African Politics
Terms
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- Weberian definitions of the State
- A sect of political institutions that govern within a delimited territory
- Civil Society
- the organization that arise out of voluntary association within society, found between the extend family and the state
- Indirect rule
- A System of colonial administration favoring the use of intermediaries, and offering a degree of devolution, rather than full scale central governments intervention
- Irredentism
- The desire to unite under one flag a community that is currently divided
- State Elite
- An educated and urban class which owes its privileges to its access to state institutions
- Ideology
- A lifeguiding system of beliefs, values and goals affection political style and action
- Nation
- a collection of people bound together be common values and traditions, often sharing the same language, history and an affiliation to a geographical area
- Nationalism
- the desire that the nation should be housed in its own sovereign state, occurs when members of a nation desire to be united as one political unit
- African Socialism
- A strain of socialism built more on African ‘traditional values’ (village communalism and co-operation) tan the class struggle of classical Marxism-Leninism
- Scientific Socialism
- A strain of socialism based on the class analysis of Karl Marx, later developed by V.I Lenin
- Populism
- a political movement favoring the wishes and interest of ‘ordinary people’
- Ethnic Group
- a community of people who have the conviction that they have a common identity and common fate based on issues of origin, kinship ties, tradition, cultural uniqueness, a shared history and possible a shared language
- ‘Tribalism’
- the charge that groups continue to hold divisive ‘outdated’ ethnic allegiance that counter the states goal of national unity, a derogatory accusation used by nationalist, which considers ethic identities to retrogressive and harmful to the develop to modern nation states.
- Instrumental Ethnicity
- where members seek to become part of an ethnic group because it is in their interest to do so
- Peasantry
- small agricultural producers, producing largely for their own subsistence
- Proletariat
- wage earners within capitalist societies who rely on selling their labor
- Informal Sector Entrepreneurs
- individual making a living from petty trading, often involving illegal actives
- Bourgeoisie
- the ruling class in the capitalist era of history, whose power is based on their ownership of the means of production
- Petty Bourgeoisie
- Minor owners of productive property whose exploitation of labor is limited
- National Bourgeoisie
- the indigenous ruling class
- Commercial bourgeoisieies
- the classical bourgeoisie as defined by Marx in his studies of western capitalist societ
- Bureaucratic bourgeoisie
- those who ‘control’ rather than ‘own’ their means of production, exploiting their command over the institution of the state to accumulate capital
- Comprador bourgeoisie
- any section of the national bourgeoisie which acts as an agent for international bourgeoisie
- International Bourgeoisie
- international capitalist based in the ‘north’ who exploits the ‘peripheral’ economies of Africa and other regions of the ‘south’
- Coercion
- the use or threat of violence to achiever a political or social purpose
- Legitimacy
- a psychological relationship between the governed and their governors, which engenders a belief that the state’s leaders and institution have a right to exercise political authority over a society
- Personal rule
- A system of government where own individual commanding the heights of state institutions and patron-client networks enjoys a virtual monopoly on all formal political activity within a territory
- Clientelism
- a largely instrumental political relationship between an individual of higher socio-economic status (the patron) who uses his own influence and resources to provide protection or benefits, or both for a person of lower status (the client) who for their part reciprocated by offering general support and assistance to the patron
- Patron-client Relationship
- the series of vertical links that bind patron and client where the client of one patron often commands their own patronage network lower down the chain
- Military Coup d’ etat
- a sudden illegal displacement of government in which members of the security forces play a prominent role
- Veto coup
- where the military intervenes to arrest political transition, protection its corporate interest
- Breakthrough Coup
- where the military acts in the vanguard of a revolution, replacing tradition political institution with more radical structures of government
- Profession Ethic of Non-Intervention
- the acceptance that the military should remain under political control, and not use its capacity to inflict violence in an effort to influence the political process
- Sovereignty
- the claim of supreme political authority within a territory
- Proxy Wars
- a local conflict which has been ‘internationalized’ effectively making the protagonist surrogates of competing ‘superpowers’
- International Financial institutions
- non governmental bodies that help regulate the international economy, such as the international monetary fund and the World Bank
- Neo-colonialism
- economic control and exploitation that western powers still retain over the ex-colonies after independence
- Structural adjustment program (SAPs)
- neo-liberal economic reform strategies promoted by international financial institutions during the 1980s and 1990s
- Terms of Trade
- the ration of a state’s income form exports, measured against the cost of its imports
- Unequal exchange
- a problem where the international economy purchases (third world) primary produce relatively cheaply, compared with the expensive costs of (western) manufactured products in the same market
- Crisis of Accumulation
- the failure to create wealth through the productive investment of surplus capital
- Crisis of Governance
- the failure of state to provide political structure able to represent civil society
- Kleptocratic/Vampire/Predatory State
- Literally ‘ruled by thieves’ a state that exploits, rather than serves, civil society