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Maluwa, Tiyanjana. From the Organisation of African Unity to the African Union: Rethinking the Framework for Inter-State Cooperation in Africa in the Era of Globalisation
2007, Maluwa, T. (2007) “From the Organisation of African Unity to the African Union: Rethinking the Framework for Inter-State Cooperation in Africa in the Era of Globalisation,” Botswana Law Journal, 5(06), pp. 5–47.
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Abstract:

The adoption of the Constitutive Act of the African Union marked a historic moment in institution-building and the continuing "move to institutions" in Africa. The African Union can be understood, at least, at two levels: first, as a manifestation of Africa 's collective response to the twin-challenges of globalism/globalisation and regionalism/regional integration; secondly, as an expression of a resurgent commitment to the ideology of Pan-Africanism and the enduring quest for deeper African unity. This essay examines the politico-legal context behind the move from the Organisation of African Unity to the African Union. It argues that the establishment of the African Union is not merely the most recent attempt at continental institutional reform and institution building, but that it also represents a unique constitutional moment which has provided African states with the opportunity for fashioning a new body of normative principles to guide their interaction and cooperation. While offering no comprehensive examination of all the core provisions of the Constitutive Act, particular attention has been paid to some key principles. Chief among these is Article 4(h), relating to the right of intervention, which potentially constitutes both a significant and controversial African contribution to the mapping of new international law. Overall, it is argued that the new organisation represents a radical departure from the political, legal, and institutional framework of its predecessor, and that it is founded on a range of new normative principles reflecting a changed attitude and a new approach among African states to the management of their common interests and challenges. The essay concludes by suggesting that the move to the new institution and the adoption of new normative principles will only have qualitative meaning when AU member states move beyond the mere exhortation and expression of lofty principles and ensure their effective incorporation in praxis.

Comment: This article provides a useful overview of the establishment of the African Union, and the transition from the OAU to the AU. It intervenes in the debate over the transformation of the institutional framework for African inter-state cooperation and coordination from the OAU to its successor, the AU, as well as how traditional international organisations have adapted to deeply changing political circumstances over the years. It would be suitable for a course on the history of regionalism.

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Mamdani, Mahmood. African States, Citizenship and War: A Case-Study
2002, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), 78(3), pp. 493–506.
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Abstract:

This article, first given as a talk to a seminar of the Uganda Parliament in 2000, is a reflection on that aspect of the colonial political legacy that passes for common sense in the region of the African Great Lakes. The author takes a fresh look at recent events leading to civil war in Uganda (1981–6), Rwanda (1990–94) and eastern Congo (1997–.) The article contextualizes three issues: citizenship, civil society and political majorities and minorities as outcomes of the democratic process. To explore how notions of these issues have been changing over the past decade, the author examines the dilemma of a particular cultural group in the Great Lakes region—the Banyarwanda.

Comment: Drawing on particular cases from the East African region, the author reflects on the notion of citizenship in formerly colonised East African nation. This text can accompany a discussion on the notions of citizenship and the nation-state, and their colonial foundations and legacy. As a western construct, it is important that we study the implications of the continued use of colonial structures such as citizenship, and attempt to reform it in such a way that cultural identities are considered. Thus, this article intervenes in debates regarding citizenship, ethnicity and minority/majority interactions and rights.

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Mamdani, Mahmood. An African Reflection on Tahrir Square
2011, Globalizations, 8(5), pp. 559–566.
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Abstract:

This essay understands the significance of Tahrir Square as a radical shift both n the way of doing politics, from armed struggle to popular struggle, and in the definition of political identity, from religious to territorial. It seeks to understand the historical significance of the shift by placing it in the context of technologies of colonial rule (both the Ottoman millet system and British indirect rule) and post-colonial attempts to rethink and reform this mode of rule. The result is a historical reflection that begins with Steve Biko and the Soweto Uprising in 1976, Mahmoud Mohamed Taha and John Garang in post-colonial Sudan, and closes with Sayyid Qutb and the significance of Tahrir Square.

Comment: This text provides an alternative understanding of the events at Tahrir Square and a way of 'doing politics' that is beyond the western norm. By locating the events of Tahrir Square within the vein of politics started by the Soweto Uprising in South Africa in 1976, the author provides a novel way through which to understand popular uprisings. This text can be used to historicise more recent historicise uprisings, in a course on political history and decolonising

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Mamdani, Mahmood. Beyond Nuremberg: The Historical Significance of the Post-apartheid Transition in South Africa
2015, “Beyond Nuremberg: The Historical Significance of the Post-Apartheid Transition in South Africa,” POLITICS AND SOCIETY, 43(1), pp. 61–88.
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The contemporary human rights movement holds up Nuremberg as a template with which to define responsibility for mass violence. I argue that the negotiations that ended apartheid—the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA)— provide the raw material for a critique of the “lessons of Nuremberg.” Whereas Nuremberg shaped a notion of justice as criminal justice, CODESA calls on us to think of justice as primarily political. CODESA shed the zero-sum logic of criminal justice for the inclusive nature of political justice. If the former accents victims’ justice, the latter prioritizes survivors’ justice. If Nuremberg has been ideologized as a paradigm, the end of apartheid has been exceptionalized as an improbable outcome produced by the exceptional personality of Nelson Mandela. This essay argues for the core relevance of the South African transition for ending civil wars in the rest of Africa.

Comment: This article is relevant to student of peace and conflict studies and can be used as a starting point for debate about the best means to conflict resolution. It compares the Nuremberg trials to the CODESA process in South Africa, comparing political justice (CODESA) with criminal justice (Nuremberg).

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Manu-Osafo, Manuel J. ‘The Days of their Heedless Power Were Over and Done’: Dynamics of Power in the Military Structures of the Precolonial Asante State, 1874–1900
2021, Manu-Osafo, M. J. (2021) “‘the Days of Their Heedless Power Were Over and Done’: Dynamics of Power in the Military Structures of the Precolonial Asante State, 1874–1900,” The Journal of African History, 62(2), pp. 254–270. doi: 10.1017/S0021853721000281.
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Abstract:

The British surprisingly faced no military resistance when they captured Asante in 1896. Previous works have focused on the agency of actors like Prempe and Frederick Hodgson to explain why. This paper, in contrast, approaches this epoch in Asante history from the context of the sociopolitical power structure within which the precolonial Asante state operated. It asserts that Asante's independence was contingent on having a strong military. But since it had no standing army, the state used Asante's ‘social contract’ to coerce its subjects into ad hoc armies to meet military threats. Starting from the 1874 Sagrenti War, however, the state disregarded the social contract. This unleashed a series of events that undermined the state's power to coerce Asantes into military service. The article posits further that this erosion of the state's coercive power ultimately prevented it from countering the British with armed resistance in 1896 to maintain independence.

Comment: This paper offers another interpretation of how colonial rule was imposed in the Asante Empire. Despite its military strength, the Empire submitted to the British in 1896. Using a version of Social Contract Theory, the author accounts for how the Asante state was, over time, undermined, which weakened its military. It is an easy paper to read, however the terms are very specific and niche to pre-colonial West Africa and requires a previous knowledge of the Asante Empire and its associated figures, such as Asantehene Prempe.

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Maphasa, Thulani. Finding Peace in Uncertain Times: South Sudan and the Revitalised Peace Process
2020, South Africa Institute of International Affairs
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, Contributed by: Wout Didden
Abstract: South Sudan’s latest peace deal has been lauded as a milestone in the country’s long road to peace and stability. The Revitalised Agreement for the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) outlines power-sharing arrangements between rivals President Salva Kiir and main rebel/opposition leader Riek Machar, and provides a blueprint for a sustainable peace and democratic transition. Despite this welcome development, South Sudan’s revitalised peace process has been marred by delays, uncertainty, divisions and the regionalisation of the conflict. As a result, key issues relating to state boundaries and security arrangements remain unresolved, leaving the primary drivers of the conflict untouched. The civil war in South Sudan – which broke out in 2013 – has cost an estimated 400 000 lives, displaced millions and plunged the nascent country into a state of deprivation. South Sudan and its people must urgently facilitate a return to peace, stability, reconciliation and unity. This paper contextualises the agreement, examines its contents and presents the key enablers of and barriers to the success of the revitalised peace process.

Comment: Overview, summary and discussion of the peacemaking process in South-Sudan. Views from an South-African scholar that is specialised in African actors influencing the peacemaking process. An objective view.

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Matlosa, Khabele. The State of Democratisation in Southern Africa: Blocked Transitions, Reversals, Stagnation, Progress and Prospects
2017, Politikon, 44(1), pp. 5–26. doi: 10.1080/02589346.2017.1278640.
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Southern Africa has experienced highs and lows in its efforts towards democratisation. Following political independence of Southern Africa states, the germination of democratisation was a rather slow process. A brief period of multi-party democracy introduced through pre-independence elections quickly dissipated and was replaced by one-party, one-person and, in some instances, military regimes. This era also coincided with the height of the Cold War globally and the heyday of apartheid in which inter-state conflicts had intensified. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, a new dispensation has emerged wherein multi-party democracy has re-emerged in the context of the post-Cold War and post-apartheid dispensation, marked by relative peace dividend. However, democratisation in Southern Africa remains a mixed bag today. Some countries have not yet experienced the democratic transition. Others have managed to transition from one-party, one-person and military regimes to multi-party democracies. In various others, there are signs of reversal of democratic gains. This paper reviews the state of democratisation in Southern Africa with a view to understand why the regional record is so uneven across countries that form the Southern African Development Community (SADC). While the article presents a regional snapshot, it also presents comparative insights from Botswana and Lesotho.

Comment: The author debates the popular notion of whether states were 'fit for democracy' by asking whether they became 'fit through democracy' through the example of South African countries. The paper thus contributes to the debate on democratisation of formerly colonised/ authoritarian countries and the ideas in political science about democratic trajectories by investigating the linkages between political transitions and democratisation. This article can be used by students of political history in tracing the history of democratisation around the world, as well as in the debate of the longterm impacts of colonisation and authoritarian rule on democracy.

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Messari, Nizar. National Security, the political space, and citizenship: the case of Morocco and the Western Sahara
2001, The Journal of North African Studies, 6(4), pp. 47–63.
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Abstract: In this article, the issue of the Western Sahara is addressed by linking it to that of democratisation; to establish this link the argument is threefold. I first refer to the construction of Morocco's national political space by creating a national identity and considering those of Algeria and the Sahrawi. The issue of the Moroccan regime and its strategies for survival by taking the lead in the Western Sahara issue is examined. Finally both the relevance and the influence of the future of the Western Sahara in the evolution of the current Moroccan political transition is considered.

Comment: This article gives an example of foreign influence that a state might have and how this shapes the neighbouring countries but also its own national politics. It discusses the disputed territory of the Western Sahara and can be used in teaching on Moroccan history, foreign policy and conflict.

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Mukimbiri, Jean. The Seven Stages of the Rwandan Genocide
2005, Mukimbiri, J. (2005) “The Seven Stages of the Rwandan Genocide,” Journal of International Criminal Justice, 3(4), pp. 823–836.
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Abstract:

Drawing upon a book by J.M. Lecomte on the genocide of the Jews by the Nazi Germans, the author examines the seven stages in the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda. These stages, which do not necessarily follow one another in time but may overlap, can be classified in the following way: (i) definition of the target group on the basis of some criteria; (ii) registration of the victims; (iii) designation or outward identification of the victims; (iv) restriction and confiscation of goods; (v) exclusion from professions, working activities and means of transportation, among other things; (vi) systematic isolation; (vii) mass extermination.

Comment: This is an easy text discussing the Rwandan Genocide. It is suitable for an introductory-level course on the Rwandan Genocide; genocide studies; episodes of mass violence or ethnic conflict.

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Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo. Do ‘Africans’ exist? Geneaologies and paradoxes of African identities and the discourse of nativism and xenophobia
2010, “Do 'africans' Exist? Genealogies and Paradoxes of African Identities and the Discourses of Nativism and Xenophobia,” African Identities, 8(3), pp. 281–295.
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One of the paradoxes of the making of African nations and African identities is the recent metamorphoses and mutations of African nationalism from civic principles founded on the slogan of ‘diverse people unite’ to narrow, autochthonous, nativist and xenophobic forms that breed violence. This article seeks to examine key contours in the making of African identities, with a specific focus on historical, cartographic, and hegemonic processes that coalesced towards the creation of a particular kind of nationalism that failed to create a stable African common identity within postcolonial states. Beginning with the making of the African continent itself (as both an idea and reality), the article delves deeper into the pertinent issues in the making of Africans-as-people. At the centre of analysis are the key identity-forming processes such as the Atlantic slave trade, imperialism, colonialism, apartheid, as well as ideologies like Pan-Africanism, Garveyism, Negritude, African Personality, Black Consciousness Movement, and African Renaissance. The central challenge in the struggle of forging stable African identities remains that of how to negotiate and blend together diversities of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, class, region, language, culture, generation as well as how to deal with the phenomenon of degeneration of plural and civic forms of nationalism into nativism, xenophobia and even genocides in recent years. These issues need serious and unsententious consideration at this juncture when African leaders are busy toying with and implementing the mega-project of establishing the United States of Africa. This is taking place within a terrain dominated by bigotry and prejudices on the African continent.

Comment: This article contends with the development of African nationalism, arguing that the various historical processes that combined to produce Africa as an idea and cartographic reality and African identity as a contingent phenomenon are useful in understanding the postcolonial problems facing Africa, including territorialised autochthony, nativism and xenophobia. As such, the author argues that African identities and nationalism are products of complex histories of "domination, resistance, complicity, creolisation, and mimicry – mediated by various vectors of identity such as race, ethnicity, gender, class, region, region and generation". This article is useful for students of modern African politics and history, as a kind of long duree study of the effects of the various phenomena that have affected the development of African identities and African nationalism over the course of history.

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Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. The Entrapment of Africa within the Global Colonial Matrices of Power
2013, Journal of Developing Societies, 29(4), pp. 331–353.
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, Contributed by: Rens Collet
Abstract: This article deploys world-systems analysis and the concept of coloniality to examine the experience of the African people within the modern world-system since 1492, a date that figuratively marks the birth of the modern world-system and its shifting international orders. Africa’s experience is contextualized within six international orders: the post-1492 order, the Westphalian order that emerged in 1648, the post-1884–1885 Berlin consensus, the post-1945 United Nations normative order, the Cold War epoch that ended in 1989, the current neoliberal dispensation as well as the post 9/11 anti-terrorism and securitization. While Africans have actively contested Euro–North American hegemony throughout these periods, they have not yet succeeded in breaking the strong global technologies of coloniality that continue to prevent the possibilities of African agency. This is why this article ends with a call for deepening the decolonization and deimperialization of the international order in the twenty-first century.

Comment: Useful for offering alternate perspective to Wallerstein's world system theory. Theorizes not about the detrimental effects of colonialism, put also offers a more constructivist approach to analyzing Africa's current position in the world system.

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Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo. J. Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa: Myths of Decolonization
2013, Dakar: CODESRIA (Codesria book series).
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Publisher’s Note:

This book interrogates the African postcolonial condition with a focus on the thematics of liberation predicament and the long standing crisis of dependence (epistemological, cultural, economic, and political) created by colonialism and coloniality. A deployment of historical, philosophical, and political knowledge in combination with the equiprimordial concepts of coloniality of power, coloniality of being, and coloniality of knowledge yields a comprehensive understanding of African realities of subalternity.

Comment: This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the 'African postcolonial condition'. The author aims to understand the role of colonialism of power in shaping the complex history of the African postcolonial present. It is an indispensable source for understanding the broad and deeply-seated long-term impacts of colonialism in Africa, demonstrating the inability or stagnation of African development, regarding such things as nation-building, economic development and democratisation, as a result of the continued entrapment of Africa within colonial matrices of power.

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Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo. J. How did Europe Rule Africa? Dialectics of Colonialism and African Political Consciousness in the Matabeleland Region of Zimbabwe
2008, “How Did Europe Rule Africa? Dialectics of Colonialism and African Political Consciousness in the Matabeleland Region of Zimbabwe,” Lwati: A Journal of Contemporary Research, 5(1).
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Abstract:

The question of how Europe ruled Africa relates to the crucial issues of settlernative identity as constructions of colonialism as well as political consciousness formation and development among the colonized as well as the colonizers. Because colonialism operated ambiguously throughout its life to the extent of hiding its adverse contours of epistemological and mental invasion that have come to haunt during the post-colonial era, it deserve to be subjected to systematic theorization and historicization. This article deploys various conceptual tools culled from post-colonial theories to delve deeper into the dialectics and ontology of colonial governance in Zimbabwe and it simultaneously historicize the phenomenon of colonial governance on the basis of how white Rhodesians inscribed themselves in Matabeleland in the early twentieth century. It also systematically interrogates the development of Ndebele political consciousness under the alienating influences of settler colonialism up to the mid-twentieth century. The article contributes to the broader debates on colonial encounters and colonial governance that have left an indelible mark on ex-colonies across the world. Colonialism was not just a footnote in African history. It had long term pervasive impact of altering everyone and everything that it found in Africa.

Comment: Contributes to the debate on the long-term impacts of colonialism and how it was near impossible to break free from the institutionalised colonial discourse in postcolonial Zimbabwe. Shows that indigenous people are transformed in their conventions and discourse through engaging with colonialism, even in their engagement is in opposition to colonialism. Useful in that the article synthesises many theoretical post-colonial ideas and makes tangible by applying them to the Zimbabwean case. Useful for a teaching on decolonisation, how colonial governments functioned and interdisciplinary teaching on sociology/anthropology/history.

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Nicholas Grant. Winning Our Freedoms Together: African Americans and Apartheid, 1945-1960
2017, University of North Carolina Press
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Publisher’s Note: In this transnational account of black protest, Nicholas Grant examines how African Americans engaged with, supported, and were inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement. Bringing black activism into conversation with the foreign policy of both the U.S. and South African governments, this study questions the dominant perception that U.S.-centered anticommunism decimated black international activism. Instead, by tracing the considerable amount of time, money, and effort the state invested into responding to black international criticism, Grant outlines the extent to which the U.S. and South African governments were forced to reshape and occasionally reconsider their racial policies in the Cold War world. This study shows how African Americans and black South Africans navigated transnationally organized state repression in ways that challenged white supremacy on both sides of the Atlantic. The political and cultural ties that they forged during the 1940s and 1950s are testament to the insistence of black activists in both countries that the struggle against apartheid and Jim Crow were intimately interconnected.

Comment: Discusses the perseverance of black activism from an international perspective and its relation to foreign policy. Requires prior knowledge of the US and South Africa during the Cold War as well as knowledge of anticommunism and apartheid during this period.

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Nkiwane, Tandeka. Africa and International Relations: Regional Lessons for a Global Discourse
2001, International Political Science Review / Revue internationale de science politique, 22(3), pp. 279–290.
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, Contributed by: Sascha Jongsma
Abstract:

Case studies, theories, and examples from Africa are exceedingly rare in international relations. Indeed, examples from Africa are, at best, valued for their nuisance potential. This article argues that the study of international relations is limited by this interpretation of Africa, and by a larger ignorance of African contributions. Key debates on the African continent surrounding the central concepts of mainstream international relations, including the state, power, and self-determination, are interrogated with a view to expanding their use in contemporary international relations. The examples of apartheid South Africa, the African debate on political economy and development, and African perspectives on questions raised by the liberal paradigm, are used to illustrate the importance of the region to the more global discourses. In examining the important contribution of African scholarship to debates central to international relations, this article highlights the necessity for engaging African scholars in the broader discourses of international relations.

Comment: Discusses the contribution to international relations that can be made by Africa and African scholars. Can be used in a course on demainstreaming IR, or postcolonial IR, arguing that the production of knowledge in the context of dominant and imperial relations of power has led to an inaccurate perception of African contributions to the discipline of IR. Important text showing that contributions of African cases, African debates, and African scholarship will enhance theory-building in the field and challenge many of the assumptions held by some theorists.

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