African Journals OnLine
African Journal of Political Science (AJPS)
Revue Africaine de Science Politique

(Formerly African Journal of Political Economy)
Abstracts (Vol 5 No1)

Presidential Address

The Globalisation of Political Science: An African Perspective
L. Adele Jinadu

Abstract
Globalised political science, including its professionalisation, is part of the cultural superstructure facilitating Western hegemony. It functions under the guise of universal science, with serious implications for knowledge production in and about Africa, especially African politics. During this period of liberal triumphalism it has undergone a paradigmatic shift in its application to African politics, emphasising institutional reform as a pre-requisite for democratic transition, thereby exposing its limitations. It conflates the problem of democracy with institutional reform; it is unable to account for the role of various social forces in securing the current transition to democracy; and it is unable to relate the problem of democracy to the problem of underdevelopment in Africa.

Articles

African Renaissance in the New Millennium? From Anarchy to Emerging Markets?
Timothy A. Shaw and Julius E. Nyang'oro

Abstract
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.

Negotiating Space for The Rural Communities? Market Orthodoxy and The Changing Concept of Social Welfare Services in Africa
Said Adejumobi

Abstract
The paper examines how market reforms are reconstituting the notion of social welfare services in Africa within the context of the rural-urban divide. Market reforms in the social welfare sector seek to reverse this divide and negotiate a new consensus in the rural-urban equation. Priority and funding re-adjustment by the state, decentralisation, deregulation, and commercialisation are new elements in the provision of social welfare services in Africa. The objectives, among others, are to facilitate equity and access to those services, especially by the rural population. But the extent to which those objectives have been realised remain questionable.

Ethnicite et Multipartisme au Nord-Cameroun
Ibrahim Mouiche

Résumé
Le <<Nord-Cameroun>> renvoie au départ à une entité administrative pluriethnique, mais ce pluralisme sera transcendé par le régime du Président Ahidjo, pour constituer sa région natale en un bloc quasi-monolithique,véritable base-arrière politique à travers une action régionalisante.Néanmoins, cette action régionalisante, dans la mesure où elle reposait sur l'hégémonie peul-musulmane sur les Kirdi (populations païennes), des Kotoko sur les Arabes choa (pourtant appartenant tous à la Umma), ne s'était pas opérée dans le sens d'une bonne gestion de l'ethnicité qui aurait pu prendre en compte les véritables intérêts des populations locales en privilégiant les solidarités et les complémentarités.

La démission du Président Ahidjo et l'avènement de M. Biya en 1982 ont déterminé de mutations profondes au niveau de la superstructure dont l'impact sur les différentes composantes du Nord-Cameroun a été évident. Surtout, à l'ancien «projet hégémonique peul-musulman», Biya va opposer un «contre projet kirdi» en émancipant ces derniers. Et avec le retour au multipartisme au Cameroun en 1990, le Nord va être soumis à un retournement dans la gestion de l'ethnicité, les élites des différentes communautés tentant de trouver une nouvelle rationalité, de définir des objectifs et d'apprécier l'ensemble des ressources leur permettant de bénéficier avantageusement de la rente politique et de se positionner stratégiquement au niveau local et national.

Cette étude qui est une sociologie électorale du Nord-Cameroun est articulée sur deux parties: d'une part, nous nous efforçons de montrer comment l'instrumentalisation de l'ethnicité dans la vie politique du Nord-Cameroun trouve son historicité dans la consécration précoloniale, coloniale et postcoloniale de l'hégémonie musulmane (sous la houlette de l'ethnie peul) sur les Kirdi et des Kotoko sur les Arabes. D'autre part, il est question des regroupements politiques et des facteurs qui déterminent le comportement électoral des populations du Nord-Cameroun du Nord-Cameroun en rapport avec l'ethnicité.

Ce que l'on peut retenir, est que la crise économique rampante et la crise de la succession présidentielle de 1982,couplée de la politisation de l'ethnicité et de la démocratisation autoritaire du régime du Président Biya, a conduit à la bipolarisation de la vie politique de cette région mais aussi et surtout à la perturbation de ses tendances électorales. Ainsi, alors que le Nord était considéré comme le fief du parti de l'UNDP du Peul Bouba Bello Maïgari, chaque consultation électorale voit son électorat se «volatiser» au profit du RDPC du Président Biya, lequel est en passe de devenir un parti dominant dans cette région du pays. Le MDR, petit parti «tribunitien» toupouri localisé dans les zones toupouri de l'Extrême-Nord a subi le même sort pour perdre son rôle tribunitien. Tous ces facteurs de perturbations posent le problème de la création des conditions politiques, économiques, sociales et culturelles, d'un ancrage profond et irréversible de la démocratie.

Human Rights Implications of African Conflicts
Osita Agbu

Abstract
This paper addresses the very serious problem of human rights abuse in conflict situations in Africa. It revisits the various causes and nature the of human rights abuse during conflicts, and notes that within the context of armed conflict, human rights are joined with International Humanitarian law to establish protection for non-combatant who have been the major casualties during these conflicts. It concludes on the note that Africa must accede to the minimal standards of engagement for protection of human rights and possibly support this with the infusion of the African values of sense of community and dignity of the human person in the existing legal regime.

Human Rights and the African Renaissance
Kenneth A. Acheampong

Abstract
This article examines the idea of African renaissance in relation to the teaching of human rights in African schools. It explores the connection between the African Renaissance and human rights, and whether there is a specific African concept of human rights. In the light of these discussions, the article sketches a perspective that should underpin the teaching of human rights a task that the African Charter on Human & Peoples' Rights, 1981 obligates its States Parties to undertake.

Trapped in Development Crisis and Balkanization: Africa versus Globalisation
Kwame Boafo-Arthur

Abstract
Undoubtedly, globalisation is a complex process. It is touted as having the potential to accelerate Africa's development if the continent's economies would be reformed in accordance with market principles. But clearly, globalisation is widening the disparities between the developed and developing economies. Africa's economies, in particular, are experiencing severe stagnation and, in some case, decline. By exacerbating Africa's development crisis, globalisation further poses a challenge to Africa. It emphasizes economic integration as the only viable alternative for survival in this New World order, and the urgency for a renewed commitment to the African Economic Community (AEC). Given the inherent weakness of existing regional integration schemes and the constraints in the development environment, there is also the need to reformulate the theoretical basis of the African Economic Community by incorporating the idea of "variable geometry" to enable countries to join the AEC as and when they can cope with the economic and political demands of integration.

Patrimonialism and Military Regimes in Africa
Ukana B. Ikpe

Abstract
Military regimes in Nigeria exhibit patrimonial characteristics such as personal rule, absence of separation between the public and private realms, patron-client administrative networks, veneration of the ruler, massive corruption, ethnic/sectional-based support, and repression of opposition and violation of human rights. Most of the dangers posed by military rule to democracy is not really because of its intrinsic authoritarian posture, although it is the most perceptible. It is the patrimonial tendency in military rule that creates the most transcendent and pernicious effect on democracy because of unconcealed ethnic/sectional alignment of regimes. This generates inter-ethnic acrimony and rivalry, in effect, delegitimizes the state and state power, and consequently, engenders an uncongenial environment for cultivating democracy.