The Policy Paradox In Africa

It provided technical and financial support to economic research centres in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) so that they can undertake policy-relevant research with the goal of influencing economic policy-making. In January 2005, the Secretariat organized an international conference in Dakar, Senegal, during which participants from key economic think tanks presented their experiences in the policy development process in Africa. Of particular interest was the role of economic research and economic researchers in policy-making. The authors examine the extent to which economic policies that are formulated in the sub-continent draw from research based on local realities and undertaken by local researchers and research networks in Africa.

Since its debut, Policy Paradox has been widely acclaimed as the most accessible policy text available.

This book shows that powerful hereditary chiefs do not undermine democracy in Africa but, on some level, facilitate it.

This book analyzes the phenomenon of xenophobia across African countries. With its roots in colonialism, which coercively created modern states through border delineation and the artificial merging and dividing of communities, xenophobia continues to be a barrier to post-colonial sustainable peace and security and socio-economic and political development in Africa. This volume critically assesses how xenophobia has impacted the three elements of political economy: state, economy and society. Beginning with historical and theoretical analysis to put xenophobia in context, the book moves on to country-specific case studies discussing the nature of xenophobia in Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Ghana and Zimbabwe. The chapters furthermore explore both violent and non-violent manifestations of xenophobia, and analyze how state responses to xenophobia affects African states, economies, and societies, especially in those cases where xenophobia has widespread institutional support. Providing a theoretical understanding of xenophobia and proffering sustainable solutions to the proliferation of xenophobia in the continent, this book is of use to researchers and students interested in political science, African politics, peace studies, security, and development economics, as well as policy-makers working to eradicate xenophobia in Africa.

"This handbook provides an authoritative and foundational disciplinary overview of African Public Policy and a comprehensive examination of the practicalities of policy analysis, policymaking processes, implementation and administration in Africa today. The book assembles a multidisciplinary team of distinguished and upcoming Africanist scholars, practitioners, researchers and policy experts working inside and outside Africa to analyse the historical and emerging policy issues in 21st-century Africa. While mostly attentive to comparative public policy in Africa, this book attempts to address some of the following pertinent questions: How can public policy be understood and taught in Africa? How does policymaking occur in unstable political contexts, or in states under pressure? Has the democratisation of governing systems improved policy processes in Africa? How have recent transformations, such as technological proliferation in Africa, impacted public policy processes? What are the underlying challenges and potential policy paths for Africa going forward? The contributions examine an interplay of prevailing institutional, political, structural challenges and opportunities for policy effectiveness to discern striking commonalities and trajectories across different African states. This is a valuable resource for practitioners, politicians, researchers, university students, and academics interested in studying and understanding how African countries are governed"--

Customary law and traditional authorities continue to play highly complex and contested roles in contemporary African states. Reversing the common preoccupation with studying the impact of the post/colonial state on customary regimes, this volume analyses how the interactions between state and non-state normative orders have shaped the everyday practices of the state. It argues that, in their daily work, local officials are confronted with a paradox of customary law: operating under politico-legal pluralism and limited state capacity, bureaucrats must often, paradoxically, deal with custom – even though the form and logic of customary rule is not easily compatible and frequently incommensurable with the form and logic of the state – in order to do their work as a state. Given the self-contradictory nature of this endeavour, officials end up processing, rather than solving, this paradox in multiple, inconsistent and piecemeal ways. Assembling inventive case studies on state-driven land reforms in South Africa and Tanzania, the police in Mozambique, witchcraft in southern Sudan, constitutional reform in South Sudan, Guinea’s long durée of changing state engagements with custom, and hybrid political orders in Somaliland, this volume offers important insights into the divergent strategies used by African officials in handling this paradox of customary law and, somehow, getting their work done.

Ghana is widely acknowledged by the international community as a model of democracy: the first black African sub-Saharan country to gain political independence from Britain. Focussing on the matrix offered by the media-democracy paradox in Ghana, Africa and the Global South, it will generate debate in democracy, media, journalism and communication.

This revised and expanded second edition of African Politics in Comparative Perspective reviews fifty years of research on politics in Africa and addresses some issues in a new light, keeping in mind the changes in Africa since the first edition was written in 2004. The book synthesizes insights from different scholarly approaches and offers an original interpretation of the knowledge accumulated in the field. Goran Hyden discusses how research on African politics relates to the study of politics in other regions and mainstream theories in comparative politics. He focuses on such key issues as why politics trumps economics, rule is personal, state is weak and policies are made with a communal rather than an individual lens. The book also discusses why in the light of these conditions agriculture is problematic, gender contested, ethnicity manipulated and relations with Western powers a matter of defiance.