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41. From Mandela to Zuma: The Importance of the Southern Atlantic Region for South Africa’s Foreign Policy

Author:
Anselmo Otavio
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
As it is known, Ceuta’s conquest by Portugal in 1415 initiated the discovery and, consequently, strategic transformation of the Southern Atlantic region by European powers. It is important to consider, first, that these actions were a process, since from the 14th century the necessary conditions for maritime expansion were being created by Portugal. Secondly, the arrival at Ceuta represented not the end, but the beginning of a phase marked by the search for an alternative maritime route that would connect Europe to India and would grant the Portuguese Crown access to spices from India’s territory. Although this process was initiated by Portugal, it is a fact that, throughout the centuries, countries like Spain, the Netherlands and England have also pursued the same development. From then, the territories belonging to the South Atlantic coast have been impacted by European powers, since, due to colonization, they were encompassed by different political and economic dynamics. While Lisbon connected Brazilian and Angolan territories through a relationship based on the purchase and sale of slave labor, the Netherlands at first, England later, comprised the Cape Colony to the Afro-Asian dynamic, keeping this territory’s interactions circumscribed to their respective colonies in the Asian side.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, History, and Colonialism
Political Geography:
Africa, South Africa, and Portugal

42. Iran-Africa Relations: Opportunities and Prospects for Iran

Author:
Fátima Chimarizeni
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
In a political world featured by many sorts of alliances, Iran has sought the gathering of power in order to defend itself from economic sanctions imposed upon it by United States of America along with other members of the United Nations such as United Kingdom, France, Russia and China. Its turn towards Africa was one of the way-out strategies taken by Ahmadinejad in order to overcome the negative economic impact originated from the sanctions. Nonetheless, the rise to power of a leadership seemingly more turned to solve the nuclear issue directly with the Western states places the Iran-Africa Relationship in a fragile condition considering Iran’s foreign policy priorities.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Sanctions, Geopolitics, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Africa, Iran, and Middle East

43. Brexit, the EU and Strategic Uncertainties: Short, Medium and Long Term Implications for Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Yoslán Silverio González
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
The European Union (EU) has been a fundamental actor in the economic and political relations with the African countries. EU’s foreign policy towards Africa has been particularly affected by French and British colonial past. The history of the economic relations between the European Economic Community (EEC) and the African continent has been shaped by a series of multilateral agreements – the Yaoundé Conventions, adopted under French influence, and the Lomé Conventions, starting on 1975 –, and, with the entry of the UK in the EEC (1973), the community had to renegotiate the ancient commercial agreements to incorporate the former British territories as “beneficiaries” of these agreements
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Treaties and Agreements, European Union, Economy, Brexit, and Trade
Political Geography:
Britain, Africa, and Europe

44. Sustainability Issues in the Cameroon Banana Supply Chain

Author:
Kingsly Awang Ollong
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
Banana cultivation has long been a key aspect of agricultural development in Cameroon, actually taking advantage of this incentive impetus created for agricultural development. In the late 1970s, the Office Camerounaise de Banane (OCB), a state parastatal was put in place to regulate the banana industry in Cameroon. It received the mandate to organize the marketing chain of Cameroonian bananas (UNECA 1981). To better realize this mission assigned to her by the State, OCB was endowed with financial autonomy guaranteed through the allocation of public subsidies, ensuring the channeling of production, supervision of producers and access to credit and agricultural inputs to operators in the banana sector in Cameroon. The attractive and enticing prospects of a booming banana market and opportunities for land acquisition in a banana field that was seen as terra nullius aroused the interest of many international operators for the Cameroon banana sector. Until 1988 the banana sector in Cameroon was organized around coexistence between food crops and industrial cultivation. Since 1988, the organization of the productive system changed with the dissolution of the OCB in 1993—effectively signaling the end of small banana farms (Anania 2014, 173). Consequently, the field was left free to banana agribusiness consisting of giant multinational corporations. Under the impetus of these large industrial groups, Cameroon’s banana industry experienced tremendous growth. Thus, the industry pointed to the first largest export crops in Cameroon, imposing itself as a crucial economic activity (Atanga 2006)
Topic:
Agriculture, Natural Resources, Economic Development, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
Africa and Cameroon

45. Democratization Processes and Political Competition in 1990’s Africa: The Cases of Mozambique and Zambia

Author:
Fidel Terenciano, Maria Do Socorro Souza Braga, and Carlos Augusto da Silva Souza
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
Democracy and democratization must be understood within its scope, considering the singularities and the contextual aspects of each society. And the democracies of the third wave also contemplate singularities that cannot be measured by the rubble of other contexts. The pretension of the present research is to study democracy and democratization in Mozambique and Zambia considering two elements: the electoral system, its singularities and then the formation and the shape of the party system with its correspondent nuances. Because it is important to analyze the effect of one in relation with the other, we focus our analysis in two aspects: first, the political and electoral competition in both countries, emphasizing to the party fluctuations in the Parliament, and secondly we analyze the electoral competition in the perspective of power alternance, which constitutes one of the dimensions to measure the level of stability of democracies.
Topic:
Democratization, Politics, History, and Democracy
Political Geography:
Africa, Mozambique, and Zambia

46. African Studies in China in the 21st Century: A Historiographical Survey

Author:
Li Anshan
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
Academic studies are always the reflection of reality. With fast development of China-Africa relations, Africanists outside China have showed great interest in China-Africa academic engagement. One of the important aspects is what has been done in China regarding African studies. I once published an article on African study in China and divided it into four phases, i.e., Contacting Africa (before 1900), Sensing Africa (1900-1949), Supporting Africa (1949-1965), Understanding Africa (1966- 1976) and Studying Africa (1977-2000) (Li 2005). Although China’s trade with Africa increased from $10.5 billion in 2000 to 220 billion in 2014, African studies in China did not have the fortune as the trade. However, the dramatic development of the relation has provided Chinese Africanists with new opportunities and challenges. This paper will elaborate what Chinese Africanists have studied in the period of 2000-2015. What subjects are they interested in? What are the achievements and weaknesses? It is divided into four parts, focus and new interests, achievements, young scholars, references and afterthoughts.
Topic:
History, Engagement, and Academia
Political Geography:
Africa and China

47. The Gulf of GuineA: The Future African Persian Gulf?

Author:
Yoslán Silverio González
Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
Different African regions have not stopped being at the epicenter of games and influences from capitalist powers, mainly from former European metropolises, such as France, and the United States, due to the fact that each one of them has significant importance in the international relations’ context, because of either their geographic position or their natural resources2 . In the last decades, guaranteeing energy supply has become a matter of natural security for all countries, especially for those with high levels of consumption and industrial development. Projections for the next years show that there will not be viable alternatives to replace hydrocarbons as the main energy source. Therefore, oil will continue to be the center of the whole industrial productive base. As consumption increases and supply decreases, competition for its control will grow. Here is where the Sub-Saharan African oil producing regions start to play a strategic role. The African continent has always been subject to developed capitalist countries’ greed, whose oil companies, supported by their governments, continue to seek licenses to explore crude oil and gas reserves, in what has been called the new scramble for Africa. Countries such as the United Kingdom and Norway have found in Africa an alternative to the deterioration of their supply zones in the North Sea. The US has managed to take France’s place in controlling this sector, and Chinese companies have increased their presence in the oil and gas business, which is “worrying” US and European businesspersons, who perceive China’s advances as a menace to their economic hegemony. For these reasons, they tend to present China as a new “imperialism”, much more contaminating and exploitative, an ill-intended focus that looks to hide what European and US capitalism have done for decades in the continent.
Topic:
Natural Resources, Geopolitics, and Trade
Political Geography:
Africa, Guinea, and Persian Gulf

48. Regional Integration in West Africa (1960-2015): Balance and Perspectives

Author:
Mamadou Alpha Diallo
Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
To reflect about West Africa is always a pleasure, however, to write this article now is even better. First, because it marks the 40th birthday (1975- 2015) of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); second, because it marks the fifteen years of the existence of (2001-2015) the African Union (AU). At last but not least, it marks fifteen years of our important academic life in Brazil, which is a starting point for opening a new dialogue, reflections and exchanges among Brazilian Africanists and the world. Besides, it is the result of a long period of dedication researching, teaching and participating in extension projects of the Brazilian Center for African Studies (CEBRAFRICA) of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. That said, this article seeks, throughout a historical analysis of the regional West African integration process, to reaffirm the pioneering region in terms of socio-economic, political and cultural integration, but also to highlight the persistence of the difficulties and the challenges of the political unity consolidation in the region, especially after the internalization of colonial boundaries. The article has set as a goal the understanding of why, despite the enormous efforts and several attempts, the pan-Africanist dream of autonomy, unity and development is still below the expectations. It starts with the hypothesis that the difficulties are historical in nature (colonial heritage) and structural, connected to the difficult relationship between the internal processes of state-building and the inclusion of it in the international system dominated by the capitalist imperialism of the colonial and neo-colonial countries. In a nutshell, the low speed of the economic, political and socio-cultural integration process and, especially, the lack of autonomy are closely tied to the unfinished independence processes due to endogenous and exogenous factors.
Topic:
International Relations, History, and Regional Integration
Political Geography:
Africa and West Africa

49. Revolutions and International Relations: The African Case

Author:
Paulo Fagundes Visentini
Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
In 1974, during the oil crisis, two apparently disconnected events shook the African continent and placed it at the center of the international agenda. A military coup in February in Ethiopia, the long-lived and oldest African empire, ended the monarchy in September, thus marking the beginning of a revolution and of a socialist regime. Meanwhile, in April, the longest fascist regime in Europe was overthrown (in the Carnation Revolution) and the first (and last) maritime empire crumbled. Angola, Mozambique and the Lusitanian enclaves in Africa became independent, under the leadership of national liberation movements of Marxist orientation. The fifteen years of armed struggle in the former Portuguese colonies gave place, in 1975, to civil wars and to an international conflict in Southern Africa between Cuba and the Warsaw Pact, who supported the new regimes, on one side, and South Africa and the NATO nations alongside the insurgents on the other. Likewise, the Horn of Africa became a hotspot in the Cold War. As always, revolutions became inter-state conflicts fomenting the heated debate between academic internationalists. Finally, what is the place of revolutions in International Relations? Do they comprise of a dysfunction within the world system? Here, we propose to discuss this question, focusing on the African revolutions of the 1970s.
Topic:
International Relations, Politics, Authoritarianism, History, and Revolution
Political Geography:
Africa and Brazil