African dynasties: a common phenomenon By Marcel Gascón Barberá Political dynasties have not been an uncommon phenomenon in post-colonial Africa. In Togo and Gabon, two families have been ruling for decades. Hereditary...
Psychology of Government
Pulverised into submission
Zimbabwe’s citizens have been subjected to years of state-sponsored brutality By mid-morning on 1 August 2018, thousands of people had gathered in Harare’s central business district (CBD). Just two days before, the...
A bold new approach to governance
Kenya: out with the old On 6 February this year, Miguna Miguna, a Kenyan-born attorney and a solicitor in Canada tweeted that Kenya was in danger of becoming a Kenyatta-Moi private estate....
Fear and loathing on the frontline
South Africa: dying for change In early 2012, Ayanda Kota, leader of the Unemployed People's Movement (UPM) in the Eastern Cape, made his way to the Grahamstown police station. As an activist, he'd...
History repeats itself
Namibia: apartheid-era tactics By Frederico Links In April 2018, Namibia’s Central Intelligence Service (NCIS) attempted to block the publication of a report by the weekly The Patriot newspaper alleging widespread...
A salutary lesson in historical scholarship
Book review By Yunus Momoniat Mahmood Mamdani’s seminal book, published in 1996, represented an important turning point in African Studies. In it, he challenged many beliefs long-held by Africanist scholars and made...
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