Search

This article1 explores the messy practice of decolonising a concept through collaborative work between scholars researching together the meaning of everyday humanitarianism in Tanzania. Humanitarianism is typically understood as the state-centric, formal, Northern-driven helping of distant others in crisis. Using the concept of everyday humanitarianism, our article challenges these assumptions in three ways. First, it explores the everyday humanitarian actions of ordinary citizens in times of crisis. Second, it explores these responses in a Southern context. Third, it focuses explicitly on the givers and not only the receivers of humanitarian help. Our work grounds decolonisation in the actual practices of research aimed at theory building as an iterative back-and-forth exchange with particular attention to power, rather than as a transplant of Northern theory on the South, or its opposite. Our first argument is that the objective of collaborative research to capture the local politics of giving and then use these practices to interrogate the theoretical concept of everyday humanitarianism can be decolonising. Second, we argue that the practices of the academic labour that produces knowledge or inductive theory can also be decolonising. Understanding both the challenges and the possibilities of decolonising ‘humanitarianism’ will provide an opportunity to document and thus legitimate the complexity that is inherent in decolonising a discipline.

International audience; Who registers to vote? Although extensive research has examined the question of who votes, our understanding of the determinants of political participation will be limited until we know who is missing from the voter register. Studying voter registration in lower-income settings is particularly challenging due to data constraints. We link the official voter register with a complete social network census of 16 villages to analyze the correlates of voter registration in rural Uganda, examining the role of individual-level attributes and social ties. We find evidence that social ties are important for explaining registration status within and across households. Village leaders-and through them, household heads-play an important role in explaining the registration status of others in the village, suggesting a diffuse process of social influence. Socioeconomic factors such as income and education do not explain registration in this setting. Together these findings suggest an alternate theory of participation is required.

The resurgence of military coups in African Politics recently is intriguing. It is a recurrent of militarism in the continent of Africa which went on extinction about two decades ago. This development is problematic because military coups d’etat have the potency of contagion effect. They can spread wide and fast too in the circumstance of the level of facilitation by different situations. Last year, Chad, Mali, Guinea and Sudan experienced military Coups d’etat. This year also the Military struck in Bissau and Burkina Faso between January and early February respectively. The rather quick successive upsurge and dimension coups have assumed backsliding Africa to the brink of praetorian society calls for concern. This paper attempts to examine the resurgence of military coup d’etat in African politics and the reversal of democracy in the Region. The method of Data collection and analysis were built on qualitative descriptive approach while the conflict theory was adopted in explaining the problem investigated. The study found out that, the resurgence of military coups in African politics is a threat to democracy and needs to be tackled for democracy to survive.

Empirical studies show that many governments gear the provision of goods and services towards their ethnic peers. This article investigates governments’ strategies to provide ethnic favors in Africa. Recent studies of ethnic favoritism find that presidents' ethnic peers and home regions enjoy advantages, yet cannot disentangle whether goods are provided to entire regions or co-ethnic individuals. This article argues that local ethnic demography determines whether governments provide non-excludable public goods or more narrowly targeted handouts. Where government co-ethnics are in the majority, public goods benefit all locals regardless of their ethnic identity. Outside of these strongholds, incumbents pursue discriminatory strategies and only their co-ethnics gain from favoritism. Using fine-grained geographic data on ethnic demographics, the study finds support for the argument's implications in the local incidence of infant mortality. These findings have important implications for theories of distributive politics and conflict in multi-ethnic societies.

Forest governance reforms in DRC have been dominated by the interests of powerful actors, such as the World Bank and political elites. The most powerful international actors use incentives/disincentives and information to consolidate their influence. Powerful international actors have exacerbated the crisis of forest governance in DRC. Politicians, military and administrative officers in DRC resort to ‘cunning government’ strategies to obtain support from donors or assert their informal interests in times of political unrest. The context of political disorder allows civil society organizations to position themselves and become one of the key actor groups of forest governance processes in DRC. SUMMARY The promotion of good governance in the forestry sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was one of the major components of the policy reforms initiated by international organisations in the mid-1980s. This paper analyses concepts of ‘good governance’ in the forestry sector in the DRC between the mid-1980s and 2020 and highlights the recent history of forest policy reforms. From an empirical perspective, our analysis builds both on an extensive review of policy documents and field observations, as well as interviews with actors who have been involved with forest policy reforms or seen how they were implemented. The paper also describes the key actors involved in those reforms and investigates the coalitions formed between some of them to influence the forestland governance in the country. The paper demonstrates that international organisations have often played a decisive and intrusive role in the promotion of ‘good governance’ in the DRC forestry sector. Their strong involvement is sometimes seen as interference and has aggravated rather than alleviated the governance crisis. In some cases, politicians, military and administrative officers have used political and security unrest as a scapegoat to benefit from forest governance failure and the related business-as-usual in the DRC.

How does government bias affect prospects for peace agreements in communal conflicts? Government bias has been shown to have a strong impact on the incidence and dynamics of localized ethnic conflict, but the way that it affects conflict resolution remains underexplored. I argue that government bias makes the conflict parties less likely to overcome the commitment problem, because they cannot trust the government’s willingness to guarantee or uphold any agreement they reach. Consequently, bias reduces the chances that the parties are able to reach a peace agreement. A systematic comparison of four cases in Kenya provides support for this argument. I also distinguish between bias related to strategic interest and bias related to relationships, and find that the former is more durable, whereas the latter is more likely to be influenced by political turnover, thereby opening up possibilities for peacemaking.

The authoritarian regime in Angola seeks to control every dimension of life in the country interfering with a set of fundamental rights such as the freedom of assembly, of movement and of expression. However, by their very fluid nature, by the inherent massing and anonymity, the contexts of mobility not only offer a set of social interactions rarely allowed in the current political panorama, but also provide an escape to effective surveillance and monitoring from authorities. Furthermore, the multidirectional encounters that mobility enacts — with people, situations, events, spatial mnemonics — create the conditions for the acknowledgement of an individual and collective plight. The absence of a likely public space for the discussion of certain compelling issues transforms the contexts of mobility into ephemeral moving assemblies, into unconventional sites of resistance where a sociopolitical culture is hatching. Collective transport's ambiguous anthropological qualities configure a highly productive ethnographic setting for the surreptitious researcher and an inescapable context if one is to assess Angola’s current reality. By depicting the social life of Angola’s public transport I will unveil the several mechanisms and possibilities behind these moving assemblies examining how mobility and sociopolitical mobilization intertwine.

This book is available open access via the url above. This book provides a systematic analysis of the major structural and institutional governance mechanisms in Cameroon, critically analysing the constitutional and legislative texts on Cameroon’s semi-presidential system, the electoral system, the legislature, the judiciary, the Constitutional Council and the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms. The author offers an assessment of the practical application of the laws regulating constitutional institutions and how they impact on governance. To lay the groundwork for the analysis, the book examines the historical, constitutional and political context of governance in Cameroon, from independence and reunification in 1960–1961, through the adoption of the 1996 Constitution, to more recent events including the current Anglophone crisis. Offering novel insights on new institutions such as the Senate and the Constitutional Council and their contribution to the democratic advancement of Cameroon, the book also provides the first critical assessment of the legislative provisions carving out a special autonomy status for the two Anglophone regions of Cameroon and considers how far these provisions go to resolve the Anglophone Problem. This book will be of interest to scholars of public law, legal history and African politics.

This article examined the effect of Nigeria's political culture on its nascent democracy. Drawing on findings from a range of historical and empirical studies, the paper investigated how compatible Nigeria’s political culture is with democracy’s core values- liberty, justice and equality. Findings from a variety of references showed ways in which Nigeria’s political culture not only shapes state inefficiency and poor economic outcomes, but also provided evidence of how culture disrupts efforts at national unity and diversity. The study also showed how Nigeria’s political culture creates a winner-take-all approach to elections to the extent that widescale post-election violence is normalized. Culture also shapes hard attitudes towards the press and suppression of fundamental human rights. In sum, Nigeria’s political process is not likely to consolidate or deliver democratic dividends. The paper recommended that for democracy to act as catalyst for development across Africa, political awareness and social mobilization through new media are crucial.Key Words: African politics, Nigeria, democracy, political culture, development

The African middle class (AMC) is an elusive category with high political significance. In spite of its vagueness and its controversial nature, this so-called social category is consistently used by a number of individual actors and institutions alike, including IO, NGOs, business interests, and political leaders in Africa for political purposes. The words “African middle class” are suggestive enough to produce new images of African social structures and turn the “hopeless continent” into a “miracle,” a new “powerhouse.” They are strong enough to grant new legitimacy to failing political leaders and the well off and to let people and academics alike anticipate the rise of democratic, stable, uncorrupted institutions. However, people “of the middle of the diamond” in Africa do not exist as a social community or a class. They do not share a common political identity. They have no political role of their own. The diversity of social subgroups may occasionally mobilize together, but for a short period of time and on highly different grounds. The political role of the AMC is as elusive as their mere existence. New social groups of limited prosperity are on the rise. However, they are far from making a class and mobilizing for political purposes. The rise of middle classes in emerging countries became a research theme at the beginning of the 2000s. The discussion took root in sub-Saharan African countries in the 2010s without any in-depth debate about its relevance. It was as if the AMC or classes already existed before the examination of a still very confused and heterogeneous set of transformations of the social structure of African societies was conducted. As a result, the AMC concept appears in almost all analyses as elastic, elusive, cobbled together, and uncertain as to its boundaries, its characteristics, its components, or its homogeneity. This confusion does not prevent authors from anticipating the meaning and effects of the AMC for political stability and democratization. Before studying how the people grouped behind this label can affect and be affected by politics and policies, it is necessary to understand how politically loaded this middle-class label is.

Dominant narratives and theories developed at the turn of the 21st century to account for the links between state formation and civil wars in Africa converged around two main ideas. First was the contention that the increase in civil wars across the continent—like that in many parts of the globe, including South Asia and Central Europe—was linked to state failure or decay. Violent conflict thus came to be seen as the expression of the weakness, disintegration, and collapse of political institutions in the postcolonial world. Second, guerrilla movements, once viewed as the ideological armed wings of Cold War contenders, then came to be seen as roving bandits interested in plundering the spoils left by decaying states, and their motives as primarily, if not only, economic or personal, rather than political. However, recent research has challenged the reductionism that underlay such accounts by looking into the day-to-day politics of civil war, thus moving beyond the search for the motives that bring rebels and rebel movements to wage war against the established order. Drawing on this literature, this article argues that violent conflict is part and parcel of historical processes of state formation. Thus, in order to understand how stable political institutions can be built in the aftermath of civil war, it is essential to study the institutions that regulate political life during conflict. This implies a need not only to look at how (and if) state institutions survive once war has broken out, but also to take into account the institutions put in place in areas beyond the control of the state.

"This book presents a socio-historical analysis of the Somali Muslim diaspora in Johannesburg and its impact on urban development in the context of Somali migrations in the Southern African Indian Ocean region from the end of the 19th Century to today. The author draws on a combination of archival and ethnographic research to examine the interlocking processes of migration, urban place-making, economic entrepreneurship and transnational mobility through the lens of religious practice and against the background of historical interactions between the Somali diaspora and the British and Ottoman Empires. Comparison with other Muslim diasporas in the region, primarily Indians, adds further depth to an investigation which will shed new light on the Somali experience of mobility and the urban development of South Africa across its colonial, apartheid and democratic periods. The politics of race, imperial and post-imperial identities, and religious community governance are shown to be key influencing factors on the Somali Diaspora in Johannesburg. This sophisticated analysis will provide a valuable resource for students and scholars of urban geography, the sociology of religion, and African, race, ethnic and migration studies.", Cet ouvrage porte sur l’analyse socio-historique de la diaspora somalienne et musulmane à Johannesburg et dans le contexte de formation de la région australe de l’espace indianocéanique, et plus particulièrement depuis la guerre anglo-boer (1899-1902) jusqu’à la période post-apartheid. À partir d’un travail d’archives et une recherche ethnographique, l’auteure analyse l’entrecroisement des processus de migration, de localisation urbaine, d’entrepreneuriat et de mobilité transnationale à travers l’étude des pratiques religieuses et des interactions historiques entre la diaspora somalienne et les empires britannique et ottoman. La perspective comparée avec d’autres diasporas musulmanes, essentiellement les Indiens d’Afrique du Sud, permet de contraster les expériences de mobilités urbaines des Somaliens dans le pays au cours de différentes périodes marquées par le colonialisme, le régime d’apartheid et la démocratie. Les politiques de race, les identités impériales et post-impériales ainsi que la gouvernance religieuse sont étudiées comme des facteurs influençant les mobilisations de la diaspora somalienne à Johannesburg.

In countries ruled by a single party for a long period of time, how does political opposition to the ruling party grow? In this dissertation, I study the growth in support for the Democratic Alliance (DA) party, which is the largest opposition party in South Africa. South Africa is a case of democratic dominant party rule, a party system in which fair but uncompetitive elections are held. I argue that opposition party growth in dominant party systems is explained by the strategies that opposition parties adopt in local government and the factors that shape political competition in local politics. I argue that opposition parties can use time spent in local government to expand beyond their base by delivering services effectively and outperforming the ruling party. I also argue that performance in subnational political office helps opposition parties build a reputation for good governance, which is appealing to ruling party supporters who are looking for an alternative. Finally, I argue that opposition parties use candidate nominations for local elections as a means to appeal to constituents that are vital to the ruling party’s coalition. I find that where the DA is the incumbent party, improvements in household access to basic services such as piped water and proper sanitation are associated with increased support for the party. I also find that when DA-run wards perform better than their neighboring ANC counterparts, support for the DA in the neighboring ward increases in the next election. Next, I examine whether the DA’s reputation for good governance convinces ANC partisans to support the party. I find that the DA’s reputation as an anti-corruption party is a stronger predictor of vote choice than attitudes toward the DA mayor in the cities of Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay. Finally, I examine the changes over time in the DA’s nomination of local government candidates in Eastern Cape, Gauteng, and Western Cape provinces in all local government elections (2000 – 2016). I find that while the DA has been successful at increasing the representation of black candidates in its candidate pool, these candidates are not winning elections or seats at the same rate as the white candidates who reflect the party’s voter base.

Political communication inquiry principally investigates institutions such as governments and congress, and processes such as elections and political advertising. This study takes a largely unexplored route: An assessment of political messages embedded in music, with a focus on the artistic works of three male African music icons&mdash, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (Nigeria), Lucky Dube (South Africa), and Alpha Blondy (C&ocirc, te d&rsquo, Ivoire). Methodologically, a purposive sample of the lyrics of songs by the musicians was textually analyzed to identify the themes and nuances in their political messaging. Framing was the theoretical underpinning. This study determined that all three musicians were vocal against corruption, citizen marginalization, and a cessation of wars and bloodshed in the continent.

Tropical countries are often blamed for not managing their natural resources sustainably. But what if overexploitation is inherent in political structures and policies&mdash, rooted in foreign colonial order&mdash, and is consistently detrimental in the contemporary use of forestlands? This article argues that post-colonial land development policies and related political interests seriously impede the sustainability of forest ecosystems in C&ocirc, te d&rsquo, Ivoire. Methodologically, the study builds on a historic contextualisation of forestland use policies in Sub-Saharan Africa, with C&ocirc, Ivoire serving as a case study. The results indicate that the increasing development of so-called rent crops clearly follows the historical dynamics of &lsquo, land grabbing&rsquo, and a post-colonial agrarian model. This situation benefits agribusiness entrepreneurs and, more recently, sustainability standards. The study discusses the findings based on recent literature and empirical evidence. In conclusion, the post-colonial heritage and the manipulation of the related patterns by elites and policy-makers largely explains the present-day unsustainable forestland conversions in C&ocirc, Ivoire.

Face-to-face interviews constitute a social interaction between interviewer and respondent, and in the African context, social interactions are strongly shaped by ethnicity. Yet research using African survey data typically fails to account for the effect of shared ethnicity on survey responses. We find that respondents give systematically different answers to coethnic and noncoethnic interviewers across surveys in 14 African countries, but with significant variation in the degree of bias across question types and types of noncoethnic dyads, with the largest effects occurring where both the respondent and interviewer are members of ethnic groups with a history of political competition and conflict, and where the respondent or interviewer shares an ethnicity with the head of state. Our findings have practical implications for consumers of African survey data and underscore the context dependence of the social interaction that constitutes the survey experience.

In democratic Africa, where ethnicity is a key driver of vote choice, politicians must attract voters across ethnic lines. This article explores one way politicians can do this: by appealing to a coethnic bond through their spouse. We propose that cross-ethnic spouses can help candidates send credible signals of coalition building before an election. We test this argument with a survey experiment in Benin, where President Yayi has married across ethnic lines. Our results confirm that priming the first lady’s ethnicity increases support for President Yayi among her coethnics. We generalize these results by combining new data on leader-spouse ethnicity with Afrobarometer survey data. Our results suggest that cross-ethnic marriages are one tool leaders can use to shore up support in multiethnic elections.

The purpose of this article is to understand the significance of Gandhi for the discussion about the African Renaissance. The article begins with the argument that the critical process of self-reflection begun in India about its past as a resource for imagining its future is central to any possibility of a renaissance in Africa. It draws on Gandhi in terms of what an examination of his central ideas might tell us about a future post-colonial Africa. Two of these ideas relate to the role of women in society and the attendant impact this view has on dominant masculinist tropes found in colonial historiography. Using these, the article looks at Gandhi not for the political and strategic choices he makes, but for understanding the kind of ethical identity or, the humanness which Gandhi's life represents.

Why are ethnic cleavages politicized in some African countries but not others? This dissertation draws on evidence from three case studies (Ghana, Botswana and Tanzania) to show that the statebuilding strategies employed by nationalist leaders across Africa, during the periods of transition to independence in the 1950s and 1960s, often have long-term consequences for whether or not ethnic cleavages become politicized in their respective countries. Specifically, it argues that two factors ultimately determine whether or not ethnic cleavages become politicized in an African country: (i) whether or not the country in question had powerful institutions of local control (chieftaincy institutions) at the dawn of independence; and (ii) whether or not the nationalist leaders of said country choose to share power with their hereditary chiefs during the period of transition to independence. The dissertation uses process tracing methods to demonstrate that ethnic cleavages become politicized in countries with both powerful chiefs and nationalist leaders who opt to marginalize the hereditary chiefs. Conversely, ethnic cleavages become relatively depoliticized in countries with either weak chieftaincy institutions or nationalist leaders who choose to share power with their chiefs. The evidence from this dissertation suggests important methodological and substantive revisions to the existing literature on the subject of ethnicity and politics in Africa.

This thesis examines how the agency of informal vendors in Kampala, Uganda, is shaped by the state. It argues that efforts by the President and the NRM to monopolize political power have dramatically restricted the agency of informal street and market vendors, forcing them to adapt to changing political circumstances in ways that have limited their ability to participate in urban development and economic life. This argument is presented through two examples of how expanding political control has led to a contraction of vendors’ agency. The first of these describes how the early decentralization and democratization reforms introduced by the NRM allowed street vendors to take advantage of competition between newly elected and empowered politicians to remain on the city’s streets, and how the central government’s subsequent recentralization and de-democratization of political power in Kampala has led to the repression of street vending while closing the channels of influence that vendors previously enjoyed. The second explores how efforts by the central government to undermine the opposition-led local government allowed market vendors to successfully oppose an unpopular market privatization initiative, and how both the President and the new city government have since been able to take advantage of disputes within markets for their own purposes while vendors have been largely unable to realize their market management and development ambitions. Both examples detail the causes, forms and implications of the ruling party’s monopolization of political power and explore how vendors have responded to their changing political circumstances, highlighting how these efforts face significant obstacles due to the increasingly restrictive environment in which vendors are forced to act. This thesis shows that the agency of informal vendors—while always manifest in certain ways—is constantly and increasingly constrained as the President and the ruling party tighten their grip on power. As their political exclusion precipitates a broader exclusion from urban development and economic life, informal vendors are forced to contend with a situation of increasing marginalization and vulnerability that they are largely unable to improve., This work was supported by the Smuts Memorial Fund, managed by the University of Cambridge in memory of Jan Smuts; and by the UAC of Nigeria Travel Fund.

This thesis examines the fundamental role of natural resources in African state-building and development. I show how the economic organization of the colonial state around a limited number of cash crops and minerals continues to affect subnational variation in important political outcomes. More specifically, I examine how colonial resource extraction continues to shape spatial inequality, unequal ethnopolitical representation, ethnic identity salience, and armed conflict. I propose a macro-historical political geography framework that accounts for the dynamic interplay between geographic endowments, external demand and technology shocks, and political institution building. I apply this framework to the colonial age and derive specific implications on long-term legacies. I argue that the 19th century transition from slave trading to mineral and cash crop exports powerfully shaped the spatial organization of the colonial state. Fiscal, administrative, and regulatory institutions responded to the revenue potential and production modes of local resource endowments. Both mineral and agricultural source areas received greater colonial investment. Early investments in narrow resource enclaves caused severe levels of spatial inequality that persist until the present day. I use fine-grained geospatial data on colonial resource extraction, infrastructure investments and present-day development to credibly identify these effects. Mining areas were ruled more directly than their cash crop producing counterparts. Communal control over land and labor and significant profits in cash crop areas contributed to the rise of an early African elite. The revenue potential of cash crop production and the lack of direct state control make post-independence African governments more likely to include ethnic cash crop elites in their ministerial cabinets. I demonstrate that ethnic groups that saw colonial cash crop production in their homeland are significantly more likely to be included in post-colonial governments. Representation levels vary with changing market values of export crops. Throughout the colonial age, both mining and cash crop areas experienced in-migration and rising local levels of ethnic diversity. In cash crop areas, communal control over modernization benefits and rising diversity politicized ethnic identities. I show that inhabitants of colonial cash crop areas are more likely to identify in ethnic rather than national terms. Cross-cutting cleavages in urban mining towns, if anything, reduced ethnic identity salience. During economic downturns, politicized identities and inter-ethnic struggles increase the potential for local violence in cash crop areas. Combining historical depth with spatial granularity significantly improves our theoretical and empirical grasp of subnational development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This chapter critically assesses Africa–Europe collaborations on climate change research and innovation. Its authors argue that the complexity of research and innovation challenges on this topic calls for subtler collaborative and evaluation programmes. More importantly, they emphasise the need for greater harmonisation between scientific and political priorities on climate change, and point out that project goals should be more precisely defined, so as to ensure that results can be measured concretely and solutions can be progressively improved. In the absence of this clarity, they argue, climate change research and innovation programmes run the risk of being reduced to mere rhetorical statements.

The military plays a crucial role in furthering or hindering democratization in Africa. Beyond direct intervention through coups, armies more subtly and perniciously condition the political trajectory of states through their loyalty. Leaders who can rely on unwavering military support for protection against internal unrest face fewer risks and greater chances of success in rolling back liberalization and entrenching authoritarian practices. Constructing ethnic armies, which tie the fate of soldiers to the regime, is a profoundly powerful way to affect such loyalty. Through a mixed methods analysis of presidential bids to challenge term limits, including a paired comparison of Senegal and Cameroon, I demonstrate that ethnic armies triple the chances of success and, in so doing, encourage defiance in the first place: 82% of presidents back by ethnic armies attempt to defy their constitutions and extend their hold on power, as opposed to 31% of other leaders. Conversely, ethnically diverse armies are far more likely to defend constitutional politics and constrain leaders to abide by term limits. The ethnic composition of the military thus critically shapes the prospects for African liberalization. Postprint

Despite significant growth in the number of “good governance” initiatives promising to generate optimum developmental outcomes in resource-rich countries, there is surprisingly little empirical information about their sector and country-specific dynamics. This thesis focusses on how external “good governance” norms and institutions interact with domestic actors and organisations to shape the institutional landscape of resource-rich countries. This objective is pursued by means of an in-depth case study of Ghana, a Sub-Saharan African nation that has become a middle-sized exporter of crude oil since January 2011. More specifically, it scrutinises two major reform efforts designed to steer the country’s oil industry towards a developmental direction: the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an international auditing and multi-stakeholder oversight mechanism, and the Public Interest and Accountability Committee, a home-grown citizens’ oversight initiative in Ghana. The analytical lens employed in the study is based on comparative political economy and comparative institutional analysis. They are employed to make sense of the dialectic between the promise of corrective “good governance” measures and the mirage of reform outcomes in the Ghanaian oil sector. The main argument advanced here is that “good governance” solutions in the oil industry are essentially weak instruments, due to their inability to grapple with deep-seated instrumental politics, perverse institutional environment, and elite capture that continue to undermine reform in Ghana. This point is adduced to highlight the shortcomings of the “good governance” agenda. The thesis draws from multiple data sources, collected through semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders, public officials, NGOs and community activists, development agencies, and oil companies. These are complemented by archival research, documentary sources, non-participant observation, and workshops.

Afrikanische Staaten werden oft mit einem ideal-typischen westeuropäischen Nationalstaat verglichen und unweigerlich für unzureichend befunden. Diese Arbeit begegnet diesem theoretischen Missstand, indem sie eine neue Typologie des territorialen afrikanischen Nationalstaats in Abgrenzung vom europäischen Model entwickelt. Die Typologie fungiert als theoretisches Prisma für eine ausführliche Analyse des Südsudan für die Jahre 2005-2014. Gleichzeitig liefert der Vergleich mit dem Sonderfall Südsudan neue Erkenntnisse zum Wandel von Staat und Nation in Afrika. Ausgehend von einer historisch-philosophischen Querschau auf Staat und Nation in Europa, werden die grundverschiedenen Umstände von Nationalstaatsbildung im postkolonialen Afrika dargestellt. Der Autor schöpft aus einer umfangreichen Literatur, die fast sämtliche Staaten in Sub-Sahara Afrika abdeckt, um typisierte Aspekte von Staat und Nation herauszuarbeiten. Für den afrikanischen Staat sind dies der hybride Quasi-Staat, der illegitime Staat, der privatisierte neopatrimoniale Staat und der aufgedunsene Zentralstaat. Die Typologie der afrikanischen Nation besteht aus inklusivem Staatsnationalismus, dem Wiedererstarken politischer Ethnizität sowie dem ausgrenzenden neuen Nationalismus. Auf der Basis von Primär- und Sekundärquellen sowie Feldforschung, haben sich südsudanesischer Staat und Nation als überwiegend kongruent mit der Typologie erwiesen. Abweichungen bestehen jedoch im Ausmaß der Übernahme von Dienstleistungen durch ausländische NGOs, in der Struktur der neopatrimonialen Netzwerke sowie in der Rolle, die Sprache für die nationale Identität spielt. Zudem weist der Südsudan sämtliche Entwicklungstrends des postkolonialen Nationalismus parallel zueinander und nicht aufeinander folgend auf. Dies deutet darauf hin, dass sich die Bedingungen für Nationenbildung im heutigen Afrika dank Urbanisierung, moderner Kommunikationswege und dem Vorherrschen von Bürgerkriegen sehr von der Vergangenheit unterscheiden. African states are often judged by comparison to an ideal-typical Western European nation-state, which inevitably finds the African state wanting. This thesis challenges this theoretical drawback by developing a novel typology of the African territorial nation-state in juxtaposition to the European model. The typology is then applied as a theoretical prism for an in-depth analysis of the case of South Sudan, the world’s newest state, for the period 2005-2014. At the same time, comparison to the anomalous case of South Sudan provides new insights into the changing nature of statehood and nationalism in Africa. Starting out from a historical-philosophical overview of state and nation in the European context, the very different circumstances of nation-state formation in postcolonial Africa are depicted. The author then draws on a large body of literature covering almost all of Sub-Saharan Africa to distil typified facets of state and nation. For the African state, these components are the hybrid quasi state, the illegitimate state, the privatized neopatrimonial state and the swollen centralized state. The typology of the African nation consists of inclusive state-nationalism, the resurgence of political ethnicity and exclusionary new nationalism and the politics of autochthony. Based on primary and secondary sources including fieldwork in South Sudan, the empirical reality of South Sudan’s nascent nation-state is shown to largely match the typology. Important divergences exist however in the degree of service delivery by foreign NGOs, in the dispersed nature of the neopatrimonial networks, and the role of language in nationbuilding. Crucially, South Sudan exhibits all three trends of postcolonial African nationalism at the same time rather than in successive periods. This indicates that in contemporary Africa rapid urbanization, modern communications and the prevalence of civil wars create very different conditions for nationbuilding than in decades past.

Face-to-face interviews constitute a social interaction between interviewer and respondent, and in the African context, social interactions are strongly shaped by ethnicity. Yet research using African survey data typically fails to account for the effect of shared ethnicity on survey responses. We find that respondents give systematically different answers to coethnic and noncoethnic interviewers across surveys in 14 African countries, but with significant variation in the degree of bias across question types and types of noncoethnic dyads, with the largest effects occurring where both the respondent and interviewer are members of ethnic groups with a history of political competition and conflict, and where the respondent or interviewer shares an ethnicity with the head of state. Our findings have practical implications for consumers of African survey data and underscore the context dependence of the social interaction that constitutes the survey experience.

Why would an otherwise capable African government permit an insurgency to persist within its borders for an extended period of time while possessing the means to address it? Through a comparative approach, drawing on academic research on Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army and Nigeria and Boko Haram, this thesis seeks to explain why some insurgencies persist for extended periods of time with minimal government intervention. The research suggests that in the case studies analyzed, Uganda and Nigeria have permitted the insurgencies to continue due to the economic and political benefits that they are able to derive from the ongoing conflict. African governments may at times exploit insurgency and internal conflict to meet political objectives. U.S. policy makers should strongly consider this possibility when deciding upon economic and military aid packages to countries involved in ongoing conflict, to avoid inadvertently facilitating ongoing conflict. http://archive.org/details/africgovernments1094550525 Major, United States Air Force Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Africa, with its combination of fragile governments and institutions, abject poverty amid great resources, wealth and a legacy of incessant violent conflict, has increasingly become integrated into the global security architecture. With growing globalisation, insecurity anywhere is a threat to security everywhere. Given this context, Africa’s own insecurity is serving as a source of concern for the United States and other global powers. Africa is plagued by a broad spectrum of traditional and non-traditional security threats on the one hand, and yet, as will be seen in this article, home to an emerging regional and international security consciousness and activism on the other. It was the purpose of the study on which this article reports, to examine African approaches to ensure peace, security and stability on the continent at national, sub-regional and regional level. The African Union’s (AU) approach to the promotion of peace and security on the continent can be described as a constructivist-inspired cooperative security approach, and it will be demonstrated that sub-regional organisations are very important security enforcing actors in the African security architecture.

This thesis examines the role of private governance in sub-Saharan Africa’s largest gold producing countries. It seeks to provide an explanation for the role firms play in governing the gold mining sector in Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania. Furthermore, it seeks to illuminate the reasons why gold mining firms pursue self-regulation, beyond what is required by the state. The thesis begins with a summary of the resource curse literature, which suggests that countries rich in minerals (such as gold) are more likely to suffer slower economic growth and poorer development, when compared with their non-resource rich peers. It is from this scholarship that the thesis departs, suggesting that instead of solely focusing on the state, scholars of the underdevelopment in mineral rich states must consider the role of business in developing what is known as private governance. After advancing a classification system for private governance in the gold mining sector this research presents new empirical evidence in the form of analysis of company reporting and elite interviews with gold mining firm executives and representatives of industry associations. Using evidence gathered from interviews with mining executives, and company reports it is shown that firms do play a significant role in developing the rules and regulations that govern Africa’s gold mining industries. Large firms, with multiple operating jurisdictions are shown to be first-movers in engendering private governance, doing so in order to control the regulatory direction of their industry, but also to enhance their power vis-à-vis the state. This finding is elaborated on through the analysis of the elite interviews, where it is argued that gold mining firms with significant private authority rely on discursive power to develop private governance initiatives. Once these firms are seen as legitimate rule makers, they are able to effectively share sovereignty with sub-Saharan African governments.

Die halfeeu-viering van die Organisasie vir Afrika-Eenheid (OAE) en die eerste dekade van die Afrika-Unie (AU) is gedurende 2013 gevier. Hierdie studie evalueer die sukses van die AU as internasionale organisasie (IO). Eerstens is die teorie van IO's bestudeer, wat daarna as agtergrond dien deur middel waarvan die Afrika-Unie geassesseer kan word. Die rol en optrede van die AU in besondere gebeure, soos in Zimbabwe, Somaliland, die Arabiese lente, die DRK en Darfoer, is teen hierdie teoretiese agtergrond beoordeel. Daar is bevind dat die AU gedurende sy eerste dekade 'n groot mate van sukses op sekere gebiede bereik het, maar dat dit ook in baie gevalle nog gebrekkig gebly het. Die AU het 'n al groter wordende rol om te speel in die internasionale arena as supranasionale regering, en as bemiddelaar van streeksintegrasie en samewerking. Hulle was suksesvol om 'n kollektiewe internasionale ekonomiese eenheid te vorm, maar het meestal misluk om konflikte te beredder en 'n kultuur van demokrasie te vestig. Die slotsom is dat alhoewel die AU gemengde resultate behaal het, daar 'n groeiende sukseskoers bestaan en dat die AU dus nie sonder meer as 'n algehele mislukking bestempel kan word nie. The half centenary of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the first decade of the African Union (AU) were celebrated during 2013. The OAU was established on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa, with the aim to promote unity among African countries and to improve the fate of their peoples. On 9 July 2002, it was transformed into the African Union in Durban. The main objectives of the latter are the economic and political integration of the African continent. This study aims to evaluate the successes and failures of the African Union as an international organisation (IO). Africa is one of the poorest and least developed regions in the world. This debate is therefore of critical importance to the people of the Southern African region (World Bank 2013). This evaluation provides a broad overview and focus on the major challenges that the AU is facing. In this study, the AU is assessed using the theoretical criteria set by the theory of international organisations. The results revealed that the AU is only partially successful and that internal divisions remain a barrier. The article commences with a historical overview of the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the African Union (AU). It explains the rationale for their formation and the role they seek to play. Their objectives are stated and explained. Then the theory of international organisations and their properties are studied. This served as criteria when evaluating the record of the African Union. In the following section, the role that the African Union plays as an international political organisation is evaluated against the theoretical background, with specific focus on the challenges that the organisation is facing. Finally, a summary of the findings is provided and a final verdict is made on whether the African Union triumphs or fails as an international organisation. Regional international organisations such as the African Union (AU) and European Union (EU) limit their membership to specific regions and are mostly concerned with regional development, regional security, solving regional disputes and fostering regional cooperation. The theoretical study revealed that the AU originated in the Neo-functionalist fashion. According to functionalism, international cooperation starts with limited pragmatic treaties and agreements and builds further from that. That is the natural way the AU also developed historically. The study also concluded that the national and ideological agendas of member states remain the biggest obstacle that the AU faces in achieving its objectives. As it developed through a pragmatic rationale, it is, for example, having a problem recognising old colonial borders, but simultaneously respecting the new sovereignty and territorial integrity of their allies. The theory of international organisations (IOs) states that IOs are created by sovereign states, for sovereign states, and this influences their respective roles. International organisations serve as an international platform for aid, assistance and neutral brokerage in times of conflict. They aim to ensure mutual protection and joint cooperation between heterogeneous peoples. An IO acts as a common voice for the entire region and represents member countries ' wishes collectively. IOs ensure cultural harmony among the various peoples of the region they represent. They aim to uplift their people's welfare. IOs therefore also serve as a collective economic voice and strive towards economic and social cooperation in a world characterised by increasing globalisation. The theory of international organisations identifies four functions of IOs. In the first place, IOs usually protect and facilitate international relations and world politics. They act as an interactive arena for member states. While protecting the interests of individual states, they also enable international integration, promote political credibility in the international arena and provide an alternative for dispute resolution. Secondly, IOs act as a centre for cooperation among states; they have a role as independent international actor on behalf of member states; and finally, they act as a supranational organisation. They influence transnational relations and ensure the improvement of the human condition. In evaluating the AU in accordance with the theory of IOs, special emphasis was placed on the regional problems and conflicts of Zimbabwe, Darfur and Somaliland since 2002. Other regions that received attention were the Arabic Spring, Mali, the Central African Republic, the creation of Southern-Sudan, Kenya, the DRC and the Comoro Islands. Literature emphasises that the secondary role and context of specific member states and their respective agendas should always be taken into consideration when the success of an IO is evaluated. This was also adhered to in this particular assessment of the AU before a conclusion was reached. It was concluded that although the AU has failed in many instances, it has also achieved a great deal of success in certain spheres in its decade of existence. Failures mostly relate to conflict resolution and the fostering of a democratic culture, while the successes are mostly related to the formulation of a collective international economic voice. It was found that the AU has an ever-increasing role to play as it is becoming a significant platform for regional integration and cooperation, being an independent international actor and supranational government with legal recourse against member states. The main challenge of the AU will be the harmonising of members' interests and the promotion of a culture of human rights and democracy. The expectation at the beginning of the study was that the AU has mixed results as an IO, but it is a failure overall. This study proves that although there are mixed results, the AU has a growing success rate and can therefore not be seen as a failure. The way that various conflict situations in Africa are handled will in future determine the extent to which IOs, such as the EU and the AU, will work together and whether the success rate of the AU will increase.

The half centenary of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the first decade of the African Union (AU) were celebrated during 2013. The OAU was established on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa, with the aim to promote unity among African countries and to improve the fate of their peoples. On 9 July 2002, it was transformed into the African Union in Durban. The main objectives of the latter are the economic and political integration of the African continent. This study aims to evaluate the successes and failures of the African Union as an international organisation (IO). Africa is one of the poorest and least developed regions in the world. This debate is therefore of critical importance to the people of the Southern African region (World Bank 2013). This evaluation provides a broad overview and focus on the major challenges that the AU is facing. In this study, the AU is assessed using the theoretical criteria set by the theory of international organisations. The results revealed that the AU is only partially successful and that internal divisions remain a barrier. http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_pdf&pid=S0041-47512014000200007&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=af

The impact of aid flows and ethnic exclusion on civil conflict in Africa is explored. Ethno-politics and informal institutions dictate discriminatory spending allocations (in the form of political patronage flows) in most African states. The unequal allocation of these resources can foster grievances in excluded populations. When states gain access to non-tax revenues (i.e., foreign aid), it is often allocated in a similar fashion. When inequalities in access to resources lie along ethnic lines, the likelihood and intensity of conflict is higher as ethnicity can offer an important mobilizing source in organizing political action. Using newly-available disaggregated data to explore these relationships at the subnational-level, statistical results are found supporting this theory. Additionally, micro-level analysis of these mechanisms bolsters the statistical findings in a country-case study of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the locations of aid projects, ethnic group settlement patterns, and civil conflict sites are mapped using geographic information systems.

[no abstract]

Critics of the liberal peace point out that the imposition of liberal democratic structures of governance through United Nations Peacekeeping Operations has not led to a sustainable peace being built. In reply, supporters of the liberal peace argue that even though the liberal peace is imperfect, there are no better alternatives. The objective of this thesis is to examine the Chinese approach to peacebuilding and explore the possibility that it may be a potential alternative to the liberal peace. The thesis examines the Chinese understanding of the causes of insecurity in Africa, what the Chinese position is with regards to United Nations peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions in Africa; and what role China see itself playing vis-à-vis United Nations Peacekeeping Operations in Africa. The Chinese approach to peacebuilding recognises poverty alleviation as the foundation upon which sustainable peace can be built in post-conflict countries. Beijing does not believe the external imposition of a political ruling superstructure can succeed, and sees the liberal peace as neo-colonialism and liberal hubris. However, there is no set Chinese model of peacebuilding which can replace the liberal peace, or which African countries might follow. This is because the Chinese developmental model respects the local context, is based on pragmatism, and relies on trial and error to find the way forward. The Chinese have been keeping a low profile in the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and have focused on providing transportation and logistical support to UNMIL. The Chinese focus on infrastructure rehabilitation is appreciated by Liberians and is making a positive contribution to the life of ordinary people. On the deep societal divide that lies at the heart of the Liberian civil war and continues to cause instability, both the Chinese approach to peacebuilding and the liberal peace remain silent.

Primarily, this study seeks to examine the means and effectiveness of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, African human and Peoples' rights organizations, and the government of the Gambia in their efforts to propagate the institutions and legal instruments of the African Human and Peoples' Rights System (AHPRS) in general and the rights and duties of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights in the country of The Gambia in particular since the Charter came into force in 1986. The work explores the history of the AHPRS from ancient conceptions of rights and duties within Classical Africa to its formal establishment in the 1980s and 1990s with emphasis placed on the particular political and social history of The Gambia. Further, the work presents and analyzes the work of three African human rights organizations operating within The Gambia and offers an Afrocentric critique of the promotion of the African Human and Peoples' Rights System.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze the complexities of Somaliland’s international recognition as a sovereign state. The Republic of Somaliland declared independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991 and has since proved to be the most stable and peaceful polity in the Horn of Africa region. This thesis seeks to analyze why the international community is reluctant to recognize the territory, and how Somaliland’s lacking international recognition is influenced by the foreign policies of neighbourly states, and the wider relevant international community.

The purpose of this article is to understand the significance of Gandhi for the discussion about the African Renaissance. The article begins with the argument that the critical process of self-reflection begun in India about its past as a resource for imagining its future is central to any possibility of a renaissance in Africa. It draws on Gandhi in terms of what an examination of his central ideas might tell us about a future post-colonial Africa. Two of these ideas relate to the role of women in society and the attendant impact this view has on dominant masculinist tropes found in colonial historiography. Using these, the article looks at Gandhi not for the political and strategic choices he makes, but for understanding the kind of ethical identity or, the humanness which Gandhi's life represents. Die doel van hierdie artikel is om die betekenis van Gandhi vir die bespreking van die Afrika Renaissance te bepaal. Die artikel begin met die argument dat die kritiese proses van self-refleksie wat in Indië oor die land se verlede as 'n hulpbron vir die voorstelling van sy toekoms begin het, sentraal in die moontlikheid van enige Renaissance in Afrika staan. Dit fokus op Gandhi in terme van wat n ondersoek van sy kernidees ons van n toekomstige post-koloniale Afrika mag vertel. Twee van hierdie idees hou verband met die rol van vroue in die gemeenskap en die gevolglike impak wat hierdie mening op dominante manlike sinnebeelding in koloniale historiografie gevind het. Met die gebruik hiervan, bestudeer die artikel Gandhi, nie om die politieke en strategiese keuses wat hy gemaak het nie, maar ten einde die tipe etiese identiteit of menslikheid wat Gandhi se lewe verteenwoordig, te verstaan.

In this 29th year of Zimbabwe's independence, the Zimbabwean dollar is near worthless, with one hundred trillion buying only AUD$4. There is evidence that state sanctioned violence and killings continue in the country despite the progress of the new government of national unity, and Mugabe's calls for 'national healing.' Australia has only slightly downgraded its travel warning to the country while 254 Zimbabweans remain subjected to 'travel and financial sanctions' in Australia. The Australian government website on Zimbabwe has yet to update its list of Heads of Government for Zimbabwe to include Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister (www.dfat.gov.au/geo/zimbabwe/index.html), while Mugabe is still saluted as "Your Excellency". When he was Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kevin Rudd once criticised the Howard government for achieving no gains in the Zimbabwean crisis. Now as Prime Minister, will Rudd be able to put Africa and indeed Zimbabwe onto Australia's agenda?

Review: Promoting the African Union

The past haunts Africa. Futuristic policies on Africa are based on critical assessments of present possibilities rooted in Africa’s rather unique and rich history and geography. Therefore, Africa appears to be a continent with a past but not a future. As the 21st century and the third millennium loom on the horizon, it is an auspicious time for a fresh examination of the past, present and future prospects of the human condition in Africa against the background of relevant positive and negative international developments. A fresh understanding is needed of what is happening in Africa today and what it will mean not only for the continent but also for the rest of the world in the next century and beyond. The quest for that understanding defines the context of this essay’s focus on the social history of four generations of Africans and how the latest among them is poised to socially reconstruct a new Africa with far reaching implications on community and national life in Africa and on international politics in the next century and beyond.

O presente artigo tem como tema a atual situação política da República Democrática do Congo e os impactos que ela terá para a política africana.

O objetivo do texto é analisar e criticar as diferentes formas com as quais se tentou construir e representar a identidade africana a partir, basicamente, de um discurso nativista, por um lado, e outro instrumentalista, da África e de seu povo. Baseado em uma interpretação crítica dos diversos essencialismos construídos em torno de uma suposta leitura pan-africana e consensual do mundo, o autor alerta para os perigos advindos da busca irrefletida de uma alteridade africana sem o devido reconhecimento das especificidades culturais, políticas e geográficas em África. Tanto o economicismo quanto a metafísica da diferença são historicismos vistos pelo autor como formas fadadas ao fracasso, tendo em vista a pluralidade de signos e contextos com as quais se tentou construir a autodeterminação e a auto-afirmação africanas ao longo do século XX. The objective of this paper is to analyze and criticize the different endeavors to build and display African identity, basically starting with a chauvinist discussion on one hand, and an instrumental one on the other, on Africa and its people. Based on a critical interpretation of the various essential points made regarding a supposed consensual world Pan-African survey, the author warns against the perils originating from a thoughtless search of an African alterity without duly acknowledging African cultural, political and geographical specifics. Both the economicism and the metaphysics of the difference are historicisms seen by the author as doomed to fail, considering the plurality of signs and contexts on which African self-registration and self-affirmation were based throughout the 20th century. Dans ce texte on cherche à examiner et remettre en cause les différents moyens employés dans la construction et la représentation de l’identité africaine, à partir d’un discours à la fois nativiste et instrumentaliste sur l’Afrique et son peuple, surtout. En prenant appui sur une interprétation critique des différents essentialismes bâtis autour d’une présumée lecture pan-africaine et consensuelle du monde, l’auteur signale les dangers d’une recherche irréfléchie de l’altérité africaine qui ne tiendrait pas compte des spécificités culturelles, politiques et géographiques de ce continent. L’économisme ainsi que la métaphysique de la différence sont des historicismes que l’auteur envisage comme des chemins voués à l’échec, face à la pluralité de signes et de contextes dont on s’est servi pour construire l’auto-détermination et l’auto-affirmation africaines au cours du XX siècle.

IS democratization feasible in Africa? That is the question that I wish to address. It should not be confused with the question of the possibility of democracy in Africa which, though often asked, does not really arise, because democracy is in principle possible everywhere. The question is not whether democracy can be or even whether it ought to be, but how it "becomes" in the light of the circumstances of a particular historical situation. But what is this thing called democracy whose feasib...

Eh cherchant a definir une problematique generale des rapports entre les Deux Grandes Puissances et l'Afrique nous sommes partis d'une interrogation assez simple : Derriere l'apparence d'un interet cyclique pour ce continent les Etats Unis et l'Union Sovietique sont-ils parvenus A construire depuis 1960 une politi-que d'engagement graduel ?A partir de la nous avons essaye de comprendre comment ces deux pays pou-vaient s'inserer dans le jeu diplomatique africain tout en ajustant l'ampleur de leur engagement A leurs contraintes de puissances globales. Si l'on entend par jeu diplomatique l'ensemble du reseau des relations in-ternationales etablies par des Etats souverains, on constate qu'A la difference des autres regions du Tiers Monde le jeu diplomatique africain ne commenga serieu-sement a interesser les Deux Grands qu'au moment de la decolonisation c'est-a-dire a partir de 1960. Or a cette date l'equilibre global sovieto-americain ne de la II Guerre Mondiale etait tres largement stabilise. La question pour les Deux Grands etait alors de savoir de quelle fagon l'emer-gence de l'Afrique en tant qu'entite politique autonome pourrait affecter cet equi-libre. Pour comprendre le double processus par lequel les Deux Grands ont cherchea repondre aux attentes africaines tout en s'efforgant d'integrer l'Afrique au ca-dre global des rapports sovieto-americains, nous nous sommes efforces de repondretrois series d'interrogations : Deux Grands ?Quels ont ete les parametres retenus dans la formulation et l'expression des reponses diplomatico-strategiques.?Par rapport a quelles contraintes l'engagement sovieto.-americain a-t-il pu se trouver stimule ou au contraire entrave ? La definition.prealable des enjeux par les Deux Grands apparait essentielle car elle pose des le depart la question de savoir comment deux grandes puissances peuvent s'inserer dans un cadre regional domine jusque-lA par les puissances euro-peennes et sur lequel elles n'avaient que peu d'influence avant 1960. L'insertion des Deux Grands obeit-elle essentiellement A la logique de la releve de l'influence europeenne ou bien repond-elle a des attentes specifiques d'ordre economique ou diplomatique ? Eh d'autres termes ii s'agira de s'interroger sur la notion "d'intergts propres" des Deux Grands en Afrique. Mais la reponse a cette question suppose que soit prealablement clarifiee la relation triangulaire URSS - Etats-Unis - Europe. Dans le cas de l'URSS l'interrogation portera sursa perception du rapport Etats-Unis - Europe. S'agit-il a ses yeux d'une relation conflictuelle et donc potentiellement propice a son propre engagement ou bien au contraire d'une relation fondamentalement congruente ? Dans le cas des Etats-Unis on se demandera jusqu'a quel point les enjeux africains ont ete identifies comme des intergts propres.

Empirical studies show that many governments gear the provision of goods and services towards their ethnic peers. This article investigates governments' strategies to provide ethnic favors in Africa. Recent studies of ethnic favoritism find that presidents' ethnic peers and home regions enjoy advantages, yet cannot disentangle whether goods are provided to entire regions or co-ethnic individuals. This article argues that local ethnic demography determines whether governments provide non-excludable public goods or more narrowly targeted handouts. Where government co-ethnics are in the majority, public goods benefit all locals regardless of their ethnic identity. Outside of these strongholds, incumbents pursue discriminatory strategies and only their co-ethnics gain from favoritism. Using fine-grained geographic data on ethnic demographics, the study finds support for the argument's implications in the local incidence of infant mortality. These findings have important implications for theories of distributive politics and conflict in multi-ethnic societies., British Journal of Political Science, 51 (4), ISSN:0007-1234