Defeat of the incumbent president in Ghana’s recent election was a shock - incumbents win 88 per cent of the elections they contest on the continent, Akufo-Addo’s NPP, defied this pattern. Nic Cheeseman, Gabrielle Lynch and Justin Willis explain how Ghana’s election made history. ...
Ghana’s main opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) led by Nana Akuffo Addo, secured a resounding victory in the election on 7 December. For roape.net Nelson Oppong examines the political background to the victory. ...
In the first in a series of blogs for roape.net, writer and activist Lee Wengraf describes Obama’s bloody legacy in Africa. Over eight years the continent has seen an intensification of US aerial campaigns, proxy warfare, and imperial competition. ...
Harry Verhoeven praises the fine-grained analysis in a new book on Rwanda which has the potential to decisively move beyond widespread caricatures of Rwanda under RPF supremo Paul Kagame as either a ‘slowly democratising developmental state’ (as infatuated aid officials conveniently assert) or as a ‘totalitarian’ leader where no resistance is possible. Yet there are serious weaknesses that speak to the approach taken by the author....
For the latest update on the project Popular Protest and Social Movements for roape.net David Seddon examines the case of Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe has faced a new kind of protest movement this year, and recent developments in the DRC, where President Kabila has attempted to bludgeon into silence opposition protesting against attempts to extend his mandate....
In this far-reaching and provocative contribution to roape.net's debate on capitalism in Africa, Elísio Macamo argues that instead of discussing whether “Capitalism” as such is a valid concept or a useful description of social phenomena in Africa, we should interrogate how concepts developed in very specific times and places under specific circumstances can be usefully deployed in other settings. ...
In an interview with ROAPE Explo Nani-Kofi looks at his involvement (and opposition) in the project of radical change briefly embarked on by Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings in 1980s Ghana. After several years, left-wing opponents of the regime were imprisoned and at the same time the country became a test case for structural adjustment. Nani-Kofi describes his experiences....
In October scholars and archivists on Africa came together in Lusaka, Zambia, for a workshop on the theme of “Endangered and Post-Colonial Archives in Eastern and Southern Africa.” Co-organised by the Southern African Institute for Policy and Research (SAIPAR) and the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA), and part-funded by the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) the workshop explored the challenges and realities of preserving “endangered” material in Eastern and Southern Africa, and to plan and discuss practical steps that could be taken now and for the future to preserve and promote endangered historical material in the region....
Hannah Cross writes about Jeremy Corbyn’s alternative vision of society, and the new prospects for Britain’s relationship with Africa. Beyond his renowned stance against military interventions, there is also a record of opposition to other forms of domination in African countries....
Continuing our series on capitalism on the continent Kate Meagher writes how debates on industrial policy and the developmental state in Africa have directed attention to wider processes of class formation and economic transformation that seemed until recently to have fallen out of fashion. In this blog she looks at the transformation in the African working class....