Politics In Sub-Saharan Africa Research Articles

Political Ressourcement: Decolonizing through Retrieval in African Political Theologies

ABSTRACT Political ressourcement is a strategy for decolonizing political imaginations by drawing on means of human organization that predate European colonialism. One such resource in this regard is the millennia-old tradition of compositional politics in sub-Saharan Africa. The compositional tradition’s insights for contemporary political theology are twofold. First, basing a community’s identity upon amalgamation rather than exclusion offers a powerful means of building lasting political association. Second, such amalgamation has become a proven way of challenging colonial politics’ exclusivist understandings of tribal, ethnic, and racial identities. In commending this tradition as a means of political ressourcement, the essay draws from Paul Landau’s historical research of the South African highveld. It engages a wider conversation in African studies on the compositional tradition, then shows how this tradition has proven a vibrant strategy for decolonial action for twentieth and twenty-first century Christian churches.

Closing the Arab Democratic Gap: A Re-Assessment of the Tunisian Democratic Transition

Tunisia is often described as the outlier of the Arab Spring, the one case in which a form of political transition decidedly happened. The fact that this transition first led to the rule of the Islamist party Ennahda has reignited long-standing debates on the role of Islam in politics, the relationship between religion and democracy, and the consequences of their potential incompatibility for the future of Tunisian democracy. A sizeable literature has attempted to address these topics over the years, but it is of little help when trying to understand the events of the Arab Spring and the Tunisian transition, especially when it comes to their impact on the Islamist parties themselves. Borrowing from Villalón’s study of Islam and politics in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper argues that, instead of considering whether Tunisian actors fit within a preconceived notion of democracy, we should consider the process of political bargaining itself as democratic; focusing on the substance of democracy rather than its form sheds new light on the Tunisian case and helps explain various outcomes including the progressive liberalization of Islamist parties and the gradual but distinctive flourishing of democracy in the Tunisian context.

Development Communication and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa: Analyzing Media’s Impact on Governance and Political Participation

Development Communication and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa: Analyzing Media’s Impact on Governance and Political Participation Ephraim Okoro, PhD Abstract A number of mass media scholars observe that development communication has taken new directions since the beginning of the twenty-first century, and they are reconceptualizing a range of variables associated with development, including interdependence between media and politics, new media and diffusion of innovation, and sustainability of political development, communication ethics and its impact on democratization, re-examination of media objectivity, role of the media in disseminating information, and agenda-setting process for effective citizens’ participation in the political process. This reconceptualization is increasingly attracting the interest of academics, practitioners, and independent consultants around the world, which is leading to a rethinking of current media perspectives and theoretical frameworks guiding development communication debates. With increasing globalization and nations of the world have become interconnected because of global markets and investments, it is important that countries understand one another’s need for development communication to ensure continuing growth and sustainability. Recent media studies have traced the slow growth of political development to a lack of development communication, inadequate strategic communication skills, unwillingness of citizens to engage in democratic debates, and unawareness of the consequences of political apathy. This chapter is focused on development communication contexts, issues, and theoretical frameworks in sub-Saharan Africa. It then provides conclusion and recommendations for effective utilization of development communication to enhance political participation, generate a keen interest in the political process, and ultimately increase the quality of national governance. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/ijll.v6n2a19

Religion as a Stimulant of Political Participation: Experimental Evidence from Nairobi, Kenya

In this article we explore how certain religious messages may spur or constrain political participation. Specifically, we test whether religious messages that provide individuals a positive self-image can act as stimulants, giving people a sense of internal efficacy to participate in politics. We explore this hypothesis through a novel experimental design in Nairobi, Kenya. We find that exposure to self-affirmation messages typical of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches motivated participation in a political text message campaign. We discuss implications of these findings for politics in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as for the study of religion and politics more generally.

The paradox and tension of moral claims: Evangelical Christianity, the politicization and globalization of sexual politics in sub-Saharan Africa

This article explores the paradox between local and global moral values in sexual politics in Sub-Saharan Africa. It shares the thesis that various forces of globalization—the web, media, social, economic, political, and religious––influence and to some extent shape sexual politics in Sub-Saharan Africa. Globalization has made it easy for anti-gay and pro-gay rights groups to connect globally, and share ideas and strategies, but it has also complicated the study of sexual politics in Sub-Saharan Africa. While anti-gay and pro-gay groups accuse each other of being “influenced by foreign interests,” both sides have global groups that provide the ideological framework for the struggle. To some extent, the growing opposition to gay rights should be understood from the perspective of conservative global Christianity on one hand and the globalization on the other. The article concludes that global anti-gay activism invites global pro-gay activism, thereby leading to unintended consequences on sexual minorities.

Religion and Interest in Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa

Since the 1980s, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has experienced a major wave of democratization, and concurrent expansions of independent Christianity and Reformist Islam. Scholarly narratives about the relationship between religion and politics have alternated between emphasizing religion’s inclusive and divisive political potential. Using data from thirteen countries, we evaluate competing hypotheses arising from these narratives. Focusing on the grassroots level, we analyze the effects of religious identity, active religious membership, and education on political interest. We find that active religious membership positively shapes political interest in almost all countries. Yet contrary to extant elite-focused literature, we find no tradition to be uniformly more “political.” Further, religious identity and religious minority status frequently condition the effects of education on political interest. The effects of religion on interest in politics are therefore context-dependent, exhibiting both inclusive and divisive potential.

Resource Allocation and Military Budgetary Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT While scholars have tried to explain the variation in spending by African countries on conventional forces or auxiliary forces, no study has been done that compares the resource allocation process for both. Governments elect to spend more money on conventional forces when faced with military conflicts as opposed to potential threats. By contrast, interstate conflicts suppress spending on irregular forces. The best predictor of state spending on auxiliary organizations involves domestic factors such as the existence of a civilian government. The most surprising finding is that spending on conventional and auxiliary forces is not always an “either/or” decision.

Oil, corruption and the resource curse

Popular perceptions of corruption, poverty and the ‘resource curse’ in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea can be caricatured as belonging to (or falling between) two possible positions. First, the fault lies with oil companies, exploiting, bribing and otherwise abusing innocent Africans. Second, the blame lies with corrupt African rulers, stealing the oil money. There is truth in each position, but this is now a stale, unhelpful debate, obscuring other aspects of the problem. Several themes merit more attention. First, taxation in resource-dependent states is different from what is found in other types of economy. Second, transparency and anti-corruption schemes like the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative focus on revenue flows inside countries, ignoring crucially important transnational flows. Third, natural resources provoke competition and factional politics, fragmenting the public interest. These three lead to a fourth way of conceptualizing the issue–as a systemic one, which is not ultimately the result of bad behaviour (or even of ‘culture’). We should move away from focusing too much on actors and behaviour and instead focus on systems and processes, a shift that will result in different (or additional) policy prescriptions, new (or expanded) branches of economics and political science. This article does not depend on statistical analysis but instead takes a bottom-up view, based on nearly 15 years' research into oil and politics in sub-Saharan Africa, including interviews with numerous key players, to explore the dynamics of the resource curse.

AIDS and Africa. Introduction.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and in this issue of the Journal, seven authors discuss the moral, social and medical implications of having 70% of those stricken living in this area. Anton A. van Niekerk considers complexities of plague in this region (poverty, denial, poor leadership, illiteracy, women's vulnerability, and disenchantment of intimacy) and the importance of finding responses that empower its people. Solomon Benatar reinforces these issues, but also discusses the role of global politics in sub-Saharan Africa, especially discrimination, imperialism and its exploitation by first world countries. Given the public health crisis, Udo Schüklenk and Richard E. Ashcroft defend compulsory licensing of essential HIV/AIDS medications on consequentialist grounds. Keymanthri Moodley discusses the importance of conducting research and the need to understand a moderate form of communitarianism, also referred to as "ubuntu" or "communalism", to help some Africans understand research as an altruistic endeavour. Godfrey B. Tangwa also defends traditional African values of empathy and ubuntu, discussing how they should be enlisted to fight this pandemic. Loretta M. Kopelman criticizes the tendency among those outside Africa to dismiss the HIV/AIDS pandemic, attributing one source to the ubiquitous and misguided punishment theory of disease. The authors conclude that good solutions must be cooperative ventures among countries within and outside of sub-Saharan Africa with far more support from wealthy countries.

The Limits of Clientism: Multi-Party Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa

As a comment to Nicolas van de Walle's article in this issue, ‘The Impact of Multi-Party Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa’, it is argued that a qualitative approach can be more appropriate. Quantitative analyses will largely reflect the indicators chosen and the relative weight assigned to them in the first place. Besides, statistics are weak in Africa and the number of cases is limited. The commentary also suggests a more precise delineation and evaluation of the core aspects of neopatrimonialism. Institutions matter, however, and it is therefore argued that the qualitative aspects of democratic institutionalisation should be assessed for each country, here illustrated by Senegal as a case.

The Impact of Multi-Party Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa

This article examines the impact of the third wave of democratisation on economic performance in sub-Saharan Africa. It starts by assessing the extent of democratisation in the region, and concludes that political reforms have resulted in the routinisation of multiparty elections, but that political competition remains imperfect and that only a few countries could qualify as ‘liberal’ democracies. The article then examines the economic performance of African countries during the 1990s. It finds no significant differences across regime types or across time. The region's political changes have not yet had a lasting impact on the region's economics. This suggests that important institutional continuities mark the region's political dynamics. The article concludes by examining these continuities.

Religion and politics in Sub-Saharan Africa

There is a thriving literature of religious tracts in Africa. The few formal bookshops, and the far more numerous market-stalls and itinerant hawkers who sell books, offer for sale pamphlets and popular works on religious subjects in every country of the continent, it would seem. Some are theological inquiries into aspects of the Bible or the Koran. Others contain moral lessons derived from these sacred books. Perhaps the most common category, however, is testimonies of personal religious experiences. Much of this literature hardly makes its way outside Africa and is only rarely to be found in even the finest Western academic libraries.The most puzzling genre, at least for anyone educated in modern Western academies of learning, is that of the numerous works on witchcraft and other perceived forms of evil, sometimes in the form of a description of a personal journey into a world of spirits. While many pious works on Christianity on sale in Africa are authored by American evangelicals and published in America, popular books on witchcraft and mystical voyages are almost invariably written by Africans and published locally. Similar material is circulated through churches, sometimes in the form of video recordings. This is also true of African-led churches in the diaspora, among African communities on other continents. It is impossible to know with certainty how many people give any credence to stories like these, but the indications are that very many do so. Not only do pamphlets describing mystical journeys appear to circulate in large numbers, but such accounts may clearly be situated within an older tradition of stories about witchcraft and journeys into the underworld which is to be found in collections of folklore and even in the literature of high culture. Studies of churches and of healers in almost any part of Africa indicate that incidents of perceived witchcraft and of shamanism or near-death experiences are relatively common, and probably have been for as long as it is possible to trace. Such evidence may be drawn not just from studies of the pentecostal churches which have attracted so much scholarly interest of late, but also of many other sorts of church including African independent congregations, of Muslim communities and of indigenous religious traditions. Thus, the popular literature written by people who claim to have experienced spiritual journeys or to have expert knowledge of witchcraft is not, we believe, an ephemeral genre but rather represents a modern form of an important tradition of mysticism in Africa.

Popular religion and politics in sub-Saharan Africa

(1995). Popular religion and politics in sub-Saharan Africa. Third World Quarterly: Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 89-108.

Beyond the State: Civil Society and Associational Life in Africa

The current scholarly preoccupation with the state may obscure more than it reveals for students of politics in sub-Saharan Africa. The weakly formed state in Africa—beset by decline in economic production and political authority—is now retreating from overambitious attempts at social transformation. The time is therefore ripe for societal actors to play an enhanced role in political change. This article reviews the current literature on state-society relations in Africa with particular emphasis on the nature of African associational life and the extent to which it is taking on a politically organized form as an identifiable civil society. The author proposes a theoretical framework and research agenda that takes account of the capacity of either state or societal actors to exercise a range of options to engage or disengage.

Le pouvoir sur scène : contorsions politico-religieuses dans le théâtre de Soyinka.

C. Fioupou—Power on Stage: Political and Religious Contorsions in Soyinka's Dr amas. The major themes, identified herein, of Wole Soyinka's theatrical works take the form of allegories of good and evil, and of cruelty. As Soyinka's whole work centers around the political and religious contorsions of African leaders, it turns out to be an extremely fierce satire of the powers that be. Though deahng exclusi-vely with Africa, Soyinka uses Western theatrical schemata, borrowed in particular from Genet and Brecht. Beyond the purely literary aspects of his theater, a clear statement is made about politics in sub-Saharan Africa.

Religious Movements and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa

It is important to make clear from the beginning what this review will cover and what it will not. Its focus will be on “traditional” and Christian religious movements in the last hundred years. By movements are meant widespread and grassroots adherence to religious ideas, symbols and rituals, sometimes brief in duration, sometimes long-lasting; sometimes lacking and sometimes acquiring formal organizational structures. The review will deal, therefore, with questions of “popular conciousness” rather than with the development of formal theologies. It will not review the literature on African Islam nor have much to say about religious movements and politics in pre-colonial Africa. Both these, of course, are major omissions, not only leaving out topics which are of great importance in themselves but also depriving analysis of modern traditional and Christian movements of an invaluable comparative and historical context. To seek to cover them also in one review, however, would be to risk a mere listing. It seems more useful to develop an argument on the past, present, and future direction of work on the interaction of religious movements and politics by focusing on a limited, but nevertheless still huge, topic and period.

Politics in sub-Saharan Africa and United States foreign policy towards sub-Saharan Africa: change, continuity and constraint

Politics in sub-Saharan Africa and United States foreign policy towards sub-Saharan Africa: change, continuity and constraint

Islamic Affinities and International Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa

Islamic Affinities and International Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa