Publications

This report considers the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is a regional political and economic union of fifteen countries located in West Africa. More specifically it focuses on one of ECOWAS’ central objectives: the facilitation of free movement in the region. In the following, the foundation and protocols of ECOWAS, everyday mobility in the region and colonial legacies of mobility governance are introduced.

In order to support democratic ideals of socio-economic justice, public participation and representation, established efforts at "democracy promotion" in the MENA must be abandoned. The promotion of procedural democracy has proven to be reconcilable with socio-economic authoritarianisms and presents no challenge to authoritarian power structures.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into the spotlight both past imbalances and chances for convivial scholarship. In this article, we consider main challenges that are at the same time opportunities for better cooperation: African contributions to academic journals must increase, including on conceptual issues. The material investment in Africa’s research institutions has to increase as well.

Franzisca Zanker wrote a blog post on Migration Control about efforts to offshore the protection of refugees, which have recently been brought into the spotlight once again.

The analysis of “new authoritarianisms” is rarely based on their entanglements across sites, scales and administrative boundaries. Far too often, authoritarian developments are analysed as endogenous problems, based on internal social dynamics or ‘problematic’ governments. Literature on authoritarian developments in the urban often stresses repressive or unreliable forms of policing.

From collaboration on infrastructural megaprojects to vaccine development and digital surveillance techniques: Arab Gulf–Chinese relations in times of COVID-19 are complex and multi-layered. Nonetheless, established regime-centric, analytical approaches often fail to see this complexity by almost exclusively focusing on questions of collaboration between authoritarian regimes.

The proliferation of civic demands for democratisation through material infrastructures, including those pertaining to energy, water, currency, and transport, indicates a desire to transform how societal needs are provided, and how technologies of provision might act as ‘loci of hope’ (Bernardo, 2010) for achieving a more desirable and equitable future (Dawson, 2020).

Both Uganda and South Africa were quick to respond to the global pandemic – Uganda for example imposing quarantine on foreign travellers after only a handful of cases before shutting off all international flights, and South Africa imposing one of the first lockdowns on the continent. Reflecting on the first 6 months of the pandemic responses in terms of refugee protection, the two countries have taken diverging pathways.

Sub-Saharan African societies are widely perceived as being highly religious. However, a small percentage of sub-Saharan Africans identify themselves as “religious nones” who are not affiliated with any religious tradition. So far, research interest in religious nones largely focuses on the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. This paper is written in response to the scarcity of literature on nones in sub-Saharan Africa, offering an overview of this understudied subject and pointing towards avenues for future research.

Over the past decade several governments in Africa have experimented with diverse forms of “political dialogue” to address a variety of domestic political crises, ranging from political or constitutional turmoil to armed conflict. On the face of it most dialogues are not very successful or consequential as regards their results and impact. And yet, in political, symbolical and communicative terms they occupy a central, if seemingly short-lived place in national politics. They also absorb the attention of foreign diplomats who pin their hopes on dialogue as offering a solution to crisis.

The consequences of threat constructions and security-dominated politics in many Asian states and regions have been all too apparent recently. Whether the escalating language between China and the US over the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the violence against opposition movements in Hong Kong, the fate of minorities in Myanmar or the ongoing violence in Afghanistan – the invocation of “security” and the often violent practices of security agents constitute a powerful “key mode of governing”.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected refugees and their protection? To respond to this question, we conducted a study using a qualitative questionnaire in six countries in East Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa, namely Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. In this paper, we explore the information provided by the 90 respondents and focus on three main areas. We first address vulnerable groups and the new, additional and prolonged challenges, as well as potential tensions among refugees and between refugees and host communities due to the pandemic.

A number of studies, publications, conferences and anniversary events took place in 2018 to commemorate the 50th birthday of the legendary year 1968. These were accompanied by a raft of scholarly and popular assessments of the “long 1960s”, the “global sixties” and/or the “radical sixties”. The predominant empirical sites for analysis and retrospective were Western Europe and the United States of America. Other world regions were discussed to a clearly lesser extent.

The boom in video conferencing software driven by the pandemic has had a noticeable impact on communication in work and private spheres. International summits have in the past revolved around face-to-face meetings and direct exchange. But many of these conferences have now been cancelled or moved online. What are the effects of this "zoomification" - and what does it mean for civil society's opportunities for participation and influence?

In 2015, the Valletta summit action plan recommended to “develop networks between European and African vocational training institutions, with a view to ensuring that vocational training matches labour market needs”. The EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum, moreover, proposes “talent partnerships” as a solution to match labour and skills needs in EU Member States with the relevant institutions in key countries of origin to eventually support mobility and migration schemes for labour and training purposes.

This exploratory study discusses the potential for a transnational skills partnership in the construction sector between Ghana and the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). Ghana is considered to be a particularly suited partner country due to its young workforce, democratic and economic stability and high regard for technical and vocational education and training (TVET). This high regard, though, is not matched yet by a high level of formal training; in particular in the construction sector, informal “on the job training” training is the norm.