The African state is more essential than ever for the sustainability of the long march towards political, economic, and cultural development. This volume captures the diversity of African states and leadership by examining eight states from northern, western, eastern, and southern Africa. Contributing African scholars transcend current thinking on the nature of the state and its role in transforming the fortunes of the continent. They establish a conceptual framework that allows for a complex but concrete and integrated analysis of the African state. Leader, regime, administration, and commonwealth provide the four key factors for identification of state types in Africa. Different combinations of these factors produce various types of states ranging from Botswana's relatively integral political system to the "cadaverous" Somali state. States examined in this collection include: Botswana Ethiopia Ghana Libya Nigeria South Africa Sudan All of the book's contributors have done substantial scholarly works on their respective countries. Their essays provide practical means of assessing reform programs intended to enhance state effectiveness. This book will be of great value not only to scholars, but also to policy makers and others concerned with the construction of a positive future for the African continent.

Product Description: The multilateral military intervention in Somalia was one of the international community's first major attempts to respond to a dangerous new challenge in the post-cold war era—the problem of state collapse and social disintegration...read more

Product Description: This collection of critical debates - intended for teachers of African studies and others interested in incorporating non-Western perspectives in the undergraduate liberal arts curriculum - reflects the changing educational and sociocultural contexts of the last decade.

Product Description: A multifaceted inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the implosion and consequent breakdown of the state and society in Somalia, this book attempts to make sense out of what Somalis now describe as "burbur", or catastrophe. The book focuses on four questions: What is the morphology of the Somali crisis? How did it occur? What options, if any, exist or can be created to reverse the situation? And what lessons can be learned from the Somali experience? In addressing these questions, the authors dynamically link explorations of a range of issues - economic, environmental, cultural, political and international - to provide new insights regarding the essence and confounding mutations of Somali reality today, as well as the search for solutions...read more

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