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Prof Catherine Boone

This course is available on the CEMS Exchange, MBA Exchange, MSc in Comparative Politics, MSc in Development Management, MSc in Development Studies, MSc in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies and MSc in Political Economy of Late Development. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This is an introduction to the study of contemporary African political economy, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.  The goal of DV435 to set major questions of state, national economy, and development in historical, geographic, and international context.  Course readings and lectures stress marked unevenness in national and subnational trajectories and in the political-economic character of different African countries, drawing attention to causes of similarity and difference across and within countries.  Students completing DV435 will come away with a better understanding of the economic and social underpinnings of order and conflict in African states. 

There is a research-driven component to DV435: each student will read secondary literature, grey literature, and other sources to develop particular knowledge of two countries.  These will be used as "case studies" in assessed coursework to evaluate general arguments concerning the political economy of Africa, and to compare/contrast the historical trajectories of different African states.

The course includes an optional weekly film series that provides an additional venue for discussion of course themes.

This course is delivered through a combination of lectures and seminars in the MT. Seminars will be at or upwards of 45 minutes duration and lectures will be at or above 60 minutes duration.

Student on this course will have a reading week in Week 6.

Optional formative essay due in Week 7.

Celestin Monga and Justin Yifu Lin, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2, Politices and Practices (OUP 2015).

Fouad Makki, "Postcolonial Africa and the World Economy: The Long Waves of Uneven Development," Journal of World-Systems Research, 21/1 (2014): 124-146.

Morten Jerven, Poor Numbers: How we are misled by African development statistics and what we can do about it (Cornell U. Press, 2011).

Fred Cooper, Africa Since 1940 (Cambridge University Press [2002], 2019).

Samir Amin, "Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa: Origins and Contemporary Forms," Journal of Modern African Studies, 10.4 (1972): 503-24.

Leigh Gardner, Taxing Colonial Africa: The Political Economy of British Imperialism (Oxford U. Press, 2012).

Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Africa and the Legacy of late Colonialism (Princeton University Press, 1996).

David E. Bloom, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Paul Collier, Christopher Udry, "Geography, Demography, and Economic Growth in Africa," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, vol. 1988/ 2 (1998): 207-295.

Thandika Mkandawire, "Thinking about Developmental States in Africa," Cambridge