PS3272: The International Relations of Sub-Saharan Africa

Sem: AY20/21 Semester 1

Lecturer: Dr Elaine Tan

*note: all classes were conducted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Overview: Having taken Dr Elaine’s module on contemporary African politics in Year 2, I felt that I wanted to expand my knowledge of a region that is oftentimes so neglected in academic literature. Indeed, when you take this module, you realise that traditional IR concepts such as Realism, Constructivism and Liberalism, which often focuses on powerful actors in IR, cannot really be applied to this region.

Instead, in the first few weeks, Dr Elaine will explain how there is a mismatch between these traditional IR theories and on-the-ground realities in sub-Saharan Africa, and introduce new concepts such as extraversion, African agency and neopatrimonialism that will guide your understanding for the rest of this course. This can get a little dry, but the content becomes a lot more interesting when she moves on to case studies of Africa’s relationships with other state and non-state actors, which include former colonial powers, the superpowers, international organizations and even NGOs from about W4 onwards.

Readings are at an average of 50 pages weekly and can be on the heavy side at times, but it is essential that you do them as tutorial discussions are often centralized around the readings. Dr Elaine creates really detailed ‘Student Notes’ for each week’s lecture that gives you a sense of what she is focusing on for that week. It also allows you to pay more attention to what she is actually saying during lectures and fill in small notes when she elaborates on certain things. She is really meticulous in her explanations and if you’re looking for a mod with a little more structure (think: JC-style), this might be something that appeals to you.

Assessment:

Tutorial Participation (20%): Dr Elaine was my tutor. She will give you a chance to clarify stuff from the readings and lecture that you’re unsure about, before moving on to discussion questions that you’ll discuss in your breakout rooms. Given that this was a COVID sem, tutorials were conducted over Zoom and Dr Elaine was nice enough to allow us to type our discussion points onto a Google Doc instead of having to verbally present them. That said, it’s still good to speak up and respond to Dr Elaine’s questions, as it really does make a better learning environment for all.

2 LumiNUS quizzes (5% - 2.5% each): Very short quizzes, each comprising of 5 MCQs that tested our understanding of the concepts and readings. Quiz 1 covered W1-6 while Quiz 2 covered W7-13. This serves as a prelude to our take-home tests (see below). Really low-hanging fruit given that they’re open-book and we got a full 24 hours to do them.

Take-Home Tests 1 (15%) and 2 (20%): Essay-based assignments, where Test 1 covers W1-6 of the course and Test 2 covers W7-13. Dr Elaine gives everyone a standard essay question and we had about 3-5 days to complete them (with citations and references). With a word limit of just 1000 words, +/- 10%, one is forced to be selective about what goes into the essay, since one is still expected to break down the question and yet demonstrate understanding of the content being covered in class. Dr Elaine’s known to be a rather strict marker and this is one of those assessments that you can’t just smoke through and expect yourself to do well.

Term Essay (35%): A 3000-word essay, +/- 10% on any topic covered in this module. We also had to submit a 150-word abstract on a LumiNUS forum about 15 days before the actual essay submission. Dr Elaine will look through all the abstracts and leave comments for each one of us. While the abstract is not graded per se, a failure to submit it will lead to an automatic deduction of 5% from your essay grade. Essay guides and rubrics are provided so that you know whether you’re on the right track. Admittedly, doing this essay was quite painful given the length and amount of independent research I had to conduct on my own, coupled with the fact that I was taking 4 3k mods this sem, but it did give me the confidence to handle such essays for my remaining sems in NUS.