Authors:Susan Booysen Abstract: The contemporary condition of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, viewed through the lens of hegemony and by means of four sets of correlates of decline and potential renewal, reveals an organisation that has turned away from lethal decline, yet by 2018 was battling to reconstitute a powerful, united historical bloc to underpin a new hegemony. The assessment is executed across the outward fronts of the ANC in relation to the people, the state, and elections, and on the inward side, the ANC organisationally. The ANC, up to late 2017, had undergone a process of hegemonic decline that appeared irreversible. Manifold morbid symptoms of hegemonic decline were evident. In late 2017 the ANC secured a leadership change that held the potential to reverse the decline and reinvigorate the ANC’s prospects for hegemonic hold, even if at best it would be a long-term, incremental process. Yet, at the centre, the organisation remained riven with factionalism that pivoted around power and control over public resources; those entrenched in the status quo ante were fighting back, and the new order was struggling to emerge. By drawing together these symptoms (correlates) of decline and possible reversals, the article synthesises the state of ANC hegemony as the movement approaches 25 years in political power. PubDate: 2018-10-18 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2018)
Authors:Kingsley Lawrence Madueke, Floris Vermeulen Abstract: There is considerable consensus among scholars of ethnic riots that ethnically mixed areas are more prone to collective violence than segregated ones. The conclusion is based on studies that compare levels of violence between segregated and mixed localities. While this addresses disparities between settlements of dissimilar ethnic composition, variations in the spread of violence across ethnically mixed areas remain a mystery. Seeking to explicate these variations, we propose an approach that examines not only the ethnic composition of a neighbourhood, but also its location in relation to adjoining neighbourhoods of similar or dissimilar ethnic makeup and their shared boundaries. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Jos, a violence-ridden Nigerian city, we demonstrate that ethnically mixed areas located between segregated ones experience more incidents of violence than mixed neighbourhoods not comparably located. Our findings have both academic and practical implications. PubDate: 2018-10-18 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2018)
Authors:Jannik Schritt, Nikolaus Schareika Abstract: In this article, we analyse the political and social process through which Niger has emerged as a new oil state since 2008. Instead of viewing the situation as a clear-cut resource-curse scenario, we see oil as an important, but by no means determining factor in the country’s current political workings. Analysing the main features and narratives of the Nigerien political game in this time of incipient oil production, we first of all observe how various political actors, including the government, political parties, civil society, and wealthy businesspeople, transform oil into a political resource by developing particular notions, images, and meanings of it, including scenarios of a resource curse or resource blessing. We thus argue that in the formative moment of Niger becoming a new oil state, oil appears as an idiom within which Niger’s current political and social processes are framed. PubDate: 2018-10-18 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2018)
Authors:Philip HP Liu Abstract: Scholars usually examine African images of the Chinese to understand African responses to Chinese economic expansion, yet they rarely observe that a constructed image of Africa has been built up in China. That image is intrinsically racist and promotes the idea that Chinese investment can somehow “rescue” Africans from their “laziness.” This paper analyses the enduring legend of the Baoding villages, constructed to persuade the Chinese public that Chinese farmers could easily make their fortunes and win respect in Africa. A review of the history of Sino–African agricultural cooperation reveals that this fabricated narrative was convincing because it reinforced Chinese perceptions of African inferiority and reproduced existing ideologies of foreign aid and propaganda concerning policy effectiveness. PubDate: 2018-10-18 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2018)
Authors:Dirk Kohnert Abstract: High-flying illusions on the part of the proponents and grim predictions on the part of the sceptics have characterised the controversy around Brexit. The article assesses five key issues at stake for post-Brexit relationships between Britain, the EU, and Africa: market access, foreign direct investment (FDI), aid, security, and the nature of the partnership. The analysis focuses on those sub-Saharan African countries that belong to the Commonwealth, as the British government’s vision of a “Global Britain” relies heavily on its reinforced cooperation with Commonwealth nations. The review of potential developments in these different policy fields shows that the expectations of Brexiteers and African politicians alike concerning an enhanced, partnership-like post-Brexit Commonwealth relationship are largely unfounded. Although the post-Brexit United Kingdom will increase African countries’ choices regarding preferred trading partners, it remains questionable whether London could offer something new that other global players with increasing interest in Africa, such as China, do not already have on their agenda. PubDate: 2018-10-18 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2018)
Authors:Alžběta Šváblová Abstract: Review of a collective monograph: Skalník, Petr et al. (2017), Afrikanistika v českých zemích a na Slovensku po roce 1960: kritické ohlédnutí ( Czech and Slovak African Studies after 1960: A Critical Hindsight ), Ústí nad Orlicí and Hradec Králové: Oftism, ISBN 978-80-7405-427-3, 336 pages PubDate: 2018-10-18 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2018)
Authors:Hannah Smidt Abstract: Review of a monograph: Matanock, Aila M. (2017), Electing Peace: From Civil Conflict to Political Participation , Cambridge, UK, New York, USA, Port Melbourne, Australia, Delhi, India, Singapore: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-107-18917-1 (hardback), 323 pages PubDate: 2018-10-18 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2018)
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