| 1. |
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A new scramble for Africa? : imperialism, investment and development
- 2009
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Dramatically escalating prices of raw materials, driven by rapid industrialisation in China and other countries of the global South as well as by looming world shortages, had for the few years preceding the financial meltdown and global recession of 2009 promoted a new scramble for Africa’s natural resources. It signalled a brisk turnaround in prospects for what The Economist had dubbed the ‘hopeless continent’ as recently as 1999. However, while average growth rates across the continent have increased, the implications for Africa’s development were and remain at best dubious.In this important volume, the new scramble for Africa is placed in the historical context of imperialism and the contributors show important continuities with the original nineteenth-century scramble. However, while the previous scramble was between major European powers, today the continent provides a battleground for competition between the US, the European Union, China and other emerging players such as India and South Africa.This book raises significant general questions relating to the nature of emerging global competition between the US and China; the centrality of the struggle for oil and minerals and resulting militarisation; the international battle to capture Africa’s markets; the marginalisation of African capitalism; and the ambiguous benefits that investment and production by multinational companies bring to African communities. Arguing that exploitation of the continent by comprador African elites remains central, the book concludes by raising important questions about the prospects for development in Africa.
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| 2. |
- Brüntrup, Michael, et al.
(författare)
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Africa, regional cooperation and the world market : socio-economic strategies in times of global trade regimes
- 2006
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Under the regime of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), local and regional policies are increasingly determined by global factors. One example is the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). It stresses an earlier notion of African Renaissance, which includes the emphasis on collective self-reliance, but at the same time seeks closer cooperation with the global trade system and its international agencies. Bi- and multilateral trade relations between external actors and individual African states or regional blocs are becoming ever more decisive. This is also true of the more recently negotiated Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) in the post-Lomé era of EU-African relations. In light of such trends the question of coherence between trade as aid and other areas of development strategy and cooperation remains to be answered. The contributions to this Discussion Paper reflect upon related matters of socio-economically viable strategies seeking to reconcile the global and the regional in an African perspective. They were originally presented to the Panel 'Regional Cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Between Collective Self-Reliance and Global Trade Regimes'” organised by the Nordic Africa Institute within the 11th General Conference of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) in September 2005 in Bonn.
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| 3. |
- Dansereau, Suzanne, et al.
(författare)
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Zimbabwe - the political economy of decline
- 2005
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The two articles are revised versions of papers presented at the end of May 2004 to a Zimbabwe Conference at the Nordic Africa Institute, which was co-organised by the project "Liberation and Democracy in Southern Africa" (LiDeSA). They highlight current socio-economic aspects of Zimbabwean society. By doing so, they raise relevant issues, yet ones that have tended to be neglected given the almost exclusive concentration on political events. While this is understandable, the articles fill the gap in our knowledge and add insights into important sectors of society. These include information on the Zimbabwean economy and the present constraints of the decline, which together help us to understand the structural legacy that any future government will have to deal with. What is more, the elections in Zimbabwe in 2005 provide an ideal moment to discuss such matters. This Discussion Paper will thereby make a substantive contribution to the analysis of the overall picture in Zimbabwe. CONTENT Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Zimbabwe's Development Impasse. Suzanne Dansereau From Social Justice, to Neo-liberalism, to Authoritarian Nationalism - Where is the Zimbabwean State going? Mario Zamponi
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| 4. |
- Davids, Yul Derek, et al.
(författare)
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Measuring democracy and human rights in Southern Africa
- 2002
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Are there ways and means of measuring democracy and “good governance”? The contributions to this Discussion Paper present attempts to do this by means of surveys on democratic attitudes in Mozambique and Namibia respectively as well as by exploring the degree of commitment to and violation of human rights in a comparative perspective in Namibia and South Africa. They illustrate attitudes by offering empirical evidence of the preferences and views of local people, as well as by examining the track record of a human rights culture. In doing so, by going beyond a level of theoretical analysis, they offer concrete evidence of attitudes prevalent among both individuals and state agencies in societies of Southern Africa.
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| 5. |
- Fombad, Charles Manga, et al.
(författare)
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AU, NEPAD and the APRM : democratisation efforts explored
- 2006
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) represent an unprecedented collective political effort by African governments at the beginning of the 21st century to address issues of democracy and good governance on a continental scale within an emerging framework of institutions and instruments designed to assist in this effort. The visible commitments to jointly tackle political and socioeconomic challenges in order to overcome the structural legacies that hamper national and social development are reflected in the adoption of a variety of programmatic blueprints and a series of newly created or recently strengthened institutions. The most visible of these since the integration of NEPAD into the AU is the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), a process- aimed at addressing some of the challenges on the basis of a voluntary assessment of African government policies. The contributions to this publication trace these recent developments from a policy perspective and explore the scope and limitations of current democratisation efforts. Going beyond the rhetoric surrounding the emergence of the new initiatives, the authors provide an interim and realistic prognosis of the prospects for these new dynamics to achieve the declared goals of sustainable and meaningful change.
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| 6. |
- Hulterström, Karolina, et al.
(författare)
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Political opposition in African countries : the cases of Kenya, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe
- 2007
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This Discussion Paper is another result of the project “Liberation and Democracy in Southern Africa” (LiDeSA), which was coordinated at the Institute between 2001 and 2006. The papers are revised versions of presentations to a Session of the Research Committee “Comparative Sociology” at the XVI World Congress of Sociology held at the end of July 2006 in Durban. They explore the role of opposition parties under different aspects in several East and Southern African countries, which differ according to the socio-political determinants.
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| 7. |
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Identity and beyond : rethinking Africanity
- 2001
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Proceedings (redaktörskap) (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This Discussion Paper presents the plenary presentations by the three main speakers during the Nordic Africa Days, with an introduction offering an overview and comment on the various approaches on Gender and Power in African Contexts, Africanity as an Open Question and Rethinking Power in Africa.
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| 8. |
- Kössler, Reinhart, et al.
(författare)
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Development from below : a Namibian case study
- 2003
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This Discussion Paper offers a revised lecture by Reinhart Kössler, which was originally presented to a Research Forum organised by The Nordic Africa Institute jointly with the Seminar for Development Studies of Uppsala University. It deals with aspects of rebuilding societies from below firstly in a general development studies discourse on a more theoretical level, considering aspects of the current debate on globalisation. This is followed by a concrete case study from southern Namibia. It illustrates local responses by the Witbooi-Nama in Gibeon to (re-)define identity within the context of a (nation-)state in a post-apartheid society. The paper is commented upon by two discussants (Per Strand and Henning Melber). The contributions reflect on the issue of social reconstruction in the context of (southern) Africa with reference to a particular marginalised group. They deal, among other things, with the question of social power and the "invention of tradition" in local efforts to gain from, or seek integration into, the nation building process.
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| 9. |
- Lee, Margaret C., et al.
(författare)
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China in Africa
- 2007
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The contributions to this compilation add in various ways to the ongoing discussion on China’s role in Africa. They offer a blend of general overviews on the new scramble for Africa’s resources, the Chinese expansion into Africa and case studies on Uganda and South Africa. They present reflections on and insights to a current theme, which is widely and controversially debated also within Africa.
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| 10. |
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Legacies of power : leadership change and former presidents in African politics
- 2006
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- It was a widely dominant perception until the early 1990's that African rulers do not vacate their office alive. But even in the brutal reality of African politics, transition takes place and different former presidents have dealt with how to maintain power and privilege very differently. With new case studies examining the post-presidential years of the iconic Mandela in South Africa, Daniel arap Moi in Kenya, Nyerere in Tanzania, Rawlings in Ghana, Charles Taylor in Liberia, as well as the experience of Botswana, Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Malawi, and Nigeria, this volume examines the dilemmas which demands for presidential transitions impose upon incumbent rulers and analyses the relationships which are evolving between new regimes and their predecessors. The contributors discuss the hybridal political systems that exist in post-independence Africa; the role allotted to or pursued by former African presidents; transitional politics and justice, and political stability. The book stimulates careful further observation and analyses concerning progress in this contested arena of institutionalised political power in Africa.
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