Bøker i African Governance and Development-serien

This book, written by African scholars on both sides of the Atlantic, explores contemporary debates, controversies, achievements, challenges, and future prospects of African development and democratization from diverse theoretical perspectives.

For about one hundred years, Pan-Africanism—as a social, cultural, economic, political, and philosophical idea—thrived. Towards the tail-end of the twentieth century, however, it waned. But in more recent times, there has been noticeable resurgence. And as we approach the second decade of the twenty-first century, there are indications of significant transformations vis-à-vis the role and place of Pan-Africanism and Pan-Africanists. Consequently, this book offers a new, further, and better understanding of Pan-Africanism—not just from the traditional, African, and African American points of view, but also from a global perspective. It does so by offering an analysis of its early years in terms of the personalities, ideas, and conferences that shaped it; it also examines many of the factors that brought about its decline—and its eventual rebirth.Contributing to this seminal work are scholars of different but complementary styles and intellect, who deviate from the more traditional or obvious approaches. For instance, one of the chapters explores Pan-Africanism from the geographic perspective, while another examines the role and place of women in the Pan-African movement. There are also voices that advance the conversation from the regional and continental viewpoint—hence chapters that investigate the status of Pan-Africanism in Latin America, in the Caribbean, and Islam and Pan-Africanism in the modern world. Ethnonationalism and xenophobia are also part of the treatise because, increasingly, these injurious phenomena are reemerging in Africa’s landscape and consciousness. In an increasingly interdependent and interrelated world, this book also suggests that Pan-Africanism will undergo a metamorphosis: problems and challenges will be seen and tackled from the globalization and global common perspective. Pan-Africanism in Modern Times goes beyond the historicity of Pan-Africanism and examines the challenges, concerns, and constraints it faces; and also examines it from an inclusive perspective to have a broader understanding of this phenomenon and its future trajectory.

The U.S. Department of Defense is fighting a new shadow war in Africa. Africa is the battlefield of tomorrow, and the United States military is spreading secret wars in the continent. This book explores how and why this has happened. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the formulation of the United States policy towards Africa has always been based on the strategic importance of the natural resources of Africa and how these can be used in the national interests of the United States. However, most Americans gave very little thought to Africa, but instead referred to it as the Dark Continent, not only because its peoples are dark-skinned, but also because it was unknown to them. Africa is no longer dark, but is rather becoming one of the lions on the move. This book examines and analyzes Nigeria and U.S. policy on the continent since the Cold War. It looks at Nigeria and the challenges facing the country, including problems of development, good governance, and security. It particularly focuses on the impacts of terrorism on Nigeria and U. S.-Africa relations since the Cold War and the realities of September 11, 2001, in relations to Nigeria and United States-Islamists/jihadists terrorism in Africa.There is huge potential in Nigeria; the country has the largest population in Africa, and is well-endowed in terms of both natural and human resources. Nigeria also has the largest economy on the continent, the largest black population in the world, a burgeoning and vibrant youthful population, and a tradition of international engagement since its independence. Its advantageous geographical location in West Africa enables trade within the continent, as well as with Europe, North and South America, and Asia. Nigeria is the most important strategic partner for the United States in the African continent, and will become increasingly so in this century.

The problems and challenges of the Niger Delta predate Nigeria as a Republic. The resultant violence can be traced to 1966, when the late Isaac Boro and his colleagues attempted to secede from Nigeria due, in large part, to the underdevelopment of the region. Historical reality aside, since 1970 oil has displaced agriculture as Nigeria's primary revenue earner and it has, for the last four decades, been the nation's breadbasket. But in spite of this, the Niger Delta remains vastly underdeveloped and has been given the least federal presence. These deficiencies led to high unemployment, social dislocations, youth restiveness, and extralegalities. It was these realities that bred disaffection with the government and the multinational oil companies and eventually, to violent militancy. Between 2003 and 2009, it also led to low intensity conflict between militant youths and the Nigerian government. In the summer of 2009, however, the Nigerian government extended an offer of presidential pardon (amnesty) to the militants. The amnesty program was intended to bring peace and quiet to the region. However, this has not been the case. In spite of the financial and political resources that have been expended, the region continues on the path of volatility. This book looks at the issue of nationhood, the cause and cost of the crisis, past approaches and current efforts at solving the crisis. In addition, it offers a tenable solution to the decades-old crisis. Furthermore, the case is made that unless there is a fundamental restructuring of the Nigerian state and its governing structure and institutions, the problems of the regionand the larger problems that makes the country such a difficult to place to live in and govern, is likely to continue.

Trade Unions and the Age of Information and Communication Technologies in Kenya provides a comprehensive description of the use of ICTs within the trade union movement in Kenya. In this book, Professor Eric Otenyo explores the intersection between new technologies and union as key stakeholders in national governance and development. The dearth of research on how trade unions can play a part in the new economy continues to undermine the effective use of ICTs in development. This book brings to light the challenges that unions face while navigating the new economy and netstate characterized by a proliferation of ICTs and globalization.

This book contributes to the current discourses about immigration, xenophobia, globalization, and cultural exchanges. The book explores the varied immigration experiences of Africans from neighboring African countries and western countries while recognizing the social, cultural, economic, political, and institutional impacts on host countries.

This book examines Nigeria-United States relations since Nigeria's independence in 1960 through 2016, and emphasizes Nigeria's role in Africa.

This book is a broad-ranging argument for thorough reforms at home and abroad in Nigeria as the only antidote to the nation-building dilemmas Nigeria confronts in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Because of its enormous material and human endowments, Nigeria is dubbed the ';Giant of Africa.' It is a moniker many of its leaders take seriously. Yet, Nigeria is a state rife with instability, some of it periodically erupting into violence. Given still-ongoing national security challenges in the land that notoriously includes a bloody religion-oriented terrorism, the Fourth Republic since 1999, the longest period of continuous democratic rule since independencekey to the timeline of this bookhas not been insulated from the spell of instability. The main argument of this work is that internationally agreed-upon ethical standards embedded in human rights can save Nigeria. This book is a methodologically and theoretically-grounded, seminal discourse on Nigerian foreign relations that spells out the human rights or lack thereof in those relations, including underlying and impinging domestic forces. This work is set around six issues of application embedded in a temple of Nigeria's human rights foreign policy, comprising two steps and four pillars: reconstructed national interest, increased human rights at home, redesigned peacekeeping, reshaped foreign policy machinery, increased bilateralism in foreign relations, and the use of ECOWAS as human rights tool. Although focused on the period since independence, for proper understanding of events from the past that shape the current patterns of politics in the land, this book also embodies a historical background chapter that overviews the pre-colonial and colonial eras.

This book challenges the long-held conventional wisdom that Africa is a post-colonial society of sovereign nation-states despite the outward attributes of statehood: demarcated territories, permanent populations, governments, national currencies, police, and armed forces. While it is true that African nation-states have been gifted flag independence by their respective colonial masters, few have reached fully developed status as a secure nation-state. Most African nation-states have, since independence, been grappling with the crisis of state-building, nation-building, governance, and myriad security challenges which have been chronically exacerbated by the dynamics of the post-Cold War era. To focus merely on the agency of the African political elite and their inability to sustain functional modern nation-states misses the point. The central argument of the book is that an understanding of Africa's contemporary governance and security challenges requires us to historicize the discourse surrounding nation-building and state-building throughout Africa.

This book contributes to the current discourse about immigration, xenophobia, globalization, and cultural exchanges. The contributors explore the varied immigration experiences of Africans from neighboring African and western countries while recognizing the social, cultural, economic, political, and institutional impacts on host countries.