African Politics in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

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.

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and the Empowerment of Women in Africa

“…Africa's continued marginal position in the empowerment of women has led to a search for explanations that ostensibly go beyond theories of modernization and dependence. According to Goran Hyden (2006) and Christobel Asiedu (2009) the economy of afffections is also in a sense held responsible for what has gone wrong with Africa's women empowerment. He contends that afffective relations have permeated and invades the male dominated governments and threaten total engulfment of citizens especially women.…”

“…Moreover, as Adepuju (1994) and Hyden (2006) pointed out, the systematically inferior position of women inside and outside the public service and household in the continent points to the necessity of treating gender as a force of its own in sustainable development issues in Africa. Although the relative deprivation of women when compared with men varies around the fijifty-four African nations, it is very important to note that giving qualifijied women more senior public management positions in government organizations will galvanize the continent's bid for sustainable development.…”

Institutionalizing the pro-democracy movements: the case of Zambia's Movement for Multiparty Democracy

“…Linked to this, Hydén argues that what look like political parties in Africa today are really either dominant movements or a multitude of personalized organizations with little root in society. 23 Parties are seen as vehicles for individual party leaders, often with strong ethnically delimited electorates, short existence and unpredictable behaviours. In addition the democratic institutional set-up in which parties function is weakly institutionalized: the executive power dominates over parliament, electoral commissions are weak, and in most cases local government structures are marginalized.…”

The prophetic witness of the church as an appropriate mode of public discourse in African societies

“…Although NGOs are influential because they promise to do for the people what the government has failed (Hyden 2006:9), they do not have a direct impact on government activities. Academics, musicians and other social critics join the battle of social reform through several methods.…”