Africa is a continent of 54 countries and over a billion people. However, despite the rich diversity of the African experience, it is striking that continuations and themes seem to be reflected across the continent, particularly south of the Sahara. Questions of underdevelopment, outside exploitation, and misrule are characteristic of many - if not most-states in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this Very Short Introduction Ian Taylor explores how politics is practiced on the African continent, considering the nature of the state in Sub-Saharan Africa and why its state structures are generally weaker than elsewhere in the world. Exploring the historical and contemporary factors which account for Africa's underdevelopment, he also analyses why some African countries suffer from high levels of political violence while others are spared. Unveilling the ways in which African state and society actually function beyond the formal institutional façade, Taylor discusses how external factors - both inherited and contemporary - act upon the continent. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

In the twenty-first century, Africa has become an important source of US energy imports and the world's natural resources. It has also become the epicentre of the world's deadly health epidemic, HIV/AIDS, and one of the battlegrounds in the fight against terrorism. Africa is now a major player in global affairs.

Examines the variety of mostly unorganized and informal ways in which Africans exercise agency and resist state power in the 21st century, through citizen action and popular culture, and how the relationship between ruler and ruled is being reframed.

This book examines key emergent trends related to aspects of power, sovereignty, conflict, peace, development, and changing social dynamics in the African context. It challenges conventional IR precepts of authority, politics and society, which have proven to be so inadequate in explaining African processes. Rather, this edited collection analyses the significance of many of the uncharted dimensions of Africa's international relations, such as the respatialisation of African societies through migration, and the impacts this process has had on state power; the various ways in which both formal and informal authority and economies are practised; and the dynamics and impacts of new transnational social movements on African politics. Finally, attention is paid to Africa's place in a shifting global order, and the implications for African international relations of the emergence of new world powers and/or alliances. This edition includes a new preface by the editors, which brings the findings of the book up-to-date, and analyses the changes that are likely to impact upon global governance and human development in policy and practice in Africa and the wider world post-2015.

Africa has undergone significant political, economic, and social change since the first edition of this book was published in early 1988. Now revised and updated throughout, this new edition includes current economic, social, and political data, as well as entirely new sections on the dismantling of apartheid, civil society, democratization and multiparty politics, economic reform and structural adjustment, and the prospects for African development in the twenty-first century. Review comments on the first edition: 'Required reading for any course on politics and society of the African continent' West Africa. 'The best available textbook on the subject ... this volume stands unchallenged in its comprehensiveness and sophistication.' - Choice

After more than one hundred years of statehood, most African countries are still facing serious challenges of political instability, low growth, underdevelopment and stagnation. These challenges have created a dysfunctional African society and destroyed the heroic and proud myth of resilience and hard work associated with a typical African. The book has analyzed the trends, and dynamics of the breakdown of family and institutional values, which have necessitated the classification of most African states as failed. While the book is of the opinion that in as much as the relationship between Africa and the West has contributed to the continent's current predicaments, Africa's problems are predominantly, self induced and are traced from the stereotypical culture of lack of idealism. The book has empirically, demonstrated that this culture has hindered initiative and promoted mediocrity, deceit and tyranny on the part of African leadership while the politics of exclusion has promoted the culture of self resignation and fratricidal conflicts on the continent. The book has also proved that the current 'wave' of democratization in Africa particularly, the electoral process as dramatized rituals that seek to legitimate the authority of the ruling class.

Africa in the 21st Century: Toward a New Future brings together some of the finest Pan African and Afrocentric intellectuals to discuss the possibilities of a new future where the continent claims its own agency in response to the economic, social, political, and cultural problems which are found in every nation. The volume is structured around four sections: I. African Unity and Consciousness: Assets and Challenges; II. Language, Information, and Education; III. African Women, Children and Families; and IV. Political and Economic Future of the African World. In original essays, the authors raise the level of discourse around the questions of integration, pluralism, families, a federative state, and good governance. Each writer sees in the continent the potential for greatness and therefore articulates a theoretical and philosophical approach to Africa that constructs a victorious consciousness from hard concrete facts. This book will interest students and scholars of the history and politics of Africa as well as professional Africanists, Africologists, and international studies scholars who are inclined toward Africa.