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After several years of political emancipation from colonial rule, it is time for African nations to do the same economically. Our analysis indicates that the current political leadership environment is VUCA laden and complicated, leading to grand challenges on the continent. Therefore, the old political leadership models are inadequate for addressing the African VUCA and leadership landscape, hence, the inability to achieve the needed economic advancement. We propose a paradigm shift in political leadership for the continent to bring the decades-long desire for economic freedom to fruition by adopting the relevant organizational science and corporate leadership models for political leadership effectiveness in this complex and dynamic environment. We accomplish this by integrating three frameworks to derive nascent management and leadership capabilities relevant to the new African political leadership context and to ensure current and future leadership readiness for this new environment.

This chapter reviews developments in the intellectual and activist work of African feminists and gender scholars over the past two decades. African feminists and gender scholar activists have broken with dominant epistemologies to frame their own sites of knowledge production and feminist identity, reflecting shifting conditions in local and global contexts. The knowledge they generate is rooted in a tradition of scholarship, activism, and engagements with state institutions and with transnational and regional feminist movements. I discuss (1) contexts in which African feminist standpoints have emerged over the past 20 years, (2) developments in women and gender studies programs, and (3) ways in which African feminist scholars in the continent and diaspora have stimulated intellectual engagement and activism through feminist research and publishing, collaborative scholarship, influencing policy, and new forms of activism.

Latvia, a small country on the Baltic Sea, became independent in 1918, but was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940. Like its neighbours, Estonia and Lithuania, Latvia has a skewed resource pattern, small domestic market, and an export concentration into commodities. Prior to the Soviet occupation, these three countries never managed to form an economic union to overcome the disadvantages of the small size of the domestic markets in the era of assembly line technology. They practiced “Alleingang” in economic and political matters. After gaining independence in 1991, the Baltic countries learned nothing from the past and have continued practicing “Alleingang” in the age of “high tech”.

This chapter is an overview of herstorical, political and theatrical developments in South Africa. It provides an overview of the background to the herstory of South Africa from 1912–1993.

Dates are included which have relevance to the herstory of South African Women; for example, 1912 was the year of the formation of the African National Congress (ANC); in 1913 Charlotte Maxeke led a march against pass laws for African women; the Native Land Act of 1913 stated that natives were no longer able to buy, sell or lease outside the stipulated reserves; the Influx Control and The Natives Urban Act of 1923 and amendments to the Act in 1937 had devastating consequences for African women as it severely restricted their movements from rural to urban areas. The year 1930 is important because this was when white South African women acquired the vote which gave political activists such as Helen Joseph and Helen Suzman a political voice. In 1948 the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) was formed. Political events from the 1970s through to 1993, demonstrate how the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), the African National Congress (ANC), other anti-apartheid organisations and the apartheid government realised the effectiveness of theatre as a political weapon

In this chapter, we examine the role of charismatic leadership in postcolonial Tanzania. Primarily used in sociological and political analysis, the concept of charisma has been viewed as a central component in nation-building in postcolonial Africa. Based on a decolonial perspective, we discuss charismatic leadership in Tanzania, focusing on Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania. Nyerere, one of Africa's most influential leaders of the mid-twentieth century, fought the colonial rule, pushed for national independence and political freedom, and offered radical solutions to colonialism. Finally, the future directions regarding leadership in postcolonial Tanzania are discussed.

Political leadership is decisive in the development of people and their communities. Bad leadership ushers in general stagnation and underdevelopment, while good leadership has the potential to transform people and their communities positively. African leadership is to be blamed for Africa’s underdevelopment. Concern was more regarding postcolonial leadership in Africa with having and keeping (consolidating) political power than using such power to develop the continent’s abundant natural resources. For Africa to come off its development quack mire and face the future with hope, there is need for a clean break from the past generation of political leaders. This is critical because the leaders of old generation are trying to position their stooges to take over power as the case in Gabon, Togo, DRC, Cameroon, etc. Africa has 60% youthful population and needs a youthful leadership abreast with the challenges of globalization and translation of such challenges into opportunities within the African context. At present, the responsibility of Africa's future lies with its youthful civil society. Through its role of monitoring governance and promoting and protecting rights, it has developed a rich experience across Africa. The Arab spring brings along with it the hope of leadership change on the continent. Firstly, it is a clean break from the gerontocracy. Secondly, it is motivation by the need to improve on the socioeconomic livelihood of the people. Lastly, it is supported by the African academia and diaspora. The failure of this emerging leadership class to usher in strong and transparent institutions to carry Africa forward would be suicidal.

The aim of this article is to apply a re‐worked definition of ideology in order to account for cultural and political dimensions of contemporary armed conflicts.

The paper analyzes communiqués, press releases, magazines, pamphlets, speeches, interviews and other communicational media produced by insurgent organizations in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia, particularly in the post‐Cold War, in order to assess the characteristics of their ideological platforms. The extensive use of these primary sources aims at revealing the way the organizations see themselves, and how important ideological warfare is in their overall strategy.

In the post‐Cold War, and even in the early twenty‐first century, armed guerrillas persisted in linking their armed struggle to ideological platforms, though in more flexible versions. Nationalism, fundamentalism and socialism are functional to their tactics and strategies, and have tangible effects at strategic and tactical levels.

Three sample cases have been revised exhaustively, but that methodology impedes the examination of a wider spectrum of post‐Cold War insurgent organizations, which may balance the results here presented. However, the high relevance of the ideological component in contemporary armed conflicts, as shown in the Afghan, Congolese and Colombian cases, demonstrates the need for further academic works on this topic.

Re‐defining ideology, as the paper proposes, turns it into a powerful conceptual tool to be used in academic research, given that precisely the absence of comprehensive categories of analysis has prevented scholars from providing a full picture of the political and cultural dimensions of contemporary armed conflicts.

As economic‐focused researches on armed conflicts have dominated the field since the 1990s, the paper underlines the need for scholars to approach a broader scope in peace studies.

Focusing on Johannes L. Sadie, a South African economist hired to investigate the economic options of Southern Rhodesia at the time of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), this chapter examines the historical, ideological, pedagogical, and international influences of the intersection between economic discourse and racial ideology. Using the example of the Sadie recommendations, this chapter examines how the changing political context informed the state’s approach to the economy. A reading of the context in which Sadie was hired to justify Rhodesia’s UDI and provide legitimacy to its economic policies sheds light onto the Ian Smith regime’s approach to an alternative post-imperial (but not post-settler) state and economy, but it also speaks of the ways in which economic discourse can be deployed for political purposes by authoritarian regimes.

This study explores the simultaneous transitions in Palestine/Israel and South Africa at the end of the 20th century through an analysis of the shifting geography of Johannesburg and Jerusalem. After analyzing the relationship between political, economic and spatial restructuring, I examine the walled enclosures that mark the landscapes of post-apartheid Johannesburg and post-Oslo Jerusalem. I conclude by arguing that these walled enclosures reveal several interconnected aspects of the relationship between neo-liberal restructuring and the militarization of urban space. They also exemplify different configurations of sovereignty under conditions of neo-liberalism and empire.