State and Politics in Africa

State and Politics in Africa is a Social Science course taught by Frank Holmquist.

This course requires prerequisites.

Course Description
Sub-Saharan Africa faces multi-faceted difficulties including a crisis of the state. The state loomed large in all post-colonial scenarios of African development as the major agency of economic growth and of popular participation. The 1960s and 1970s brought mixed returns on those expectations, but the 1980s dashed prior hopes with international debt, structural adjustment economic policies, and repressive regimes. The turn of the past decade found angry people in the streets demanding democracy, while the end of the Cold War meant that major Western countries were willing to 147let go148 of some very unpopular leaders the West used to support. But despite democratic openings, and the unleashing of political voices, several states are marked by their failure to function as well as they did two decades ago, and a few have all but collapsed. Meanwhile economies are growing slowly and poverty maybe spreading. The way out of the general crisis will require state reform and that will require an understanding of the forces that created the current situation. This is the central issue that the course will address. Some prior study of Africa, Asia, or Latin America is expected.