African Political Cultures: A Comparative Study in Guinea-Bissau, Libya, South Africa, and Zambia

在非洲，创造性地尝试政治秩序是无处不在的。目前，我们注意到新行为者的崛起，以及解决冲突的新机构和新方式的出现。政治文化是理解和解释这一创造性和适应性过程的关键。它包括政治行动、规范性规则、制度安排、话语、仪式和符号。政治文化是一个动态的现象。权力、合法性和暴力是其核心。该研究项目采用比较、跨学科和以行动者为中心的视角，研究撒哈拉沙漠南部和北部四个不同非洲国家的政治文化：几内亚比绍、南非、赞比亚和利比亚。这两个国家在以下方面存在差异：国家权力、“异类人物”的存在、暴力、魔法、巫术的作用和意义、解决冲突的准则和机构，以及塑造政治文化的领导人和权力集团的类型。运用人类学和社会学的大量定性方法，遵循自下而上的研究设计，本研究特别关注那些处于地方、地区、国家和跨国政治的交汇点、决定政治文化、将人们与政治秩序捆绑在一起的地方和地区领导人和权力集团的政治文化。这项研究旨在更好地了解非洲政治及其非凡的适应性和灵活性，并对一般政治人类学和社会学作出贡献。

Africa is a continent where creative experimenting with political orders is omnipresent. Currently, we observe the rise of new actors and the emergence of new institutions and ways of conflict resolution. Political culture is a key to understand and to explain this process of creativity and adaptation. It includes political actions, normative rules, institutional arrangements, discourses, rituals and symbols. Political culture is a dynamic phenomenon. Power, legitimacy, and violence are at its core. Adopting a comparative, transdisciplinary and actor-centred perspective, the research project studies the political cultures of four different African countries, south as well as north of the Sahara: Guinea-Bissau, South-Africa, Zambia, and Libya. The countries differ along the lines of the power of the state, the presence of 'heterarchical figurations', the role and meaning of violence, magic, witchcraft, codes and institutions of conflict resolution, and the kind of leaders and power groups which shape political cultures. Applying a host of qualitative methods of anthropology and sociology and following a bottom-up research design, the study is particularly interested in the political cultures of those local and regional leaders and power groups who are at the intersection of local, regional, national and transnational politics, determine political culture, and bind people to the political order. The study aims at a better understanding of African politics and of its remarkable adaptability and flexibility and to contribute to general political anthropology and sociology.