Africa has witnessed a number of transitions to democracy in recent years. Coinciding with this upsurge in democratic transitions there also have been spectacular experiences of social disintegration. An alternative to discourses of the 'failed' and 'collapsed' state in Africa is an approach that takes seriously the complexity of historical processes, on which the political development of individual nation states was based. The chapters in this volume run in a continuum from discussions of 'warlord politics' to an understanding of the 'new wars' in Africa as outcomes of fundamental changes in social solidarity. Wars and violent conflicts in Africa can thus be understood as responses to economic emergencies and political problems which are real, have histories, and can be engaged with constructively through both intellectual and practical efforts. Preben Kaarsholm is Associate Professor of International Development Studies at Roskilde Contributors include: WILLIAM RENO on state insurgencies, KOEN VLASSENROOT on eastern Congo; NIGEL ELTRINGHAM on Rwanda; DOUGLAS H. JOHNSON on Darfur; JOCELYN ALEXANDER on Matabeleland; ALESSANDRO TRIULZI on Ethiopia; PREBEN KAARSHOLM on KwaZulu-Natal; MATS UTAS on Liberia and PAUL RICHARDS on Sierra Leone. North America: Ohio U Press

For most of its history, Nigeria has witnessed sporadic episodes of insecurity; a phenomenon traditionally manifested in political, electoral, religious and ethnic violence, and, more recently, terrorism. This book investigates the core issues that have led to, and shaped the development and sustenance of, organised political violence in Nigeria. Focusing on elite political culture and State governance, it examines important elements of the socio-political environment, including zero-sum politics, identity politics, and the politicisation of social cleavages. As such, it represents an invaluable resource on the issue of organised political violence too often glossed over in research on insecurity in Nigeria. Scholars in security studies and national security policy analysts will find this text enlightening.

Introduction : variants of democratic practice -- The great transplantation -- The post-independence problem -- Typical African political systems -- Towards the modification of African political culture -- Ghana : tactical action, socialism and the military -- Nigeria : oil, coups, and ethnic war -- Kenya : settler ideology and the struggle for Majimbo -- Tanzania : Ujamaa, compulsion, and the freedom of association -- Somalia : experiments with democracy, military rule, and socialism -- Senegal : from French colonialism to the failure of partisan politics -- Rwanda : from success astroy to human disaster -- Congo (Kinshasa) : "a most lethal poison."

This unique volume seeks both to historicize and to deconstruct the pervasive, almost ritualistic, association of Africa with forms of terrorism as well as extreme violence, the latter bordering on and including genocide. Africa is tendentiously associated with violence in the popular and academic imagination alike. Written by leading authorities in postcolonial studies and African history, as well as highly promising emergent scholars, this book highlights political, social and cultural processes in Africa which incite violence or which facilitate its negotiation or negation through non-violent social practice. The chapters cover diverse historical periods ranging from fourteenth century Ethiopia and early twentieth century Cameroon, to contemporary analyses set in Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast and South Africa. It makes a crucial contribution to a revitalized understanding of the social and historical coordinates of violence - or its absence - in African settings. Violence and Non-Violence in Africa will be of interest to students and scholars of African history and anthropology, colonialism and post-colonialism, political science and Africanist cultural studies.

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.

Explores the instrumentalization of various aspects of popular culture in Africa.

The South Africa Reader is an extraordinarily rich guide to the history, culture, and politics of South Africa. With more than eighty absorbing selections, the Reader provides many perspectives on the country's diverse peoples, its first two decades as a democracy, and the forces that have shaped its history and continue to pose challenges to its future, particularly violence, inequality, and racial discrimination. Among the selections are folktales passed down through the centuries, statements by seventeenth-century Dutch colonists, the songs of mine workers, a widow's testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and a photo essay featuring the acclaimed work of Santu Mofokeng. Cartoons, songs, and fiction are juxtaposed with iconic documents, such as "The Freedom Charter" adopted in 1955 by the African National Congress and its allies and Nelson Mandela's "Statement from the Dock" in 1964. Cacophonous voices—those of slaves and indentured workers, African chiefs and kings, presidents and revolutionaries—invite readers into ongoing debates about South Africa's past and present and what exactly it means to be South African.