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- Date Issued:
- 2002-06-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- This essay examines the role which the Nigerian media played in the transition from military rule to elected civilian government. It observes that the immediate political context of the transition was a post-Abacha liberalizing military administration as well as a resurgent civil society. This context meant that the media was able to play a relatively robust role in reporting and influencing the transition although the fact that the Abdulsalami Abubakar regime refused to repeal several "death decrees" targeted at the media remained a key constraining factor on the boldness and imaginativeness of the press in its reporting and monitoring of the transition. Furthermore, while the media, in all its plurality, offered coverage to all of the political parties, it was equally clear that the better financially-endowed People's Democratic Party (PDP) which also emerged as the dominant party was able to win greater advantage over the two other political parties, namely, the All People's Party and the Alliance for Democracy, through the purchase of advertisement space in the print and electronic media. On the whole, the Nigerian media played its role in the transition with credit and whatever weaknesses are observed in its performance and in the skewing of the outcomes of the transition owe more to the shallowness of the transition itself and less to the shortcomings of the media.
- Date Issued:
- 2000-12-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- Despite improvements in some social sectors in some countries, conditions in African countries worsened over the last two decades of the 20th century. As corporate globalization continues to make in roads into national policies and politics, further weakening the ability of African countries to act, there is a need to explore other alternatives for development in Africa. Although this article is essentially an effort to articulate a theoretical deconstruction and reconstruction of the African State, in its content, it is based on numerous empirical case studies and research projects developed by the author over the years on Africa's international relations, political economy, development, and world politics. Reconceptualizing the African state is a must because, firstly, about four decades of preoccupation with development have yielded only very meager returns. It has proven a mistake to attempt to analyze something that has not yet been seriously on the agenda, dealing mainly with symptoms related to behaviors of the state instead of its substance. Secondly, all the available evidence points to the inescapable conclusion that political conditions in Africa are the greatest impediment to development. Thirdly, despite the explosion of the number of actors in the global system and the deliberate efforts of mega financial, multinational and multilateral institutions to African States, and also despite the fact that the African systems of delivering services or performance at the national level are highly problematic, the African State is still the most visible actor in world politics. Finally, the fate of Africa's peoples and cultures has been historically defined by the dynamics of the state, especially its role in international political economy and in making alliances for its own immortality. Colonial Africa was created essentially as states and not as nations, and neo-colonial political elites inherited African States as the central agencies defining the parameters of economy, culture, and the people or citizens.The typologies used here are shaped by an historical structuralist approach that stipulates that systems, states, corporations or social institutions do not function randomly. The system is not just the sum of its elements. It is more than what is tangible. This holistic approach puts the emphasis on change. The African State in its current form is not an agent of positive social change because this state was created to advance the interests of metropolitan capitalism. Development has not started in Africa for many reasons, despite the goodwill of many Africans and African social movements. African people need to reinvent new state forms that can effectively address issues related to poverty, gender inequalities, etc. Despite corporate globalization and the struggles to dismantle welfare states, African people can learn a great deal from the policy and politics of such states.
- Date Issued:
- 2002-06-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Date Issued:
- 1996-06-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- The political economy of Africa is at the crossroads. The centrally controlled economies are giving way to global liberalism. Yet many of the continent's economies are still suffering from the residual effects of centralism, while poorly adjusting to the new dispensation. In the meantime, regionalism as a development strategy seems to be getting a new lease of life in the general development discourse in Africa while assuming varying forms. Furthermore, under globalization, Africa maybe on the verge of becoming an important player as an emerging market. Such forms of development are creating a dynamism in the new political economy of the continent, which may drive the African renaissance.
- Date Issued:
- 2000-06-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Date Issued:
- 2000-12-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- This paper seeks first to underscore the limitations of Western models of civil control which African countries employ to create stable civil-military relations. Second, it uses the recent experience of Southern African civil-military relations to illustrate the extent to which effective civil control over the military has been secured through a combination of objective and subjective mecahnisms. And finally, it suggests some revisions in the conceptual architecture of late modern civil-military relations theory so as to ensure that discipline is more consistent with the exigencies of the African political landscape.
- Date Issued:
- 1998-06-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- This essay attempts to analyse the role and organisation of the North American delegation at the Seventh Pan African Congress held in Kampala, Uganda, from April 3-8, 1994 within the context of current political movements in the United States. Particular attention will be paid to more recent events taking place in the United States, such as the Million Man March, to elucidate the current crisis in African-American leadership. I will argue that this crisis has very real implications with regard to fostering solidarity and redefining a Pan Africanism that is shaped by the needs and aspirations of the producers who make up the overwhelming majority of the African diaspora and the continent.
- Date Issued:
- 1996-06-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- This article critically examines the depth of the reforms and elections that underpinned Nigeria's recently concluded political transition. It also analyses the important challenges confronting democratic consolidation in the face of the "imperfect" nature of the political transition, revolutionary pressures from below and factional struggles within the hegemonic elite -- all of which have direct implications for the social contract and the national question. At the end it is argued that this transition is Nigeria's last chance -- and except it transfers real power to the Nigerian people, the current struggles could signpost grave portends for the Nigerian Project.
- Date Issued:
- 2000-12-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Date Issued:
- 2003-06-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science