Between 1990 and 2005, the state of affairs in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, including Liberia, remained fragile due to continuous civil unrest and war. Although peace initiatives were initiated, progress toward peace has remained minimal. Ghana, one of the nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, has continued to demonstrate significant stability and progress in the midst of civil and political conflicts in the sub-region. Currently, little research exists on how Ghanaians managed to remain stable, while countries in the sub-region continued to experience civil unrests and wars. Using Eisenstadt's theory of sociological modernization as the theoretical foundation, the purpose of this holistic case study sought to understand factors that have driven stability in Ghana. Data were collected from multiple sources including 15 research participants of diverse professions and perspectives, numerous pertinent documents, and field notes. All data were inductively coded and then subjected to a thematic analysis procedure. Social change lessons extracted from the study linked to core findings include (a) Ghanaians demonstrate an understanding of the importance of both African and Western cultural experiences and integrating the experiences from both cultural sectors for national harmony, and (b) Ghanaians are pursuing a national development agenda through economic reforms, participatory democracy, and some level of equal distribution of the national wealth. The effectiveness of Ghana's national development agenda is demonstrated by capacity building and the strengthening of social service programs not just in the urban sector, but also in the rural sector of Ghanaian society. These two core social change lessons could remain useful for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This thesis will examine the significance of the defense system that was a result of the Libyan wars against the Romans, Byzantines, and the Vandals. For economic and strategic reasons these nations were involved in long and bitter wars which lasted over six centuries. The policy of the long distance military expeditions, which was the main instrument of the Romans in subduing the natives in the early Empire, had failed to achieve its goals. Thus, the alternative was to erect a network of roads and forts in strategic spots such as water points, commanding hills, along the caravan routes and on the edges of fertile wadis. In fact, neither the roads, which were very well fortified, nor the massive front forts had solved the frontier problems, thus the Romans had no choice other than to leave the frontiers to be guarded by the natives themselves. To this end several civilian settlements (fortified farms) were established on the fertile wadis. "While a mixture of people coexisted in these fortified farms, the archaeological remains show that the prevailing culture belonged to the Libyan natives.

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Recent scholarship on the renewed Sonderweg theory does not approach the debate with a comparative analysis. This thesis therefore presents a new argument looking at the influence of British and Afrikaner tensions in South Africa, culminating in the South African War of 1899-1902, and how their treatment of the various African peoples in their own colony influenced German South-West African colonial native policy and the larger social hierarchy within the settler colony. In analyzing the language of scholarly journals, magazine articles, and other publications of the period, one can see the direct influence of the Afrikaners, including South African Boers, on German South-West African settlers, and their eugenically infused discussion of Herero, Nama, and Bastards, within their new home. Furthermore, the relations between the German settlers and the British settlers and colonial officials in the neighboring colony serve as a case-study of the larger rivalry between Berlin and London that would later culminate in World War I. In looking at how this British colony influenced German South-West Africa in socially, politically, economically, and scientifically, one can place this new research within the context of the renewed Sonderweg debated amongst scholars like Isabel Hull and George Steinmetz, extending the critique that Steinmetz argued in The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German State in Qingdao, Samoa, and South-West Africa

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