This volume illuminates the complex and constantly shifting social dynamics of African city making and human survival today. It explores how African urban dwellers have had to find not only effective ways of pursuing their livelihoods and other aspirations within cities but also ways of managing their interactions with often more powerful economic and political interests that seek to impose particular uses of urban space. Amidst very different socio-cultural contexts in Dakar, Addis Ababa, Cape Town, Kisangani, Jos, Zaria, Cairo and Marrakesh, the research in this volume focuses on the...

Modernity is the unfinished business of our times. In the case of Africa, as the scholars contributing to this volume show, the continent has been through a particularly ambivalent experience of modernity. Most work has tended to emphasize, on the one hand, its alien nature in Africa and, on the other, the ways in which Africans have resisted it. While acknowledging this tension, the authors of this volume seek to show the extent to which this very tension has been constitutive of African social reality. Modernity is understood as the basic impulse behind the construction of changing African...

This book draws on the experiences of particular African elections and countries to explore the continuing impact of police state apparatuses; the factors influencing voters' attitudes and behavior; the impact of incumbency on electoral competition; women's participation; and the lack of choice in party programs. The fundamental issue is whether democratic processes as currently practiced in Africa are really making any difference.

This book looks at the very different responses to the African predicament from prominent writers like Soyinka, Ngugi and Achebe, to the military men in power and the students who defy repression. It suggests that intervention by international agencies who claim to promote 'democracy' and 'empower the youth' may reinforce authoritarian attitudes and structures. The essays in the book give voice to the outrage, ridicule and revolutionary ardour, as well as to the reformist caution, of those directly affected. The shallow pretences of those in power and the hypocrisy and arrogance of the...

Ghana has witnessed a 'revolution through the ballot box', since its return to constitutional rule in 1993. Yet this period of sustained democratic government in an era of globalization and liberal triumphalism has brought with it new demands. How has Ghana faced up to the problems of institution-building, state-market relations and democratic leadership? Can it deal with the challenges posed by security, human rights and foreign policy in the twenty-first century? This unique collection interrogates all these issues and assesses the future of the democratic experiment in one of sub-Saharan...

The path towards democracy in Kenya has been long and often tortuous. Though it has been trumpeted as a goal for decades, democratic government has never been fully realised, largely as a result of the authoritarian excesses of the Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki regimes.
This uniquely comprehensive study of Kenya's political trajectory shows how the struggle for democracy has been waged in civil society, through opposition parties, and amongst traditionally marginalised groups like women and the young. It also considers the remaining impediments to democratisation, in the form of a powerful...