Isaline BERGAMASCHI
[email protected] Sara DEZALAY
[email protected]
Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris Enseignement d’ouverture “Global Africa” Spring Semester 2011
COURSE DESCRIPTION This course aims to provide students with a consistent knowledge about the Politics of Africa. It looks at both the continent’s domestic political dynamics and its insertion into the world; and builds on the fields of Africa politics, sociology, international relations, international public law and political economy.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS • • •
Class presentation (30%) (10-15 minutes) and response as a discussant to a presentation (5 minutes). Each student will be required to prepare a presentation related to a session’s topic. Final Paper (50%) (10 pages). Each student will be required to write a research paper on a selected topic related to the course. Class participation (20%). Students must prepare for and actively engage in weekly discussions.
COURSE OUTLINE Session 1. Global Africa: An introduction - Isaline Bergamaschi & Sara Dezalay ‘Africa Quizz’ How Africa is Perceived and Misperceived: Moving beyond clichés The course: Presentation, structure and requirements Session 2. The State and Power in Historical Perspective- Isaline Bergamaschi Pre-colonial Africa, Colonisation and Independence: common debates Political Regimes and Processes in Post-Colonial Africa Presentations: 1) What has the Pre-colonial and Colonial Legacy on Contemporary African Politics been? 2) ‘Vampire’, ‘weak’, ‘failed’, or something else: How to define the African State? Reading: i
Bayart Jean-François, “Africa in the World: A history of Extraversion”, African Affairs (2000), n°99, pp. 217-267. Available online: http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/99/395/217 Session 3. Understanding Conflict in Africa (I) - Sara Dezalay The theory of “New Wars” Wars of Predation: the ‘Greed’ and ‘Grievance’ theory ‘Warlords’ and ‘Terrorists’ Presentations: 1) Can economics adequately explain “new” wars? 2) State “weakness”, “collapse”, or “fragility”: do these conceptions of the State provide an explanation of conflicts? Reading: Lisa Chauvet, Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “The Cost of Failing States and the Limits to Sovereignty”, A paper presented for WIDER, February 2007, available online http://www.gsdrc.org/go/display&type=Document&id=3343.
Session 4. Understanding Conflict in Africa (II) - Sara Dezalay “Internal” wars as State-building? Systems of War, Systems of States Presentations: 1) The “new” mercenaries: Questioning the novelty, reality and implications of the privatization of security in Africa 2) The “return of autochtony”: a case-study of Côte d’Ivoire Reading: Paul Richards (ed.), No Peace, No War: an anthropology of contemporary armed conflicts: in memoriam Bernhard Helander, Athens, Ohio, Ohio University Press; Oxford, J. Currey, 2005. In particular the introduction by Paul Richards pp. 1-21. Session 5. The Politics of Intervention: From “Intervention” to the “Responsibility to Protect”Sara Dezalay Peace Interventions on the Continent: Trends, Successes and Failures The humanitarian discourse on Africa & the origins of the « Responsibility to Protect » Presentations: 1) The “humanitarian age”: a case study of Somalia 2) Is there a “right” to intervene? Assessing current debates
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Reading: “The failures: Somalia, Rwanda, Angola, Bosnia”, in Howard Morjé L., UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars, Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 21-51. Session 6. International Justice and the search for Peace & Reconciliation - Sara Dezalay The “judicialization” of war and war crimes: Can Justice and Peace be reconciled? Routes and alternatives to Justice & Reconciliation: Tribunals, Commissions and Justice from “below” Presentations: 1) Hissène Habré, the “Pinochet” of Africa? 2) Are “Gacacas” & other “local” routes to justice an adequate alternative to international mechanisms? Reading: Lyn S Graybill, “Pardon, punishment and amnesia: three African post-conflict methods”, Third World Quarterly, (2004) vol.25: n°6, p.1117-1130. Session 7. “Big Powers” on the Continent– Isaline Bergamaschi Former Colonial Rulers, Cold War Politics and the ‘New World Order’ Case-study n°1: ‘Françafrique’ and its detractors Case-study n°2: ‘Chinafrica’: Key to development or “yellow peril”? Presentations: 1) Cold War Politics in Africa: Dynamics and Impact 2) France and the Genocide in Rwanda: Historical and Political Debates Reading: “External influences on African politics”, in Thomson A., An Introduction to African Politics, Routledge, 2004, pp. 149-173. Session 8. The Challenges of Development and Economic Reform - Isaline Bergamaschi Competing Development Narratives and Projects in post-colonial Africa Crisis, Debt and Economic Reform Structural Adjustment in Africa: Policy and socio-economic effects Africa in the midst of the current financial crisis Reading: Herbst Jeffrey, “The Structural Adjustment of Politics in Africa”, World Development, vol. 18, 1990, pp. 949-958. Presentations: 1) ‘Afro-marxism’: Patterns, Experiences and Outcomes iii
2) A hybric path to Growth and Development: The case of Côte d’Ivoire Session 9. Shifts in the Aid “market” (I): Donor practices from ‘Structural Adjustment’ to ‘Poverty Reduction’– Isaline Bergamaschi Structural Adjustment and its Critics Shifting Donor Paradigms: ‘Ownership’, ‘Poverty Reduction’ and ‘Participation’ Aid Negotiations: African governments and International Financial Institutions (IFIs) Case-study: Mali and its Donors (1999-2009) Reading: Williams David, “Managing Sovereignty: The World Bank and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa”, Mondes en Développement, Vol.31-2003/3-n°123, pp. 5-22. Presentations: 1) Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: Old wine in new bottle? 2) How can African Governments gain leverage in Negotiating Aid with the IFIs? Session 10: Shifts in the Aid “market” (II): NGOs and Africa’s Globalised Civil Society–Sara Dezalay Shifts in the Non-Governmental Aid & Development “market” towards Africa Africa’s globalised civil society and social movements Reading: Marie-Emmanuelle Pommerolle and Johanna Siméant, “Voix africaines au Forum social mondial de Nairobi. Les chemins transnationaux des militantismes africains”, Cultures & Conflits, 70, Summer 2008. Presentations: 1) Case-study: The World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya (2007) 2) The transformation of “tiers-mondism”: Towards a New North-South Partnership? SPRING BREAK – APRIL 24 – MAY 2 Session 11. Africa in International Trade – Isaline Bergamaschi Africa’s share in International Trade The Role of African countries in Multilateral Trade Negotiations Case-study: The “cotton initiative” at the World Trade Organization: Process and Outcomes Reading: “Africa and World Trade”, in Moss, Todd, African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2007, pp. 201-221. Presentation (2 students): “The EU-Africa Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs): The Pros and the Cons”
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For this presentation, one student will present the position of the European Union in the negotiation, and the other the limited potential of EPAs for Africa’s development highlighted by African representatives and NGOs. Session 12. Africans in France – Isaline Bergamaschi & Sara Dezalay Migration: Collective Imaginaries and Individual Trajectories The contested Colonial Memory African Causes and Activists in France Reading: Bancel Nicolas, Blanchard Pascal, chapter 1, “Les origines républicaines de la fracture coloniale” in Blanchard Pascal, Bancel Nicolas, Lemaire, Sandrine (ed.), La fracture coloniale : la société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial, Paris : La Découverte, 2005. Presentations: 1) Dealing with the past: building a “colonial memory” in France? 2) “Sans Papiers”: Genesis and specificity of a mobilization Bibliography Journals: Politique africaine Review of African Political Economy African Affairs Books: Bayart Jean-François, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly, London, Longman, 1993 Bayart Jean-François, Ellis Stephen, Hibou Béatrice, The Criminalisation of the State in Africa, Bloomington, James Currey, 1999 Bøås, Morten and Kevin C. Dunn (eds.), African guerrilla politics : raging against the machine?, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007 Dunn Kevin, Shaw Timothy, Africa’s challenge to International Relations Theory, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001 Ferguson James, The Anti-Politics Machine: "Development", Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. University of Minnesota Press, 1994 Ferguson James, Global shadows: Africa in the neoliberal world order. London: Duke University Press, 2006 Harrison, Graham, The World Bank and Africa: The Construction of Governance States, London, Routledge, 2004 Hassner, Pierre and Roland Marchal (ed.), Guerres et sociétés, Etat et violence après la Guerre froide, Paris, Karthala, 2003 Kaldor, Mary, New and old wars. Organized violence in a global era », 2d edition, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2006 v
Mbembé, Achille, On the Postcolony: Studies on the History of Society and Culture, Berkeley and Los Angeles, London, University of California Press, 2001 Mosley, P., Harrigan J. and Toye J., 1991, Aid and Power: The World Bank and Policy-Based Lending, London Routlege, 1991 Thomson, Alex, An Introduction to African Politics, Routledge, 2004 Van de Walle Nicolas, African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis 1979-1999, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001 Whitfield Lindsay (ed.), The New Politics of Aid: African strategies for dealing with donors, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008 Woods Ngaire, The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank and their borrowers, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2006 World Bank, Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action, Washington DC, World Bank, 1981 Young, Crawford, The African colonial State in comparative perspective, London, Yale University Press, 1994 Articles Banégas, Richard, “Le nouveau business mercenaire: de la guerre au maintien de la paix”, Critique internationale, 1998, n°1, p.179-194. Bayart, Jean-François, “La guerre en Afrique. Dépérissement ou formation de l’Etat”, Esprit, 247, 1998, pp. 55-73 Marchal, Roland & Christine Messiant, “De l’avidité des rebelles. L’analyse économique de la guerre civile selon Paul Collier”, Critique internationale, 16, July 2002, pp. 58-69 Marchal, Roland & Christine Messiant, “Les guerres civiles à l’ère de la globalisation. Nouvelles réalités et nouveaux paradigmes”, Critique Internationale, n°18 – January 2003, pp. 91-11
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