Social Science Research Council

A new volume examines climate and ecological changes in Sub-Saharan Africa, and how these relate to conflicts on the continent. Particular attention is paid to environmental and livelihood aspects of the crisis in Darfur. Conclusions are drawn regarding peace-building in areas facing resource constraints.

The book includes research conducted in-house at UPEACE Africa in Addis Ababa [...]

This is the final installment of a five part critical review of Jean-François Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (2009).

Bayart’s thesis is provocative, deliberately shorn of moralism and disrespectful of any political correctness. He doesn’t allocate blame because he doesn’t diagnose failure. He does not agree that “Africa south of the [...]

This is the fourth in a five part review of Jean-François Bayart’s The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly. In this part, I address the questions of democracy, war and the internationalization of African governance.

In the first (1989) edition, Bayart argued that experiments in breaking free from the grip of African governmentality have [...]

This is part three of a five part expansive critical review of Jean-François Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (2009), focusing on the moral dimensions of African governance—in the sense of how ethics and legitimacy are adduced in support of political practice.

As well as the acquisition of resources, Bayart also applies [...]

I would like to address Jeff Howell’s comments, posted on September 28, 2009 to Annette Jansen’s posting: “Drawn by Disasters: Why the Human Rights Movement Struggles with Good News Stories.”

Mr. Howell states that the report cited by Ms. Jansen terminated in 2002. He also wrote: “It would be interesting to know what those figures [...]

This is part two of a five part critical review of Jean-François Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (2009), analyzing and applying the concept of “extraversion” and examining the historicism of regional political-economic orbits.

Another major element of Bayart’s analysis is “extraversion” of African states, defined as “mobilizing resources derived from their [...]

The republication of Jean-François Bayart’s classic book-length essay, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly, is an opportunity to reflect on the hypotheses he raises and their application to Sudan and especially Darfur. Bayart’s book mentions Sudan only in passing but the scope of his ambition is certainly relevant to Sudan in general [...]

Activist and Apologist: Contrasts and Parallels
This section uses techniques of textual and discourse analysis to examine two leading books on the Darfur crisis, identifying the strategies employed by the respective writers. One is by Prof. Eric Reeves the leading anti-genocide campaigner and the other is a defense of the Sudanese government by David Hoile. This [...]

The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is often called the world’s most deadly since Korea. Perhaps if the long liberation wars in Ethiopia and Eritrea (1975-91 and 1961-91) respectively were fully assessed, the verdict might be different. In any case, it is salutary to recall just how bloody the fighting was in Ethiopia [...]

Everyone supports “uniform, complete, and balanced across all tribal and ethnic groups.” People are unanimous that they “want peace and they see disarmament as the best way to end the insecurity.”
These statements are true in Darfur. But the quotations are from a report on Karamoja in north-east Uganda, where for the last three [...]