Ethnically diverse countries are more prone to conflict, but why do some groups engage in conflict while others do not? I show that civil conflict is explained by ethnic groups' cultural distance to the central government: an increase in cultural distance, proxied by linguistic distance,...

The belief in occult forces is still deeply rooted in many African societies, regardless of education, religion, and social class of the people concerned. According to many Africans its incidence is even increasing due to social stress and strain caused (among others) by the process of...

The political economy of occult belief in Africa can highlight hidden social and political conflict in times of transition which remain otherwise undetected. This has been demonstrated in taking the development of witchcraft accusations over time as indicator, and the Nupe of Northern Nigeria as...

Flucht und Migration aus den Ländern der Dritten Welt haben in den letzten Jahrzehnten ein vorher nie gekanntes Ausmaß angenommen und sie werden zukünftig voraussichtlich noch alles bisher Dagewesene übertreffen. Afrika ist von diesen Wanderungsbewegungen besonders stark betroffen. Obwohl...

Soziokulturelle Länderkurzanalysen wurden Anfang der 1990er Jahre zum festen Bestandteil der “Länderkonzepte", dem neuen zentralen Managementinstrument der deutschen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit. Die Quintessenz dieses Ansatzes wurde in der Frage zusammengefaßt: Wollen und können die...

Individuals are at their most mental plasticity in their impressionable years (ages 18-25 years) forming long-term attitudes and behaviours essential to functioning in a society, such as trust. In this paper we ask how exposure to natural disasters within the impressionable years may affect the...

Much has been written on the relationship of China and Africa in the past decade. However, the subject of Chinese migrant entrepreneurs in Africa and their articulation with African counterparts was little explored up to the early 2010s. Apparently, this research gap has been closed, as shown by...

The parliamentary elections of October 2007, the first free Togolese elections since decades, were meant to correct at least partially the rigged presidential elections of 2005. Western donors considered it as a litmus test of despotic African regimes' propensity to change towards...

The belief in occult forces is still deeply rooted in many African societies, regardless of education, religion, and social class of the people concerned. According to many Africans its incidence is even increasing due to social stress and strain caused (among others) by the process of...

One of the outstanding aims of most liberation movements has been to increase the economic well-being of their people, Guinea-Bissau being no exception in this respect. How far has the new Nation State succeeded in fulfilling this aim? A comparative analysis of the implementation of land...