Projekt

This project critically examines the role of civil society in social and political change in Sudan. The empirical case study of Sudanese 'civil society' will be analyzed within a wider framework of political economy and State-society relations. This project aims to ascertain if the experience of civil society organizations, particularly the pro-government ones, validates or disproves the contention prevalent in academic and policy circles that civil society is the main source of social and political transformation. This project interrogates how civil society is changing and changed by the post-1989 Islamists regime state-society relations in Sudan. Specifically, the project poses the following research questions: 1) What are different forms of Islamic civil society organizations that are enhanced by the Sudanese state? 2) Whose interests do these party-affiliated civil society organizations serve and represent? 3) What forms of practices and discourses are being appropriated by these organizations in order to attain their objectives of social change among their targeted groups? In order to answer these questions, the project will focus on party-affiliated civil society organizations, a segment of civil society that works towards shouldering not only responsibilities of grassroots development but in fields such as mobilizing political support for the ruling party and Islamist ideology.

• Prof. Dr. Mamadou Diawara

  Universität Frankfurt am Main
  Zentrum für interdisziplinäre
  Afrikaforschung (ZIAF)
  Campus Westend
  Frankfurt am Main
  

• Dr. Salma Abdalla

  University of Khartoum
  Khartoum
  Sudan