| Bemerkung |
The course aims at giving a comprehensive overview on the political dynamics of the 48 states in Sub-Saharan Africa in the period since their political independence. We will both stress the common structural context which has been shaping political processes in Africa, and the varying actor constellations, institutions, and ideologies specific to countries.
The course is organised around a number of broad themes (post-colonial state, regimes, democratic institutions, clientelism, parties, social groups and ethnicity, religion, gender) that are first analysed in their general relevance by using general political science concepts and methods. In a second step African case studies are selected for each of the themes and we will use the cases to illustrate the broader developments. The course is less concerned with the relevance of international actors as their role is covered in other courses.
Students will acquire a basic knowledge of the broad structural patterns and processes of African societies and politics, and get some more expertise for selected countries. For each session a number of different readings is offered allowing students to deepen specific aspects and bring these to class debate. |
| Leistungsnachweis |
All students will be asked to select one of the case-studies and thus gain expertise on one selected African country, and engage in a small research on the country. Students are required to prepare for a collective input on your country the day it is covered in class. Additional guidelines on preparation of these inputs are made available on the moodle platform.
Students of MA DevGov will have an exam at the end of the teaching period in order to get the ECTS for this course. Students from other MA programs will have a module-exam in an additional seminar. |
