Bringing together scholars from a wide array of disciplines - including anthropology, economics, history, sociology, and political science - this volume addresses the problems of the regime change and state failure in Africa in the context of the global economy, but from a specifically African perspective, arguing that the underdevelopment of the African economy is linked to the underdevelopment of the continents' nation states.

With new case studies examining the post-presidential years of the iconic Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Daniel arap Moi in Kenya, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, Jerry Rawlings in Ghana, Charles Taylor in Liberia, as well as the experiences of Botswana, Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Malawi, and Nigeria, this volume examines the dilemmas which demands for presidential transitions impose upon incumbent rulers and analyzes the evolving relationships between new regimes and their predecessors.

An innovative analysis of political leadership in Africa between 1960 and 2018, drawing on an entirely new dataset.

The study of Africa arouses many passions and prejudices which are the subject of this book. This book seeks to examine the hegemonic role that African studies has played in the invention of Africanism. Politics within Kenya remains entrapped by Western constructions of institutions and the practice of politics. The post-colonial period is linked inextricably to the colonial period. Kenya's political, economic, social and cultural framework has been and continues to be dominated by the colonial legacy. The discussion of Africanism earlier suggests that the decolonisation process did not achieve liberation fully, except in the narrowest of political terms. Rather, the West continued its dominance by more subtle means which has permeated the very imagination of the colonised. It is this continuing colonisation of the imagination which dominates the political scene. The ever increasing hegemonic role of donor agencies and donor countries, under the guise of structural adjustment programmes, ensures that countries such as Kenya become hostage to the latest manifestation of Africanism.

Gerrie Swart, a lecturer in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of South Africa, (UNISA) is the the Guest Editor of this volume. Gerrie, who has been a frequent contributor to the journal in the last year and half, solicited, and ensured a timely delivery of all the articles in the lead theme in this edition. We are deeply grateful to him. In this issue, we focus on the quality of leadership in the continent, looking at the challenges, triumphs and trends. In his paper, Gerrie Swart, argues that any "mention of African leadership today regrettably always tends to conjure up the negative associations with Africa's so-called 'Big Men' and the ravages of dictatorship that has on frequent occasions laid waste to many African states' political and socio-economic stability." He contends that while there are instances to buttress such observations, it is also necessary "to evaluate the important initiatives, trends and responses that have emerged from the African continent to the challenges posed to, and by African leadership." He maintains that Africa's leadership crisis is in a state of flux and is actually moving towards "achieving stable, responsible and accountable leadership that the continent is in dire need of." Henning Melber and Roger Southall discuss continuity and change in Africa's leadership dynamics. In particular they discuss retired African presidents and their potential roles in African politics. Faten Aggad assesses the progress made so far with the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), which was launched in 2003 with the purpose to "foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development and accelerated sub-regional and continental economic integration through sharing of experiences and reinforcement of successful and best practice, including identifying deficiencies and assessing the needs for capacity building." Yolanda K. Spies examines the role of leadership in Africa's quest for the transformation of the Security Council of the United Nations and argues that there has been a manifest failure of leadership in that quest. He blames the African Union for understandably, but idealistically and unsuccessfully trying to foment a Common Position on Security Council reform. His position is that it is "time for a new strategy - not necessarily conceived as an AU project, but certainly as an African one, and leadership is required." Gilbert M. Khadiagala discusses the December 27, 2007 elections in Kenya and argues that the electoral malaise and the violent convulsion that gripped the country stemmed from the failure of Kenya's leaders to structure politics around solid institutions." Besides the articles in the lead theme we also brought together a number of other articles - from an interview with the legendary Professor Ali Mazrui on the occasion of his 75th birthday to an analysis of Olusegun Obasanjo in the popular imagination in Nigeria. African Renaissance becomes 4 years in June African Renaissance, which made its debut as a bi-monthly multidisciplinary journal in June 2004, turns four next years soon. The journal became a quarterly in 2007 and is now generally regarded as one of the most important, multidisciplinary independent journals on African politics and society. To take the journal to the next level, we will be inviting Guest Editors for various editions of the journal. The aim is to bring other intellectual ferments into the journal and ensure that issues and themes covered are not only those that appeal to me as the editor and publisher. Marcel Kitissou will be the Guest Editor for Volume 5 No.2 while Issaka Souare will be the Guest Editor for Volume 5 No 3. Both Kitissou and Souare have been very closely associated with the journal, from the time of its inception in 2004. For details, plse contact: [email protected]

This book examines the impact of post-colonial leadership on political integration in Nigeria, offering an in-depth understanding of the historical and contemporary forces that shape Nigeria's national politics as well as African politics generally. Okafor discusses how Nigeria's pre-colonial and colonial political histories along with contemporary external forces like neo-colonialism, as well as internal social, economic and political structures and developments, have affected emerging post-independence politics in the country. The study climaxes with an Africa-centered theory of political and integrative leadership and then uses it as a prism for analyzing six Nigerian post-independence political leaderships, encompassing Nigeria's First and Second Republics, along with their military interregna. The concluding chapter includes a discussion of the implications of the study for leadership and political integration in Africa in general.