B019249 - HISTORY AND POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICA

English

Through an historical analysis of the transformations occurred since the first independences in the Sixties, the course will examine how African diplomacy and, in general, African political leaderships have been able to develop issues, languages and strategies in order to build relations with external stakeholders (often a peculiar instrument for the preservation of political power) and to develop a still difficult inter-African dialogue.

Compulsory: Frederick Cooper, Africa since 1940: The past of the Present, Cambridge, U.K. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2002, 216 pp.; Stephen Ellis, Season of Rains; Africa in the World, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2012

Suggested readings: Padraig Carmody, The New Scramble for Africa, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2011; Patrick Chabal, The Politics of Suffering and Smiling, London, Zed Books, 2009

The course will provide students with in-depth knowledge on the roots of contemporary Africa integration in the international arena, focussing on cold-war, post-cold war, and present political strategies.
The historical perspective adopted during the course will unable students to situate present African challenges in a long time framework providing them with consistent analytical tools

It is desirable (not compulsory) for the students to have basic knowledge on African pre-colonial and colonial history

Lectures and workshops on primary and bibliographical sources.
Students attending the lectures will be asked to write and discuss, during the second module, on a specific case study related to the topics analysed during the course.

Students attending the lectures will be asked to write and discuss on a specific case study related to the topics analysed during the second module plus passing an oral exam on the issues studied during the first module.
Students that do not attend lectures will be asked to pass an oral exam on the basis of the advised textbooks.

The African continent is getting increasing international relevance. New and old actors show an interest that aims not only to the natural resources abundant in many African countries, but also to frame new economic and political partnerships. Not surprisingly, the most important African multilateral organizations and the most influential African think-tanks are questioning whether and how African countries – and some of them in particular –are responding and will be able to respond to this new challenges. Will African governments and institutions, especially of those States that aim at playing a relevant role on the continental and international scene (South Africa and Nigeria for example), have the instruments to assert themselves along these new patterns of integration? What are the historical roots of present African international relations?
Through an historical analysis of the transformations occurred since the first independences in the Sixties, through the cold war and post-cold war periods, the course will examine how African political leaderships and societies have been able to develop issues, languages and strategies in order to build relations with external partners and to develop a still complex inter-African dialogue.
Students who will attend the lectures will be asked, in the second part of the course, to work on personal presentations of single case studies, on the basis of the interpretive frameworks analysed and discussed during the first module