DV435      Half Unit
African Political Economy

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

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.

20 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

Essay plan

Optional formative essay outline due in Week 7.

Celestin Monga and Justin Yifu Lin, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2, Policies 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 Journal of Economics, 25 (2001): 289-313.

Benno J. Ndulu al, The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa: 1960-2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Dzodzi Tsikata, "Gender, Land Tenure, and Agrarian Production Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa," Agrarian South: J. of Political Economy (Nov. 2016).

Adom Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton, 2019), Ch. 5, pp. 142-175.

Said Adejumobi, ed.  National Democratic Reforms in Africa: Changes and Challenges (Palgrave Macmillian, 2015).
Belinda Archibong, Historical Origins of Persistent Inequality in Nigeria, Oxford Development Studies, 46/3 (2018): 325-347.

Catherine Boone, Inequality and Political Cleavage in Africa: Regionalism by Design (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

Jon Schubert, Ulf Engel, and Elísio Salvado Macamo, eds., Extractive industries andchanging state dynamics in Africa : beyond the resource curse (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis 2018)

Arkebe Oqubay  and Justin Yifu Lin, eds., China-Africa and an Economic Transformation (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Essay (100%, 3000 words) in Winter Term Week 1

Essay (100%, 3000 words) in the Winter Term Week 1.