Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo – författare

International relations at large and Africa's in particular are shaped by the actors' historical location, by what they offer economically and culturally, and by who they are socially. In international relations nations tend to deal with objective conditions as they are or as they are perceived. However, Lumumba-Kasongo demonstrates through case-studies of Liberia and Zaire/Congo that what the objective conditions are may not necessarily be what they ought to be in the national development process.The international struggle for power between the West and the East and their supportive brutal and oppressive states in the South, especially in Africa, created the extremely weak conditions that redefined international relations as the tools of domination, rather than the tools of understanding and cooperation. As Lumumba-Kasongo clarifies, Africa did not gain economically or developmentally from this struggle. An important work for scholars and researchers of contemporary Africa and international relations in general.

Lumumba-Kasongo examines those forces that contributed to the fate of multiparty democracy in Africa. The forces include the state, political parties, ethnicity, nationalism, religion, underdevelopment, and the global market.Multipartyism in Africa is not necessarily democratic. However, the processes toward multipartyism can produce democratic discourses if they can be transformed by popular and social movements. As the author points out, almost all social classes have demanded some form of democracy. Yet the sociological meanings and teleological perspectives of those forms of democracy depend on an individual or group's economic and educational status. The dynamics of the global context, as reflected in the adoption of the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and the stability programs of the International Monetary Fund, are likely to produce non-democratic conditions in Africa. Lumumba-Kasongo challenges the existing paradigms on democracy and development, so the book is of considerable interest to scholars and policy makers involved with African politics and socio-economic development.

This pedagogical study makes a theoretical contribution toward further understanding of the concepts of power, ideology, governance, the roles and rights of citizens, democracy, constitutions, the corporate foundation of the state, and the nature of the dynamic relationship among the states. It looks specifically at developing countries and the industrial world, giving serious comparative thought to historical, sociological, and political concerns. Significantly, the three actors central to the study-the state, its citizens, and private corporations-are consistently at odds. The conflicting relationship between the three is characterized by the struggle for self-interest, self-preservation, and consensus, which varies based on the nature of the nation-state and its geopolitical location.

This book is a critical examination of the place and role of land in Africa, the role of land in political formation and national identification, and the land as an economic resource within both national economic development and liberal globalization. Colonial and post-colonial conflicts have been rooted in four related claims: the struggle over scarce resources, especially access to land resources; abundance of natural resources mismanaged or appropriated by both the states, local power systems and multinationals; weak or absent articulated land tenure policies, leading to speculation or hybrid policy framework; and the imperatives of the global liberalization based on the free market principles to regulate the land question and mineral appropriation issue. The actualization of these combined claims have led to conflicts among ethnic groups or between them and governments. This book is not only about conflicts, but also about local policy achievements that have been produced on the land question. It provides a critical understanding of the forces and claims related to land tenure systems, as part of the state policy and its system of governance.

This book is a critical examination of the place and role of land in Africa, the role of land in political formation and national identification, and the land as an economic resource within both national economic development and liberal globalization. Colonial and post-colonial conflicts have been rooted in four related claims: the struggle over scarce resources, especially access to land resources; abundance of natural resources mismanaged or appropriated by both the states, local power systems and multinationals; weak or absent articulated land tenure policies, leading to speculation or hybrid policy framework; and the imperatives of the global liberalization based on the free market principles to regulate the land question and mineral appropriation issue. The actualization of these combined claims have led to conflicts among ethnic groups or between them and governments. This book is not only about conflicts, but also about local policy achievements that have been produced on the land question. It provides a critical understanding of the forces and claims related to land tenure systems, as part of the state policy and its system of governance.