Using extensive research, this book argues that successful African leaders consolidate their rule by developing strategic rural coalitions.

Using a mixed methods approach, this book examines the role played by regional organisations (ROs) following the occurrence of a coup d’état. It analyses which factors influence the strength of reactions demonstrated by ROs and explores which different post-coup solutions ROs pursue.

Furthermore, she argues that this contest has been enacted literally and figuratively on the stage of human bodies as sites of domination and resistance. Examining works by Pia Barros, David Benavente and the Taller de Investigacion Teatral, Ariel Dorfman, Diamela Eltit, and Isabel Allende, Political Bodies engages emergent feminist critiques of authoritarianism in terms of gender and class, history and language.