POLI 283 - Democracy, Class, and Ethnicity in Africa

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

This course critically examines the democratic institutions of Africa and their effects on African politics. Through the lens of democracy and ethnicity, we get a sense of the implications of these institutions for the political and cultural community. We will focus on the ethnic dimensions of democratization, fragile democracies, and democratic backsliding in the continent. We study ethnic relations, ethnic politics, and ethnic conflict and their relationship to social movements and social change, civil society and non-governmental organizations, comparative political economies and economic development in Africa, representation, elites, political culture, and identity politics. Country case studies include but are not limited to: Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda, Sudan, and Liberia. To gain a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of ethnicity and its relationship with democracy in Africa, we read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, Chris Abani’s Graceland, Mahmood Mamdani’s Define and Rule: Native as Political Identity, and Bruce Berman’s Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa. These works are explored alongside rigorous scholarly and news articles and quantitative data on these themes. Chibuzo Achinivu.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS