China's Economic and Political Penetration in Africa

A senior American specialist on China and noted geographer presents a study of that country's economic and political penetration into the African continent. The author identifies three key elements of China's objectives and plan, namely (1) support for Chinese policies in international affairs, particularly with regard to Taiwan, (2) search for oil and other mineral resources, and (3) creation of a new market for Chinese goods and services in tandem with additional jobs in China. The paper includes four case studies highlighting economic activities stimulated by Chinese loans and investments in the Republic of South Africa, Egypt, Sudan, and Angola. Considerable attention is devoted to oil imports, exports of cheap consumer goods, and construction and repair of infrastructure by Chinese technicians and laborers, as well as the competition between Chinese imports and host-country manufacturing and the PRC's diplomatic support of rogue African nations. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F020, F210, F350, F540. 11 figures, 1 table, 47 references.     

Introduction: North Africa and Britain

This special issue of International Affairs seeks to stimulate more debate and interest in Britain on North Africa. This relatively neglected area of British foreign policy has largely been funneled through the European Union (EU), where the focus of policy has been on preventive security, above all policing against illegal migration and the spread of radicalism and terrorism. The main driver for regional change and potential insecurity is now demographic, evident in the high levels of youth unemployment across North Africa. In facing the challenge of leadership successions over the next decade, it is in the interest of the EU, and in turn, Britain, to engage more closely with North Africa's younger generations to ensure the region's longer term security and stability. Britain has few strong bilateral links with North African societies, however, with the exception of private sector investments in the energy sector and security cooperation. New investment opportunities and a demand for English language and other forms of training for employment could put Britain at an advantage in responding to North African demands for diversified international relationships. A greater focus is also needed on local development opportunities to assist new actors to assume their own economic and political roles, as a better means of delivering security and jobs than relying on central states to deliver both. The articles in this special issue offer new insights into developments in the region, as well as analyses of European and American policy responses to the challenges identified. A common theme is that the region has been held back by a combined lack of institutional safeguards and political participation, with negative impacts on the spread of the economic benefits of higher growth rates and investment. Authoritarian leaderships have proved reliable partners for the EU and Britain in the past, but will they continue to do so in future?     

North Africa between Christians and Arabs

Vandals, Romans and Berbers. New Perspectives on Late Antique North Africa. Edited by Andy H. Merrills (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), xv + 347 pp. £55.00 cloth.     

Christianity and Political Engagement in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This paper focuses specifically on the impact of the Christian churches on the social, cultural and political contexts of South Africa. It considers the political role of the mainline Christian churches and their ecumenical bodies during the apartheid era. In post-apartheid South Africa, the social and political context has changed and the Christian churches relate to this new context in varied ways. The rapid growth and proliferation of Christian churches under forces of globalization to some extent undermines social cohesion and development. The traditional practice of the public gathering, or imbizo, is particularly threatened. This article therefore seeks to address the question of whether Christian institutions in a rapidly globalizing Africa are an asset or liability for promoting identity and belonging, social cohesion, and the development of social capital.     

British Courts Martial in North Africa, 1940-3

This article seeks to demonstrate that the exemplary aspectof military law was applied in courts martial cases in NorthAfrica between 1940 and 1943. It will show that there was aclear desire to make examples, which coincided with the preoccupationsof the High Command concerning the state of discipline and moralewithin the British Eighth Army. The article will reveal thatAuchinleck, Montgomery, and Alexander shared many common ideason discipline and morale, but that their concerns often overstatedthe scale of the supposed problem. These fears created an atmospherein which the details of individual cases were often overriddenin the name of discipline and military efficiency. Paradoxically,such an attitude only added to the High Command’s concerns,for by ensuring a high level of convictions, the outcomes ofcourts martial appeared to confirm the validity of its views.     

Sterility and infertility in the demographic dynamics of Africa

The author considers the demographic importance of levels of sterility and infertility in Africa. The differences between infertility and sterility are first established, and their probable impact on the diffusion of family planning practice in Africa is considered, as well as their impact on demographic trends in general     

Political hierarchies and landscapes of conflict across Africa

Almost all African states experience substantial and widespread political insecurity in a variety of forms. This analysis explains how relationships between groups and governments create incentives and disincentives for distinct forms of political violence to emerge. It argues that ethno-regional communities across Africa are situated within a power hierarchy that determines their relative importance to, and inclusion in, regimes. A dynamic power landscape emerges from relative group positions. Various positions within a hierarchy are associated with particular dominant forms of organized political violence as groups challenge political elites, but are bounded by their goals and characteristics. A failure to consider the political hierarchies and landscapes operating within African states has led to an under specification of the causal mechanisms driving different forms of violence, and an overstatement of benefits from declining civil war rates and inclusive governing coalitions.     

The Political Economy of Inappropriate Technology: Industrialization in Sub-Saharan Africa

The failure of public sector investment projects in Sub-Saharan Africa can often be described in large measure as a technological one, where technology is defined not just in the narrow sense of alternative factor proportions, but in the wider terms of scale and import intensity as well. In confining itself mainly to the economic dimensions of the problem, the existing literature fails to consider the reasons for the extraordinarily rapid and widespread expansion of the public sector in Sub-Saharan Africa and it hence ignores the possibility that this expansion might itself be related to the observed patterns of technological behaviour in the sector. Such a possibility, I suggest, resides in the political and institutional compulsions that drive industrial firms in the public sector to increase the size of their operations.     

The persistence of authoritarianism as a source of radicalization in North Africa

September 11 and subsequent terrorist attacks across the globe have led to an increased emphasis on security issues among political leaders globally. While this preoccupation with security has not led to the abandonment of democracy promotion efforts, there is no doubt that initiatives that have the demise of authoritarianism as their core objective, have become less of a priority in recent years, with spending on projects seemingly unrelated to security issues and the 'war on terror' declining, and pressure on heads of state to embark on democratization processes weakening. This article contends that the relieving of pressure on heads of state to introduce democratic reforms is detrimental to the desired goal of increased security, given that the radicalization of Islamists is closely related to the prevalence of authoritarianism. In short, it is argued that there is reason to believe that the West's tendency to allow violations of basic democratic principles, and failing to employ genuine pressure for regime change in the various MENA states, which are actively partaking in the 'war on terror' on the side of the US, is counterproductive in the longer run. While it is impossible to predict when terrorism committed by radicalized Islamists will end, and it is almost certain that terrorist attacks will recur in the future and that we have to learn to live with the risks, it is possible however to do something about the scale and frequency of such incidents. This article argues that through positive democracy promotion resulting in real democratization, it is indeed possible to obtain increased security.     

Beyond the Coastalscapes: Preindustrial Social and Political Networks in East Africa

The archaeological community worldwide now readily recognizes the role and significance of interregional interaction in the development and sustenance of urban societies (e.g., Marcus and Sabloff 2008; Sinclair et al. 2010; Trigger 2003). Over the past two decades, we have carried out a systematic, problem-oriented research program on the Kenyan coast and its hinterland in an effort to understand the ecological and cultural milieu that enabled towns and city-states to develop along the East African coast beginning in the late first millennium CE. Archaeological research complemented with historical sources of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries shows that different scales of analysis can be used to understand the long-term history of the development of urbanism along this Swahili coast: local, regional, and trans-continental frames of reference each show that Swahili communities were part of numerous networks of interactions. An emerging picture of preindustrial urbanism shows that local, regional, and trans-continental interaction spheres tied coastal towns to the hinterland and to wider Indian Ocean commercial and social networks. Not all of the theorized links between the coastal towns and their local and regional trade and interaction partners will be visible archaeologically. We address the still poorly known elements of preindustrial regional networks of alliance and interaction spheres between urban and rural polities and argue that an integrative approach is necessary to understand the context of coastal urban society.     

The secret of my succession: dynasty and crisis in Vandal North Africa

The system of royal succession in the Vandal kingdom of North Africa has long been regarded as idiosyncratic within the early medieval west, but its fullest implications have rarely been investigated closely. The present article examines the origins of succession by agnatic seniority under the strong rule of King Geiseric, and argues that it was one of several innovations intended to establish the emergent Hasding royal house against other aristocratic challenges. The article goes on to explore the consequences of this law in the two major dynastic crises of the Vandal kingdom: under Huneric in c.481 and under Hilderic in 530. In both cases, the standard narratives of events are challenged, and with them assumptions about the ‘constitutional’ status of Geiseric's law of succession.     

论北非文明交往与利比亚城市的历史变迁

本从明交往的角度对利比亚城市的发展进行了历史考察：分析了古典明的扩张对利比亚城市早期发展的影响,伊斯兰明的传播对利比亚伊斯兰城市的兴起以及西方工业明的入侵对利比亚城市现代化所产生的历史作用。利比亚作为世界上多种明的交叉之地,它的城市对于人类明的演进和交往做出了重要贡献。