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Analyses the complexities of Christian-Muslim conflict that threatens the fragile democracy of Nigeria, and the implications for global peace and security.
It is now more than a decade since the violent Islamic group Boko Haram launched its reign of terror across northern Nigeria, claiming more than 27,000 lives and displacing over 2 million people. While its territorial gains have largely been recaptured, the insurgency rages on, devastating communities across vast stretches of the north-east and disrupting governance, livelihoods and food security, as well as posing a security risk to Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Less attention is paid to the pervasive popular rejection of violent extremism on the ground. How did a diverse and economically dynamic West African society unravel so violently, and for so long? Why does radicalization have so little ...
A team of scholars examine the radical political changes that have taken place since 1990 in eleven key countries in Africa. Radical changes have taken place in Africa since 1990. What are the realities of these changes? What significant differences have emerged between African countries? What is the future for democracy in the continent? The editors have chosen eleven key countries to provide enlightening comparisons and contrasts to stimulate discussion among students. They have brought together a team of scholars who are actively working in the changing Africa of today.Each chapter is structured around a framing event which defines the experience of democratisation. The editors have provi...
"Gulliver's Troubles offers the first comprehensive assessment of the post-Cold War foreign policy of Nigeria - one of Africa's most important states. Expert contributors, comprising academics and scholar-diplomats, analyse Nigeria's most vital domestic challenges and critical regional issues from historical and contemporary perspectives. Nigeria's relations with its neighbours and other significant states and regional and international bodies also come under scrutiny. The debates here, while multi-faceted, share the premise that an effective foreign policy must be built on a sound domestic base and democratic stability."--BOOK JACKET.
Analyses Muslim-Muslim divisions within northern Nigeria, which are as important for understanding the violence in the region as those between Muslim and Christian (for which, see the companion volume, Creed and Grievance), with consequences for long-term peacemaking. Nigerian society has long been perceived as divided along religious lines, between Muslims and Christians, but alongside this there is an equally important polarization within the Muslim population in beliefs, rituals and sectarian allegiance. This book highlights the crucial issue of intra-Muslim pluralism and conflict in Nigeria. Conflicting interpretations of texts and contexts have led to fragmentation within northern Niger...
First published in 1997, this volume asks whether Africa’s future is necessarily rooted in peasant agriculture. The title of this book, Farewell to Farms, is deliberately intended to challenge the widely held view that Africa is the world’s reserve for peasant farming. African rural populations are themselves moving away from a reliance on agriculture. ‘De-agrarianisation’ takes the form of urban migration as well as the expansion of non-agricultural activities in rural areas providing new income sources, occupations and social identities for rural dwellers. Using recent continent-wide case study evidence, the authors assess the impact of de-agrarianisation on household welfare, business performance and national development. Their findings, which reveal new economic trajectories and social patterns emerging from a period of accelerated change, call into question assumptions about Africa’s future place in the world division of labour.
A useful collection for students as the interest in the politics of ethnicity continues.
An innovative examination of our understanding of political legitimacy in Mali, and its wider implications for democratization and political modernity in the Global South.
It is widely believed that the state in developing countries is weak. The public sector, in particular, is often regarded as corrupt and dysfunctional. This book provides an urgently needed corrective to such overgeneralized notions of bad governance in the developing world. It examines the variation in state capacity by looking at a particularly paradoxical and frequently overlooked phenomenon: effective public organizations or ‘pockets of effectiveness’ in developing countries. Why do these pockets exist? How do they emerge and survive in hostile environments? And do they have the potential to trigger more comprehensive reforms and state-building? This book provides surprising answers ...