Elites In Africa Research Articles

Changing conceptions of power: elites in Africa

Changing conceptions of power: elites in Africa

Democratization in the post-colonial era: shortcomings

During colonialism, African countries were exposed to severe living circumstances and human rights abuses. African nations earned their independence and transitioned to democracy in the post-colonial period. Democracy was touted as a method of creating security, stability, and wealth in African countries, as well as demonstrating Africa's independence. The transition to democratic states was viewed as a necessary step for African countries in order to meet the needs of citizens who had previously been enslaved and whose rights had been violated by colonizers. This article examines the current position of democracy in African States post colonialization. This article argues that African leaders have failed to deliver on their promises of democracy, as evidenced by the fact that African countries are characterized by political instability, corruption, poverty, poor public service delivery, inequality, and low economic growth. Only the political elites in Africa have reaped the benefits of democracy, while the rest of the population has fared less favorably. The authors contend that the process of democratization has not afforded democratic African states the opportunity to acquire solutions. The authors acknowledge the progress, made by democratic states; nevertheless, in spite of this progress, a greater number of Africans continue to live below the poverty line. Those who are elected to positions of power have the appearance of being there to serve the people, but in reality, they only serve themselves and their own interests.

African Political Elites and the Making(s) of the China Model in Africa

States in Africa are labeled “system ineffectual,” inconsequential to global politics, and lacking material and ideational capabilities to structure their foreign relations. The result is a portrayal of a passive Africa at the whims of its bilateral partners—be they China, the United States, or Russia. Contra this impolitic framing of Africa, this article explores how states in Africa are strategically shaping the norms of development paradigms promoted by foreign powers and influencing external actors to legitimize their preferred norms. Empirically focusing on China's development model in Africa, the article examines how norms related to the model are being shaped and diffused; and how through the ingenuity of political elites, China is making the China model “on the go.” The main argument is that political elites in Africa are strategically reconstructing the China model, creating their own multifaceted versions that delicately balance their own domestic interests and their bilateral relations with China while deriving maximum benefits from the People's Republic of China.Related Articles (in this Special Issue)Duggan, Niall. 2020. “China—The Champion of the Developing World: A Study of China's new Development Model and its Role in Changing Global Economic Governance.” Politics & Policy 48 (5).Ganda, Willie D. 2020. “The China Model in Zimbabwe: The Belt and Road Initiative and Beyond.” Politics & Policy 48 (5).Hodzi, Obert, and John H. S. Åberg. 2020. “Introduction to the Special Issue: Strategic Deployment of the China Model in Africa.” Politics & Policy 48 (5).

Debunking Brazilian Exceptionalism in its Africa Relations: Evidence from Angola and Tanzania

ABSTRACT From 2003, President Lula heralded a new dawn in Brazil’s expanding African relations. Brazil was claimed to be unlike other exploitative powers because of its cultural, geographic and historic connections; Africa’s true brother. Despite the passing of two decades and a number of scandals, this narrative of exceptionalism remains. Studies on Brazil–Africa relations tend to focus on the Brazilian state as the key, essentially benign agent. Our analysis uses the case studies of Angola and Tanzania to debunk the idea of Brazilian exceptionalism. We demonstrate the significant, overlooked agency of corporations in shaping and implementing Lula’s Africa Policy, and determining its developmentally dubious outcomes. Additionally, the paper shows how political elites in Africa directed Brazilian government and companies into their political and business norms. Thus, Brazil–Africa relations replicated much of the typical economic patterns of the continent’s trade, with oft-controversial and corrupt investment in commodity extraction and infrastructure.

A Satirical Reading of Wole Soyinka’s <i>A Play of Giants</i>

Satire is the literary art of diminishing a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking towards its attitudes manner in which the follies and foibles or vices are unmasked by the satirist. The great modern age of satire was the neo-classic period when the satiric spirit was everywhere present and a return was made to formal verse satire. This paper examines how Soyinka has responded to the socio-political and economic situation in Africa by creating A Play of Giants. It also examines how Soyinka, a sensitive playwright, in A Play of Giants mirrors events in the African society in such a daring and imaginative manner by satirizing them. The findings reveal that Soyinka presents his characters as hollow men to show their worthlessness and emptiness despite being at the helms of power. Soyinka reveals the hollowness of the characters exposing their linguistic incompetence. This study identifies some devices technically deployed by Soyinka to include irony, humour, wit, sarcasm and symbolism. Through the use of satire, Soyinka targets African political leaders who have become monsters because of the powers they wield. Wole Soyinka uses satire to raise the consciousness of the people and prick the conscience of the ruling political elite in Africa.

‘Fate Worse than’ artificial borders is the insidious African elite politics: the Somali case

ABSTRACTThe debate centred on the artificial nature of colonial political bounders in Africa and their enduring legacy continues. What is not directly addressed by this literature is the parallel and, even more, destructive political-economic culture left behind by colonial rule, reified by factions of the political elite in Africa, and that appears to be on the march in several parts of the continent. This paper examines the long-term consequences of political ethnicity and corruption in inducing new boundaries within the nation and that is ominously undermining the vitality and further development of civic political culture in the continent. Somalia, arguably the most culturally homogenous nation-state in the continent, provides historical evidence to sustain the argument.

ETHNICITY AND ELECTORAL VIOLENCE IN AFRICA: AN ELITE THEORY PERSPECTIVE

The linkage between ethnicity, religious polarization and electoral violence in Africa has become one of the most recurring theme in the literature on democracy and elections in the continent. The electoral process in these emergent democracies have been observed to be marred by electoral violence which many have blamed on the diversity that characterize the socio-political configuration of these states which were inherited from European colonial powers at independence. In an attempt to explain the electoral violence phenomenon, existing works have limited the depths of their enquiry just below the surface by attributing the phenomenon to ethno-religious diversity which is prompted by competition for power and resource control. This paper makes an invitation for a deeper analysis by making a proposition based on the elite theory- which will serve as a framework for future studies on the subject matter. It proposes that the elite in Africa derive their support from their ethno-religious enclave and therefore have ethnic-based support structures. Since every society is shaped by the values and preferences of the elite, the demand of an ethno-religious enclave is therefore a reflection of the interest of the elite class in dominance of such enclave. As a result of this, ethnic competition and by extension electoral violence in African democratic experiments are a result of the clash of interest between these ethnic-based elite classes and their failure to harmonize their interest. To this end, we therefore suggest that electoral violence in Africa occurs mainly as ‘proxy wars’ between ethnic-based elite classes. Based on this assumption we propose that electoral violence is a function of the failure of the elite class from competing ethno-religious enclaves to harmonize their interest in an electoral process, and when harmonization of interest do occur there tends to be a peaceful election as was experienced in the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria which was peaceful despite the volatility of the political system at the time. This proposition sustains a new dimension in the debate and therefore provides itself as an analytical framework for future studies to build on.

Otherness and identity in Tabu from Miguel Gomes

Portuguese national identity has been constructed over time, across various media, including the cinema, in contrast to the identity of an African “other”, who is simultaneously close and distant, an heir and a challenger, an object of seduction and repulsion. These dualities are reflected in Miguel Gomes’ Tabu (2012), which reifies and questions various representations. It is a post-colonial film which reflects about the way how stereotypes and social and “racial” representations created during colonialism have repercussions on present-day Portuguese society. The film offers a critical vision of a certain Portuguese elite in Africa and the manner in which this elite experienced the War for Independence, confronting this period in Portuguese history with the present day.The director’s filmic discourse is analysed using a multimodal semiotic approach: an analysis of Tabu, taking into account the processes of categorisation, either in terms of inclusion or exclusion. The texts present a dialogic interpretation of semiotic resources, such as rhythm, composition, informal linking and dialogues. The goal of this multimodal analysis is to understand the representation of the African “other” in the film and how Portuguese identity is constructed in the relationship to this other.

Political structure as a legacy of indirect colonial rule: Bargaining between national governments and rural elites in Africa

Alliances between national governments and rural elites are observed in postcolonial Africa. Governments rely on rural elites to control rural regions, guaranteeing them a degree of authority and revenue in return. This paper provides a model to analyze the forging of such alliances. Without cooperation between the national government and rural elite, the power of the two competing authorities to compel farmers’ obedience determines the revenue of the government extracted from cash crop production. Hence, with a powerful rural elite, the national government has a weak bargaining position and agrees to a large transfer to the rural elite. Furthermore, the government’s capacity to compel rural residents’ obedience is endogenously determined by the level of cash crop production and the power of rural elites. Because indirect colonial rule is a significant source of the elite control over residents in rural areas, cross-regional variations in colonial policies lead to various forms of postcolonial alliances between African national governments and rural elites.

Trends and Issues in Distance Education: International Perspectives

Foreword by the Editors. Part I: International Perspectives on and in Distance Education. A Survey of Progressive and Conservative in Education with Implications for Distance Education Practice. Brent G. Wilson. Quality, Accreditation and Recognition: in the Delivery of Transnational Education. Andrea Hope. The Long and Short of Distance Education: and from a Planetary Human Development Perspective. Jan Visser. Distance education Reappraised: Emerging in Traditional Universities and Corporate Training Institutions. Francois Marchessou. What the World Needs Now: International Research on Distance Education. Deborah LaPointe. Part II: Interviews with International Leaders in Distance Education. Defining Trends and Issues in Distance Education: An Interview with Don Ely. Lya Visser and Kristen Gagnon. A Career in International Distance Education: An Interview with Barbara Spronk Michael Simonson and Margaret Crawford. University-wide Distance Education Implementation: An Interview with Robert Morgan. Ray J. Amirault and Jeffery Sievert. Personal Perspectives on and in Distance Education: An Interview with Otto Peters. Lya Visser and Meira van der Spa. Part III: National and Regional Case Studies in Distance Education. Open and Distance Learning for Developing Countries: Is the Cup Half Full or is it Still Half Empty? Tony Dodds. The Promise of M-learning for Distance Education in South Africa and Other Developing Nations. Lya Visser and Paul West. British Distance Education: A Proud Tradition. Steve Wheeler. Distance Education in Turkey: Experiences and Issues. Ugur Demiray. Supporting Distance Learning in Brazil: Applications of a Multimedia Digital Library. Fredric Michael Litto. Open and Distance Learning Enhanced through ICTs: A Toy for Africa's Elite or an Essential Tool for Sustainable Development? Bob Day. The role of Distance Education in Turkish Women's Education. Emine Demiray and Sensu Curabay. Thank You for not Forgetting Us: A Reflection on the Trials, Tribulations, and Take-off of Distance Education in Mozambique. Muriel Visser-Valfrey, Jan Visser, and Miguel Buendia. Part IV: Design and Development for International Distance Education. Learning Management Systems (LMS') for Web-based Distance Education: An International Review. Wei-yuan Zhang and Lixun Wang. in Distance Education Technologies from an International Vantage Point. Michael Simonson. Dynamism and Evolution in Student Support and Instruction in Distance Education: Implications for International Distance Education. Yusra Laila Visser. Author Profiles.

Timothy Gibbs. Mandela's Kinsmen: Nationalist Elites and Apartheid's First Bantustan.

In this compelling study of Nelson Mandela's kinsmen, Timothy Gibbs brings to life the powerful role that the Transkei, a former South African homeland skirting the country's eastern coast, had played in the nation's liberation struggle. Arguing that the Transkei was a training ground for many of South Africa's elite leaders, Gibbs writes, “[a]lthough it was hundreds of miles away from the cities and the histories of trade union and township protest that played a central role in South Africa's politics, it was the birthplace of many prominent African leaders” (p. 1). Gibbs makes this important connection and goes beyond traditional narratives that focus on the co-opted homeland and instead concentrates on the collaborative one. Instead of the Transkei seen as doing the white minority's bidding, Gibbs restores its agency by illustrating how this homeland, one of ten operating during the apartheid era, served as an important pipeline for the African elite.

Climate change, health, and sustainable development in Africa

This paper critically examines the effects of climate change on the African continent and suggests ways in which the negative effects of climate change can be effectively combatted to ensure sustainable development. Although responsible for a small share of global climate change, Africa is the most vulnerable region of the world to climate change, which destroys the people’s source of food, medication, shelter, and income, leading to poor nutrition and exposure to infectious diseases, more hospitalizations, less working hours, and heavy financial losses. Apart from global environmental deterioration, Africa is one of the regions of the world experiencing the severest droughts and water scarcity. The impact of all this on Africa’s already fragile socio-economic and political structures is grave. Climate change threatens the political stability of the continent. In this paper we argue that the effects of climate change on the continent have been amplified by human choices and political ineptitude of the ruling elites in Africa. We maintain that good governance, the promotion of African traditional values that encourage the protection of the environment, paying attention to rural development and the emancipation of women economically and politically, and investing in alternative and renewable energy are the necessary pre-conditions for effectively mitigating the effects of climate change and ensuring sustainable development in Africa.

Emotive histories: the politics of remembering slavery in contemporary Ghana

New narratives about the role of Africans in the history of the slave trade in Ghana are emerging from unexplored vectors within the black Atlantic, breaking the previous silence about the topic since many of West Africa's elite families have ambiguous histories as both slavers and slaves. Heritage tourism, heavily backed by a state eager to build an industry, has brought Ghanaians into contact with the very different perspectives of comparatively more prosperous diasporan Africans, and has meant that Ghanaians have produced monuments and stories about the past in a new vernacular which differs from extant oral traditions and material culture. The incorporation of these stories into the heritage tourism industry has rendered them into a form of currency. In spite of this flawed function, they also serve emotional needs of diasporan and African communities alike, producing new structures of feeling while simultaneously performing to the demands of contemporary political and economic needs. This essay traces the contemporary conflicts, both local and transnational, made visible by the contradictions in accounts of the past and seeks to locate markers of the past made visible in material objects, particularly gifts between Africans and Europeans that speak to histories of complicity in the slave trade. Consequently, it also explores the complexities of the history of the post-independence relationship between Ghanaians and diasporans. Nonetheless, this essay insists that a new cultural space has opened up in which Africans themselves are authoring new narratives about their past, and a contemporary transatlantic generation offers a genuine engagement with the past, an escape from the stigma of slavery, and a shared sense of regret and empathy in relation to the difficult legacy of the transatlantic trade.

The plundering of Zambian resources by Frederick Chiluba and his friends: A case study of the interaction between national politics and the international drive towards good governance

This article analyses the accusations that have emerged since 2001 of predatory behaviour during the presidency of Frederick T. Chiluba (1991-2001). It advocates a detailed analysis of the practices that have come to light in order to move beyond a generalized interpretation of the persistence of predatory elites in Africa. Three specific themes appear. First, there is a danger of oversimplification of these conflicts as between the international community and national governments. The political struggles tend to be more complicated than generally presented, and international involvement meshes with local political struggles. Second, predatory behaviour or corruption is a social process that is embedded in wider national and international networks. It is therefore difficult to locate culpability exactly in clearly designated protagonists. Third, there is a danger of imputing an economic and political rationality to this behaviour which may best be designated as theft. The overall theme of the article is that there are important national cultural influences in the way these predatory practices are dealt with. These are obfuscated by a blander critique identifying partial reform that leaves predatory elites untouched.

The Armored Bubble: Military Memoirs from Apartheid's Warriors - Hilton Hamann. Days of the Generals: The Untold Story of South Africa's Apartheid-Era Military Generals. Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2006 (2001). xvii + 242 pp. Photographs. Glossary. Select Bibliography. Index. $19.95. Paper. Preview available on Google books. - Clive Holt. At Thy Cry We Did Not Falter: A Frontline Account of

The Armored Bubble: Military Memoirs from Apartheid's Warriors - Hilton Hamann. Days of the Generals: The Untold Story of South Africa's Apartheid-Era Military Generals. Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2006 (2001). xvii + 242 pp. Photographs. Glossary. Select Bibliography. Index. $19.95. Paper. Preview available on Google books. - Clive Holt. At Thy Cry We Did Not Falter: A Frontline Account of the 1988 Angolan War, as Seen through the Eyes of a Conscripted Soldier. Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2005. xii + 194 pp. Photographs. Glossary. $19.95. Paper. Preview available on Google books. - Piet Nortje. 32 Batallion: The Inside Story of South Africa's Elite Fighting Unit. Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2003. xviii + 315 pp. Photographs. Maps. Bibliography. Index. $18.95. Paper. Preview available on Google books. - Peter Stiff. The Silent War: South African Recce Operations, 1969–1994. Johannesburg: Galago Publishing (www.galago.co.za), 2004 (Reprint with corrections). 608 pp. Photographs. Maps. Charts. Bibliography. Notes. Index. $42.00. Paper. - Peter Stiff. Warfare by Other Means: South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. Johannesburg: Galago Publishing, 2001. 600 pp. Photographs. Charts. Bibliography. Notes. Index. $45.00. Cloth. - Peter Stiff. The Covert War: Koevoet Operations Namibia, 1979–1989. Johannesburg: Galago Publishing, 2004. 512 pp. Photographs. Maps. Charts. Bibliography. Notes. Index. $45.00. Cloth. - Volume 50 Issue 3

OUT OF AFRICA: THE EXODUS OF ELITE AFRICAN FOOTBALL TALENT TO EUROPE

The squad rosters of the participating teams at recent editions of the biennial African Cup of Nations reveals that the majority of Africa's elite football players ply their trade in Europe and that this is a trend that is increasing year by year. For example, at the 2000 tournament cohosted by Ghana and Nigeria, just over 50 percent of the players were signed to a European club. For the 2002 competition in Mali, this figure had increased to 66 percent and for the 2004 edition in Tunisia it stood at 67 percent. Although the exodus of Africa's football talent to Europe has accelerated significantly since the early 1990s, it is important to recognize that this process has long historical roots. This article examines the changing patterns in the transit of African footballers to Europe and demonstrates the ways in which these patterns have been underpinned by broader developments within the political economy of world football.

Architecture and the Vandal Elite in Africa

Architecture and the Vandal Elite in Africa

The Young Pioneers and the Rituals of Citizenship in Revolutionary Zanzibar

Inspired by Eastern European precedents, Zanzibar's revolutionary regime in the 1960s and 1970s established the Young Pioneers as an institution through which to inculcate the sort of discipline perceived as necessary for nation building. I argue that through an emphasis on Pioneer parades, revolutionary elites allowed themselves to be persuaded by forms and appearances. They prized marching bodies of young men and women more for their visual effect than for the discipline they produced. Parades provided periodic evidence of good citizenship and conformity; they functioned as a strategy of display and a ritual of citizenship, more than as a discipline in the Foucauldian sense. This distinction explains how a rare accumulation of power on the part of a postcolonial elite in Africa could be both spectacular and ephemeral at the sametime.

The past and present in marking futurity in Sango

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that future tense is not a grammatical category in Sango and that none of the temporal adverbs is used in a verbal system as a grammatical marker for future time. Supporting this thesis is evidence of different kinds: (1) rather than a pattern in the use of the temporal adverbs there is widespread intersubjective variation, a conclusion based on the study of tape recordings from the early 1960s, radio broadcasts from the early 1970s, and tape recordings from 1988 to 1994 - in addition to data from interviews; (2) future tense is grammaticalized in neither Ngbandi, Sango's lexifier language, nor in the substrate languages, all belonging to the Ubangian Group; (3) the emerging Bantu pidgins that would have been spoken by some of the foreign African personnel at the time of Sango's birth did not provide the kind of model that would have led to a system based on adverbs. Since the standardization of a written language by missionaries, an alleged future tense has been imposed. In recent years, it is being promoted - in a slightly different form - by some of Central Africa's elite, a phenomenon accompanied by the Ngbandi-ization of the language. The value of this paper is in part linguistic - although it may be unusual in linguistics to argue that something does not occur in a language - and in part historical, the latter because it documents sociopolitical forces at work in the creation of grammar.

Culture, the missing link in development planning in Africa

Over the past five hundred years, no single phenomenon has impacted as definitively on the making and shaping of current realities in Africa as the experience of the African colonial encounter with the West. Today, at the beginning of the 21 century, it is often considered problematic to suggest that colonialism as a heritage has been the major impediment to Africa’s attempt to move forward in social advancement and development. The argument is that it is too easy to put the blame for Africa’s failure on outsiders when Africans have supposedly been in control of their own affairs since the end of the colonial era some forty years ago. Certainly, Africa should take responsibility for its own failings. Corrupt, dictatorial and undemocratic practices have been the hallmark of life in almost all of Africa’s post-colonial states. But everything that is happening in Africa is not under the control of Africans. African governments do not control the prices of the commodities that are sold in global markets, nor do they have any real say in the setting of the prices at which commodities are bought from the developed world. Despite the endless propaganda trumpeted from the West about free markets, the reality for Africans is that most Western markets for the items, largely agricultural, which are produced cheaply and easily, are closed. The European Union is the supreme case in point. What we face are quotas, tariffs and cartels. For Africa, free trade remains a pie in the sky. The minerals we produce in abundance are controlled by Western capital from the source of production of the raw materials, their sale, and destination of sale, with no value added at source. Our economies are perpetually under siege through pernicious and unequal trade practices managed by the West and the related Bretton Woods institutions. These latter institutions have become de facto parallel governments in many African states. With stagnating, shrinking economies and diminishing resources, it is not difficult to see (without condoning this) why the elites in Africa become so prone to corruption and the looting of the state. What I am saying is that a combination of internal and external forces is responsible for the current societal malaise in Africa.