Download or read book African Kingships in Perspective written by René Lemarchand and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-10-31 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1977, African Kingships in Perspective deals comparatively and analytically with the dynamics of change in monarchical settings. It examines the variant responses of African kingships to the challenge of modernity and political centralisation, and to assess their successes and failures in the face of rapid social change. The analysis is based on eight case studies: Ethiopia, Buganda, Ankole, Rwanda, Burundi, Ijebu Ode, Swaziland and Lesotho – covering a wide range of historical experiences and social settings. By looking at the relative staying power and adaptability of these traditional polities, the editor reveals the structural regularities behind variations of culture, leadership, and historical experience. The case studies included in this book also demonstrate the vital importance of monarchical symbols, leadership patterns, and strategic maneuverings for an understanding of the durability and viability of African kingships. It further shows how the actions of individual monarchs may have contributed to the survival or demise of their respective kingdoms, taking into account the obstacles arising from structural and environmental constraints. The institution of kingship thus emerges as a significant variable in the analysis of political change in contemporary Africa. This book stands as an important contribution to the political anthropology of contemporary Black Africa.
Download or read book Personal Rule in Black Africa written by Robert H. Jackson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1982.
Download or read book African Religions written by Jacob K. Olupona and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book connects traditional religions to the thriving religious activity in Africa today.
Download or read book African Perspectives of King Dingane kaSenzangakhona written by Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-06 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the active role played by Africans in the pre-colonial production of historical knowledge in South Africa, focusing on perspectives of the second king of amaZulu, King Dingane. It draws upon a wealth of oral traditions, izibongo, and the work of public intellectuals such as Magolwane kaMkhathini Jiyane and Mshongweni to present African perspectives of King Dingane as multifaceted, and in some cases, constructed according to socio-political formations and aimed at particular audiences. By bringing African perspectives to the fore, this innovative historiography centralizes indigenous African languages in the production of historical knowledge.
Download or read book Remembering Genocides in Central Africa written by Rene Lemarchand and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scene of one of the biggest genocides of the last century Rwanda has become a household word, yet bitter disagreements persist as to its causes and consequences. Through a blend of personal memories and historical analysis, and informed by a lifelong experience of research in Central Africa, the author challenges conventional wisdom and suggests a new perspective for making sense of the appalling brutality that has accompanied the region’s post-independence trajectories. All four states adjacent to Rwanda are inhabited by Hutu and Tutsi and thus contained in germ the potential for ethnic conflict, but only in Burundi did this potential reach genocidal proportions when, in 1972, in response to a local insurrection, at least 200,000 Hutu civilians were killed by a predominantly Tutsi army. By widening his analytic lens the author shows the critical importance of the Burundi bloodshed to an understanding of the roots of the Rwanda genocide, and in later years the significance of the mass murder of Hutu civilians by Kagame’s Tutsi army, not just in Rwanda but in the Congo. The regional dimension of ethnic conflict, traceable to Belgian-engineered Hutu revolution in Rwanda in 1959, three years before its independence, is the principal missing piece in the genocidal puzzle of the Great Lakes region of central Africa. But this is by no means the only one. Reassembling the missing pieces within and outside Rwanda is not the least of the merits of this highly readable reassessment of a widely misunderstood human tragedy.
Download or read book Patrons Clients and Empire written by Colin Newbury and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2003-01-02 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Patrons, Clients, and Empire challenges the stereotypes of despotic imperial power in Asian, African, and Pacific colonies by analysing the relationship between rulers and rulers on both sides of the imperial equation. It seeks an answer to the question: how were European officials able to govern so many societies for so long? Rejecting the usual explanations of 'collaboration' and indirect rule', this study looks to pre-imperial structures in the indigenous hierarchies which supplied patrimonial models of chieftaincy for territorial government. For nawabs, chiefs, emirs, sultans, and their officials and followers there were dynastic and economic advantages in accepting the terms of European over-rule, as well as the threat of deposition. For European officials, few in numbers and with limited military and financial resources, there were ready-made systems of local government that could be co-opted, reformed, or left relatively untouched. Both sides played politics as patrons and clients within a dual system of administration based on a mixture of force and self-interest. Surveying a wide variety of cases and employing a patron-client model, this study embraces pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial politics in new states. It covers the chronology of early European dependency on local rulers; the reasons for reversal of status among chiefs and administrators; the longer period of political bargaining over access to local resources in terms of land, labour, and taxes; and the ultimate fate of indigenous rulers in the period of party politics leading to independence.
Download or read book Traditional Institutions in Contemporary African Governance written by Kidane Mengisteab and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-06-26 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most African economies range from moderately advanced capitalist systems with modern banks and stock markets to peasant and pastoral subsistent systems. Most African countries are also characterized by parallel institutions of governance – one is the state sanctioned (formal) system and the other is the traditional system, which is adhered to, primarily but not exclusively, by the segments of the population in the subsistence peasant and pastoral economic systems. Traditional Institutions in Contemporary African Governance examines critical issues that are largely neglected in the literature, including why traditional institutions have remained entrenched, what the socioeconomic implications of fragmented institutional systems are, and whether they facilitate or impede democratization. The contributors investigate the organizational structure of traditional leadership, the level of adherence of the traditional systems, how dispute resolution, decision-making, and resource allocation are conducted in the traditional system, gender relations in the traditional system, and how the traditional institutions interact with the formal institutions. Filling a conspicuous gap in the literature on African governance, this book will be of great interest to policy makers as well as students and scholars of African politics, political economy and democratization.
Download or read book Institutional Legacies Decision Frames and Political Violence in Rwanda and Burundi written by Stacey Mitchell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rwanda and Burundi are strikingly similar countries that underwent democratization in the early 1990s. In both, resistance to democratic reforms led to coups d’état and presidential assassinations. A conundrum arises in terms of what transpires next. In Rwanda, total genocide was perpetrated by extremist Hutu actors, including government officials, upon the country’s Tutsi and politically moderate Hutu populations. In Burundi the coup d’état failed and instead ushered in a lengthy period of civil war. This divergence in outcome is puzzling given the similarity of these two countries, and it is not adequately explained by studies that address collective violence in each. This book utilizes an integrative approach that facilitates the formation of an explanation that more fully accounts for variation in the type of collective violence that occurred in Rwanda and Burundi. Showing that political actors – during periods of major institutional change – do not all respond to or perceive reform in the exact same manner or in a necessarily rational manner, this book makes an important contribution to the literature on ethnic conflict, collective violence and democratization in Africa.
Download or read book Reconstructing the Authoritarian State in Africa written by George Klay Kieh, Jr. and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work seeks to examine the nature and dynamics of authoritarianism in Africa and to suggest ways in which the states covered in the book can be democratically reconstituted. In 1990, a wave of euphoria greeted the "third wave of democratization" that swept across the African Continent. The repression-wearied subalterns were hopeful that the "third wave" would have set into motion the process of democratically reconstituting the authoritarian state on the continent. More than two decades thereafter, although some progress has been made, by and large, the authoritarian state remains the dominant construct in the region. Even in some of the countries in which democratic transitions have taken place, the process of democratic consolidation remains an elusive quest as these states are sandwiched between authoritarianism and democracy. Against this background, the purpose of this book is to examine the travails of the authoritarian state in Africa, including the Herculean task to democratically reconstruct it. In order to do this, six of Africa’s perennial authoritarian states—Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Liberia, Rwanda and Uganda—are used as the case studies. The book has two major objectives. First, the various chapters probe the nature and dynamics of authoritarianism in Africa. Second, the chapters suggest ways in which the various authoritarian states covered in the book can be democratically reconstituted.
Download or read book Towards an Understanding of the African Experience from Historical and Contemporary Perspectives written by Festus Ugboaja Ohaegbulam and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 1990 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This introductory survey provides a rich understanding of the African experience which, until recently, either had been omitted from the curriculum of institutions of higher learning or was distorted in written and oral literature. The book identifies the post-World War II civil rights movement in America and the independence revolution in Africa as the most decisive forces that generated interest in the study of the African/black experience. Includes four theoretical models for interpreting the black experience. The author discusses the place and role of Africa in the development of human civilization, focusing on Africa's Nile Valley civilizations and Western Sudanic empires. It probes aspects of traditional African culture, including the family, traditional political institutions and religion, and analyzes the impact on Africa and its peoples of such historical traumas as slavery, colonialism, and decolonization.
Download or read book Understanding Religion and Social Change in Ethiopia written by M. Girma and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-12-05 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religiosity is one aspect without which Ethiopian society cannot be fully understood. This book aims to map out the terrain of the discourse in religion-social change nexus in Ethiopian using the notion of covenant as an interpretive tool.
Download or read book Documentation List Africa written by Indian Council for Africa. Library and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book African Political Systems Revisited written by Aleksandar Bošković and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2022-04-08 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reexamining a classical work of social anthropology, African Political Systems (1940), edited by Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, this book looks at the colonial and academic context from which the work arose, as well as its reception and its subject matter, and looks at how the work can help with analysis of current politics in Africa. This book critically reflects upon the history of anthropology. It also contributes to a political anthropology which is aware of its antecedents, self-reflexive as a discipline, conscious of pitfalls and biases, and able to locate itself in its academic, social and political environment.
Download or read book Perspectives on Africa written by Roy Richard Grinker and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-05-17 with total page 713 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation is both an introduction to the cultures of Africa and a history of the interpretations of those cultures. Key essays explore the major issues and debates through a combination of classic articles and the newest research in the field. Explores the dynamic processes by and through which scholars have described and understood African history and culture Includes selections from anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and critics who collectively reveal the interpenetration of ideas and concepts within and across disciplines, regions, and historical periods Offers a combined focus on ethnography and theory, giving students the means to link theory with data and perspective with practice Newly revised and updated edition of this popular text with 14 brand new chapters and two new sections: Conflict and Violent Transformations; and Development, Governance and Globalization
Download or read book The Quality of Democracy in Africa written by Jonathan van Eerd and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-04-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows that democratization in sub-Saharan Africa can be successful, even if the government remains dominated by one major political party. If an institutionalized and strong opposition party – even when too weak to take power – challenges the dominant government party, the quality of democracy improves substantially. The comparative study demonstrates that competitive opposition parties in dominant party systems are rooted in the historical legacy of political cleavages related to de-colonization that precede the third wave of democratization of the 1990s and have survived the instability of post-independence political developments to the present day. The study covers 19 African countries and 55 elections overall, including four in-depth case studies of Botswana, Lesotho, Ghana and Mali. It offers scholars and practitioners of electoral democracies and competitive authoritarian regimes a novel view on the role of party systems in processes of democratization. It makes an important contribution to the general literature on state building intertwined with democratization and representation in old and new democracies.
Download or read book General History of Africa written by International Scientific Committee for the drafting of a General History of Africa and published by UNESCO Publishing. This book was released on 1985-12-31 with total page 889 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of UNESCO's most important publishing projects in the last thirty years, the General History of Africa marks a major breakthrough in the recognition of Africa's cultural heritage. Offering an internal perspective of Africa, the eight-volume work provides a comprehensive approach to the history of ideas, civilizations, societies and institutions of African history. The volumes also discuss historical relationships among Africans as well as multilateral interactions with other cultures and continents.
Download or read book Agency and Action in Colonial Africa written by C. Youé and published by Springer. This book was released on 2001-06-17 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The coming of colonialism to Subsaharan Africa generated many forces that historians often describe in abstract terms: peasantization, leadership, nationalism and even colonialism. Such terms often hide or overwhelm the individual experiences of those who, in some way, contributed to the development and demise of colonial Africa. These 'agents' of empire - intellectuals and peasants, chiefs and ex-slaves, nationalists and colonial officials - symbolise the ambiguities of and limitations on colonial power. Agency and Action in Colonial Africa attempts to capture their role.
