Sources of Conflict in the Post Colonial African State

Sources of Conflict in the Post Colonial African State
Author: Lasisi Ademola Araoye
Publisher: Africa Research and Publications
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Africa
ISBN: 9781592219759

The end of the Cold War has undermined the notion that the sovereignty of African states is sacrosanct. In explaining the Sources of Conflict in the Post-Colonial African State, this book identifies another structural layer of interaction; intermestic. This analytic layer is advanced as crucial for comprehensive and in depth appreciation of the dynamic of conflict in the post-colonial African state. It also facilitates understandings of the process of the implosion and crisis of African states system.

U.S. Policy in Postcolonial Africa

U.S. Policy in Postcolonial Africa
Author: Festus Ugboaja Ohaegbulam
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2004
Genre: Africa
ISBN: 9780820470917

This book, a concise examination of U.S. policy in contemporary Africa, delineates various aspects of the role that the U.S. played in exacerbating and/or resolving violent conflicts in postcolonial Africa and provides a succinct historical overview of these armed conflicts. F. Ugboaja Ohaegbulam devotes considerable attention to four specific conflicts in Ethiopia-Somalia, the Western Sahara, Angola, and Rwanda and to the Clinton administration's African Crisis Response Initiative and its sequel under George W. Bush. The book concludes that lack of congruence between local forces in conflict in Africa, as well as U.S. aims in those conflicts, was only one of the constraints on the United States in its attempts at conflict resolution. America's counterproductive Cold War policies also defined relations with African states for far too long. Hence, the conflicts in postcolonial Africa became part of the legacy of those policies even as African problems continued to be low-priority concerns for the U.S. government. Libraries, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and professors of African studies, as well as the general reader, will find this book useful.

Civil Wars in Africa

Civil Wars in Africa
Author: Kelechi A. Kalu
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2022-05-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1793649340

Civil Wars in Africa, edited by Kelechi A. Kalu and George Klay Kieh, Jr., examines civil conflicts throughout various African countries. They argue that civil wars in Africa are by-products of the contradictions and crises engendered by the post-colonial state-building and nation-building projects in Africa. With few exceptions, the post-colonial states in Africa have failed to build societies that invest in the material well-being of their citizens; protect their political, civil, and other rights; promote accountability, transparency, the rule of law, judicial independence, and the holding of free and fair elections; and promote ethnic pluralism, tolerance, mutual respect, and peaceful co-existence, among others. In addition, the contributors show that the post-colonial states in Africa have been ruled by corrupt and autocratic leaders, who are obsessed with the maintenance of state power as the pathway to ensuring the private accumulation of wealth through sundry illegal means, including bribery, extortion, and theft of public funds. In sum, this volume addresses how the failure of the post-colonial African state to shepherd the process of building democratic societies based on the centrality of human security has led to the erosion of the legitimacy of the state and its custodians. Thus, once the contradictions and crises reached their crescendo, these post-colonial societies than implode into civil wars, even at the micro-level.

Trajectory of Land Reform in Post-Colonial African States

Trajectory of Land Reform in Post-Colonial African States
Author: Adeoye O. Akinola
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2018-06-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3319787012

This book is an examination of post-colonial land reforms across various African states. One of the decisive contradictions of colonialism in Africa was the distortion of use, access to and ownership of land. Land related issues and the need for land reform have consistently occupied a unique position in public discourse in Africa. The post-colonial African states have had to embark on concerted efforts at redressing historical grounded land policies and addressing the growing needs of land by the poor. However, agitations for land continue, while evidence of policy gaps abound. In many cases, policy change in terms of land use, distribution and ownership has reinforced inequalities and affected power and social relations in respective post-colonial African countries. Land has assumed major causes of structural violence and impediments to human and rural development in Africa; hence the need for holistic assessment of land reforms in post-colonial African states. The central objective of the text is to identify post-independence and current trends in land reform and to address the grievances in relation to land use, ownership and distribution. The book suggests practicable policy options towards addressing the land hunger and conflict, which could derail the ‘moderate’ socio-economic achievements and political stability recorded by post-colonial African nation-states. The book draws its strength and uniqueness from its adoption of country-specific case studies, which places the book in context, and utilizes field studies methodology which generate new knowledge on the continental land question. Taking a holistic approach to understanding Africa’s land question, this book will be attractive to academicians and students interested in policy and development, African politics, post-colonial development and policy, and conflict studies as well as policy-makers working in relevant areas.

The Crises of Postcoloniality in Africa

The Crises of Postcoloniality in Africa
Author: Kenneth Omeje
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2015-12-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 2869787278

The Crises of Postcoloniality in Africa is an assemblage of transdisciplinary essays that offer a spirited reflection on the debate and phenomenon of postcoloniality in Africa, including the changing patterns and ramifications of problems, challenges and opportunities associated with it. A key conceptual rhythm that runs through the various chapters of the book is that, far from being demised, postcoloniality is still firmly embedded in Africa, manifesting itself in both blatant and insidious forms. Among the important themes covered in the book include the concepts of postcolonialism, postcoloniality, and neocolonialism; Africas precolonial formations and the impact of colonialism; the enduring patterns of colonial legacies in Africa; the persistent contradictions between African indigenous institutions and western versions of modernity; the unravelling of the postcolonial state and issues of armed conflict, conflict intervention and peacebuilding; postcolonial imperialism in Africa and the US-led global war on terror, the historical and postcolonial contexts of gender relations in Africa, as well as pan-Africanism and regionalist approaches to redressing the crises of postcoloniality.

Phases of Conflict in Africa

Phases of Conflict in Africa
Author: Rose Marie Kadende
Publisher:
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN:

This book is based on a workshop on "War and Peace in Contemporary Africa" organized and hosted by the African Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania on January 31, 2003. At this workshop were panels dedicated to conflict in central, west, and the horn of Africa, along with a keynote address on "Africa in the War on Terrorism", which stimulated substantial (and contentious) debate. The contributions included in this collection revolve around the central and west African regional conflict zones discussed at the workshop, along with two essays that provide divergent perspectives on Africa's role in the "war on terrorism" emanating from the September 11 attacks. The articles are organized chronologically according to the phases of conflict. They provide valuable insight into the complexities of the processes of conflict, which often follow similar trajectories, but vary in time and space. Undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and teachers will benefit from the analytical roadmap, which serves to situate different cases in a common context while providing the conceptual space for divergent methodological approaches and ideological assumptions. This roadmap reinforces the notion that conflicts are complex processes that need to be understood and resolved based on their scope and content.

Violence, Politics and Conflict Management in Africa

Violence, Politics and Conflict Management in Africa
Author: Munyaradzi Mawere
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2016-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9956764485

This volume critically interrogates, from different angles and dimensions, the resilience of conflict and violence into 21st century Africa. The demise of European colonial administration in Africa in the 1960s wielded fervent hope for enduring peace for the people of Africa. Regrettably, conflict alongside violence in all its dimensions physical, religious, political, psychological and structural remain unabated and occupy central stage in contemporary Africa. The resilience of conflict and violence on the continental scene invokes unsettling memories of the past while negatively influencing the present and future of crafting inclusive citizenship and statehood. The book provides fresh insightful ethnographic and intellectual material for rethinking violence and conflict, and for fostering long-lasting peace and political justice on the continent and beyond. With its penetrating focus on conflict and associated trajectories of violence in Africa, the book is an inestimable asset for conflict management practitioners, political scientists, historians, civil society activists and leaders in economics and politics as well as all those interested in the affairs of Africa.

War and Conflict in Africa

War and Conflict in Africa
Author: Paul D. Williams
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2016-06-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1509509089

After the Cold War, Africa earned the dubious distinction of being the world's most bloody continent. But how can we explain this proliferation of armed conflicts? What caused them and what were their main characteristics? And what did the world's governments do to stop them? In this fully revised and updated second edition of his popular text, Paul Williams offers an in-depth and wide-ranging assessment of more than six hundred armed conflicts which took place in Africa from 1990 to the present day - from the continental catastrophe in the Great Lakes region to the sprawling conflicts across the Sahel and the web of wars in the Horn of Africa. Taking a broad comparative approach to examine the political contexts in which these wars occurred, he explores the major patterns of organized violence, the key ingredients that provoked them and the major international responses undertaken to deliver lasting peace. Part I, Contexts provides an overview of the most important attempts to measure the number, scale and location of Africa's armed conflicts and provides a conceptual and political sketch of the terrain of struggle upon which these wars were waged. Part II, Ingredients analyses the role of five widely debated features of Africa's wars: the dynamics of neopatrimonial systems of governance; the construction and manipulation of ethnic identities; questions of sovereignty and self-determination; as well as the impact of natural resources and religion. Part III, Responses, discusses four major international reactions to Africa's wars: attempts to build a new institutional architecture to help promote peace and security on the continent; this architecture's two main policy instruments, peacemaking initiatives and peace operations; and efforts to develop the continent. War and Conflict in Africa will be essential reading for all students of international peace and security studies as well as Africa's international relations.

Post-Conflict Institutional Design

Post-Conflict Institutional Design
Author: Abu Bakarr Bah
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2020-01-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1786997894

Since gaining independence from colonial rule, most African countries have been struggling to build democratic and peaceful states. While African multiparty politics may be viewed as a democratic system of governance, in reality it is plagued by ethnic and regional political grievances that undermine meaningful democracy. By examining post-conflict institutional reforms in several African countries, this book sheds light on the common causes of violent conflicts and how institutional design can affect the conditions for peace and democracy in Africa. Focussing on conceptual and practical questions of designing ethnically and regionally inclusive state institutions and the way institutions are perceived by the citizenry Post-Conflict Institutional Design addresses political autonomy and control over resources, issues which are often key sources of ethnic and regional grievances. Crucially, it examines the meanings of institutional reforms as well ethnic and regional representation.

The Roots of African Conflicts

The Roots of African Conflicts
Author: Alfred G. Nhema
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2008
Genre: Africa
ISBN: 0821418092

This work, along with 'The Resolution of African Conflicts', clearly demonstrates the efforts by a wide range of African scholars to explain the roots, routes, regimes and resolution of African conflicts and how to re-build post-conflict societies.