b”CLASSIFY, EXCLUDE, POLICE‘Laurent Fourchard’s deep, first-hand knowledge of the history and contemporary politics of Nigeria and South Africa forms the basis of an insightful and compelling analysis of how states produce invidious distinctions among their people and at the same time how political linkages are forged between state and society, elites and subalterns, bureaucratic structures and personal relations.’ Frederick Cooper, Professor of History, New York University, USA ‘Violence, control, police and political order are essential dimensions of metropolis. In this exceptional book, Laurent Fourchard compares decentralised exercises of authority in providing vivid analysis of exclusion of youth and migrants, policing and riots, politics of “Big men” and fine-grained blurring between bureaucracy and society. A masterpiece of urban politics.’ Patrick Le Galès, Dean of Urban School, Sciences Po Paris, France ‘This book is a major contribution to rethinking urban politics from the experiences of African cities. Based on detailed historical analysis of South Africa and Nigeria, Fourchard recalibrates the actors, stakes and terms of urban politics around African-centred concerns.’ Jennifer Robinson, Professor of Geography, University College London, UK The cities of South Africa and Nigeria are reputed to be dangerous, teeming with slums, and dominated by the informal economy but we know little about how people are divided up, categorised and policed. Colonial governments assigned rights and punishments, banned categories considered problematic (delinquents, migrants, single women, street vendors) and give non-state organisations the power to police low-income neighbourhoods. Within this enduring legacy, a tangle of petty arrangements has developed to circumvent exclusion to public places and government offices. In this unpredictable urban reality ??? which has eluded all planning ??? individuals and social groups have changed areas of public action through exclusion, violence and negotiation. In combining historical and ethnographic methods, Classify, Exclude, Police explores the effects and limits of public action, and questions the possibility of comparison between cities often perceived as incommensurable. Focusing on state formation, urbanization, and daily lives, Laurent Fourchard addresses debates and controversies in comparative urban studies, history, political science, and urban anthropology. The book provides a systematic, comparative approach to the practices, processes, arrangements used to create boundaries, direct violence, and produce social, racial, gender, and`generational differences.

A striking new interpretation of colonial policing and political violence in three empires between the two world wars.

Over recent decades, the responsibility for the past actions of the European colonial powers in relation to their former colonies has been subject to a lively debate. In this book, the question of the responsibility under international law of former colonial States is addressed. Such a legal responsibility would presuppose the violation of the international law that was applicable at the time of colonization. In the ‘Scramble for Africa’ during the Age of New Imperialism (1870-1914), European States and non-State actors mainly used cession and protectorate treaties to acquire territorial sovereignty (imperium) and property rights over land (dominium). The question is raised whether Europeans did or did not on a systematic scale breach these treaties in the context of the acquisition of territory and the expansion of empire, mainly through extending sovereignty rights and, subsequently, intervening in the internal affairs of African political entities.