Christopher Clapham
Biographic Data
| ID | 79885 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher Clapham |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher |
| FAMILY NAME | Clapham |
| SIGNATURE | CLAPHAM C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lancaster University Ghana |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 99 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 426 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 98 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1968 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Haile Selassie: His Rise, His Fall
Decolonising African Studies
Insistent calls to 'decolonise' African studies beg the question of what this quest actually involves. If it refers to an attempt to understand the continent's diverse and complex societies that builds on their indigenous structures and values, this was a task initiated during the decolonisation era of the 1950s and early 1960s. Led by historians and drawing heavily on insights from anthropology, it led to a revolution in the understanding of Afr…
The Horn Breaks African State Norms Teshale Tibebu
Christopher Clapham is a doyen of scholarship on twentieth and twenty-first century Ethiopian politics. He has published extensively not only on Ethiopia, but also on the Horn of Africa and the African continent at large. His two previous monographs on Ethiopia, Haile Selasssie’s Government (Praeger 1969), and Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia (Cambridge 1990) have been standard references on the topics addressed in the two …
The Ethiopian developmental state
Ethiopia provides one of the clearest examples of a ‘developmental state’ in Africa. Drawing on a deeply entrenched experience of statehood, the present Ethiopian regime has embarked on an ambitious programme, depending on the central capture of ‘rents’, to fund a massive expansion especially in communications, education, and hydroelectricity. High initial rates of growth have been achieved. However, the political setting is tightly constrained a…
The Horn of Africa: State Formation and Decay
Why is the Horn such a distinctive part of Africa? This book, by one of the foremost scholars of the region, traces this question through its exceptional history and also probes the wildly divergent fates of the Horn's contemporary nation-states, despite the striking regional particularity inherited from the colonial past. Christopher Clapham explores how the Horn's peculiar topography gave rise to the Ethiopian empire, the sole African state not…
Hanna Rubinkowska: Ethiopia on the Verge of Modernity: the Transfer of Power during Zewditu’s Reign 1916–1930
Review
Liberia and Sierra Leone: An Essay in Comparative Politics
Borders and Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa
Post-war Ethiopia: The Trajectories of Crisis
This article addresses current crises of governance in Ethiopia. Internal conflicts within the ruling coalition arise from its origins in a localised insurgency and its flawed capacity to create a broader political base. In the national context, particularly in the major towns, it rules only by effective force and not through dialogue or negotiation. A policy of ethnic federalism promised devolution of powers to local areas, but founders on the d…
David Kimble, 1921-2009
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
African Guerrillas: Raging Against the Machine
Ethiopian development: The politics of emulation
Since the mid-nineteenth century, Ethiopian rulers have sought to ‘develop’ by emulating models from more developed but ostensibly comparable states. The first such model, imperial Russia, was followed by Japan, and after the Second World War by the United Kingdom and other Western states. The 1974 revolution led the new military regime to turn to the Soviet Union, which provided the most devotedly followed of Ethiopia's exemplars. Its overthrow …
The Political Economy of African Population Change
Terrorism in Africa: Problems of definition, history and development
Most of Sub‐Saharan Africa is unlikely to become a location for radical Islam despite widespread poverty and oppression. But the region is nonetheless increasingly providing the conditions to which terrorism has historically been a response
Third World Politics: An Introduction
Rewriting Ethiopian History
Clapham Christopher. Rewriting Ethiopian History. In: Annales d'Ethiopie. Volume 18, année 2002. pp. 37-54
The Challenge to the State in a Globalized World
Individual instances of state failure and collapse must be placed within a broader appreciation of the evolution of statehood within the international system. The idea that the inhabited area of the globe must be divided between sovereign states is a recent development, and likely to prove a transient one. Largely the product of European colonialism, and turned into a global norm by decolonization, it is threatened both by the inherent difficulti…
Rethinking African States
This contribution sketches the paradoxical contrast between Africa and Europe. Europe is the homeland of the strong state, founded on nationalism and sustained by centuries of history. African states are weak and artificial, the result of an arbitrary colonial partition, lacking internal coherence, failing, dysfunctional, even collapsed. What accounts for this difference? Are African states resilient enough to survive the kind of challenges that …
Peacekeepers, Politicians, and Warlords: The Liberian peace process
Journal Article Peacekeepers, Politicians, and Warlords: the Liberian peace process Get access Christopher Clapham Christopher Clapham Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 100, Issue 398, 1 January 2001, Pages 161–162, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/100.398.161 Published: 01 January 2001
Guerre et construction de l'État dans la Corne de l'Afrique
Il est admis que la guerre a joué un rôle essentiel dans la formation de l'État et de la nation en Europe. Le caractère lacunaire de ce processus dans les pays africains, qui précisément ne se sont pas constitués sur la base de guerres entre voisins, en fournirait la preuve a contrario. Or l'examen de la relation entre guerre et formation de l'État en Éthiopie et en Érythrée, qui en offrent pourtant les deux meilleurs exemples en Afrique, ne perm…
John Wiseman
The Journal of Modern African Studies deeply regrets to announce the death of the Book Reviews Editor, Dr John Wiseman, on 5 March 2000. John Wiseman, Senior Lecturer in African Politics at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, died of cancer on 5 March 2000, at the tragically early age of 54. John was always proud to have been a product of the Department of Government at Manchester, where he took both his undergraduate degree and his Ph.D. with…
Ethnicity and the State in Eastern Africa
M. A. Mohamed Salih and John Markakis(eds), Ethnicity and the State in Eastern Africa.Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1998, 208 pp., £18.95 (SEK 200, US $26.95), ISBN 91 7106 418 4. - Volume 70 Issue 1
African Guerrillas
African Guerrillas
Sovereignty and the Third World State
Africa and the International System: The Politics of State Survival
African independence launched into international politics a group of the world's poorest, weakest, and most artificial states. How have such states managed to survive? To what extent is their survival now threatened? Christopher Clapham shows how an initially supportive international environment has - as a result partly of political and economic mismanagement within African states themselves, partly of global developments over which they had no c…
Post-war Ethiopia: The Trajectories of Crisis
This article addresses current crises of governance in Ethiopia. Internal conflicts within the ruling coalition arise from its origins in a localised insurgency and its flawed capacity to create a broader political base. In the national context, particularly in the major towns, it rules only by effective force and not through dialogue or negotiation. A policy of ethnic federalism promised devolution of powers to local areas, but founders on the d…
Degrees of statehood
This paper explores the relationship between statehood and the international system, with particular reference to the states of sub-Saharan Africa. It suggests, as the title implies, that statehood should be regarded as a relative concept; and that rather than distinguish sharply between entities that are, and are not, states, we should regard different entities as meeting the criteria for international statehood to a greater or lesser degree. En…
The Ethiopian developmental state
Ethiopia provides one of the clearest examples of a ‘developmental state’ in Africa. Drawing on a deeply entrenched experience of statehood, the present Ethiopian regime has embarked on an ambitious programme, depending on the central capture of ‘rents’, to fund a massive expansion especially in communications, education, and hydroelectricity. High initial rates of growth have been achieved. However, the political setting is tightly constrained a…
Sovereignty and the Third World State
Transformation and continuity in revolutionary Ethiopia
Ethiopian development: The politics of emulation
Since the mid-nineteenth century, Ethiopian rulers have sought to ‘develop’ by emulating models from more developed but ostensibly comparable states. The first such model, imperial Russia, was followed by Japan, and after the Second World War by the United Kingdom and other Western states. The 1974 revolution led the new military regime to turn to the Soviet Union, which provided the most devotedly followed of Ethiopia's exemplars. Its overthrow …
The Challenge to the State in a Globalized World
Individual instances of state failure and collapse must be placed within a broader appreciation of the evolution of statehood within the international system. The idea that the inhabited area of the globe must be divided between sovereign states is a recent development, and likely to prove a transient one. Largely the product of European colonialism, and turned into a global norm by decolonization, it is threatened both by the inherent difficulti…
Decolonising African Studies
Insistent calls to 'decolonise' African studies beg the question of what this quest actually involves. If it refers to an attempt to understand the continent's diverse and complex societies that builds on their indigenous structures and values, this was a task initiated during the decolonisation era of the 1950s and early 1960s. Led by historians and drawing heavily on insights from anthropology, it led to a revolution in the understanding of Afr…
The Ethiopian Coup d'Etat of December 1960
By contrast with many other African states, the Ethiopian Government has in recent decades been almost monotonously stable. The Emperor Haile Selassie reigns and rules through a political system which remains in essentials the direct descendant of the imperial Government as it has existed down the centuries.1 In the last quarter-century, only the attempted coup d'état of December 1960 has seriously challenged his régime. The purpose of this artic…
The Horn of Africa: State Formation and Decay
Why is the Horn such a distinctive part of Africa? This book, by one of the foremost scholars of the region, traces this question through its exceptional history and also probes the wildly divergent fates of the Horn's contemporary nation-states, despite the striking regional particularity inherited from the colonial past. Christopher Clapham explores how the Horn's peculiar topography gave rise to the Ethiopian empire, the sole African state not…
Ethnicity and the State in Eastern Africa
M. A. Mohamed Salih and John Markakis(eds), Ethnicity and the State in Eastern Africa.Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1998, 208 pp., £18.95 (SEK 200, US $26.95), ISBN 91 7106 418 4. - Volume 70 Issue 1
Rwanda: The Perils of Peacemaking
External mediation in civil conflicts since the end of the Cold War has rested on a standardized conflict resolution mechanism, which differs significantly from the state-centric mechanism prevalent during the Cold War. This accords a broadly equal standing to all parties to the conflict, and seeks to reach a settlement acceptable to them all. This, in turn, calls for a ceasefire, followed by either of two mechanisms designed to create a liberal …
Rethinking African States
This contribution sketches the paradoxical contrast between Africa and Europe. Europe is the homeland of the strong state, founded on nationalism and sustained by centuries of history. African states are weak and artificial, the result of an arbitrary colonial partition, lacking internal coherence, failing, dysfunctional, even collapsed. What accounts for this difference? Are African states resilient enough to survive the kind of challenges that …
Opposition in Tropical Africa
AT THE START OF THE 1990S, THE CONSTITUTIONAL STATUS OF opposition movements in tropical Africa was dramatically transformed. Prior to 1990, in only a minimal number of states had legally tolerated opposition parties even been permitted, while in no case had any opposition party been able to assume power after defeating the incumbent government at the polls. Within a few years, multi-party systems were introduced within almost all African states,…
Democratisation in Africa: Obstacles and prospects
The events of the last few years have given a substantial boost to the process of democratisation in Africa, and have opened up at least the prospect of reshaping the African political order into forms which would be startlingly at variance with those through which most of the continent has been governed during the three decades or so since independence. The changes currently under way are moreover, at least in my view, much more than the simple …
Epilogue: Political succession in the Third World
The Structure of Regional Conflict in Northern Ethiopia
A conventional view of regional conflict in Ethiopia is that it is the result of the domination and exploitation of conquered peoples by the central Ethiopian state. The pattern of regional conflict does not, however, fit this explanation. The most important threat to the central government today comes not from the recently conquered pastoral and sedentary peoples of southern Ethiopia but from the northern highlands (Eritrea, Tigray, northern Wol…
Governmentality and economic policy in Sub-Saharan Africa
Critical to the articulation and implementation of universally applicable policies for economic development is the question of whether development can be 'taught': of whether it results in essence from a set of policy prescriptions which can be implemented by (or imposed on) any currently underdeveloped Third World society; or whether, on the contrary, it results from characteristics specific to some such societies but missing in others, which in…
The state and revolution in Ethiopia
The sustained restructuring of the military regime which has taken place in the 1980s is an essentially ‘leninist’ project with three components: new and enhanced structures of institutional and centralised control, down to the grass roots level kebelles and peasant associations but one that has not succeeded in many regions; a drastic, state‐controlled restructuring of the economic base; plus a limited but significant expansion of political repr…
Centralization and Local Response in Southern Ethiopia
Journal Article CENTRALIZATION AND LOCAL RESPONSE IN SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA Get access CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM Dr Christopher Clapham is the author of Haile Selassie's Government (Longmans, 1969) and of numerous articles on Ethiopian politics. He is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Lancaster. This article was written before the recent overthrow of Haile-Selassie's government. Search for other works by this author on: Ox…
Ethiopia: The Modernization of Autocracy
The Context of African Political Thought
The political ideas put forward by the leaders of the new states provide one of the most popular entrées to African politics, and they have now received a good deal of attention. This is understandable enough. Many African leaders are highly articulate, and their views, embodied in frequent speeches and writings by those who control the information media, are-unlike so much other information-easily accessible. The value and significance of these …
Imperial Leadership in Ethiopia
Journal Article IMPERIAL LEADERSHIP IN ETHIOPIA Get access CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 68, Issue 271, April 1969, Pages 110–120, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a095861 Published: 01 April 1969
The Political Economy of African Population Change
The Ethiopian Coup d'Etat of December 1960
By contrast with many other African states, the Ethiopian Government has in recent decades been almost monotonously stable. The Emperor Haile Selassie reigns and rules through a political system which remains in essentials the direct descendant of the imperial Government as it has existed down the centuries.1 In the last quarter-century, only the attempted coup d'état of December 1960 has seriously challenged his régime. The purpose of this artic…
Djibouti and the Horn of Africa
Journal Article Djibouti and the Horn of Africa Get access Djibouti and the Horn of Africa, by Virginia Thompson and Richard Adolff . Oxford UP, 1968. 246pp. 71s. 6d. CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 68, Issue 272, July 1969, Pages 273–274, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a095905 Published: 01 July 1969
Imperial Leadership in Ethiopia
Journal Article IMPERIAL LEADERSHIP IN ETHIOPIA Get access CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 68, Issue 271, April 1969, Pages 110–120, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a095861 Published: 01 April 1969
Northwest Ethiopia: Peoples and Economy
Journal Article Northwest Ethiopia: peoples and economy Get access Northwest Ethiopia: peoples and economy, by Frederick J. Simoons . Wisconsin UP, 1960. 250pp. $5.00. CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 68, Issue 271, April 1969, Pages 166–167, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a095874 Published: 01 April 1969
The Context of African Political Thought
The political ideas put forward by the leaders of the new states provide one of the most popular entrées to African politics, and they have now received a good deal of attention. This is understandable enough. Many African leaders are highly articulate, and their views, embodied in frequent speeches and writings by those who control the information media, are-unlike so much other information-easily accessible. The value and significance of these …
Ethiopia: The Modernization of Autocracy
Politics in Sierra Leone 1947–67
Journal Article Politics in Sierra Leone 1947–67 Get access Politics in Sierra Leone 1947–67, by John R. Cartwright. Toronto UP/London OUP, 1970. 296pp. £7.25. Sierra Leone: experiment in democracy in an African nation, by B. O. Gershon Collier. New York UP/London UP, 1970. 142pp. $8.95. CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Manchester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume…
Centralization and Local Response in Southern Ethiopia
Journal Article CENTRALIZATION AND LOCAL RESPONSE IN SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA Get access CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM Dr Christopher Clapham is the author of Haile Selassie's Government (Longmans, 1969) and of numerous articles on Ethiopian politics. He is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Lancaster. This article was written before the recent overthrow of Haile-Selassie's government. Search for other works by this author on: Ox…
Military Regimes in Africa
Journal Article Military Regimes in Africa Get access Military Regimes in Africa, by W. F. Gutteridge. Methuen, 1975. 195pp. 1 map, bibliography, index. £3.50 (Paperback £1.90). CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Lancaster Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 75, Issue 300, July 1976, Page 391, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a096749 Published: 01 July 197…
Multiethnic Ethiopia
Journal Article MULTIETHNIC ETHIOPIA Get access CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM Christopher Clapham teaches in the Department of Politics at the University of Lancaster Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 75, Issue 298, January 1976, Pages 101–103, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a096679 Published: 01 January 1976
Livres/Books
Politics and Transnational Companies in Liberia
The Love of Liberty …, the role of President William V. S. Tubman in Liberia 1944–1971
Journal Article The Love of Liberty ..., the role of President William V. S. Tubman in Liberia 1944–1971 Get access The Love of Liberty ..., the role of President William V. S. Tubman in Liberia 1944–1971, by Tuan Wreh. Hurst, 1976. xiv+138pp. Illustrations, 2 maps, tables. £5·50. CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Lancaster Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 77, Iss…
The Requirements for Explanation in Comparative Politics: Resources, Rules and Personality
WHAT KINDS OF RATIONALE ARE NECESSARY OR APPROPRIATE FOR explanation in comparative politics? A rationale is essential for explanation, underlying any attempt to construct a theory, since it is the only means by which one can indicate why the event to be explained should follow from the precedent events held to explain it - something which a simple succession of events in itself, no matter how regular, can supply. In this article, I shall outline…
Ethiopia: Revolution, Law and Politics
West German Transnationals in Tropical Africa: The Case of Liberia and the Bong Mining Company
Journal Article West German Transnationals in Tropical Africa: the Case of Liberia and the Bong Mining Company Get access West German Transnationals in Tropical Africa: the Case of Liberia and the Bong Mining Company, by William D. Coale. Ifo-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Munchen, 1978. xv+287 pp. DM 46. CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Lancaster Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Af…
Scarcity, Choice, and Public Policy in Middle Africa
Journal Article Scarcity, Choice, and Public Policy in Middle Africa Get access Scarcity, Choice, and Public Policy in Middle Africa, by Donald Rothchild and Robert L. Curry. University of California Press 1978. viii+357pp. £11·00. CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Lancaster Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 78, Issue 313, October 1979, Pages 562–563, https://doi.o…
The Politics of Elite Culture: Explorations in the dramaturgy of power in a modern African society
Journal Article The Politics of Elite Culture: explorations in the dramaturgy of power in a modern African society Get access The Politics of Elite Culture: explorations in the dramaturgy of power in a modern African society, by Abner Cohen. London, University of California Press, 1981. xxii + 257 pp. No price given. CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Lancaster Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Sc…
Nigeria and the World: Readings in Nigerian Foreign Policy
Journal Article Nigeria and the World: Readings in Nigerian Foreign Policy Get access Nigeria and the World: Readings in Nigerian Foreign Policy, edited by A. B. Akinyemi. Ibadan: O.U.P. Nigeria for Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, 1979. 152pp. £10.50. Survey of Nigerian Affairs 1975, edited by O. Oyediran. Ibadan: O.U.P., for NIIA, 1979. 347pp. £15.00. Nigeria's Leadership Role in Africa, by Joseph Wayas. London: Macmillan, 1979. 132…
The Horn of Africa
Much more than most parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Horn is a region with a historical and cultural identity of its own, created by the interactions – and often the conflicts – between its indigenous peoples, rather than by the imposition of an external colonialism. The forces which so drastically affected Africa during the mid-twentieth century certainly had their impact on the Horn. But this impact was mediated through indigenous social and po…
African Political Facts since 1945
Journal Article African Political Facts since 1945 Get access African Political Facts since 1945, Chris Cook and David Killingray. London, Macmillan, 1983. 263pp. £25·00. CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Lancaster Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 84, Issue 335, April 1985, Pages 296–297, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a097687 Published: 01 April 198…
Nigerian Foreign Policy: Alternative Perceptions and Projections
Ethiopia: Politics, Economics and Society
Journal Article Ethiopia: Politics, Economics and Society Get access Ethiopia: Politics, Economics and Society by Peter Schwab. London, Frances Pinter, 1985. 134pp. £15.00(£5.95 paper). CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Lancaster Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 84, Issue 336, July 1985, Pages 472–473, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a097712 Published…
Ethiopia: An Heretical Revolution
Journal Article Ethiopia: An Heretical Revolution? Get access Ethiopia: An Heretical Revolution? by Rene Lefort. London: Zed Press, 1983. 301 pp. £17.95(£6.95 paper). CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM CHRISTOPHER CLAPHAM University of Lancaster Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 84, Issue 334, January 1985, Pages 142–143, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a097665 Published: 01 January 198…
Comparing African States
Political science (93 works) · Law (62 works) · Politics (55 works) · Sociology (45 works) · Law (38 works) · Economics (36 works) · History (35 works) · African history and culture analysis (34 works) · Political economy (29 works) · African history and culture studies (21 works)