African Studies Commons^™

An Ethiopian Dilemma: Deep Structures, Wrenching Processes, Donald N. Levine

International Conference on African Development Archives

Please find attached my keynote address presented August 3 at the 4th International Conference of Ethiopian Development Studies at Western Michigan University. Organized by Professor Sisay Asefa, the Conference assembled an edifying blend of thoughtful, forward-looking Ethiopian scholars, and culminated with inauguration of the new Ethiopian Development Studies Association.

Do Foreign Direct Investment And Foreign Aid Promote Good Governance In Africa?, Adugna Lemi, Blen Solomon, Sisay Asefa

International Conference on African Development Archives

The literature on the roles that governance/political and economic stability play to attract capital flows into African economies has been burgeoning. Good governance, liberalization, infrastructure, incentive packages have been regarded as cures to break the deadlock to reverse the economic plight, to attract inflow of capital and, in some cases, to reverse outflows of African economies. The flow of capital, however, has undesirable side effects on host economies’ working conditions, environmental standard, inequality, and culture, among others. These economic and social external or negative spillover effects are due to the phenomenon of “race-to-the-bottom” where companies invest in economies with lax …

The Global Response To The Darfur Crisis, Mehari Maru

International Conference on African Development Archives

This paper examines the global response to the Darfur crisis. The term global refers to non-Sudanese actors in Darfur crisis including but not limited to: international and multilateral governance institutions such as United Nations and its family agencies (hereafter UN), International Criminal Court (hereafter ICC), African Union (hereafter AU), European Union (hereafter EU), North Atlantic Organization (hereafter NATO), and the Arab League; countries such as United States of America (hereafter USA), Peoples Republic of China, Chad, and Central African Republic; and international NGOs such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group and many other relief and humanitarian organizations, …

Leadership Perspective: Country Development And Transition To Free Market Economy, Kinfu Adisu

International Conference on African Development Archives

In the following essay, the author will examine the need for a clear understanding of the transition process and economic development in Ethiopia. The country’s move towards a free market economy will be critically analyzed as an important step to fight poverty. This will also raise the question of what policies need to be changed to make the nation competitive. A case method is taken into consideration to examine various experiences from African and Asian developing nations. The analysis will be from leadership perspective and takes a business approach to examining the issues and primarily utilizes free market transitional theories. …

Investors' Willingness To Pay For Urban Land: The Case Of Addis Ababa City, Alebel Bayrau, Genanew Bekele

International Conference on African Development Archives

The spatial, physical and socio-economic conditions of Addis Ababa City, in general, is by far behind the requirements fundamental to sustain the livelihood of the city. In addressing the problems of the city, the suggested government intervention strategies include, among others, the relocation and resettlement of residents for efficient utilization of potential sites, and bringing balanced and coordinated investment/development in different parts of the city. These strategies, so far, seam to concentrate on the supply side and neglected the effective demand of the majority of investors. This study, therefore, aims to assess determinants of investors' willingness to pay for a …

2007 International Conference On Ethiopian Development Studies (4th Iceds) A Multidisciplinary Conference On The Challenges Of Peace And Development In Ethiopia & The Horn Of Africa, Western Michigan University

International Conference on African Development Archives

Proceedings from the 2007 International Conference on Ethiopian Development Studies (4th ICEDS) A Multidisciplinary Conference on the Challenges of Peace and Development in Ethiopia & the Horn of Africa, held in Kalamazoo, Michigan (WMU), August 2-4, 2007.

Private Transfers, Informal Loans And Risk Sharing Among Poor Urban Households, Eskander Alvi, Seife Dendir

International Conference on African Development Archives

This paper contributes to a growing literature that investigates the mechanisms of risk-sharing among poor households. There are two aspects of the paper that are particularly relevant in the context of the literature. First, it focuses on poor urban areas. The disproportionate focus in the literature on rural households has meant that we know relatively little about the risk-sharing practices of poor urban households. Given that formal insurance is largely absent even in urban areas of most developing economies, it is apparent that these households may be no less vulnerable to income risk than their rural counterparts. Furthermore, because of …

Aid Suspensions As Coercive Tools? The European Union’S Experience In The African-Caribbean-Pacific (Acp) Context, Clara Portela

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Since the signing of the Cotonou Agreement in 2000, the European Union (EU) has suspended development aid towards a number of African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries in response to breaches of Human Rights and democratic principles by activating the so-called Human Rights clause (article 96). The present article analyses the use by the EU of aid suspensions as political tools and their efficacy in achieving the desired policy goals, in an attempt to identify and explain the determinants leading to the success of these measures. The investigation finds that the use of development aid suspensions is frequently effective. Classical …

August Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“How China's Support of Sudan Shields a Regime Called 'Genocidal'" by Danna Harman. Christian Science Monitor. June 26, 2006.

Ending The Cold War Is A Good Place To Start, Judith Blau

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Recently, I told my daughter that the U.S. media had hyped the Chinese toy recall. “Just more rehashing of Cold War rhetoric,” I said. My two-year old daughter rebuked me: “Come on, Mom! You read politics into everything!” Then, after a moment or two of silence, she said, “Oh yes, I see what you mean. The Chinese toys with toxic paints could have been made in sweatshops owned by U.S. multinationals” (proud mom—politically aware daughter).

Countering Chinese Influence In Sudan, Ali Wyne

Human Rights & Human Welfare

It is difficult to imagine a more poisonous symbiosis than that between China and Sudan. The former requires a continuous flow of low-cost oil imports to satisfy its soaring oil demand, and the latter requires sufficient economic support to immunize itself against international interventions and preempt potential internal uprisings. Sudan supplies 64 percent of its oil to China (meeting seven percent of the economic power’s demand in 2006), and China, for its part, has invested heavily in Paloich, one of the country’s central oil-producing areas.

Political Dialogue And Human Rights In The Framework Of The Cotonou Agreement, Clara Portela

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The present study analyses the use of the political instruments for the protection of Human Rights, democracy and the rule of law under the Partnership Agreement between the European Union (EU) and the African-Caribbean–Pacific (ACP) countries embedded in the Cotonou Agreement: the consultations under article 96, intensified and regular political dialogue. It briefly outlines the legal provisions of the revised treaty, reviews recent practice, and looks into the involvement of civil society and parliamentary bodies in the political dialogue.

Le Nouvel « Engagement »? : Rachid Boudjedra Entrehistoire Et Écriture, Hafid Gafaït

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

According to Charles Bonn and other critics in the 1980’s and 1990’s, North-African literature evolved from a perspective that underlined both the centrality of style, or the writer’s aesthetic standpoint, and the importance of themes, ideas and content, to a production that was dominated by ideology, politics, factual events and testimony. To what extent can this statement be generalized? Does referentiality necessarily exclude literarity? These are questions I will explore on the basis of Rachid Boudjedra’s recent work, which is characterized by an increasingly visible fusion of writing and History. From this, I will consider if what we are witnessing …

Boudjedra, Écrivain De Langue Arabe?, Touriya Fili-Tullon

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This paper is devoted to bilingualism in R. Boudjedra’sliterary practice. Our aim is to show how French and Arabic versions of his books may be read as hypertexts of metadiscoursive value. Considered from this point of view, the differing versions neutralize any genetic approach and make the rules of an “authoritative” translation obsolete.

La Vie À L’Endroit De Rachid Boudjedra : Entre Subjectivité Et Folie, Sonia Zlitni Fitouri

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In this study of Rachid Boudjedra’s La vie à l’endroit, I will show how the Algerian writer endeavours to put “en abyme” three types of madness (joyful, fatal, hallucinatory); these generate one another in a cause and effect relationship and distance themselves from the delirious discourse of his first novels in order to give an account of a period of terror which struck Algeria under the Muslim fundamentalist threat. We will also show how the character-narrator faces all this madness by setting up his subj bj ectivity as a shield against what he calls “external fear and inner fear”, and …

Meka Ou Le Lent Retour À Soi, Alexandre Lizotte

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Inspired by Ferdinand Oyono’s novel Le vieux nègre et la médaille and relying on the works of Albert Memmi and a number of critics of the negro-african novel, what we are proposing here is a reflection on the relation between the colonizer and the colonized. At the very core of our analysis is the character of Meka, Oyono’s main character, who symbolizes the people’s strive for freedom and self-rediscovery and reconquest. Step by step, we follow him through his long and difficult “walk” or journey towards himself, towards his own truth. In our understanding of that whole liberation process, we …

De L’Écriture De L’Urgence À L’Écriture Du Renouveau, Armelle Crouzières-Ingenthron

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This critical analysis focuses on Rachid Boudjedra’s trilogy that deals with Algerian fundamentalism. Even though Boudjedra’s famous labyrinthine and vertiginous technique was at first based on the literary, on a pleasure of writing that would in turn trigger political thought – at least until the publication of the political pamphlet FIS de la haine –, his more recent technique reflects an urgency and a writing focused on political thought, both of which give birth to a literary process. Despite the author’s well-known reticence regarding conventional happy endings, he annihilates once and for all terrorism and fundamentalism, and embraces an optimistically …

Une Révolution Boudjedrienne Des Concepts Historiques : Un Regard De L’Histoire (Fictionnelle) Sur L’Histoire, Laetitia Vincent

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Rachid Boudjedra binds ingeniously fictional and real history and, beyond historic forgery, this author succeeds in transcribing the authentic events of his country. This article exposes one of the novelist’s historic conceptions through which the reader apprehends History : detailed visions alternate and blend with globalizing visions. For this author, nothing must be abandoned or put aside; by analyzing his novelistic writing, a fictional mosaic, we will come to understand his perspective on History.

Topographie Idéale Pour Une Agression Caractérisée : Roman De L’Émigration, De La Ville Ou De L’Écriture?, Charles Bonn

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Published in 1975 after a wave of anti-Algerian racist attacks in France, this novel is first and foremost a statement of urban space, whose labyrinthian subway lines merge with those of writing, and participate in the drawing of spatiality. But this writing, which disconcerts the documentary expectation of the readers, betrays that expectation : instead of describing the daily life of the emigrant, it seizes his marginalization in order to represent itself, both as a victim who is sacrificed like the hero without name of the novel and as the ridiculous object of a narcissistic and ludic utterance.

Théorie Et Pratique De L’Écriture Chez Pius Ngandu Nkashama, Kasereka Kavwahirehi

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Pius Ngandu Nkashama is mostly known as a literary critic and theorist. But he is also an established novelist, poet and playwright. This essay attempts to show that both his critical work and his creative work share a common dynamic. It shows how, for Pius Ngandu, literary and aesthetic practice is not only a way of life, an existential experience from which he draws the energy to overcome despair and human mediocrity, but it is also a way of participating in the African struggle for freedom and for the conquest of a history that has been confiscated by dictators.

Le Lecteur Face Aux Stéréotypes : Entre Participation Et Distanciation, Valérie Lotodé

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In some of Rachid Boudjedra’s novels, the study of stereotyped representations proves particularly operational to define the interaction between virtual reader and characters. This article aims to analyze the reader’s reactions to stereotypes. It also attempts to show how the reader oscillates between a participatory reading – during which, recognizing a traditional ideological speech, he is charmed by fiction – and a distancing reading. By means of the analysis of female and male archetypes, this paper will also reveal the implicit reader’s face, and more specifically his/her sexual identity.

Civil Society In Northern Uganda: Constraints And Possibilities, Jasmina Brankovic

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Foreign Direct Investment And Development Objectives In The Republic Of Uganda, David Olanya

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This study develops an analytical framework for investigating Government of Ugandaâ s support for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) development paradigm. It compares macroeconomic and institutional incentives in attracting FDI and institutional weaknesses. This study also discusses the nature of FDI, benefits of FDI in terms of its spillovers, and strategic issues and policies for managing stakeholders in the economy. While Ugandan government maintains the view that improving on policy environment will attract FDI to address the countryâ s development challenges, this study found out that, progress in policy environment (fiscal incentives, political stability, and good regulation) does not automatically lead …

Globalization And Drug And Alcohol Use In Rural Communities In Nigeria: A Case Study, Charles Fiki

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper presents an exploratory study of alcohol and drug use in two rural communities in Plateau State, Nigeria. The aim is to raise awareness of the rural alcohol and drug problem. The paper examines the patterns of alcohol consumption and drug use, and their perceived functions for substance use among rural farmers in Nigeria. The study shows the common use of marijuana and alcohol in addition to prescription drugs. There is also evidence of multiple or combinational drug use. Pleasure and relaxation emerged as the major reasons for drug and alcohol use. Factors influencing alcohol and drug use are …

Darfur: Genocide In The 21st Century, Victoria Goff

Senior Honors Projects

The conflict in Darfur has been described as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis” by the United Nations, and the United States has condemned the war as genocide. But four years later, the death toll of 200,000 continues to rise. At least another 2.5 million have been displaced, and neighboring countries have declared a state of emergency. Unless something is done to stop the violence, the chaos will continue to spread. Frustrated with lack of representation in the government, rebel groups from Darfur – the western region of Africa’s largest country, Sudan – revolted against its national government in 2003. The …

May Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency” by Mahmood Mamdani. London Review of Books. March 8, 2007.

The Moral Vocabulary Of Violence, David L. G. Rice

Human Rights & Human Welfare

What is at stake in labeling a particular incidence of large-scale violence “genocide”? Mahmood Mamdani rightly argues that “genocide” is an insufficient description of the conflict in Darfur. I would suggest that the problematic nature of that terminology goes back to its inception after World War II. Activists have inherited the concept of “genocide” from a particular historical moment. Now, “ genocide” carries unique moral weight in the discourse of international politics. When violence against civilians has been widely accepted as a necessary outcome of the preservation of peace, activists find it necessary to imagine a worse evil than the …

The Return Of Moral Equivalence, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

During the latter stages of the Cold War, one school of ethical analysis, ultimately labeled as “moral equivalence” by the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, measured Western liberal democracies against utopian standards in a radical critique which redefined the political discourse, erasing distinctions between the Soviet Union and its satellites on the one hand and the United States and its allies on the other.

Missing The Point, Colin Thomas-Jensen

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“What would happen if we thought of Darfur as we do of Iraq, as a place with a history and politics—a messy politics of insurgency and counterinsurgency?” (§4). This is the most telling question posed by Professor Mahmood Mamdani in “The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency.” The implication is that the growing public demand for strong international action—military or otherwise—to halt the atrocities in Darfur is somehow unwarranted because people have failed to understand that the systematic crimes against humanity committed against civilians in Darfur (and indeed Iraq) are an inevitability of “the messy politics of insurgency and …

Politics Of Naming And Politics Of Responsibility, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Mahmood Mamdani is right to complain that the American—and international—public is unaware of the political complexity of the Darfur conflict. He is also right to point out that selective or inconsistent uses of the terms “genocide,” “civil war,” and “insurgency” can mask covert, or even overt, political agendas. His comparison of Darfur to Iraq is telling. And he is right to point out that even with the best of humanitarian intentions, the presentation of a simplified version of Darfur, in which “Arabs” persecute “Africans,” can play into the “war on terror,” insofar as, in the minds of at least some …