Bøger udgivet af CODESRIA

In 1993 a new democratic order was initiated in Ghana. In 1997 the elected Government ran its full mandate and was re-elected, for the first time infour decades. The authors in this volume question the prevailing trendsand tendencies in the country's democratisation process. Given its historyof incomplete transitions, a thorough analysis of the extremely complexnature of the Ghanaian transition process was needed to look at previousand existing orders. The papers in this collection identify and discussthe interplay of factors impinging on the current process: the intertwinedrelationships between economic and political liberalisations, theinstitutional and non-institutional structures in the emergence ofnational mass consciousness and movements, and the connections between themilitary, party politics and chances of sustainable democratictransitions.

This collection of essays critically interrogates the internal dimensions of the identity and citizenship crises at the root of the political crises of states in West Africa, and considers the steps that have been taken thus far to address them. It shows how the progressive alienation of ordinary people from the state, coupled with factors of historical identity and post-colonial citizenship are at the heart of the political crisis and conflicts in the region; and argues that these matters must be addressed if West African states are to achieve democratic nationhood.

Ibrahim offers a comparative study of the democratic transitions in the Anglophone countries of West Africa, identifying regional trends and discreet factors. He argues that democracy is creeping up the agenda, owing to a detremined struggle for human rights and because democracy has been denied to the people for so long. He identifies a number of common issues across the region: the rise of a militarised secular state; a significant increase in public corruption; the primitive accumulation of capital; an intense battle to deepen democracy between civil society and the state; the appropriation of gender poltiics by the state through the office of the 'first ladies'; and the growing dissidence between elections and political choice. The study also addresses what may be considered an acceptable regional model in Ghana, and an unacceptable example in Liberia.

The process of democratisation is under way, it is argued. The vast network of inter-linking social processes - civil society, the media, academia, and public concern with accountability and transparency, which form the bedrock of true democracy - are strengthening. The authors attempt to document and understand the political developments in the West Africa sub-region by analysing the adaptability of the concept of democracy, the legitimacy of the modern nation and the contribution of law, literature, international relations and local government to the democratic process. Sixteen chapters cover broad thematic issues, democracy in Nigeria and democracy in other West African countries - Francophone West Africa, Sierra Leone, Ghana and The Gambia. The special focus on Nigeria is the result of original research reports submitted to the interdisciplinary study, the Governance and Democratisation Project.

This was one of the most pioneering works in the field of gender and social sciences in the African context, and remains an authoritative text. It is an extensively researched and forcefully argued study offering a critique and directions for gendering the social sciences in Africa. The sixteen chapters cover methodological and epistemological questions and substantive issues in the various social science disciplines, ranging from economics, politics, and history, to sociology and anthropology. Thirteen scholars contribute, including the three distinguished women editors. The translation, which is edited from the English and newly introduced by the renowned feminist scholar Fatou Sow, is an achievement itself, an incursion into the notorious difficulties of translating what are notably Anglo-Saxon concepts of sex and gender into the French language and distinctive academic environment; of interpreting western concepts of feminism within the African environment; as well as being an opportunity to revisit what deserves to become a classic text and reach a wider audience.

This is the most authoritative study of the Sierra Leone civil war to emanate from Africa, or indeed any publications' programme on Africa. It explores the genesis of the crisis, the contradictory roles of different internal and external actors, civil society and the media; the regional intervention force and the demise of the second republic. It analyses the numerous peace initiatives designed to end a war, which continued nonetheless to defy and outlast them; and asks why the war became so prolonged. The study articulates how internal actors trod the multiple and conflicting pathways to power. It considers how non-conventional actors were able to inaugurate and sustain an insurgency that called forth the largest concentration of UN peacekeepers the world has ever seen.

'The African state is unveiling itself as a violence-machine, not only in times of war, but also in times of peace...and is forcing children to occupy the spaces from which it has itself withdrawn.'Almost without exception, all the wars on the African continent of the last fifty years have implicated children as either victims or agents. More recently, war and urban conflicts, and the agency of children in these conflicts have fused; and violence has remained the constant phenomenon, being understood as the generic alternative to democratic processes. Moreover, child involvement in urban violence has been swept along on the curent of globalisation; the situations in Somalia, Congo Kinshasa, Congo brazaville and Johannesburg bearing resemblance to those of Bogota and Manila. This bibliography introduces the most important texts from war studies, family, child and gender studies, and the political and social sciences, which pertain to the subjects of children in situations of war and urban violence. It gives prominence to Francophone African texts, the publications of international agencies and human rights organisations, as well as the key texts from within African studies. (In French)

Zaire is a country at a crossroads - a land with abundant agriculture, mineral and human resources, and yet economically deeply paralysed and struggling to implement a successful strategy for social and economic development. These essays by Zairian academics in the fields of politics, sociology and economics describe post- independence social structures - so damagingly imitative of colonial patterns - and the inadquacy of the single Party-State regime, which has replicated western capitalism. The educational system, hardly changed from that inherited from the colonial power, is discussed; and an up-to-date economic analysis of the country today is included. A range of measures are recommended which could be adopted by a responsible ruling class; but first they, and their western ally, must seriously address the questions.