Political parties in Ghana: agents of democracy?

Political parties are generally thought of as agents of democracy that fulfil a range of functions, such as policy formulation, interest aggregation and articulation, social integration, and elite recruitment. However, given the weakness of many African parties, are they able to contribute positively to democracy? This article seeks to answer this question by using Ghana – one of Africa's most successful democracies – as a case study. It is found that parties in Ghana are comparatively strong and do indeed mobilise large numbers of voters. They even expose a degree of ideological competition and have successfully adapted their strategies to the local context. On the other hand, they expose serious weaknesses in the field of social integration and interest representation. Against this background it is argued that even in procedurally well-functioning democracies like Ghana, political parties can be instruments of elite competition that contribute to the exclusion of the poor from decision-making.     

Whither peacebuilding? A reflection on post-conflict African experiences

Peacebuilding is a key concept in efforts to reconstruct African states emerging from conflicts. At heart, it captures the whole array of activities associated with state-and nation-building in addition to building the foundations for local ownership of these processes. Popularised by the UN Secretary-General Boutros-Boutros Ghali in the early 1990s, peacebuilding has evolved alongside peacemaking and peacekeeping in the reconstruction repertoire. This article suggests that while there is considerable scepticism about the utility of peacebuilding in contemporary conflict resolution efforts, African experiences have, since the 1990s, provided solid lessons to both local and international actors on how to rebuild states, societies, polities, and economies.     

South African–Swaziland relations: A constructivist reading

There are several accounts of the past relations between Swaziland and South Africa. Some are set in the realist school of international relations scholarship. These studies portray Swaziland's policy behaviour as ‘submissive’ because of ‘immutable structural forces’. The neo-Marxian analyses locate the relations exclusively in class/ideological setting. Other accounts depict the ‘kaleidoscopic’ nature of the relations. The post-apartheid understanding of this relationship is largely gleaned from regional studies – the dominant view of which is that South Africa is reluctant to exercise hegemony in its relations with regional states. This article critiques the one-directional thrust of the realist and Marxian accounts. While endorsing multidirectional and multidimensional accounts of policy behaviour, the article shows that they lack an over-arching theoretical framework. A similar charge is directed at the post-apartheid literature. The position of this article is that constructivism offers analytical tools needed to understand the relations between the two states and how South Africa can reorder them.     

Good governance and democratic leadership for an African Renaissance: A reflection on AU member states’ compliance with the AUCPCC

Abstract

After decades of corrupt post-colonial governance, African leaders collectively acknowledged that good governance was a prerequisite for African renewal and required an unprecedented fight against corruption prevailing on the continent. The Constitutive Act of the African Union (CA-AU) features good governance among its objectives and principles. Good governance was stressed further in subsequent AU instruments adopted within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and its African Peer-Review Mechanism (APRM). AU leaders’ commitment to fighting corruption culminated in the adoption of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC).

As Africans prepare to commemorate the first decade since the adoption of the AUCPCC, this article reflects on AU member states’ compliance with this instrument, the challenges, and the prospects for a successful fight against corruption. It argues that despite some progress made, this scourge remains unabated and has even aggravated. Most African states have failed to comply fully with the AUCPCC. However, the fight against corruption should be strengthened with the participation of all the stakeholders at national, regional and international levels. Partnerships have to be built and consolidated without neglecting the crucial contribution of the people under a democratic leadership committed to good governance in order to achieve an African Renaissance in the 21^st century.     

Between man,woman and dog: Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm

The dog in Schreiner’s novel is represented both as an individualized human companion and as a figure of the social outcast. This split signification is homologous with other such instances in the novel – the anomaly of a “failed” bildungsroman, the narrative division between the real and the dreamlike, the aporia of human consciousness in the face of nature, the entanglements of gender, the problematics of race. Focusing on Waldo, Lyndall, and the dog Doss, the paper tracks the way in which the dog refracts not only the relation between human and animal but also a range of other relations in the novel, social and metaphysical. Reading the novel and its late nineteenth-century contexts of thought from the retrospective standpoint of the present – a hermeneutic position that is itself the site of a split signification – the paper considers the dog good to think with.     

Democracy promotion through regional organisations: A missed opportunity for South African and Brazilian leadership?

What role do regional powers Brazil and South Africa play in democracy promotion in their respective regions, South America and Africa? While both Brazil and South Africa played an important role in building regional institutions’ normative frameworks for democracy promotion, most notably within the Union of South American Nations and the African Union, their leadership applying these frameworks within regional organisations is inconsistent. South Africa is trapped between regional and global expectations; Brazil’s leadership lacks commitment. The interplay of domestic, regional and international politics needs to be scrutinised to explain why South African and Brazilian regional leadership falls behind expectations.     

Challenges to decentralisation in Ghana: where do citizens seek assistance?

Decentralisation in Ghana, and across sub-Saharan Africa, faces a number of challenges to successful local governance provision because there are a number of formal and informal actors to choose from. Citizens may take problems they want a governance provider to solve to a member of parliament or a district assembly person, a traditional chief or a police officer, a neighbour or an NGO. In this article we report on a four-constituency survey administered to explore and understand how citizens choose between the options of local institutions available to them in order to solve a problem important to their community or themselves. We find that formal national (Parliamentarians) and informal traditional (Chiefs) institutions are where respondents turn for assistance most often instead of constitutionally described local modes of governance (District Assemblies). We consider the implications of this finding in terms of decentralisation in Ghana and the need to build institutions that are context-sensitive and reflect how citizens understand political options.     

AFRICOM: a threat or an opportunity for African security?

The establishment of an African military command by the United States reflects the growing focus of the United States on Africa in the US National Security Strategy, which appears to be continuing under new US President Barack Obama. This article deals with several questions. What is the stated US National Security Strategy pertaining to Africa? What national interests does the United States have in Africa? What is the United States officially saying about its objectives in Africa and what has it actually been doing to date? And what are other opinion makers saying about US military involvement in Africa? Finally, it looks at the question of US perceptions of possible rivals in Africa and at potential scenarios for conflict before making a series of conclusions about the threats and opportunities posed by AFRICOM for Africa, and recommendations for a response to AFRICOM on the part of policymakers in South Africa.     

A New Scramble for African Oil? Historical, Political, and Business Perspectives

It has been suggested that Africa is experiencing a ‘NewScramble’ thanks primarily to its oil and gas wealth,with the United States and the People’s Republic of Chinaactively competing for access to Africa’s resources. Thisarticle aims to scrutinize the claim that Africa is facing aNew Scramble, analysing the nature of the economic and politicalchanges at work, the importance of Africa’s oil, and thepolitical and economic forces behind the new oil rush. The articlestarts with an overview of the phenomenon labelled by some asthe ‘New Scramble’. The main body of the articleevaluates the existence of a New Scramble from three subjectperspectives: history, international relations, and businessstudies. Finally, by analysing the likely impact on the economiesof oil-producing states, it considers whether we should dismayor rejoice over the ‘New Scramble for Africa’. Itconcludes that the existence of a New Scramble or a US–Chineserace for Africa should be treated with some caution and thatthe use of terms such as ‘scramble’ and ‘race’is perhaps misleading, while the economic impact of oil investmentsis likely to be bleak.     

COMESA and the Tripartite Free Trade Area: Towards an African Economic Community?

Economic integration has been an espoused goal of the African continent for several decades, and steady progress has been made through the African Union and the eight regional economic communities (RECs). The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) is one of the largest and most diversified RECs on the continent, and played a significant role in the launch of the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA). This article assesses the performance of COMESA, and considers the prospects for the TFTA. It also addresses the contribution of COMESA and other RECs to the continent’s economic development and considers the prospects for a potential African Economic Community.     

The Swiss: A Political Nation?

Abstract: Proponents of constitutional patriotism advocate the promotion of a political national identity. Whether a national identity founded on common political values is viable, however, remains a matter of dispute. The Swiss nation is one of the few empirical cases cited by those who argue that a political national identity can be a sufficient guarantor of institutional stability and social coherence; indeed, Switzerland is widely regarded as a prototype of the political nation. The aim of our analysis is to empirically test this claim. In doing so, we rely on classical typologies of national identity. We propose to use a more finely graded typology than the usual dichotomies, however – one which allows for combined types – and to focus on individual perceptions of national identity at the mass‐ and elite‐levels. The empirical analysis of whether the Swiss nation can correctly be classified as a political nation draws on data from mass and MP surveys. Our conclusion is that the Swiss imagine their nation in both political and cultural terms, and the essence of their cultural identity is Swiss linguistic pluralism and regional diversity.     

Tawfi¯q al-Haki¯m and the West: A New Assessment of the Relationship

There is a considerable body of imaginative literature in Arabic, particularly fiction, which is devoted wholly or in part to the treatment of the theme of the cultural encounter/clash between East and West. Tawfi¯q al-Haki¯m is credited with the authorship in 1938 of the first novel in Arabic (Bird of the East) dedicated to this subject, and to the popularization of the notion, already current at the time, of the spirituality of the East and materialism of the West. Earlier in 1933 Haki¯m had propagated the same notion, albeit as a subsidiary theme, in his famous The Return of the Spirit. Haki¯m has also spoken on the subject in many of his collected essays and interviews. The present article reassesses comprehensively his approach to the issue, revealing inherent selfcontradictions, and comes to the conclusion that his central claim was nationalist posturing rather than genuine belief.     

African solutions to African problems? The AU,R2P and Côte d'Ivoire

The African continent is inextricably linked to the development of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm and the latter's ethical interpretation of the duties associated with state sovereignty. With the African Union (AU) having institutionalised R2P in its legal-institutional foundation of 2000, the stage seemed set for the new African Peace and Security Architecture to demonstrate the continent's ramped-up interventionist approach to security. One of the first cases that presented an opportunity to do so was the humanitarian crisis that erupted after the 2010 elections in Côte d'Ivoire. As the crisis unfolded, however, it became clear that the AU was not only unable to operationalise its institutionalised R2P mechanisms, but indeed reluctant to invoke R2P explicitly. This raises serious concerns about the AU's willingness to intervene in its member states when humanitarian atrocities are perpetrated by governments against their own people, and throws into serious doubt the AU's promise to provide ‘African solutions to African problems’.