Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL3227: Politics, Elections, and the State in Africa

This module descriptor refers to the 2020/1 academic year.

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

Politics, elections, and the state: key concepts
Colonial legacies and the state in Africa
Ethnicity in Africa
Nationalism in Africa
Politics under authoritarianism/hegemonic party rule
Politics under multi-party democracy
Public goods provision, nation-building, and the state in Africa
Elections and ethnic politics in Africa
Clientelism and elections in Africa
Political institutions for Africa’s plural societies: federal and unitary states
Beyond ethnicity: new social cleavages and politics in Africa
Challenges to democracy in Africa
Case studies and student presentations

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
44	256

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled learning and teaching activity	44	22 x 2 hour weekly seminars
Guided independent study	80	Seminar preparation, completion of weekly assigned readings
Guided independent study	30	Presentation preparation
Guided independent study	146	Essay and final paper preparation: reading, researching for, and drafting the essay, paper outline, and final paper for the class.

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

The following websites will be used to complement class readings and discussion:

Democracyinafrica.org

Africasacountry.com

Theelephant.info

Students will be asked to listen to and reflect on at least one episode of BBC series “Focus on Africa”: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n13xtmgm each week.