Review of African Political Economy最新文献

{"title":"Confronting the climate crisis in Africa: just transitions and Extinction Rebellion in Nigeria and South Africa","authors":"Peter Gardner, O. Adekola, Tiago Carvalho, Thomas O’Brien","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2023.2283988","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2283988","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Climate change is having increasing impacts on the social, economic and political space across the African continent. The compounding character of such impacts reinforces existing inequalities, raising important considerations around climate justice. Growing awareness has seen the emergence of activists working for solutions and promoting alternative futures, working across scales and sectors to address the complexity of the threats. This article examines environmental activism in Nigeria and South Africa, exploring strategies and claims, and how these are rooted in questions of justice. While environmental movements in Nigeria have generally worked to encourage reform and adaption within the existing political economic system, a more systemic critique and need for fundamental change is observable in South Africa. Drawing on a comparison of Extinction Rebellion in both countries, we argue that understandings of just transitions should take into consideration the unequal abilities of social movements to call for radically transformative and just decarbonisation.","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"26 1","pages":"475 - 490"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139324706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An interview with Nnimmo Bassey: Business as usual and false solutions – ‘we must claim climate justice spaces for ourselves’","authors":"N. Bassey, Lee Wengraf","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2023.2293368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2293368","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"36 1","pages":"502 - 504"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139324343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"(Un)Just transition in power generation: neoliberal reforms and climate crisis in Sudan","authors":"Mohamed Salah, Razaz Basheir","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2023.2281085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2281085","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Given the undisputable reality of climate change, this article explores Sudan's power generation and its approach to the current climate crisis, focusing on the perspective of a just energy transition. It highlights how the power sector's plans remain centralised, favouring urban consumerism, cost-driven energy sources, and inadequate social and environmental evaluations with limited community involvement. Furthermore, the absence of timely adaptation measures has left off-grid populations and those displaced by hydroelectric dams disproportionately vulnerable to worsening climate conditions, loss of traditional livelihoods, and conflicts over dwindling natural resources. This exacerbates instability and regional development disparities. The article advocates for a just energy transition in Sudan that not only reduces CO2 emissions but also minimises adverse impacts on local ecosystems and livelihoods. It suggests a blend of distributed and utility-scale renewable energy sources alongside existing hydro-thermal capacity. It also calls for prioritising power supply to off-grid communities through socially driven financing mechanisms, countering the neoliberal push for privatisation and full-cost recovery.","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"4 1","pages":"402 - 420"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139324115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The political economy of the climate crisis in Southern Africa","authors":"Grasian Mkodzongi","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2023.2289748","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2289748","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article maps out the dynamics of the climate crisis that is unfolding globally, but whose consequences have a disproportionate impact on countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the wider global South. Although these countries have contributed insignificant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions (compared to their industrialised counterparts), their populations are the major victims of climate change, whose disastrous impacts were recently witnessed in Zimbabwe during Cyclone Idai and in South Africa during the Durban floods. In addition, Southern Africa is experiencing climate change-induced droughts, depleting water in major dams and undermining hydroelectric power generation, especially in Zambia and Zimbabwe. As a result, the region is experiencing dangerous power outages affecting agriculture and other key industries. This article adopts a novel decolonial perspective to make sense of these extreme weather events, arguing that the climate crisis is already affecting the livelihoods of many people in Southern Africa and that it is often the poor and vulnerable who suffer most from the impacts of climate change. There is thus a need for industrialised countries to contribute towards the costs of climate change mitigation since they are historically responsible for most of the carbon emissions.","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"47 1","pages":"374 - 387"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139324154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Conservation, peasants and class: critical reflections on the political economy of climate change strategies in West Senegal","authors":"Rocío Hiraldo, Steffen Böhm","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2023.2286080","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2286080","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Environmental conservation has become a key climate mitigation strategy in the last two decades. Through the multiplication of ‘conservation’ projects, Africa is one of the main centres of this kind of intervention. While scholars have shown conservation to be a vehicle for the advancement of capitalist interests, scarce attention has been paid to agrarian labour and class dynamics in the African countryside sustaining this development. Drawing on the authors’ research in West Senegal, this article develops a conceptual framework for integrating class and peasant labour in the study of capitalist conservation. It shows how conservation-related climate mitigation strategies in Africa nurture and are nurtured by neoliberal and imperialist processes of agrarian change, reinforcing the economic and political vulnerability of African peasants. Alternative, anti-imperial climate change mitigation strategies need to be centred around peasant environmentalisms and their liberation from labour oppression.","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"212 1","pages":"421 - 438"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139324417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Climate imperialism in Africa: critical commentary on the political economy of global climate change regime","authors":"Zachary J. Patterson","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2023.2285120","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2285120","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"212 1","pages":"509 - 513"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139324573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Climate change, counter-terrorism and capitalist development in Somalia","authors":"Jason C. Mueller","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2023.2261256","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2261256","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTSomalia is often referred to as a ‘failed state’. In addition to ineffective governance, feeble economic development, and a large anti-government insurgency, it faces increasingly severe climate change-induced devastation. This article offers a critical discussion of the role of capitalist interests and ideology as a factor in the climate crisis. It explores interlocking issues of (1) the relationship between the ruling political class of Somalia and capitalist mining interests; (2) the largely covert US-backed ‘war on terror’ in Somalia; and (3) the ongoing, capitalism-induced climate crisis. The article analyses current US and Somali proposals to address these issues. Many of these proposals remain trapped in the politico-ideological deadlock of capitalist developmentalism, oriented towards fossil fuel extraction and militarised accumulation. The trajectory of this current path in Somalia is leading to immiseration, oppression, displacement for millions of people, and the destruction of an already deteriorating environment. Alternative paths to avert these catastrophes require transnational solidarity, cooperation and assistance.RÉSUMÉLa Somalie est souvent considérée comme un « état failli ». Outre une gouvernance inefficace, un développement économique faible et une insurrection anti gouvernementale de grande envergure, le pays est confronté à une dévastation de plus en plus grave induite par le changement climatique. Cet article propose une analyse critique du rôle des intérêts et de l’idéologie capitalistes en tant que facteurs de la crise climatique. Il explore les questions interdépendantes (1) de la relation entre la classe politique dirigeante de Somalie et les intérêts miniers capitalistes ; (2) de la « guerre contre le terrorisme » en Somalie, largement dissimulée et soutenue par les États-Unis ; et (3) de la crise climatique actuelle induite par le capitalisme. Cet article analyse les propositions actuelles des États-Unis et de la Somalie pour traiter ces questions connexes. Nombre de ces propositions restent coincées dans l’impasse politico-idéologique du développementalisme capitaliste, orienté vers l’extraction des combustibles fossiles et l’accumulation militarisée. Cette trajectoire actuelle en Somalie conduit à la paupérisation, à l’oppression, et au déplacement de millions de personnes ainsi qu’à la destruction d’un environnement déjà en voie de détérioration. Les voies alternatives pour éviter ces catastrophes requièrent une solidarité, une coopération et une assistance transnationales.RESUMOA Somália é frequentemente referida como um caso de ‘estado falhado’. Para além de uma governação ineficaz, de um fraco desenvolvimento económico e de uma grande insurreição antigovernamental, o país enfrenta uma devastação cada vez mais grave induzida pelas alterações climáticas. Este artigo oferece uma discussão crítica sobre o papel dos interesses e ideologia capitalistas como fator na crise climática. Explora questões interlig","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"40 7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135536912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fatal architectures and death by design: the infrastructures of state-sponsored climate disasters in Angola and Mozambique","authors":"Ruy Llera Blanes","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2023.2261276","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2261276","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThis article addresses how African states respond to climate crisis, arguing that, beyond the agency and impact of climate phenomena such as drought and cyclones, they are active participants in the production of climate disasters and emergencies, mostly through infrastructural processes that affect land and resource use, and subsequently livelihoods. To demonstrate this, it uses the cases of the drought in southwestern Angola and cyclones in northern and central Mozambique, where such climate phenomena have exposed ‘fatal architectures’ that have dramatically raised the toll of climate victims and refugees. Both extractivist, agro-industrial and hydroelectric projects, as well as other, more deferred infrastructural designs (roads, communication networks, etc.) have challenged the traditional agency and resilience of local communities. Such new infrastructural projects also illustrate how certain perceived long-term solutions to address the climate crisis with industrial and energy reconversion towards greener energies can still become fatal architectures in the context of climate emergencies.RÉSUMÉCe texte traite de la manière dont les États africains répondent à la crise climatique, en soutenant que, au-delà de l’impact des phénomènes climatiques tels que la sécheresse et les cyclones, les Etats participent activement à la production de catastrophes et d’urgences climatiques, principalement par le biais de processus infrastructurels qui affectent l’utilisation des terres et des ressources et, par conséquent, les moyens de subsistance. Pour illustrer son propos, l’auteur s’appuie sur les exemples de la sécheresse dans le sud-ouest de l’Angola et des cyclones dans le nord et le centre du Mozambique, où ces phénomènes climatiques ont mis en évidence des « architectures fatales » qui ont considérablement alourdi le bilan des victimes du changement climatique et des réfugiés. C’est le cas des projets extractivistes, agro-industriels et hydroélectriques, ainsi que des projets d’infrastructure plus différés (tels que les routes et les réseaux de communication) qui ont bouleversé le pouvoir d’action et la résilience traditionnels des communautés locales. Lorsqu’il s’agit de faire face à la crise climatique par une reconversion industrielle et énergétique tournée vers des énergies plus vertes, ces exemples de nouveaux projets d’infrastructure illustrent également comment certaines solutions perçues comme étant à long terme peuvent malgré tout devenir des architectures fatales dans des contextes d’urgence climatique.RESUMOEste texto aborda a forma como os Estados africanos respondem à crise climática, com o argumento de que, para além da agência e do impacto de fenómenos climáticos tais como as secas e os ciclones, os Estados são participantes ativos na produção de desastres e emergências climáticas, em particular através de processos infraestruturais que afetam o uso da terra e dos recursos e, em última instância, os modos de vida locais. Para ","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135537943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Between green extractivism and energy justice: competing strategies in South Africa’s hydrogen transition in the context of climate crisis","authors":"Tobias Kalt, Jenny Simon, Johanna Tunn, Jesko Hennig","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2023.2260206","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2260206","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe global race for green hydrogen is not just about decarbonisation, but also about power and profit. Examining the formation of a political project around an emerging hydrogen economy in South Africa, this article shows that a hydrogen transition is fundamentally contested. Employing (neo-)Gramscian hegemony theory and historical materialist policy analysis, it delineates four competing hydrogen initiatives in the policy debate: green extractivism, green developmentalism, fossilism and energy justice. The findings indicate the dominance of green extractivism, which prioritises the export of green hydrogen to Europe and reproduces patterns of neocolonialism and unequal ecological exchange. Contestations arise both from reactionary forces clinging to fossil fuels as well as from initiatives pursuing justice-centred transitions through green developmentalism and energy justice. This study contributes to the debate on justice in the global energy transition by highlighting alternative transition pathways in the global South that challenge green extractivism through sovereign industrial development and energy justice.RÉSUMÉLa course mondiale à l’hydrogène vert n’est pas seulement une question de décarbonisation, mais aussi de pouvoir et de profit. En examinant la formation d’un projet politique autour de l’émergence d’une économie de l’hydrogène en Afrique du Sud, nous montrons que la transition vers l’hydrogène est fondamentalement contestée. En nous appuyant sur la théorie de l’hégémonie (néo-)gramscienne et sur l’analyse matérialiste historique des politiques, nous délimitons quatre initiatives concurrentes dans le débat politique relatif à l’hydrogène : l’extractivisme vert, le développementalisme vert, le fossilisme et la justice énergétique. Nos conclusions soulignent la prédominance de l’extractivisme vert, qui donne la priorité à l’exportation d’hydrogène vert à destination de l’Europe et reproduit des schémas de néocolonialisme et d’échange écologique inégal. Les contestations proviennent à la fois des forces réactionnaires qui s’accrochent aux combustibles fossiles et des initiatives poursuivant des transitions axées sur la justice par le biais d’un développement vert et d’une justice énergétique. Cette étude contribue au débat relatif à la justice dans la transition énergétique mondiale en mettant en évidence des voies de transition alternatives dans les pays du Sud qui remettent en question l’extractivisme vert par le biais d’un développement industriel souverain et de la justice énergétique.RESUMOA corrida global ao hidrogénio verde não tem apenas a ver com a descarbonização, mas também com a energia e o lucro. Analisando a formação de um projeto político em torno de uma economia emergente de hidrogênio na África do Sul, este artigo mostra que as transições de hidrogénio são fundamentalmente processos contestados. Empregando a teoria da hegemonia (neo)gramsciana e a análise política materialista histórica, expõem-se quatro inici","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"2013 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135816515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ten challenges in reconfiguring African Studies","authors":"Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2023.2256561","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2256561","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135878211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}