Between State and Civil Society in Africa

Between State and Civil Society in Africa PDF Author: Eghosa E. Osaghae
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description

Between State and Civil Society in Africa

Between State and Civil Society in Africa PDF Author: Eghosa E. Osaghae
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description


Civil Society and the State in Africa

Civil Society and the State in Africa PDF Author: John Willis Harbeson
Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
ISBN: 9781555876418
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
This text examines the potential value of the concept of civil society for enhancing the current understanding of state-society relations in Africa. The authors review the meanings of civil society in political philosophy, as well as alternative approaches to employing the concept in African settings. Considering both the patterns of emerging civil society in Africa and issues relating to its further development, they give particular emphasis to the cases of Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire.

Between State and Civil Society in Africa

Between State and Civil Society in Africa PDF Author: Eghosa Osaghae
Publisher: Codesria
ISBN: 9782869780293
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
The balance of power between an individual and the state they live in is the key to any country's political process. Concepts of citizenship, reciprocity of rights and citizen's duties intertwine in the struggle for assertion. With its largely collective citizenship, the civil society in Africa is alive and vibrant. But in the face of continuing global recession, the present phase of the African crisis is expected to sharpen contradictions within the continent's states. New paradigms have to be sought to explain the formations and realities. The ten chapters in this book, all written by African scholars, question the western, ethnocentric model of development and look at the wide diversity of African experience. From the Ormo cosmic framework and street-begging in Nigeria, through the role of labour and the part played by wage demands in the African crisis, this volume is a major contribution to the debate on Africa's future.

Between State and Civil Society in Africa

Between State and Civil Society in Africa PDF Author: Eghosa E. Osaghae
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN:
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
The balance of power between an individual and the state they live in is the key to any country's political process. Concepts of citizenship, reciprocity of rights and citizen's duties intertwine in the struggle for assertion. With its largely collective citizenship, the civil society in Africa is alive and vibrant. But in the face of continuing global recession, the present phase of the African crisis is expected to sharpen contradictions within the continent's states. New paradigms have to be sought to explain the formations and realities. The ten chapters in this book, all written by African scholars, question the western, ethnocentric model of development and look at the wide diversity of African experience. From the Ormo cosmic framework and street-begging in Nigeria, through the role of labour and the part played by wage demands in the African crisis, this volume is a major contribution to the debate on Africa's future.

Between State and Civil Society in Africa

Between State and Civil Society in Africa PDF Author: Zzzz
Publisher: Conseil Pour Le Developement De LA
ISBN: 9782869780286
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description


Kingdom, State and Civil Society in Africa

Kingdom, State and Civil Society in Africa PDF Author: Nelson Kasfir
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 3905758962
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
Civil society is one of several Western political and social concepts that have not traveled successfully to Africa. Revived in response to the search for democracy in Eastern Europe during the late Soviet era, Western donors promoted and funded new civil society organizations in sub-Saharan Africa, regarding them as an essential grounding for African democratization. Most of these new civil society organizations had little in common with African associational activity. Focusing on the characteristics and behavior of long-standing African organizations would appear a better starting point for developing a useful concept of an African civil society. One candidate worth serious investigation is the Buganda Kingdom Government. This organization violates most distinctions central to Western notions of civil society. Yet it continues to behave like a civil society organization. Its political and conceptual collisions offer guidance toward a useful notion of African civil society and understanding Ugandan politics.

The Role of Civil Society in Africa’s Quest for Democratization

The Role of Civil Society in Africa’s Quest for Democratization PDF Author: Abadir M. Ibrahim
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319183834
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
This book tests many of the assumptions, hypotheses, and conclusions connected with the presumed role of civil society organizations in the democratization of African countries. Taking a comparative approach, it looks at countries that have successfully democratized, those that are stuck between progress and regression, those that have regressed into dictatorship, and those that are currently in transitional flux and evaluates what role, if any, civil society has played in each instance. The countries discussed—South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt and Tunisia—represent a diverse set of social and political circumstances and different levels of democratic achievement, providing a rich set of case studies. Each sample state also offers an internal comparison, as each has historically experienced different stages of democratization. Along the course of each case study, the book also considers the effect that other traditionally studied factors, such as culture, colonization, economic development and foreign aid, may have had on individual attempts at democratization. The first extensive work on civil society and democratization in Africa, the book adds new insights to the applicability of democratization theory in a non-Western context, both filling a gap in and adding to the existing universal scholarship. This book will be useful for scholars of political science, economics, sociology and African studies, as well as human rights activists and policy makers in the relevant geographical areas.

Critical Perspectives on African Politics

Critical Perspectives on African Politics PDF Author: Clive Gabay
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317686136
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Strong states and strong civil societies are now increasingly hailed as the twin drivers of a ‘rising Africa’. Current attempts to support growth and democracy are part of a longer history of promoting projects of disciplinary, regulatory and liberal rule and values beyond ‘the West’. Yet this is not simply Western domination of a passive continent. Such an interpretation misses out on the complexities and nuances of the politics of state-building and civil society promotion, and the central role of African agency. Drawing upon critical theory, including postcolonial and governmentality approaches, this book interrogates international practices of state-building and civil society support in Africa. It seeks to develop a theoretically informed critical approach to discourses and interventions such as those associated with broadly ‘Western’ initiatives in Africa. In doing so, the book highlights the power relations, inequalities, coercion and violence that are deeply implicated within contemporary international interventions on the African continent. Providing a range of empirical cases and theoretical approaches, the chapters are united by their critical treatment of political dynamics in Africa. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of African politics, development studies, postcolonial theory, International Relations, international political economy and peacekeeping/making.

Civil Society-based Governance in Africa

Civil Society-based Governance in Africa PDF Author: Mbaye Lo
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9994296833
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
This book examines the liberal conception of civil society and its applicability to the context of Africa. Although it acknowledges the reality of civil society as a paradigmatic way of thinking about democracy and good governance, it questions the conception of civil society and its use for development in Africa. The book argues that if the concept of civil society is to be successful, it has to capture fully and correctly most aspects of Africa's associational life without leaving out major portions of the socio-political mosaic. Only then, can the concept of civil society be a legitimate tool for recognizing groups and associations and organizing their problems and claims for a sustainable democracy. The African experience is different from the liberal context of civil society. The liberal argument of civil society springs from the Western conception of state-society relationships. In this convention, power, authoritarianism and exploitation are the exclusive property of the state, while society belongs to the realm of freedom, rights, and liberty To examine this argument, this study uses Senegal as a case study to explore how the idiosyncrasy of societal development in this country has constructed and produced different types of associational life and how they fit within the liberal conception of civil society. Senegal was selected as an ideal case because it is widely regarded as a vibrant model of civil society and democracy. In essence, the question is whether the civil society that exists in Senegal conforms to the liberal argument of civil. The findings reveal that, in Senegal, civil society differs in many forms from the liberal propositions.

The Handbook of Civil Society in Africa

The Handbook of Civil Society in Africa PDF Author: Ebenezer Obadare
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461482623
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 489

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Book Description
This volume brings together the most up to date analyses of civil society in Africa from the best scholars and researchers working on the subject. Being the first of its kind, it casts a panoramic look at the African continent, drawing out persisting, if often under-communicated, variations in regional discourses. In a majority of notionally ‘global’ studies, Africa has received marginal attention, a marginality often highlighted by the usual token chapter. Filling a critical hiatus, theHandbook of Civil Society in Africa takes Africa, African developments, and African perspectives very seriously and worthy of academic interrogation in their own right. It offers a critical, clear-sighted perspective on civil society in Africa, and positions African discourses within the framework of important regional and global debates. It promises to be an invaluable reference work for researchers and practitioners working in the fields of civil society, nonprofit studies, development studies, volunteerism, civic service, and African studies. Endorsements: "This volume signposts a critical turning point in the renewed engagement with the theory and practice of civil society in Africa. Moving from traditional concerns with disquisitions on the appropriateness and possibility of the existence and vibrancy of the idea of civil society on the continent, the volume approaches the forms, contents, and features of the actually existing civil society in Africa from thematic, regional, and national angles. It demonstrates clearly the extent to which core intellectual work on civil society in Africa has largely moved from concerns with cultural reductionism to a nuanced examination of the complexities of (formal, non-formal, organizational, non-organizational, traditional, newer, usual, unusual) engagements, detailing the extent to which, over time, civil society as a concept has been indigenized, appropriated and adapted in the terrains of politics, society, economy, culture and new technologies on the continent. In all this, the book accomplishes the near-impossible. Without sacrificing the vigour, rigor and freshness of the often unpredictable fruits of up-to-date research into regional and national differences that crop up in the documentation of Africa's multiple realities and discourses, the volume weaves together a rich tapestry of the historical, theoretical and practical dimensions of an expanding civil society sector, and accompanying growth in popular discourse, advocacy, and academic literature, in such a diverse continent as Africa, into a meaningful whole of insightful themes. Written and edited by a very distinguished cross-continental and multi-disciplinary collection of researchers, research students, practitioners and activists, the volume provides cutting-edge evidence and makes a definitive case for a new lease of life for civil society research in Africa." -Adigun Agbaje, Professor of Political Science, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. "Throughout Africa, forms of civic engagement and political participation have seen dynamic change in recent decades, yet conceptions of civil society have rarely accounted for this evolution. This volume is an essential source of new thinking about political association and collective action in Africa. The authors offer a wealth of analysis on changing organizations and social movements, new forms of interaction and communication, emerging strategies and issues, diverse social foundations, and the theoretical implications of a shifting associational landscape. The contributors provide an invaluable addition to the comparative literature on political change, democratic development, and social movements in Africa." Peter Lewis, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced international Studies