The Sokoto caliphate in nineteenth-century northern Nigeria was an astonishing episode in the history of Africa: a huge, prosperous polity that created unity where none had existed before. Yet today its history is underexplored, sometimes ignored or even disparaged, both within Nigeria and in Europe and the U.S. Yet that history is extraordinary. Sokoto town was, and still is, an anomaly within Hausaland; built speedily on a “green-field” site as both a trading and a political center for the caliphate, it is a site of pilgrimage that to this day remains a rural town with no monumental buildings or fine edifices. As a by-product of a religious movement (jihad), Sokoto thus represents many of the dilemmas that faced and still face radically reforming Islamic groups if they expand rapidly and go to war. Thus Sokoto history remains deeply significant for modern Nigeria.

The connections between democracy and sexuality—that is, between civil liberties and the protection of nonconforming sexualities—are rarely discussed in Africa. On the contrary, nonconforming sexualities have been instrumentalized to entrench dictatorships and to weaken democracy. As was the case in early twentieth-century Europe and North America, homophobia has become a political tool used by conservative politicians to promote self-serving agendas. Heterosexuality is also idealized by an acute ahistoricization of African politics by the Western media and civil society. The problem is also compounded by the distortion of African history promulgated by the dictatorial leadership on the continent.

Although Africa has gained a reputation as one of the world’s most homophobic areas, there are cross-national differences in the extent and intensity of antigay laws. This article assesses the factors that have been advanced in the literature —albeit unsystematically and often mostly implicitly—to explain the observed patterns of homophobia: conservative religious beliefs, delayed political and economic development and resistance to globalization, political leadership strategies, and the legacy of colonialism. It argues that a more robust analysis suggests that a British colonial past, a large Muslim population, and the absence of economic freedom and openness explain at least one-third of the variance in sodomy laws. This finding has implications for efforts to fight African homophobia.

In the last two decades we have witnessed an increase in online petitions and campaigns emerging from Europe and North America against homophobia in various African countries, creating a particular form of visibility with some remarkable global success. Based on these online petitions and postings as well as the responses of African activists, this article reflects on the politics of this global queer solidarity. By suggesting a restrategizing of antihomophobia politics, it contributes to the ongoing debate about LGBTI politics in a transnational and global framework, pointing to the challenges but also the possibilities for the future.

The assertion “homosexuality is un-African” is widely viewed as an expression of homophobia. However, without knowledge of what homosexuality and “Africanness” mean in a given context, any understanding of how to shift the prejudices associated with this assertion remains limited. Research conducted in 2010 with police, high school learners (students), and a sample of more than one thousand residents from two urban townships in South Africa contributes to this understanding. This article draws on data from the research to explore the significance of cultural translation when considering what constitutes same-sex prejudice and how it may relate to notions of authenticity or “real Africanness.” While the research provides evidence of same-sex prejudice, there is also evidence of qualified acceptance of same-sex sexuality and of efforts to combat prejudice. Opportunities for change are discussed with reference to the data.

This article traces the history of homosexual and transgender behavior in Senegal from colonial times to the contemporary period in order to demonstrate the flimsiness of the claims, made by many political and religious leaders and scholars, that homosexuality is “un-African.” Such claims, which appear as reactions to neocolonialism and Western intervention in African affairs, usually are homophobic discourses that invoke patriotism, cultural difference, and morality in order to justify the subjugation of homosexual and gender nonconforming individuals (goor-jiggens) living in Senegal. In an attempt to understand the roots of Senegalese homophobia, the article analyzes several depictions of homosexuals and transgender people in contemporary Senegal and traces them to similar representations in European writings of the colonial period. As this approach reveals, homosexuals and transgender people in Senegal, from colonial times to the present, have been constructed as scapegoats, first of the French mission civilisatrice (civilizing mission) and then of Senegalese political and Islamic backlashes. Although they have always cohabited with the rest of the society, homosexuals and transgender people in Senegal have been treated largely as strangers in their own land. By analyzing the discourses of both French colonials and Senegalese, one finds a persistent binary opposing the West and Africa and denigrating sexual and gender variances and subcultures in Senegal as pathological European imports.

This article explores the prevalence of high-level political and bureaucratic corruption in postindependence Uganda, with particular focus on the narrow interests it serves and its impact on development and service delivery. It argues that high-level political corruption endures largely because it is situated within the framework of “neo”-patron-clientelism and skewed power relations. The article shows how institutions have not been able to effectively engage the inner-circle ruling elite due to a skewed power structure that serves narrow political interests. Grand bureaucratic and petty forms of corruption are equally extensive and challenging, though only the former have been affected by “zero tolerance” policies. The article concludes, however, that through its interplay of inclusion and exclusion, political corruption has generated contestations which undermine it and challenge the National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime.

This article seeks to examine the sanctions imposed on Eritrea by the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) based on Eritrea’s alleged involvement in Somalia and its border dispute with Djibouti. It argues that the UNSC’s failure to sanction the parties for reneging on their commitment to implement the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s verdict on the border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia casts doubt on the morality of the sanctions. It also argues that the decision may have been driven by political motives. These sanctions will hurt the people of Eritrea and the Eritrean nation, and indeed, there is a real risk that the outcome of the sanctions could be the collapse of the Eritrean state.

The election of Barack Obama as the first African-descended president of the United States in 2008 was greeted with euphoria in the U.S. and around the world, including Africa. Little, however, changed in the substance of U.S.–Africa relations. This underscores the limits of the symbolic politics of race and presidential personalities in the face of the structural imperatives of U.S. power and foreign policy in which African interests remain marginal and subordinate to U.S. interests. The article explores the structural contexts of foreign policy-making in the United States and what might be expected from the second Obama administration.

Obama’s rise to the U.S. presidency in 2008 gave many supporters of Africa the false hope that U.S. policy toward Africa would become more progressive. When such a shift failed to transpire, advocates argued that the major economic crisis in the U.S. monopolized the president’s attention and that his second term would create new opportunities for the continent. These claims failed to take into account the deep-rooted U.S. interests that dominate Africa policy with or without Obama. In addition, most of the Africa advocates have ignored the influence of the new breed of African Americans who staff key positions in the Department of State and whose priority is their own careers rather than a just policy toward the continent. Finally, most African leaders have not advocated for African interests and instead have pursued their particularistic agendas, leaving Africa vulnerable. Given this context, it is unlikely that Obama’s second term will introduce an Africa-friendly policy.

While Africans are generally satisfied that a person of African descent was reelected to the White House following a campaign in which vicious and racist attacks were made against him, the U.S. Africa policy under President Barack Obama will continue to be guided by the strategic interests of the United States, which are not necessarily compatible with the popular aspirations for democracy, peace, and prosperity in Africa. Obama’s policy in the Great Lakes region provides an excellent illustration of this point. Since Rwanda and Uganda are Washington’s allies in the “war against terror” in Darfur and Somalia, respectively, the Obama administration has done little to stop Kigali and Kampala from destabilizing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and looting its natural resources, either directly or through proxies. Rwanda and Uganda have even been included in an international oversight mechanism that is supposed to guide governance and security sector reforms in the DRC, but whose real objective is to facilitate Western access to the enormous natural wealth of the Congo and the Great Lakes region.