[PDF] Power And Class In Africa eBook

Author : Patrick Chabal
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan
Page : 311 pages
File Size : 29,97 MB
Release : 1993-12-10
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780312099541

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'This book will rightfully head many a reading list...'C.Allen, British Book News Power in Africa casts a fresh look at contemporary Black African politics. It reviews the merits and failings of existing interpretations of Africa's post-colonial society and offers a new approach to its understanding. It has two main aims. First, to present a comparative conceptual framework which places Africa's politics within its appropriate historical context. Second, to offer an explanation of what is actually happening in Africa - beyond the clichs of a dark continent perennially in crisis.

Author : Leo Kuper
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 364 pages
File Size : 34,91 MB
Release : 2017-07-05
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1351495038

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Examining in detail the apparently inexorable polarization of society in such countries as Rwanda, Algeria, and South Africa, the author questions whether current theories correctly explain the past or offer adequate guides for the future. In their place he puts forward an alternative neo-Durkheimian view of the possibility of non-violent revolutionary change, based on the development of such social and cultural continuities as already exist within each plural society. But he warns that -this is an age of passionate commitment to violence in which vicarious killers abound in search of a Vietnam of their own.- The aim of this groundbreaking and challenging book is to create theoretical perspectives in which to view the racial conflict of plural societies. Written in the turbulent early 1970s, the book demonstrates the inadequacy of then prevailing views such as Marxist interpretations of racial conflict as class struggle, and the Fanon a priori rejection of non-violent techniques of change, which Kuper holds responsible for the acceptance of what he calls -the platitudes of violence.- The book concludes with more personal sections focusing on the author's struggles with the then prevailing South African society, critiques of that, and censorship of his attempts to make these public. In the light of subsequent changes in South Africa many decades later, this book serves not only as an important work of political sociology but as a personal testament to the fight against racism in South Africa. Leo Kuper was professor of sociology and director of the African Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. A South African by birth, he was one of the first writers on genocide as well as other aspects of African studies and urban sociology. His major book, Genocide (Penguin, 1981), remains in print. The Leo Kuper Foundation is a non-governmental organization dedicated to the eradication of genocide through research, advice, and education. It was created in Washington, DC in 1994 following the death of Leo Kuper, with the aim of improving measures to prevent genocide. The main area of work for the past five years has been in support of the creation of an International Criminal Court. Troy Duster is director at the Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge, New York University.

Author : Irving Leonard Markovitz
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 46,13 MB
Release : 1987
Category : Africa
ISBN : 9780195041293

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These thirteen original essays bring the concept of social class to the analysis of contemporary African politics. Each study considers different aspects of a single theme: the "authoritative allocation of values," or who gets what when, where, and why--and who gets left out. The essays address problems of major concern in the daily lives of ordinary people, pointing out just how precarious life was for most Africans during and after the Colonial period. They show how class conflict intensified with war and depression, how farmers fled to the city to maintain their independence, and how migrant workers struggled to protect their declining standard of living. The authors, who represent a cross-section of political perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds, also shed light on the importance of the state, religion, ideology, gender, ethnicity, language, and international relations in determining policy and in understanding society in general. Challenging the conventional academic and popular views of Africa, these powerful studies hold implications which, if heeded, could affect future scholarship as well as policy.

Author : Leonardo Arriola
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 41,55 MB
Release : 2021-09-21
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0192652966

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Women and Power in Africa: Aspiring, Campaigning, and Governing examines women's experiences in African politics as aspirants to public office, as candidates in election campaigns, and as elected representatives. Part I evaluates women's efforts to become party candidates in four African countries: Benin, Ghana, Malawi, and Zambia. The chapters draw on a variety of methods, including extensive interviews with women candidates, to describe and assess the barriers confronted when women seek to enter politics. The chapters help explain why women remain underrepresented as candidates for office, particularly in countries without gender-based quotas, by emphasizing the impact of financial constraints, fears of violence, and resistance among party leaders. Part II turns to women's experiences as candidates during elections in Kenya and Ghana. One chapter provides an in-depth account of a woman's presidential bid in Kenya, demonstrating how gendered ethnicity undermined her candidacy, and another chapter presents a novel evaluation of the media's coverage of women candidates in Ghana. Part III turns to women as legislators in Namibia, Uganda, and Burkina Faso, asking whether women engage in substantive representation on gendered policy issues once in office. The chapters challenge the assumption that a critical mass of women is necessary or sufficient to achieve substantive representation. Taken together, the book's chapters problematize existing hypotheses regarding women in political power, drawing on understudied countries and variety of empirical methods. By following political pathways from entry to governance, the book uncovers how gendered experiences early in the political process shape what is possible for women once they attain political power. Oxford Studies in African Politics and International Relations is a series for scholars and students working on African politics and International Relations and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on contemporary developments in African political science, political economy, and International Relations, such as electoral politics, democratization, decentralization, the political impact of natural resources, the dynamics and consequences of conflict, and the nature of the continent's engagement with the East and West. Comparative and mixed methods work is particularly encouraged. Case studies are welcomed but should demonstrate the broader theoretical and empirical implications of the study and its wider relevance to contemporary debates. The series focuses on sub-Saharan Africa, although proposals that explain how the region engages with North Africa and other parts of the world are of interest. Series Editors: Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy and International Development, University of Birmingham; and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, Professor of the International Politics of Africa, University of Oxford.

Author : Irving Leonard Markovitz
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 11,39 MB
Release : 1987
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780195041309

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Unified by the basic concepts of all politics--who gets what, when, where, and why, and who gets left out--these wide-ranging essays address problems of major concern in the daily lives of African people during and after the colonial period.