad and nuanced political theories central to Black life. In doing so, African American Political Thought: A Collected History transforms how we understand the past and future of political thinking in the West.

The Power of Babel

The Power of Babel PDF Author: Ali AlʼAmin Mazrui
Publisher: James Currey
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
Linguists estimate that there are currently nearly 2,000 languages in Africa, a staggering figure that is belied by the relatively few national languages. While African national politics, economics, and law are all conducted primarily in the colonial languages, the cultural life of the majority of citizens is conducted in a bewildering Babel of local and regional dialects, making language itself the center of debates over multiculturalism, gender studies, and social theory. In "The Power of Babel," the noted Africanist scholar Ali Mazrui and linguist Alamin Mazrui explore this vast territory of African language. "The Power of Babel" is one of the first comprehensive studies of the complex linguistic constellations of Africa. It draws on Ali Mazrui's earlier work in its examination of the "triple heritage" of African culture, in which indigenous, Islamic, and Western traditions compete for influence. In bringing the idea of the triple heritage to language, the Mazruis unravel issues of power, culture, and modernity as they are embedded in African linguistic life. The first section of the book takes a global perspective, exploring such issues as the Eurocentrism of much linguistic scholarship on Africa; part two takes an African perspective on a variety of issues from the linguistically disadvantaged position of women in Africa to the relation of language policy and democratic development; the third section presents a set of regional studies, centering on the Swahili language's exemplification of the triple heritage."The Power of Babel" unites empirical information with theories of nationalism and pluralism-among others-to offer the richest contextual account of African languages to date.

Governance and Democracy in Africa

Governance and Democracy in Africa PDF Author: James S. Guseh
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498533000
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 141

Book Description
This book looks at the fundamental issue of governance in Africa. After half a century of experimenting with democratic institutions, African countries are still ambivalent about the complete or absolute adoption of this form of governance. Africa lost tremendous human and natural resources in the struggle for political and economic independence. What form of governance African leaders adopt will determine how worthwhile this sacrifice has been to the African people. This issue is the major challenge facing Africa, and addressing it is of high urgency. Employing a political economy framework, this book provides some insights into to dealing with this complex issue of democratic governance in Africa.

African Governance, Security, and Development

African Governance, Security, and Development PDF Author: Wanjala S. Nasong'o
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793645590
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327

Book Description
African Governance, Security, and Development explores the political economy of development in Africa. The contributors examine the impact and implications of the democratization process in Africa with particular focus on issues of economic, social, and institutional development. Through a variety of critical perspectives and disciplines, contributors analyze topics such as the impact of democratization on governance and institutional development, foreign aid and foreign direct investment, terrorism in Africa, identity politics, and the politics of oil extraction. African Governance, Security, and Development features the voices of scholars from institutions of higher learning in Africa and showcases case studies from the continent, bringing much-needed African and Africanist perspectives to current discussions about African political development and economy.

African Perspectives on Governance

African Perspectives on Governance PDF Author: Göran Hydén
Publisher: Africa Research and Publications
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Book Description
This book brings together the views of a group of East and West African scholars on a range of issues relating to how African countries are being governed. In contrast to most other publications on governance, which tend to reflect primarily the views of the international donor community, this book provides a refreshing African perspective on these issues. It is critical in its approach but the authors speak with authority based on both personal experience and research on the African continent.The book addresses such aspects of governance as: -- human rights -- the freedom of the media -- the role of intellectuals -- the place of local government in national politics -- women in politics -- the significance of constitutionalism, and -- ethnic pluralism.Each subject is covered comparatively with reference to both East and West Africa.This book lends itself to courses on African politics or more general education courses on African development issues. It should also be of relevance to analysts of African governance and development in governments, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations.

Democracy in Africa

Democracy in Africa PDF Author: Nic Cheeseman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316239489
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Book Description
This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the history of democracy in Africa and explains why the continent's democratic experiments have so often failed, as well as how they could succeed. Nic Cheeseman grapples with some of the most important questions facing Africa and democracy today, including whether international actors should try and promote democracy abroad, how to design political systems that manage ethnic diversity, and why democratic governments often make bad policy decisions. Beginning in the colonial period with the introduction of multi-party elections and ending in 2013 with the collapse of democracy in Mali and South Sudan, the book describes the rise of authoritarian states in the 1970s; the attempts of trade unions and some religious groups to check the abuse of power in the 1980s; the remarkable return of multiparty politics in the 1990s; and finally, the tragic tendency for elections to exacerbate corruption and violence.

Government and Politics in Africa

Government and Politics in Africa PDF Author: William Tordoff
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253215451
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
The author provides extra coverage of both North and South Africa and of such key issues as debt, the AIDS epidemic, the position of women and the politics of patronage."--BOOK JACKET.