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Recent years have seen fundamental reorientations in international development cooperation. Two of the most far reaching ones have been the development of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP)and the increasing attention paid to decentralization. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) have been introduced in the late 1990s as a pre-requisite for debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. They are intended to provide a national strategy for poverty reduction and sustainable development. This study looks at examples from sub-Sahran countries and how PRSP and decentralization interact with each other and what consequences of this interaction are by studying a third subject that has moved center-stage in international development cooperation over the last years: Public Financial Management (PFM). As evidence from sub-Saharan Africa shows, most PFM systems are characterized by lack of routine with administrative procedures which result in an ad hoc mode of action and uncertainty throughout the system. It refers to the fact that rules, procedures and institutions of the governance system are not entirely reliable and therefore do not provide longterm predictability. This on the other hand jeopardizes the implementation of national strategies for poverty reduction. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores foreign involvement in Africa as part of energy security. As the international players seek to secure the flow of oil at reasonable prices using sometimes approaches of stark contrast between the West and the East, we look at what is left from this game for Africa. The paper seeks to find out how international energy-related involvements impact the African states where internal institutions are too weak to manage abrupt changes that associate with the large oil sector such as political and fiscal reforms and the economic shocks. Africa is tremendously abundant in oil. Although Africa is just waking up as the new energy powerhouse, it has experienced intensive foreign engagement in other resources including slavery and raw materials long before the colonial era began. This paper argues that history of foreign exploitation for resources is accountable for Africa's failure to perform well despite its promising resource endowment but will remain so as long as Africa supplies resources for the world as crucial as oil. Liberal economists argue that resource industries bring foreign investments needed for states' economic development. Oil companies and foreign government resonate this argument as they claim to build infrastructure projects, provide aid and assist transparency and democratic progress in the places they operate. While external investors reap large commercial benefits, Africa has continued to suffer with wars, abject poverty and bad governance. This paper looks closely whether the approaches they use contribute to Africa's resource curse. It begins with brief discussion of the definition and causes of the resource curse existing in the literature. It then moves onto foreign involvements in Africa for oil security, the focus of this study, provided as part of the cause to the resource curse in the region. In this sector, it explains how Africa has stepped up as a strategic location for international energy, who involves in the African oil game and what approaches they employ by economic, political and military means. By this, the paper sheds light on the unaddressed relations between foreign resource extractions and the resource curse discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While political life in Africa remains volatile and complex, the end of the Cold War ushered in the collapse of authoritarian regimes and liberalization of governments. There was a hope that the new political systems would provide legal and political accountability. Western governments shared this hope, in light of their belief in democracy as a panacea for Africa’s political and economic woes. However, early euphoria gave way to disappointment because some incumbent regimes continue to show their reluctance to relinquish power. Although there is room for cautious optimism, the realities of Africa’s political and economic plight and foreign powers’ interests on the continent might undermine democratic efforts on the continent. If Africa’s past is any guide, the road to democracy will be long and painful. After several decades of mismanagement, corruption, and a lack of effective leadership, Africa finally embarked on a democratic path in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Thanks to civil society’s resilience but, more importantly, to the military’s cooperation, one-party regimes relaxed their grip on political and economic power. While they relaxed their grip, they have not relinquished it, and their tenacity has diminished early hopes in such countries as Togo, Guinea Republic, the Congo, and Mauritania. The thrust of the paper is that Africans took to the street to demand a peaceful and more accountable political setting that can trigger a fundamental change in their living conditions. But they are learning that unless persistent autocratic rule and declining social conditions are seriously dealt with, the ongoing democratization process on the continent will once again fail Africans. In probing democracy’s journey in Africa, the paper will mainly relate Demos’s painful pilgrimage to Kratia, by uncovering respective roles played by both civil society and the military and by exposing the Achilles’ heel of the democratization process in Africa: stable civil-military relations and widespread economic hardship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the production of environmental imagery and rhetorics, and their links to racist geographies of African culture and environment in policy discussions, fiction, non-fiction, and film. It examines the ways in which Ebola virus is configured as a terror, the historic layering of imagery about Africa, women, and viruses, as well as the trajectories of dissemination -- globally and nationally. The paper suggests how an environmental and public health problem is constructed and managed through military interventions and institutions, embodying a larger turn, in conservation particularly, and social policy more generally, toward the resolution of public sector problems through militarized solutions and the amplification of environmental fears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study and understanding of state collapse in Sub-Sahara Africa has a state centric bias. The explanation is almost always inside - out, typically focusing on the hollowing out of the patrimonial state. In fact, while the hollowing out process is the necessary antecedent, the pressure that actually collapses the state comes from the outside. It comes from the periphery or no-man lands far outside the bureaucratic or military reach of the Africa state. This paper addresses the dialectics of states, regions and instability. And understanding regional dynamics demands looking at the longue durée. A long historical process coupled with post-Cold War international politics has led to the outside-in pressure on the Sub-Saharan state. The pressure collapsing the weakened state comes from the border areas where Sub-Saharan African states have never effectively broadcasted their authority. The paper will examine the political and economic logics that define the penumbras of these weak states, which spill across their formal boundaries. Finally, the paper will look at how the dominance of state-centric analysis of state collapse in Africa has led to the wrong policy prescriptions, particularly from the perspective of US foreign policy. Moving beyond the dominant ontology of security studies, a world made up of states, is the only way to understand state collapse and what policies might address the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the nature of contemporary African conflict with respect to the use of traditional religious beliefs and practices for strategic purposes. The failure of the states in sub-Saharan Africa to Westernise, and throw aside traditional political, religious and cultural characteristics from pre-colonial days, has been a source of confusion and ongoing debate. Whereas most analysts in the 1960s and 70s predicted such ‘modernisation’ through independence and secular nationalist movements, current analysis is pondering the extent and exact nature of the ‘re-traditionlisation’ of African society. Elements of this confusion has surfaced in discussions on the changing way of warfare in the post-Cold War world, where African civil wars are often used to illustrate wider arguments about the ‘new’ types of war and where displays of ritual violence and ceremony is equated with chaos and anarchy. This paper argues that traditional religion has played, and continues to play, a central role in most recent and contemporary African wars, and that in view of this any consideration of war on the continent must take it into consideration. It is further argued that this use of traditional religion is not a display of irrational activity that would fall into a ‘new barbarism’ analysis, but rather that they serve instrumentally rational purposes clearly identifiable also with reference to Western approaches to strategy: traditional religious beliefs and practices serve to provide legitimacy to insurgent groups amongst the wider population where the ‘cause’ is expressed with reference to religious beliefs and traditions; as such it helps to mobilise support; it can help maintain discipline within the armed group by reinforcing hierarchy; and it can serve as a tool for intimidation. The extent of all of these, however, can only be fully understood with reference to the beliefs attached to the practices, and consequently a culturally sensitive analysis is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the UCDP Managing Intrastate Conflict (MIC) dataset, which, to our knowledge, is unique in its dyadic structure and its detailed coverage of third party prenegotiation activities in civil wars, among other things. On the basis of the data collected so far, which covers African intrastate conflicts from 1993 to 2004, this paper describes patterns of third party interventions and then uses the new dataset to explore hypotheses on the effect of sustained third party engagement on conflict termination. It is shown that if third parties sustain their engagement for four or more years they have a higher chance of achieving direct talks between the warring parties. Direct talks are, in turn, strongly associated with ending the conflict through a peace agreement followed by more than three years of inactivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of an on-going research study on Security Sector Reform (SSR) and Gender in Africa, and is intended to examine current approaches to implementing gender initiatives within security reform programmes. The objective of the study is to ascertain the adequacy of the implementation of these initiatives for achieving gender equality within the security sector. It uses case studies from Sierra Leone and Liberia to illustrate the current trends in respect of gender in SSR and draws largely from the experiences of both the authors and civil society organisations working in this area. While the paper contributes to documenting these initiatives, it argues that actions aimed at achieving gender equality within the security sector must of essence transcend mere gender mainstreaming which is the acclaimed strategy for achieving gender equality. In addition such actions must acknowledge and address socio-cultural issues in relation to gender inequality in ways that result in a fundamental shift in prevailing systems. The paper, however, recognises that SSR is not necessarily designed to respond to such sociocultural practices to which gender relations is central and thus concludes by questioning the efficacy of SSR in achieving genuine equality between men and women, especially in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the use of ethnographic methods as a way of linking teaching and research through student placements with sport-for-development Non-Governmental Organisations in Africa. The key focus is on using ethnographic methods to collect data through field notes and diaries and use the data for student dissertations as well as for HIV intervention sport programme improvement. As an indigenous person from Africa, my role as an ethnographer is to prepare students for their placement in a foreign land and act as a cultural intermediary. Students that are engaged in these placements can contribute towards knowledge generation in the field of sport and development and at the same time the acquired problem-solving skills and the ability to undertake own empirical research become valuable for their future work in the UK. Being a student-focused exercise, the paper explains the key areas in the preparation of UK students for their voluntary work using sport as a tool for HIV/AIDS preventative education. It highlights the use of Dunking AIDS Out (DAO) (Banda and Mwaanga 2008) a basketball HIV intervention program in HIV prevention as an instrument to enable ethnographic means of collecting data. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents a new trend in the provision of school lunch programs. NGOs and regional organizations are increasingly taking responsibility for providing school meals. This paper addresses why this has happened and what the effects are of this trend by analyzing Catholic Relief Services and Africa's new Home Grown School Feeding Programme. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines how widely accessible freeware software such as wiki media and Active Worlds can be used by a variety of analyst and practitioners to gather, analyze, and share information about complex African problems and emergencies. The paper desc ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that the aid relationship needs to be comprehended both as a particular, and for African states, particularly important, international relationship, and as a social developmental process. Yet, discussion of aid is mainly dominated by debates about economic and political efficacy of aid policy. The paper argues that analysis of aid needs to unite a consideration of social-developmental purposes and content with analysis of specifically international-geopolitical dimensions. The paper explores the idea of uneven and combined development (Rosenberg) for understanding both the legacies of state formation in Africa and the developmental prospects of aid as a particular contemporary instance of combined development. It suggests that the prospects for contemporary western aid policies are premised upon the achievement of relatively homogeneous liberal forms of governance in Africa, yet face significant obstacles in this regard. Indeed, the lessons of combined development point to the production of heterogeneity rather than homogeneity. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on lengthy experience in Africa and other Third World locations, the paper warns against a view of suffering based on our own Western telos of concern and virtue. The paper does not offer an alternative vehicle for concern but imparts a sense of amb ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractSince 2000, China has a major economic player in Africa. China's role in Africa has manifested not only in trade but in investments in different sectors of the African economy, and in the provision of aid. There has been a significant increase in the flow and stock of China's FDI in Africa since 2000. The increase is largely driven by expansion in China-Africa trade, the search for new energy sources and the need to elevate China's international stature in the world. This paper examines the major policy changes in China which acted as fillip to Chinese firms; the characteristics and patterns of China's FDI; and the salience of Africa. The paper also assesses whether China's FDI is a catalyst to generate industrial development or a Trojan horse that will create a dependent linkage between the African economy and China ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When and why do some wars result in mass violence against civilians? In recent years, that question has garnered increased attention from political scientists. However, two salient problems limit the cumulative findings in the emerging field of study. First, conceptual variance: currently scholars employ significantly different conceptualizations of “genocide” and mass violence, which in turn drives different findings and theoretical inferences. Second, the limited use of “negative” cases: to date, most scholarship is clustered around a few “positive” genocide/mass violence outcomes, with little attention to cases that do not result in genocide or mass violence. The problems are related. Lacking clear definitional parameters, scholars in the emerging field have difficulty precisely establishing non-genocide cases. The paper seeks a solution to both problems by treating genocide and mass violence as a continuous variable, rather than as a dichotomous one. The first part of the paper establishes a conceptual framework for treating genocide and mass violence as a continuous variable. The paper proposes a “continuum of intentional, targeted violence” with six different possible outcomes: persecution; limited physical violence; episodic massacres; ethnic cleansing (forced group removal); mass killing; and genocide. The second part of the paper illustrates the metric using a regional universe of cases, namely Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper argues that a regional approach to the comparative study of intentional, targeted violence is superior to a global one, given the level of conceptualization and theoretical development in the field and given available data. Sub-Saharan Africa is a logical arena for the proposed study because the region has significant quantity and variation of violence. The third part of the paper examines preliminary findings from the analysis. In particular, the paper focuses on two questions. First, how do different conceptualizations of a dependent variable shape theoretical inferences? Second, what patterns emerge from the initial analysis? More specifically, what is the relationship between the low-end violence outcomes and the high-end violence outcomes, and what is the significance of those findings? The paper concludes by arguing that these issues matter not just for the study of genocide, but also for related field of inquiry, namely the study of violence in civil war and the empirical study of human rights violations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a first attempt to confront the concept of sovereignty as responsibility to protect to its implementation (or lack thereof) on the African continent. This paper explores the paradoxical evolution of the concept of sovereignty as responsibility to protect: from its theoretical roots in the Western world to its confrontation with reality on the African continent. Indeed, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union are the only organizations that institutionalized the concept, thus allowing them to intervene in cases of “genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. A rapid history of the evolution of the notion of sovereignty will first be outlined. Then, this development at the global level will be put in perspective thanks to the specific approach to sovereignty than can be found in Africa, this unique approach and historical experience leading to its redefinition in the charters and protocols of African regional organizations in 1999 for ECOWAS, in 2000 for the African Union and in 2001 for SADC. Finally, we will see how this new norm is being operationalized and implemented by the regional organizations of the African continent and what it implies for the future of the concept and of sovereignty in general. Does the often patchy and limited implementation of sovereignty as responsibility to protect by weak organizations reinforce, change or denature the very nature of the concept? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ramifications of civil war for state building in Africa, using the crucial case of Uganda. In particular, it focuses on rebel victory in civil war—the assumption of formal government by a rebel army and a discernable end to major fighting—as an opportunity for a dramatic improvement in state strength. When rebels win, how do they change a state, and with what consequences for state building in the long run? To investigate this question, it discusses both internal and international features of statehood. Responding to calls for more theorizing at the level of the non-state actor in African politics, it attempts to provide a framework for thinking about the relationship between how rebels exercise authority and how states do so. Comparing across victorious rebel armies, it finds that the wartime authority of a rebel army, similar in many respects to state capacity, strongly affects the operation of the state after victory. This suggests that a rebellion with strong authority can be a significant boost to state building if it wins its civil war. However, the paper also finds that when a rebel army assumes formal control, it also assumes new constraints and opportunities, deriving from the capture of territory and from the acquisition of membership in the international system, which can reformulate its authority. The Ugandan case suggests that fixed borders and a consequent international environment of state weakness set limits to the ability of victorious rebellions to put strong state structures in place. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins an investigation of the creation of the US Military’s new Africa Command. A new “proconsul” (Priest 2003) or “viceroy” (Reveron 2004) with responsibility for Africa has the potential to reshape the way the US approaches Africa policy, especially given the DoD’s recent dominance of bureaucratic politics (Allison, 1971). Two potential impacts of the new command are discussed. First, how will the creation of a new, high-profile bureaucratic impact the creation of organizational knowledge on Africa, and how will this new knowledge impact the construction of the US Government’s policy agenda toward Africa. How much does a (4-star) bureaucratic champion matter? Second, the paper will examine how the proposed inter-agency construction of the new command affects the development and implementation of policy. By proposing a one-third non-DoD staff and a State Department deputy commander, the new command has the potential to broaden its role beyond the traditional war-fighting and regional military engagement activities of the other combatant commands. The paper will look at what issues the command focuses on and the language it uses in constructing and implementing its agenda. Does (or how much does) the inclusion of non-military agencies matter in the command’s language of operations? I will pay particular attention to the process of securitization (Waever, 1995), looking to see if the civilians bring new issues into the security arena in search of funding and support, or if the military, with civilian influence, expands its conception of security. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) has made it increasingly important to determine their effects on trade flows. At the center of the debate over the impact of these agreements are the questions of whether they are trade diverting or trade creating (Rahman et al 2006) and whether they are on balance trade-liberalizing or protectionist (Krueger 1999). Goldstein et al (2007) find the impact of nonreciprocal PTAs to be negative, contradictory to the underlying goals for such agreements. This paper seeks to further test this and other studies that have found a negative relationship between nonreciprocal trade agreements, preferences, and trade using a recently implemented non-reciprocal trade agreement between the U.S. and Sub-Saharan Africa, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) of 2000. The AGOA seeks to promote trade, investment, and economic cooperation between the U.S. and AGOA countries by offering 36 eligible African countries duty-free access for most goods, providing coverage for additional commodities above and beyond those covered under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). U.S. non-oil imports under the AGOA have become the largest category of trade for eligible countries. A traditional gravity model is employed to test whether the AGOA is trade creating for eligible countries targeting the U.S. market. The findings of this study suggest that AGOA membership or eligibility for AGOA textile benefits have no significant impact on trade. The uncertainty of the life span of preferences, eroding preferential margins, and the inability for African producers to respond adequately to preferences are theoretical explanations for these results. The importance of this paper is to advance our understanding of the effect of PTAs, specifically those between a major economic power and less developed countries at a time when preferences are eroding yet remain at the center of debate in the current Doha Round. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is a response to an argument made by Africanists Kevin Dunn and Timothy Shaw in their book, Africa’s Challenge to International Relations Theory. Dunn and Shaw argue that: 1) IR theory is inappropriate for the African political context due to the ambiguity of the African “sovereign state”; and 2) IR theory systematically marginalizes Africa due to its ‘western bias’ and assumptions. William Brown, Lecturer of Politics at the Open University, challenged Dunn and Shaw in a recent article in the Review of International Studies (2006) on theoretical grounds. In the article Brown argued that “problematic issues in IR theory do not simply appear when one moves one’s focus to Africa, they are there to begin with.” In support of Brown’s thesis, I take the argument one step further by suggesting that the ideas of African political theorists can be integrated into the corpus of IR theory. I argue that the reasons why ‘African’ political ideas have generally not been integrated into IR theory is demonstrative of: 1) A broader challenge to African theorists, more due to the logistics of participating in social science debates than to any ‘western’ desire to marginalize African ideas and 2) A lack of professional motive or desire among IR theorists to alter the (admittedly Eurocentric) intellectual framework established by E.H. Carr and Morgenthau. These circumstances are changing and in my paper I suggest possible avenues for integration of African historical experience and ideas into the ongoing debates within IR theory. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Western Sahara is the last colony in Africa. Both Spain and the United Nations failed to implement the referendum on Sahrawi self-determination. Because the conflict arose at the height of the Cold War and because Morocco was the West’s strategic ally in the region, the monarchy obtained far-reaching support for its irredentist claims over the former Spanish colony, international legality and UN resolutions notwithstanding. After 32 years, the conflict belongs to the category of “frozen conflicts” and “forgotten conflicts,” thus keeping the Sahrawi people under horrendous conditions in refugee camps in Algeria and under harsh repression in the Moroccan-occupied territory. Although no country recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over the territory, stratagems have been devised to prevent the holding of a free and fair referendum. Despite Morocco’s refusal to agree to the Baker Plan II, the UNSC did little to nudge Morocco to accept it, let alone force it to implement it. This paper analyzes the reasons why Morocco has been able to maintain its illegal occupation of Western Sahara without any retribution from the UNSC. The main hypothesis in this paper is that the conflict has been subjected to geopolitical considerations and that the geopolitical shifts of the various actors involved directly or indirectly in this conflict have less to do with the right and plight of the Sahrawis. Thus, the paper will review the roles of the players involved and their shifting geopolitical interests. The paper will draw from theoretical works in geopolitics and make use of intensive interviews with policymakers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional advocacy networks (RANs) are a specific type of transnational advocacy network (TANs) comprised of collections of individuals and organizations from the same world region working toward a common goal. The paper's central question is: why do RANs succeed in achieving some of their goals but not others? Earlier research on regional advocacy networks (Adams and Kang forthcoming) only examines a case of RAN success. This paper analyzes cases of RAN success and failure and aims to specify the conditions under which RANs are likely to be influential. The paper documents and analyzes an African women's rights network's policy successes and failures over a ten-year (1994-2004) period. During this period, the network achieved notably policy successes: the inclusion of the promotion of gender equality as one of the key principles of the African Union (AU), the adoption of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, and the adoption of the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa. At the same time, the network also experienced some failures: the inability to obtain an AU commissioner with an exclusive mandate on gender issues and the failure to increase the gender quota for national delegations to the Pan-African Parliament from one to two members of countries' five-member delegations. By systematically studying both successes and failures, the paper identifies the factors (such as timing and issue type) that affect RAN influence. The study throws light on the scope of RAN influence by identifying under what conditions they matter and why their impact is the way it is. Given that RANs are more attuned to and constrained by local opportunities and constraints, the conditions that influence RAN success may be different than those that affect TANs more generally. The implications of the study go beyond the African context, as RANs are emerging as important actors in many world regions, including Latin America and Europe. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political analysis on the African states has often focused on the phenomenon of so called 'failed states'. In this paper, however, I will argue that most African states appear to be ‘failing’ because, despite the appearance of a 'modern' statehood, they simply do not follow the logic expected by western scholars and policy makers â€" my question is then: what is the meaning of many western political concepts such as 'democracy' or 'elections' used in Africa, where the political reality appears to follow other logics? In this paper, I propose to explore the rationales for ‘the instrumentalisation of political disorder’ by African political entrepreneurs who are often no less 'rational' in their strategies than their western counterparts. I propose to apply some of the approaches of conceptual history and discourse analysis to this analysis of the political sphere and activity in the post-colonial world, with the special case of Uganda. My main focus will be to analyse how political language reflects and influences the modes of governmentality and how the dominant narratives and their counter-discourses structure the space of competitive 'politics'in Uganda. In my analysis of the Ugandan political space, I will look beyond the institutional structures (e.g. parliament) and analyse the various expressions of power struggle, be it through e.g. ethnicity, culture or religion. I will also reflect on the interplay between change and continuity in terms of concrete political and governance dilemmas and concepts which define them. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese relations with Africa have undergone a process of metamorphosis since the late 1950’s. From anti-imperialist posture and support for liberation struggles of the late 1950s and 1960s in Africa, contemporary Chinese foreign policy in Africa is a reflection of neo-liberal realpolitik or the Beijing consensus (BC) which is driven by power and an unprecedented need for resources in a fast competitive global market. As the Cold War petered out, western countries began to concentrate their investments in the transitions economies of Eastern Europe, China began to increase its investment in Africa with renewed policy based on the principles of respect for national sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs resonates with African leaders who are suspicious of motives of former colonial powers and the US. This new Chinese invigoration in Africa was crystallized with the formation in 2000 of the first China â€" Africa Cooperation Forum (CACF). China’s resurgence in Africa has seen tremendous increase in trade, aid, investment, and exchange of human capita and has become the envy of western countries.Critics of China’s resurgence in Africa have questioned China’s motives and characterized Chinese interest in Africa as a form of “new imperialism”, “scramble”, or new colonialism; and some, especially the Human Rights Watch and the World Bank have criticized China as ignoring human rights violations and encouraging corruption among African leaders. The objectives of this paper are twofold: firstly to examine and understand the trajectories of Sino Africa relations from Cold War to present; and secondly to understand the principles and ideological lenses that shaped and continues to shape these relations. In order to bridge the hiatus in our understanding of Sino-Africa relations, this paper examine the evolving history of Sino African relations, the ideological underpinnings for the relations, the patterns and nature of exchanges between Africa and China, and the changes and continuities.By Emmanuel E. Obuah ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s foreign policy makers are under increasing pressure to contribute to global governance. While those responsible for Chinese foreign policy strategic thinking struggle to come to terms with the increased activities of a diverse group of Chinese actors in the international arena, they are simultaneously aware that Beijing is expected to address the challenges and crises that afflict the international order. In Washington and Brussels, China faces rising criticism both for its support for regimes that the United States and European Union shun due to human rights abuses as well as for Beijing’s aid programs “with no political strings attached” in developing countries. The European Commission specifically targeted the need for transparency in China’s aid policies in Africa in the Commission’s unusually straightforwardly worded “Communication” on China in late 2006. In Sudan, in particular, questions regarding China’s credibility as a responsible global actor have become pertinent. As China’s economic, political and military involvement in world affairs expands, other countries’ scrutiny of Beijing’s motives and actions in Africa will deepen. This paper will provide a concise overview of China’s evolving foreign policy toward Africa in recent years, focusing on the Sino-Sudan relationship, with the aim of shedding light on the drivers and constraints of Beijing’s motives and actions. The paper will then assess the implications of Beijing’s policy choices in Africa for its overall international relations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although regionalism has proliferated in sub-Saharan Africa since the advent of decolonization, success in terms of economic development are not promising. Examining intra- regional trade shows that there has been an increase as a result of regional trade integration; however the rate of increase differs among 4 key blocs in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines and test factors that affect the level of intra-regional trade among four regional trading blocs in sub-Saharan Africa: the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The main thesis of this paper is to reviewing and confirming the argument that multiple memberships in various regional trade agreements adversely affect intra-regional trade of a specific agreement. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the literature on democratic transitions has been thoroughly developed in the past few decades, the issue of democratic consolidation--the last stage in the classic three-step process of regime change--is perhaps the most fervently contested concept. Which factors or attributes allow a regime to be classified as a robust, complete democracy? The list has multiplied into a confused spread of procedural and normative indicators, which some academics have criticized as an allusive perspective on consolidation. This scholarship, in attempting to develop a global model of consolidation, risks applying standards to newly democratizing states that even highly developed Western democracies cannot meet. The existing indicators of democratic consolidation become even more problematic when applied to the continent of Africa, which has experienced numerous transitions from authoritarian rule in the last twenty years. This paper examines two sub-Saharan African cases--South Africa and Nigeria--in comparative perspective, arguing that many of the conventional indicators of democratic consolidation (free and transparent elections, a strong commitment to the "legitimacy" of democratic rule, tolerance of public opposition, and a lack of backsliding into authoritarianism) fail to constitute an accurate model of political change for these states. Ultimately, as this paper asserts, a new research agenda should be crafted in place of the consolidation paradigm, one that is more concerned with evaluating political change along a variety of social and political dimensions than with forcing states across an imaginary threshold into a "liberal democratic" status. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African Microfinance -- Person to Person via the Worldwide Webby Brian Hesse,Northwest Missouri State UniversityIt is one of the great ironies of development and conservation that those who need credit most, in modest amounts, often cannot obtain it. In Africa, for reasons outlined in this paper, this is especially true. Making microfinance available is essential to starting, sustaining and expanding entrepreneurial and conservation activity on the continent. This paper evaluates the promises and pitfalls of person-to-person microfinance schemes such as those run by Kiva.org and WildlifeDirect.com. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines global legal efforts to stem the flow of conflict, or blood, diamonds from Africa. The Kimberly Process is detailed and evaluated, followed by a general critique of legal efforts to regulate trade in conflict diamonds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Post-Colonial African state, which was largely created in the image of the colonial state, had very weak links with the interests, institutions and values of citizens. This paper examines how globalization is impacting the state-society fragmentation in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, theory has conditioned practice in the field of development. Past development theories have assumed that the goal of development was modernization which requires urbanization, thus favoring intervention at the urban level. Others have promoted intervention at the rural level, with agricultural extension workers and efforts to improve crop yields, irrigation techniques and livestock care. When studies have focused on the relationship between urban and rural life in sub-Saharan Africa, the emphasis is often limited to migration patterns. This paper contends that there is much more to the rural-urban dynamic than migration (particularly for women, who have less freedom of movement in Niger). The relationship between the two ideal types of urban and rural sites in West Africa is complex, ranging from deep contrasts to intricate interdependencies and reciprocity. This study is based on original research conducted in Niger, the general goal of which was to understand Nigerien women’s development priorities in a deeply contextualized manner. Perceptions and evaluations of what is rural and what is urban form the foundation of that context. The dominant view of seeing rural and urban as sharp dichotomies rules out a more nuanced and complex understanding. As James Scott has argued in Seeing Like a State, powerful entities often simplify the territory that they seek to control. The power of ideas and language allows a hegemon (or hegemonic idea) to define reality and thus act upon it. Our job as scholars is to call into question that simplification process, and illuminate the complexities so as to deepen the theory and consequently improve the practice of, in this case, development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines both the practice and theory of IR, in the African context, in terms of the relationship vis-a-vis the great powers/(neo)colonialists and the capacity for intra-African counter-hegemonic policies. In the process, the author seeks to shed light on the hegemonic identity and policies of Nigeria itself in Africa and the balance between this identity and the identity of Nigeria as a state resisting great power hegemony and international institutional dictates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fundamental challenges posed by the ideological rivalry during the cold war years remains a phenomenon that international relations has had to grapple with ten years after. This is particularly the case when analyzed from the perspective of the spate of violent conflicts and the number of irredentist movements across Africa that has characteristically altered the tussle for power. This has impacted on the nature, function, the use and abuse of power in this part of the world. Since September 11 there has been a reification of power as an important variable in coercing stability and peace in the world. However, what is lacking is an analysis of this understanding and its effect at the domestic level (state). This paper seeks to explore the varied implications of this phenomenon on international politics and how it impacts on the exercise of power in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, drawing on a cross-section of knowledge in political economy, comparative politics and social constructivism will explore the meaning of multiculturalism in foreign policy making in the U.S. in particular. It will examine the degree to which domestic and global pluralism intersect in the choices of issue and geographic areas of concern to foreign policy elites. It will trace the evolution of U.S. relations with sub-saharan Africa from the perspective of ‘dual diversity’. A case study, of African-American responses to the humanitarian crises in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo will illustrate the relative strengths and weaknesses of the African-American foreign policy constituency in the U.S. today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the potential of terrorism in African Islamic movements and militancy. It describes the factors that contributed to the resurgence of these movements and militancy. In order to lessen ambiguities related to the plethora of definitions given to the Islamist phenomenon, I examine its various characterizations as introductory information indispensable to our understanding of the topic. Beginning with the encounter of sub-Saharian Africa with Islam, it covers a number of movements in different countries in the African continent: Nigeria, Tanzania, Senegal, Kenya, South Africa, Somalia, Ethiopia, Niger, Mali, Chad and Sudan. In all of these countries, the emergence of Islamic movements, their socio-political status are reviewed and their present position in relation to the ongoing debate on their perceived radicalization or their supposed threat of violence or terrorism is ivestigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent terrorist events around the globe may render the basic principle of non-refoulement and international refugee and human rights laws meaningless. The dynamics and complexities of refugee protection in this era of threat and counter threat may have far more reaching and devastating consequences to the social and economic security of refugee children in asylum states. In the wake of the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 serious concerns have been raised that the asylum process may be on the verge of being reconciled with counter-terrorism measures. The paper concludes that no matter how justified the fight on terror might be the best interest of the child should be the fundamental objective of state and non-state forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of hegemonic governance on economic development, measured in terms of gross national income (GNI) per capita and exports as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). Specifically, we test two sets of competing hypotheses drawn from neo-liberal institutionalist ?Washington Consensus? and world systems scholarship to address the question: does hegemonic power increase ? or decrease ? economic development? We utilize King?s Amelia software to address the grievous missing data issues in the World Bank?s World Development Indicators 2002 data collection. We also use comprehensive, multidimensional indicators (from Sacko 2003) to conduct a cross-national, cross-time, empirical investigation of the effects of hegemonic power of the United States (1960-1992) on economic development in five (5) regions: Latin America, Europe and Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. We find that for the Latin American region, hegemonic power has a statistically significant negative effect on GNI per capita across all of our model specifications. Hegemonic power, however, has no statistically significant effect on GNI per capita in the Middle East and North Africa region, the South Asia region, or the sub-Saharan Africa region. For the Latin American region, hegemonic power also has a statistically significant negative effect on exports as a percentage of GDP. In contrast, hegemonic power has a statistically significant positive effect on exports as a percentage of GDP in the Middle East and North Africa region and the sub-Saharan Africa region. Thus, while, in Latin America, we find some support for Wallerstein?s world systems theory and the work of scholars focused on the deleterious effects of hegemony (neo-imperialism), we also find support for the neo-liberal institutionalist / Washington Consensus hypothesis that hegemony can serve to augment economic development ? at least in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ralph Bunche and the Question of International Trusteeship, 1936-1946 This paper will examine the formative stage of Ralph Bunche’s ideas about Africa and the issue of international supervision of colonial dependencies from the time of the publication of his book A World View of Race in 1936 to the time of his appointment at the United Nations in 1946. In his early professional career, Bunche played a part in an international debate that had consequences for American civil rights as well as principles of European colonial administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

West Africa has been the recent focus of innovative approaches to international human rights intervention in the region’s on-going civil wars. Most of these approaches were borne of crisis management and ad hoc solutions. They include targeted sanctions against commerce in conflict resources, outside sponsorship of mercenaries and other armed groups to defeat on the battlefield rebels deemed unreliable in negotiations, and the institutionalization of peacekeeping in the context of a regional multilateral organization originally organized for economic cooperation. This paper explains how these strategies coordinate diverse interests, including some that work counter to human rights norms in other circumstances, to mitigate human rights violations in this region. The primary critique of these approaches focuses on the tendencies of interest groups to use these alliances to pursue narrow objectives at the expense of long-term political stability. More powerful partners in international human rights interventions usually end up tolerating these interests out of concern to maintain short-term order and to deal with regional problems at low financial and diplomatic cost. These expediencies lead to coalitions and strategies that bear some resemblances to informal imperial influence in Africa in the mid 19th century, during which broad societal concerns for human rights confronted growing anxieties among officials in Europe about regional stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the historical evolution to its current standing of regional international law in Africa. A legal analysis of the current state of African regional law is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about regional cooperation in Africa as a means of achieving development and growth and ending its marginalisation in the world economy. Within the last four decades almost two hundred African regional arrangments have been more or less unsuccessful according to their intended aims. Nowadays, the promises of regional cooperation vary from the best possibility to get fast access to the global market; the chance to preserve partial autonomy; to being the fundament of an alternative hegemonic project. Most approaches try to explain the present economic, political and social African reality with the help of suitable empirical facts that are proving the rightness of their analysis and are giving the sound basis for the knowledge about the right things to do. But this ignores both that there isn’t a world out there which we only have to discover in order to know what is right or wrong as well as the complexity of social arrangements. As a result, at the beginning and at the end of such talks are complaints: surprisingly people don’t do what they are ought to do. In our paper we will focus on some categories of rules and rule which can be found within the international (institutional) environment and the structures of national societies. Alltogether they constitute present forms of regional cooperation in Africa, e.g. the SADC, and choices for their future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa is the most conflict-ravaged continent in the world and most conflicts in the continent are internal wars. However, cross-border military interventions by neighboring states have added regional demensions to these conflicts. While the number of non-African interventions in African conflicts has decreased, the frequency of African interventions has increased in recent years. Because each party to the conflict seeks external allies against its enemy, internal wars tend to invite external interventions. However, internal wars are not sufficient condition for foreign military intervention. Evidently, some internal wars in Africa have never experienced interventions by neighboring countries. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine the determinants of African military interventions. Specifically, it examines the relative significance of international, regional, and domestic variables drawn from the extant intervention literature. This study is significant for the following reasons. First, it focuses on interventions undertaken by African states, which have received scant attention in the intervention literature. Second, this is the most extensive empirical study of African intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses event history analysis to examine the evolution of NGO selfregulation in Africa from 1980 through 2010. We conceptualize self-regulation as a form of private governance and examine a variety of hypotheses that might account for the emergence of self-regulation among NGOs. These include general globalization processes, a world society process reflecting the diffusion of international norms surrounding NGO activities, and more rationalist collective action explanations in which NGOs engage in collective action and develop standards for self-monitoring to preclude state intervention. NGO sectors in 17 African countries have voluntary, self-devised and self-enforced standards to date. Preliminary findings suggest support for the rationalist hypotheses: self-regulation has occurred both in response to perceived threats of increased government regulation and in countries where there are pre-existing NGO associations that can sponsor collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the impact of private military companies (PMCs) on the duration of civil wars in Africa from 1990-1999. We develop an 'opportunity structure' theory to argue that while all PMCs are profit-oriented entities, the prevalent opportunities will ultimately determine their behavior in conflicts. Empirical findings show that as level of competition among PMCs increases, they are much more likely to deliver optimal services and thus help bring an end to violence. In the absence of competition, the opportunity structure creates incentives for PMCs to exacerbate violence in order to maximize profits. Contrary to many studies, we show that swift cessation of hostilities could actually benefit those profit-seeking PMCs that are compensated with contracts to extract natural resources because resource extraction generates more wealth in peace than in war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the colonial legacy of peace(building) and what can it tell us about the practice and discourse of peacebuilding? This paper examines peacebuilding's colonial legacy, the politics of its theorization or non-theorization, and its effects on the prospect for building peace in so-called post-conflict African settings. It inquires into the relevance of colonial legacies and anti-colonial strategies to the contemporary discourse and practice of peacebuilding. The main objective is to problematize this legacy because in the contemporary peacebuilding scholarship the colonial legacy is often rejected a priori as totally irrelevant or it is simply assumed, thus leading to questionable comparisons between colonial violence and current peace operations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the ninth in a series in which the political careers of civilizations/world systems receive snapshot codings of their overall power structures at feasible intervals. The narratives are produced by collating histories with large frames of ref ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs the concepts of international society and norm localization to explore the status of the emerging "responsibility to protect" principle among African governments. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines U.S. development policy by exploring recent developments in the fight against HIV-AIDS. In 2003, George W. Bush announced his intention to support for a five-year, $15 billion program to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. The Pre ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Africa is typically seen as marginal to post-Cold War world order. This paper argues, however, that Africa has been central to the construction of that order because it was in Africa in the early 1990s that a discourse and practice of humani ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on extensive field work in Africa, the paper examines African responses to US Africa Command (AFRICOM) and focuses on the three key regions of West, East and Southern Africa. African perceptions of AFRICOM have been largely negative for several reas ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]