Postgraduate Course: Governance, Development and Poverty in Africa (PGSP11327)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Postgrad (School of Social and Political Studies) |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | A vast proportion of the world's poorest people live in Sub-Saharan Africa and the continent has seen considerable inflows of international development assistance in its various forms. Drawing on academic literature and empirical research this course explores how Africa became a 'development problem' and the various strategies employed over the decades since colonial times to bring about social, political and economic transformation in Africa. It discusses key issues in African development including the discovery of poverty as the main development issue in the 1960s, the role of the state and the advent of good governance in the 1990s, and the various humanitarian and legal interventions that have shaped social life and politics in recent years. The course aims at providing a platform to discuss poverty, development and the challenges of realizing justice in contemporary Africa. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | No |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2012/13 Semester 2, Available to all students (SV1)
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Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| Central | Lecture | Seminar Room 1, Chrystal Macmillan Building | 1-11 | | 11:10 - 13:00 | | | |
| First Class |
Week 1, Tuesday, 11:10 - 13:00, Zone: Central. Seminar Room 1, Chrystal Macmillan Building |
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
Familiarity with academic and policy debates about poverty and development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Understanding of theories on the nexus between poverty, underdevelopment and governance in Africa.
Ability to contextualise these theories against the historical background and debates about contemporary Africa and its place in the world.
Understanding of the importance of academic analyses of development and poverty in Africa (political science, economics, social anthropology, development studies) for work in international development. |
Assessment Information
| One essay of 4,000 words. |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Week 1: Introduction: course outline, African poverty in development discourse
This week provides an introduction to the course. An introductory lecture will then explore poverty and development in Africa, providing an overview of the poverty and development ¿problem¿ in Africa, the historical legacy, different understandings of why Africa is poor, and the current development paradigm underpinning development activities in Africa.
Week 2: Perspectives on poverty in Africa
Africa occupies a peculiar, ¿inconvenient¿ position in the world raising fundamental questions about its rejected, shared or alternative modernity. This week we will discuss Africa¿s place in the world and interrogate representations of Africa as poor, underdeveloped or in need to ¿catch up¿ with the West or Asia.
Week 3: The nexus between development, governance and poverty in Africa
Poverty reduction has been a central element of development policies since the 1970s. Policymakers and academics perceive of poverty, underdevelopment and bad governance as related phenomena. This week we examine continuities and disjunctures between poverty, development and governance in policymaking circles and the academic literature.
Week 4: Historical background I
A comprehensive and contextualized understanding of current debates about poverty and development in Africa depends on a familiarity with the historical background, which will be presented in two parts (part 1: from the slave trade to indirect rule; part 2: from colonial development to poverty reduction strategy papers).
Week 5: Historical background II
Week 6: Famines and precarious livelihoods
In Western popular discourse Africa is often synonymous with famines. This week we discuss the major theories explaining famines in Africa and Africans¿ livelihood strategies in precarious circumstances. The 2002 famine in Malawi will serve as a case study.
Week 7: Nation states and national economies ¿ agents and objects of development
This week we will focus on the nation state in Africa and its importance for development thinking. Under the modernization paradigm, the state was supposed to function as the engine driving national development. Since the 1990s a new approach has been added, the state institutions also became the target of attempts to improve governance and cost-efficiency.
Week 8: Failed states and Africa as hotbed of lawlessness
Foreign donor agencies and international organisations tend to blame widespread poverty, bad governance and failed states for the perceived increase in criminal activities across Africa. This week we will examine prevalent ideas about weak or failed states and the debate about the criminalization of Africa since the end of the Cold War.
Week 9: Competing visions of justice
Justice is at the heart of recent attempts to eradicate poverty, improve governance and address human rights violations and war crimes in Africa. This week we will discuss different concepts of justice including social justice, criminal or retributive justice and transitional justice.
Week 10: The art of doing good or how to engage with development in practice
In essence, working for development or humanitarian projects is about doing good. But how can one do good in a world where ulterior motives, economic necessities, political intrigue and institutional constraints shape career paths and work places? |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Ake, C. 1996. ¿The Development Paradigm and its Politics¿, in Democracy and Development in Africa, pp. 1-17.
Finnemore, M. 1997. ¿Redefining Development at the World Bank¿, in F. Cooper and R. Packard, eds. International Development and the Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics of Knowledge, pp. 203-227.
Ferguson, J. 2006. ¿Introduction: Global Shadows: Africa and the World¿, in Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order, pp. 1-24.
Ferguson, J. 1999. ¿Global Disconnect: Abjection and the Aftermath of Modernism¿, in Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt, pp. 234-254.
Bush, R. 2007. ¿Commissioning Africa for Globalization: Blair and the G 8¿s Project for the World¿s Poor¿, in Poverty and Neoliberalism: Persistence and Reproduction in the Global South, pp. 25-48.
Craig, D., D. Porter. 2002. ¿Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: A New Convergence¿, World Development 31(1): 53-69.
Sachs, J. D. 2005. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities of Our Time, pp. 51-89.
Austin, G. 2008. ¿Resources, Techniques, and Strategies South of the Sahara: Revising the
Factor Endowments Perspective on African Economic Development, 1500-2000¿, Economic History Review 61(3): 587-624.
Bayly, C. 2008. Indigenous and Colonial Origins of Comparative Economic Development: The Case of Colonial India and Africa. Policy Research Paper 4474, The World Bank Development Research Group, Poverty Team.
Mamdani, M. 1996. ¿Chapter 2: Decentralized Despotism¿, in Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, pp. 37-61.
Nugent, P. 2004. ¿Chapter 1: African Independence: Poisoned Chalice or Cup of Plenty?¿,¿Chapter 2: A Profile of Africa at Independence¿, ¿Chapter 8: Invasion of the Acronyms:
SAPs, AIDS and the NGO Takeover¿, in Africa Since Independence, pp. 1-70, 326-367.
Austin, G. 2007. ¿Reciprocal Comparison and African History: Tackling Conceptual Eurocentrism in the Study of Africa¿s Economic Past¿, African Studies Review 50(3): 1-28.
Bush, R. 2007. ¿Securing food and famine¿, in Poverty and Neoliberalism: Persistence and Reproduction in the Global South, pp. 145-177.
Devereux, S. 2000. Famine in the Twentieth Century. IDS Working Paper 105.
Devereux, S. 2002. State of Disaster: Causes, Consequences and Policy Lessons from Malawi. A Report Commissioned by ActionAid Malawi, June 2002.
Scott, J. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, pp. 9-52, 76-83, 223-261.
Ferguson, J. 1994. ¿Conceptual Apparatus: The Constitution of the Object of ¿Development¿ ¿ Lesotho as ¿Less Developed Country¿¿, in The Anti-Politics Machine. ¿Development¿, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho, pp. 25-73.
Jones, B. G. 2008. The Global Political Economy of Social Crisis: Towards a Critique of the ¿Failed State¿ Ideology¿, Review of International Political Economy 15(2): 180-205.
Reno, W. 2002. ¿The Politics of Insurgency in Collapsing States¿, Development and Change 33(5): 837-858.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 2008. Drug Trafficking as a Security Threat in West Africa.
Sen, A. 2009. ¿Introduction: An Approach to Justice¿, in The Idea of Justice, pp. 1-27.
Fraser, N. 2009. ¿Reframing Justice in a Globalizing World¿, in Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalized World, pp. 12-29.
Ferguson, J. 1994. ¿Epilogue¿, in The Anti-Politics Machine. ¿Development¿, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho, pp. 279-288.
Rist, G. 2002. ¿Some Thoughts on What is to be Done¿, in The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith, pp. 238-248.
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Gerhard Anders
Tel: (0131 6)51 3178
Email: Gerhard.Anders@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Lindsay Hunter
Tel: (0131 6)51 1659
Email: L.Hunter@ed.ac.uk |
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