African Politics and Governance

This course focuses on contemporary politics in Sub-Saharan Africa. The course is divided into two segments: historical institutional development and challenges to governance in the current age. First, to understand the institutions that structure governance and policymaking today, we will begin with perspectives on historical institutional development. During our examination of historical legacies, we will explore how pre-colonial and colonial processes and institutions have shaped economics and politics across the continent. This includes changing notions of nationalism and independence movements, initial pathways towards authoritarianism and democracy, democratic liberalization, and authoritarian stability. We will engage with political economy, focusing particularly on early economic successes, reversals of growth, and international intervention efforts to constitute or reinforce liberal economic policies.

In the second segment of the course following the midterm, we will turn our attention to contemporary politics and governance. We will focus on popular demands for institutional reform in recent decades, regime responses to domestic and international pressures to democratize, and the ways in which governance is complicated by security challenges (e.g., intrastate conflict, violent non-state actors, communal violence) and climate stressors. In the final week, we will shift our attention to the ties between Sub-Saharan African states and outside actors, particularly the US, China, and Turkey. Gender, ethnicity, and transnational challenges serve as recurring themes throughout much of this second segment of the course.