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After more than a decade of reform efforts in Africa, much of the optimism over the continent's prospects has been replaced by widespread Afropessimism. But to what extent is either view well founded? Democratic Reform in Africa plumbs the key issues in the contemporary African experience - including intrastate conflict, corruption, and the development of civil society - highlighting the challenges and evaluating the progress of political and economic change. Case studies of Botswana, Mozambique, Nigeria, and South Africa complement the thematic chapters, exploring the interactions between democracy and development.
By the time it ended in 1992, Mozambique's 15-year civil war had exacted a terrible price. Economically paralyzed, the vast, drought-stricken country was rich only in enmity, landmines, and AK-47s. Into this misery was thrust a multifaceted UN mission, ONUMOZ, to manage the transition from military combat to electoral contest. Remarkably, when ONUMOZ departed two years later, that job was largely done. This comprehensive account describes how ONUMOZ went about its tasks--assembling and demobilizing troops, providing humanitarian aid, demining, preparing for elections--and assesses how well each was accomplished and why. Richard Synge takes us behind the scenes of the operation, unearthing new information from confidential UN files and from face-to-face interviews with leading players. Even-handed and rigorous, Synge highlights not only the strengths but also the weaknesses of ONUMOZ, and he puts ONUMOZ firmly in its international and regional context. Among the many lessons ONUMOZ offers future peacekeeping efforts is that success demands the support of an engaged international community and a people eager to make peace work.
Universities and economic development in Africa: Pact, academic core and coordination draws together evidence and synthesises the findings from eight African case studies. The three key findings presented in this report are as follows: 1. There is a lack of clarity and agreement (pact) about a development model and the role of higher education in development, at both national and institutional levels. There is, however, an increasing awareness, particularly at government level, of the importance of universities in the global context of the knowledge economy. 2. Research production at the eight African universities is not strong enough to enable them to build on their traditional undergraduat...
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Most of the studies in this book are about national elections in Anglophone Africa. There are also less well-known examples from Sudan, Ethiopia and Guinea Bissau. The collection also features studies of the local elections in Namibia and of a significant by-election in Malawi. The multiparty period has been put, wherever possible, within the historical context of earlier elections in Africa. Questions addressed include: how did incumbent governing regimes learn to live with multiparty politics? Why have some elections been so closely fought and others have suffered from apathy? Why has there been relatively open political expression and activity when the elections have increased the political and economic manipulation by incumbent governments? Why have the elections of the 1990s been so marked by local and ethnic variations? To what extent did this wave of democracy result from pressure from donor countries? North America: Palgrave
Manning examines issues of democratization and conflict resolution through the lens of the Mozambican experience from 1992-2000. Since the end of the Cold War, a formal democratization process has been at the center of virtually every negotiated peace agreement to end a civil conflict. Nearly a decade after the Rome peace accord put an end to 16 years of civil war, Mozambique stands out as one of the world's most unlikely postwar democratization success stories. What accounts for the durability of the postwar political settlement? What lessons does the Mozambican experience hold for other such cases? Relying on original research conducted in Mozambique between 1994 and 1999, Manning argues t...
Nationalism, as an ideology coupling self-conscious peoples to fixed territories, is often seen as emerging from European historical developments, also in postcolonial countries outside Europe. André van Dokkum’s Nationalism and Territoriality in Barue and Mozambique shows that this view is not universally true. The precolonial Kingdom of Barue in what is now Mozambique showed characteristics generally associated with nationalism, giving the country great resilience against colonial encroachment. Postcolonial Mozambique, on the other hand, has so far not succeeded in creating national coherence. The former anti-colonial organization and now party in power Frelimo has always stressed national unity, but only under its own guidance, paradoxically producing disunity.
A comprehensive discussion of the specific development challenges faced in postconflict societies and a range of concrete, successful approaches to confronting those challenges.
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