Contemporary African Politics
About the Book Series
Once seen only as a continent of poverty, violence and corruption, the Africa of today is a vibrant place where social forces demand representative governance, in the process generating fresh forms of complexities in the political, social and economic life of ordinary Africans. Whether what we are witnessing is a third liberation of the continent: the first from colonialism, the second from autocratic indigenous rule and now something far more different, is a work in progress.
This series seeks original approaches to furthering our understanding of the ensuing changes on the continent. The series includes work that progresses comparative analysis of African politics. It looks at the full range and variety of African politics in the twenty-first century covering the changing nature of African society, gender issues, economic prosperity and poverty to the development of relations between African states, external organisations and between leaders and the people they would govern. The series aims to publish work by senior scholars as well as the best new researchers and features original research monographs, thematically strong edited collections and specialised texts.
To submit a proposal for Contempoary African Politics please contact African Studies editor Helena Hurd, [email protected]
Revolution and Democracy in Ghana: The Politics of Jerry John Rawlings
1st Edition
By Jeffrey Haynes
August 26, 2024
This book analyses Flight-Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings’ plans for radical democratisation in Ghana, involving ordinary people directly in the country’s political and economic decision-making processes. Rawlings came to power in Ghana in late 1981 determined to restructure the ...
Foreign Policy in Post-Genocide Rwanda: Elite Perceptions of Global Engagement
1st Edition
By Jonathan R. Beloff
May 31, 2023
This book examines how Rwandan elites within the government, private sector and civil society perceive the nation’s political and economic relationship with the international community. Using testimonies and interviews of Rwandan political, military and economic leaders, and bureaucrats, this book ...
Post-Colonial Kenya: The Rise of an Authoritarian and Predatory State
1st Edition
By Rok Ajulu
May 31, 2023
This engaging reassessment of postcolonial Kenya argues that the country’s political turmoil over the last fifteen years is a continuation of repeating patterns of political contestation and conflict across Kenya’s history. When Kibaki stole the 2007 presidential election, leading to a spiral of ...
Neoliberal Globalisation and Resistance from Below: Why the Subalterns Resist in Bolivia and not in Ghana
1st Edition
By Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno
September 30, 2020
As bearers of their own emancipation, the political agency of the subaltern classes is a vexed question, a time-honoured one at that. Why do the subalterns endure injustices without revolting most of the time, but revolt sometimes against some injustices? The euphoria of ’globalisation-from-below’,...
Voice and Power in Africa's Democracy: Institutions, Participation and Accountability
1st Edition
Edited
By Said Adejumobi
September 01, 2020
Africa has made notable progress in its nascent democracy but with uneven performance across countries. However, across the board, challenges abound. Central to Africa’s checkered democratic narrative is the weakness of its democratic institutions, participatory mechanisms and accountability ...
The Making of the Constitution of Kenya: A Century of Struggle and the Future of Constitutionalism
1st Edition
By Charles O. Oyaya, Nana Poku
June 30, 2020
Kenya, like the rest of Africa, has gone through three sets of constitutional crises. The first related to the trauma of colonialism and struggle for independence. The second a period of constitutional dictatorship and the clamor for reform. The third, most recent crisis, being one of identity, ...
Urban Politics After Apartheid
1st Edition
By Sandrine Gukelberger
June 30, 2020
Urban Politics After Apartheid presents an understanding of gendered urban politics in South Africa as an interactive process. Based on long-term fieldwork in the former townships 20 years after the end of apartheid, it provides an in-depth analysis of how activists and local politicians engage ...
Politics, Public Policy and Social Protection in Africa: Evidence from Cash Transfer Programmes
1st Edition
Edited
By Nicholas Awortwi, Emmanuel Aiyede
December 12, 2019
Africa is now in a much-improved position to support its poor and vulnerable people. It has more money, more policy commitment and abundant intervention programmes. Yet the number of citizens living lives of desperation, or at risk of destitution, is at an all-time high, and still rising. What is ...
The Horn of Africa since the 1960s: Local and International Politics Intertwined
1st Edition
Edited
By Aleksi Ylönen, Jan Záhořík
December 12, 2019
The Horn of Africa has long been one of the most dynamic and politically turbulent sub-regions on the African continent. Host to great ancient civilizations, diverse peoples, and expansive states, the region has experienced massive social, economic, and political transformations which have given ...
Africa Under Neoliberalism
1st Edition
Edited
By Nana Poku, Jim Whitman
October 12, 2017
The period since the 1980s has seen sustained pressure on Africa’s political elite to anchor the continent’s development strategies in neoliberalism in exchange for vitally needed development assistance. Rafts of policies and programmes have come to underpin the relationship between continental ...
Ethnicity, Democracy and Citizenship in Africa: Political Marginalisation of Kenya's Nubians
1st Edition
By Samantha Balaton-Chrimes
July 13, 2017
As an ethnic minority the Nubians of Kenya are struggling for equal citizenship by asserting themselves as indigenous and autochthonous to Kibera, one of Nairobi’s most notorious slums. Having settled there after being brought by the British colonial authorities from Sudan as soldiers, this appears...
State, Land and Democracy in Southern Africa
1st Edition
By Arrigo Pallotti, Corrado Tornimbeni
May 25, 2017
Each country in southern Africa has a unique history but in all of them socio-economic inequalities and high poverty levels weaken the governments’ legitimacy and represent a challenge to models of economic development. One key issue appears to be the solution of the land question. This vital ...