Naomi Chazan

Bio: Naomi Chazan is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Politics & Balance (accounting). The author has an hindex of 15, co-authored 35 publications receiving 1417 citations.

Civil Society and the State in Africa

Abstract: The Idea of Civil Society, State Formation and the African Development Crisis, J.W. Harbeson. Part 1 Divergent Concepts of Civil Society: Civil Society, Democratization and State Decline, C. Young Civil Society and Political Transition in Africa, M. Bratton From Disengagement to Civil Society in Africa, V. Azarya. Part 2 The Development of Civil Society in Africa - Cases: Constructing a Civil Society - Farmers and Political Life in Cote d'Ivoire, J. Widener Nurturing Civil Society from Above - Decentralisation and Democratisation in Kenya, J. Barkan Gender and the Transformation of Civil Society in Tanzania, A.M. Tripp Western Uganda Dairy Farmers - Responses to the Withdrawal of State-Financed Services, N. Kasfir Civil Society in Nigeria - Spatial Dimensions, J. Guyer Associational Life and Democratic Prospects in Ghana, E. Gyimah-Boadi Civil Society in Zaire - the Role of Personal Connections, J. MacGaffrey. Part 3 Challenges to Civil Society: Civil Society, Economic Governance and Social Change in Africa, T. Callaghy Marketisation, Public Sphere and Civil Society in Africa - Historical Perspectives, A. Mbembe the Interaction Between State and Civil Society - From Deadlock to New Routines, D. Rothchild and L. Lawson. Part 4 Conclusion: The Dynamics of Civil Society in Africa, N. Chazan.

Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa

Abstract: Constraint and choice - the diversity of African politics. Part 1 The structures of politics: state institutions and the organization of the public arena social groupings ethnicity, class and the state. Part 2 Political process and political change: the politics of the centre decision making and the rules of the political game the politics of social relations political dissent, protest and conflict political transitions, regimes variety and patterns of changes. Part 3 Political ecomony: policy-making in a constraining environment Africa and the world ecomony. Part 4 International relations: inter-African relations Africa in world politics. Part 5 Political futures: South Africa - the politics of incipient civil war Africa toward the year 2000.

Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions

Abstract: Explaining cross-country differences in growth rates requires not only an understanding of the link between growth and public policies, but also an understanding of why countries choose different public policies. This paper shows that ethnic diversity helps explain cross-country differences in public policies and other economic indicators. In the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, economic growth is associated with low schooling, political instability, underdeveloped financial systems, distorted foreign exchange markets, high government deficits, and insufficient infrastructure. Africa's high ethnic fragmentation explains a significant part of most of these characteristics.

Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality

Abstract: In this exploratory article, we ask how states come to be understood as entities with particular spatial characteristics, and how changing relations between practices of government and national territories may be challenging long-established modes of state spatiality. In the first part of this article, we seek to identify two principles that are key to state spatialization: vertically (thestate is "above"society) andencompassm ent (thestate "encompasses" its localities). We use ethnographic evidence from a maternal health project in India to illustrate our argument that perceptions of verticality and encompassment are produced through routine bureaucratic practices. In the second part, we develop a concept of transnational governmentality as a way of grasping how new practices of government and new forms of "grassroots" politics may call into question the principles of vertical ity and encompassment that have long helped to legitimate and naturalize states' authority over "the local." [states, space, governmentality, globalization, neoliberalism, India, Africa] Recent years have seen a new level of anthropological concern with the modern

Millennial Capitalism: First Thoughts on a Second Coming

Abstract: he global triumph of capitalism at the millennium, its Second Coming, raises a number of conundrums for our understanding of history at the end of the century. Some of its corollaries—“plagues of the ‘new world order,’” Jacques Derrida (1994: 91) calls them, unable to resist apocalyptic imagery—have been the subject of clamorous debate. Others receive less mention. Thus, for example, populist polemics have dwelt on the planetary conjuncture, for good or ill, of “homogenization and difference” (e.g., Barber 1992); on the simultaneous, synergistic spiraling of wealth and poverty; on the rise of a “new feudalism,” a phoenix disfigured, of worldwide proportions (cf. Connelly and Kennedy 1994).1 For its part, scholarly debate has focused on the confounding effects of rampant

Linkages between Citizens and Politicians in Democratic Polities

Abstract: Research on democratic party competition in the formal spatial tradition of Downs and the comparative-historical tradition of Lipset and Rokkan assumes that linkages of accountability and responsiveness between voters and political elites work through politicians’ programmatic appeals and policy achievements. This ignores, however, alternative voter-elite linkages through the personal charisma of political leaders and, more important, selective material incentives in networks of direct exchange (clientelism). In light of the diversity of linkage mechanisms appearing in new democracies and changing linkages in established democracies, this article explores theories of linkage choice. It first develops conceptual definitions of charismatic, clientelist, and programmatic linkages between politicians and electoral constituencies. It then asks whether politicians face a trade-off or mutual reinforcement in employing linkage mechanisms. The core section of the article details developmentalist, statist, institut...