Go Africa…
Go Germany 2008
Call for Papers
The Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung/bpb) is granting
fellowships to students and young graduates enabling them to take part in a four-week seminar
to be held in September 2008 and in February 2009, with one two-week seminar being held in
Germany/Belgium and the other two-week seminar being held in Tanzania/Uganda.
By organising a four-week exchange programme which the Federal Agency for Civic Education is
implementing for the second time at the initiative of the Federal President, the Federal Agency for
Civic Education is aiming to help to overcome the lack of knowledge that exists between African reality
and German perception and vice versa between German reality and African perception.The personal,
intercultural encounter between young and upcoming academics and the interdisciplinary exchange
are aimed at promoting advanced professional training and at acquiring multipliers for a GermanAfrican future that is based on the spirit of partnership.
The event is directed at students and young graduates between the age of 21 and 27 who have a
degree in political science, modern history, international relations, economics, communications and
law. They are invited to take part in an education programme that will be launched in Germany and
Belgium (Brussels-EU) in September 2008 and will continue in Tanzania and Uganda in February
2009. The programme will encompass both talks with political decision-makers, personalities from civil
society and industry, academics and journalists from both countries and will give participants the opportunity to take part in political and cultural events and excursions in Germany, Tanzania and
Uganda. The participants are to contribute towards implementing the programme by delivering their
own presentations (and by organising lectures). They will also draw up an interdisciplinary strategy
paper on an academic subject that will be prepared in Germany and will be developed from October
2008 to April 2009.
The seminar will be delivered in English; the number of participants is limited to 24, twelve from East
African countries and twelve from Germany. The Federal Agency for Civic Education will cover the
costs. For more detailed information about the Federal Agency for Civic Education, please visit the
website: www.bpb.de.
Students and graduates who are interested can apply to the Federal Agency for Civic Education by
submitting an essay comprising a maximum of three A4 pages (approx. 6,000 characters) written in
English. The essay must be accompanied by a curriculum vitae in tabular form, a letter of motivation
comprising no more than one A4 page and a photograph (the following information must be provided:
surname, first name, gender, date of birth, profession, job/field of study, place of study, place of work
and place of residence). Applicants must also issue a declaration stating that they wrote the essay
themselves without any help from third parties.
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Applicants can upload their applications via the web form at www.bpb.de/goafrica (from January 2008 online) with the above-mentioned documents (essay, CV, letter of motivation). The
deadline for African applicants is 15 March 2008
If you have any queries, please contact: goafrica@bpb.de
The theme of the essay can be selected from any of the following proposals:
1.
Party pluralism as the cornerstone of functioning parliamentary democracies
One prerequisite for the functioning of parliamentary democracies and democratic legitimation is party
pluralism.
Due to the negative experience gained during the Weimar Republic, Article 21 of the Basic Law of the
Federal Republic of Germany stipulates that “political parties shall participate in the formation of the
political will of the people”. The Law on Political Parties (Parteiengesetz) is more specific about this
party mandate. It states that government and opposition parties legitimately voted in at elections endeavour to create and evolve general social, economic and social conditions, competing with each
other to offer political alternatives. Notwithstanding this, the mainstream parties have lost between 25
percent of their members (CDU vis-à-vis 1990) and 50 percent (SPD vis-à-vis 1976) over the past few
years and are also complaining that the average age of their members is too high. Since the 1990s,
the phenomenon of “frustration with politics and politicians” has been widely discussed in Germany,
symptomised by a loss of confidence in parties and their representatives as well as a growing alienation of young people from all types of party politics. Academics think this is caused above all by a
change in values and a change in lifestyles which go hand in hand with the increased demands for
permanent readiness to change, higher mobility and flexibility of young people in particular in modern
dynamic societies. This results in a greater tendency towards individualisation and a much lower willingness of people to make a long-term commitments which affects all major social organisations and
is ultimately at the expense of lifelong party membership and longstanding party commitments.
In Kenya, the Multi-Party Act was reintroduced in 1999. A Party Act is currently in the pipeline. The
country has had a multi-party landscape since 1991, although the ruling political party National Alliance of Rainbow Coalition Kenya (NARC-K; the official designation does not include the addendum
Kenya) - an amalgamation of 15 former opposition parties - is meanwhile divided. Party membership
and voting patterns in Kenya are determined to a large extent by which ethnic groups people belong
to, as they want their interests to be represented in a party of their own. There is less of a tendency to
identify parties via alternative political concepts. This means the party concept in Kenya differs from
the requirements political parties have to meet under the Political Parties Act in Germany. 100 parties
have registered for the elections scheduled for late December 2007.
a) Why do functioning democracies need party pluralism? Should it be regarded as a mandatory
requirement of party pluralism that parties differ in their ideological, political, economic and
social programmes or can it have ethnic motives?
b) Describe the advantages and disadvantages of political coalitions in Germany and Kenya.
c) What types of political participation might be suitable for counteracting the decrease in political
participation in Germany and for avoiding ethnically polarising developments in Kenya?
2.
Migration in Africa, in Germany and to Europe
There are multifaceted reasons for migration and migration movements of people – they may be promoted by the state, arise from personal motives or from emergencies or critical situations. In Germany, migration has been a key interior policy issue for many years. In 2005, 15.3 million people were
registered as being resident in Germany (19 % of the population as a whole), most of whom had a
European migration background. According to Amnesty International, approx. 1.7 million displaced
persons were living in Northern Uganda in 2006 alone – most of them were refugees who had fled the
crisis in Sudan, others were refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kenya had around
240,000 refugees and asylum seekers in 2006, the majority of whom were from Sudan, but also
Ethiopia, Eritrea and the neighbouring countries from the region of the Great Lakes. According to estimates, another 15,000 to 60,000 refugees who do not hold the necessary documents are thought to
be residing in Nairobi and other cities. A relatively small number of African refugees (though this is a
particular focus of the media) attempts to immigrate to Europe.
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The President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Horst Köhler, hosted the third Africa Conference
that was held in November 2007 at the Kloster Eberbach Conference Centre. The title of the Conference was “Challenges presented by change – how Africa and Germany are responding”. One focus of
the Conference was implicit in the title “Mobility and flexibility: Burden or Opportunity? Migration and
its consequences for the societies of origin and for the countries of destination”. At the end of the
Conference, the Federal President emphasised in particular that the “double standard of the North,
inter alia, in relation to migration-related issues” was one of the main obstacles hampering the establishment of a good partnership. At the same time, he called for the North to rethink, saying it is an indispensable prerequisite for “fairness and equality in reciprocal dealings”.
a) Name the structure and causes of migration movements to Germany, Kenya and Uganda.
Please consider and assess how these countries are dealing with their immigrants.
b) Please identify the opportunities and risks of migration for society.
c) What do the double standards which the Federal President referred to actually involve and
what steps should be taken in order to achieve the required fairness and equality?
3.
The fight against corruption
Corruption is a global phenomenon. In the Global Corruption Barometer of Transparency International
(TI) 2007, Germany ranked 16th among 179 countries under review. Somalia came in last, Kenya
ranked 150th, Uganda ranked 111th; Chad and Sudan ranked 172nd. Transparency International thus
established: “it remains obvious that there is still a strong correlation between poverty and corruption”.
However, TI ascertained at the same time that corruption in Namibia, on the Seychelles, in South Africa and in Swaziland has dropped significantly.
On 31 October 2003, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the UN Convention against
Corruption that entered into force on 14 December 2005. It hence managed to agree on a comprehensive corpus of legislation against corruption which now needs to become political reality. As such,
the ratification and implementation of the Convention by the States Party to the Convention are the
next most important steps. The key challenges for many years to come will, however, certainly be the
eroded sense of responsibility among the perpetrators and victims of bribery as well as the major
problems involved in uncovering and proving corruption at all levels. Nonetheless, there are a few
encouraging examples: an Internet platform (BKMS), that was programmed by Business Keeper AG in
Potsdam (Germany) enables, for instance, anonymous information to be provided about corruption in
the public service and the private sector (a so-called whisteblowing system). It also enables whistleblowers to contact investigating authorities anonymously. The Kenyan anti-corruption authorities have
been testing this system since 2006 in cooperation with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische
Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) (German Agency for Technical Cooperation) and have adopted the system.
a) What does corruption mean and what types of corruption can be systematically distinguished?
Please provide examples of corruption in Germany and in an East African country. Please
discuss accountability and how corruption that has been exposed is dealt with.
b) Please pinpoint three causes of corruption in Germany and East Africa. Do they represent
national phenomena or are there any international points of reference
c) What means are available for successfully combating corruption? Could a BKMS (Business
Keeper Monitoring System) system be a model for all countries? Please explain the reasons
informing your decision.
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