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Much of the time, when confronted with a crisis of national dimensions, businesses do exactly what we expect them to do: they look to their own survival. Occasionally, however, firms in some contexts go beyond this. Based on qualitative, country-based fieldwork in Eastern and Southern Africa, Antoinette Handley examines how African businesses can be key responders to wider social and political crises, often responding well in advance of the state. She reveals the surprising ways in which business responses can be focused, not on short-term profits, but instead on ways that assist society in resolving that crisis in the long term. Taking African businesses in Kenya, Uganda, Botswana and South Africa as case studies, this detailed exploration of the private sector response to crises, including HIV/AIDS and political violence crises, introduces the concept of relative business autonomy, exploring the conditions under which it can emerge and develop, when and how it may decline, and how it might contribute to a higher level of overall societal resilience.
The dominant developmental approach in Africa over the last twenty years has been to advocate the role of markets and the private sector in restoring economic growth. Recent thinking has also stressed the need for 'ownership' of economic reform by the populations of developing countries, particularly the business community. This book studies the business-government interactions of four African countries: Ghana, Zambia, South Africa and Mauritius. Employing a historical institutionalist approach, Antoinette Handley considers why and how business in South Africa and Mauritius has developed the capacity to constructively contest the making of economic policy while, conversely, business in Zambia and Ghana has struggled to develop any autonomous political capacity. Paying close attention to the mutually constitutive interactions between business and the state, Handley considers the role of timing and how ethnicised and racialised identities can affect these interactions in profound and consequential ways.
Based on fieldwork in four African countries, this study reveals how African businesses can be key responders to wider social and political crises.
Examines the different forms of governance of HIV/AIDS that have emerged and how these actors and structures of governance enhance, or limit, participation and accountability, as well as the impact this is having upon effective global responses to the epidemic.
The Third World Beyond the Cold War presents an overview of the changes brought about in Third World countries since the end of the cold war. The book does so in two ways: by highlighting major areas of change in the Third World, and using regional case-studies as a meas of islating changes specific to certain regions. The themes chosen by the editors—economics, politics, security—are not, of course, exhaustive, but are broadly interpreted so as to encompass the major areas of change among Third World countries. The regional case-studies—Asia-Pacific, Latin America, South Asia, Africa, the Middle East—were selected to bring out both the themes and the diversity of experience. The essays, written by leading scholars in the field of International Relations, caters for a variety of constituencies: those who seek the `big picture' in understanding the Third World in International Relations, those who look for general patterns, explanations, and trends in Third World politics, and those who seek up-to-date information and analysis on the progress of different regions.
For every citizen of the world, there is no more urgent issue than the spread of democracy. Democracy is what the WTO-protestors are calling for; it's the main concern of human rights advocates; and it's only long-term way to end terrorism. But how does democracy spread? What can be done to encourage and support. This remarkable new collection brings together some of the best minds in variety of fields to discuss the conditions that promote and sustain, or undermine and extinguish democratic institutions and ideas. Spanning political thought from ancient Athens to contemporary sub-Saharan Africa, the contributors develop an outline of how democracy develops. Several key factors emerge: Democ...
Using country-specific case studies, top-rank analysts in the field focus on the lessons that dominant parties might learn from losing and the adaptations they consequently make in order to survive, to remain competitive or to ultimately re-gain power.
This book honours the legacy of Richard Simeon, one of the most prominent federalist scholars in the world and a long time member of the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto
Argues that the interaction of formal institutions and the quality of democracy explain patterns of private sector development across Africa.
Political Theories of Decolonization provides an introduction to some of the seminal texts of postcolonial political theory. The difficulty of founding a new regime is an important theme in political theory, and the intellectual history of decolonization provides a rich--albeit overlooked--opportunity to explore it.Many theorists have pointed out that the colonized subject was a divided subject. This book argues that the postcolonial state was a divided state. While postcolonial states were created through the struggle for independence, they drew on both colonial institutions and reinvented pre-colonial traditions. Political Theories of Decolonization illuminates how many of the central themes of political theory such as land, religion, freedom, law, and sovereignty are imaginatively explored by postcolonial thinkers. In doing so, it provides readers access to texts that add to our understanding of contemporary political life and global political dynamics.