While current levels of economic inequality in Africa receive ample attention from academics and policymakers, we know little about the long-run evolution of inequality in the region. Even the new and influential ‘global inequality literature’ that is associated with scholars like Thomas Piketty, Branko Milanovic, and Walter Scheidel has had little to say about Africa so far. This paper is a first

This research explores a classic predicament of authoritarian leaders—the need for a strong security force to deter opposition alongside a fear of the threats that a strong force could pose. By providing a unique view into the security services in The Gambia under President Jammeh (1994–2017), it argues that fostering uncertainty was the key tool in maintaining control of the armed forces. It situates

One effect of Zimbabwe’s 2017 coup was to unleash a new wave of public engagement with the unresolved state repression of the 1980s, known as Gukurahundi. This wave was led by the ‘post-Gukurahundi generation’ and particularly by activists whose narratives of Gukurahundi were entwined with calls for a separate ‘Mthwakazi nation’. This article explores these activists’ stories of Gukurahundi and asks

Since the 1980s, analyses of African political identities have emphasized identity manipulation as a governance tool. In the Somali Horn of Africa, however, politicians’ efforts to reinvent identities confront rigid understandings of genealogical clanship as a key component of identity and political mobilization. This article explores how government efforts to construct a new ‘Ethiopian–Somali’ identity

In January 2004, residents of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, were treated to a disturbing sight. Over 200 members of the governing Movement for Multiparty Democracy party marched through the streets of the capital carrying a mock coffin bearing the name of Roy Clarke, a prominent newspaper satirist and white British national who had been a permanent resident in the country since the early 1960s. The protesters

Individuals in low-income countries often contribute significantly to financing local public goods through informal taxation. However, there is limited understanding of how informal revenue generation relates to formal tax and governing institutions. We explore the relationship between informal revenue generation, public finance, and the state in the Gedo region in south-central Somalia, relying on

This paper examines the sources of bureaucratic fragmentation and coherence in the Democratic Republic of Congo by exploring the connections and tensions between interface bureaucracies and the back-office administration tasked with managing the public payroll system. Building on the ‘real governance’ literature and the notion of ‘infrastructural power’, we analyse the recent history of payroll management

This article focuses on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Kenya’s leather sector. It explores how public governance impacts SMEs’ technological capabilities and access to global value chains (GVCs). By public governance, we mean all government regulations and interventions set in place to shape the organization of value chains. Drawing on interview data, the article compares Kenya’s leather

Scholars have long sought to understand how economic rents may inhibit the formation of effective and accountable government. Prevailing interpretations of empirical state failure do not adequately account for economic connections and rents. Based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork and original source material from the Somalia context, this study shows how the dominance of the logistics economy, as

This virtual issue brings together articles posing important questions about the dynamics of elections in Africa to highlight a number of topics, including candidate selection, diaspora voting, democratic backsliding, and election violence.

This study contributes to debates on varieties of clientelism through an analysis of brokerage and ruling party patronage at urban markets in Harare, Zimbabwe. Urban markets are sites of contestation between the opposition-dominated city council and actors aligned with the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union—Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). Based on qualitative case study research at two designated

Candidate selection procedures play a crucial role in shaping parliaments and influencing the quality of democracy. Yet, our understanding of what motivates parties to reform candidate selection mechanisms at specific points in time is limited. To address this gap, we examine the experience of Ghana’s National Democratic Congress (NDC), which reformed its selection procedures in 2015 allowing all party

The 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia is perhaps one of the most internationally recognized instances of acute human suffering. Although the international community’s response to the crisis and the ways in which the famine reshaped the nature of humanitarian aid have been probed, less often discussed is that one of the most effective relief organizations delivering assistance—the Relief Society of Tigray

Abstract There is an academic consensus that addressing the local cleavages that drive armed conflict through local peacemaking is crucial to building peace. However, several studies also suggest that local peacemaking is often unsustainable without the conclusion of a national-level elite pact. This article moves this debate forward by arguing that even if an elite-level pact is in place, a lack of

Abstract A growing debate concerns the developmental implications of booming relations between ‘Southern’ powers and countries across Africa. Whilst mainstream commentary worries about nefarious influences, others explore supposedly increasing ‘African agency’, a term capturing the ability of African states to define their international relations. South-South Cooperation, given its supposed principles

Abstract Social media misinformation is widely recognized as a significant and growing global problem. Yet, little is known about how misinformation spreads across broader media ecosystems, particularly in areas with varying internet access and connectivity. Drawing on research in northern Ghana, we seek to address this gap. We argue that ‘pavement media’—the everyday communication of current affairs

British media and the Rwandan genocide, by ClarkeJohn Nathaniel. London and New York: Routledge, 2018. 267 pages, 7 figures, 12 photos, 61 tables, 286 pages, (Paperback). ISBN 9780367735746, GBP 36.99, Hardback ISBN 9781138937321 GBP 120.

Arbitrary States. Social control and modern authoritarianism in Museveni’s Uganda, by TapscottRebecca. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. 256 pp. £75.00 (hardback). ISBN 9780198856474.

Matched sampling methodology (MSM) has been used in remittance studies to understand remittance transfers. However, a detailed examination of the role of trust as a central element in producing reliable and valid research conclusions when a matched sample methodology is used has been missing in the literature. This paper fills this lacuna by arguing that cultivating trust in matched sampling research

An economic history of development in sub-Saharan Africa: Economic transformations and political changes, by HillbomEllen and GreenErik. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, Springer Nature, 2019. XVII + 286 pp. £49.99 (paperback). ISBN 978-3-030-14007-6. £39.99 (eBook). ISBN 978-3-030-14008-3.

This paper examines how communities at the urban margins, who are under-protected by the state police, understand police reforms through an examination of the unusual case of street protests in support of a police officer who had killed two young men in Githurai in Nairobi. I explore how the under-protection of communities at the urban margins by the police leads to a reliance on various forms of vigilantism

Tanzania’s legislature, or Bunge, has undergone considerable change in recent decades, gradually strengthening to attain unprecedented influence during Jakaya Kikwete’s presidency (2005–2015) only to decline again under President John Magufuli (2015–2021). This article investigates Bunge’s institutional evolution, asking what explains institutional change within an authoritarian legislature, dominated

This article explores the expansion of informal property rights documents through the case of chiefs’ titles in Zambia. Entrepreneurial chiefs have created written land rights for citizens on customary land in the form of letters, signed maps, and certificates. These documents are an alternative to state land titling that allows chiefs to maintain their control over land. However, chiefs’ titles are

This article examines the rise of the koglweogo self-defence groups in Burkina Faso, developing an empirical analysis of their practices and a conceptual approach to their ambiguous status. The article describes the ‘koglweogos’’ rise since 2014, their growth across urban and rural areas in Burkina Faso, and their involvement in tasks from crime-fighting to counterterrorism. The article builds on the

A year out from the 2021 ugandan election, opposition supporters had a lot to worry about. After four straight presidential elections in which the non-incumbent vote was remarkably concentrated in the candidacy of Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), political developments were suggesting that this coalescence would not survive into the upcoming campaign season. At the centre of

Shaping the African savannah: from capitalist frontier to Arid Eden in Namibia, by BolligMichael. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. xiii + 405 pp. (hardback). ISBN 978-1-1-108-48848-8. eBook: ISBN 978-1-108-80990-0.

Crossing religious boundaries: Islam, Christian, and ‘Yoruba religion’ in Lagos, Nigeria, by JansonMarloes. Cambridge, New York, et al.: Cambridge University Press, 2021.

The History of the USA in Eritrea: From Franklin D. Roosevelt To Barack Obama and How Donald Trump Changed The Course Of History, by BiedemariamAmanuel. Morrisville, NC: Lulu Press, Inc, 2020. 199 pp. (Paperback). ISBN-13: 979-1716631206.

Existing electoral violence prevention programming does not sufficiently account for the incentives that compel political actors to use violence. When Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo defeated Ghana’s incumbent President, John Dramani Mahama, in December 2016, the transition was lauded for its orderliness and credited with furthering Ghana’s democratization. Many attributed the peaceful transfer of power

This article discusses the purposes and drivers of handouts in party primaries in Malawi. We argue that existing explanations of handouts are incomplete because they are developed to identify dynamics in presidential or legislative elections. Rules of national elections are constitutionally protected, and their fairness is monitored by both local and international observers. In contrast, rules guiding

The continuous publication over 120 years of African Affairs, originally the Journal of the African Society, provides an invaluable source for charting Britain’s shifting perceptions of and interaction with Africa. Though limited, its readership included many of those most closely involved in Britain with studying and engaging with Africa during the 20th century. The journal charts a significant change:

Recent debates in post-genocide and post-war Rwanda have explored how official commemorations of the Genocide Against the Tutsi in many ways borrow and ‘mimic’ the Holocaust memory ‘paradigm’. The academic canon on post-1994 Rwanda focuses the mostly on politics around this official memory that has evolved into hegemonic memory and on how it has been mobilized to promote a selective memory of the past

For 40 years, Nigeria has separated its citizens into two categories, ‘indigenes’ and ‘non-indigenes’. Indigene citizens can trace their genealogical roots back to a community in a locality. All local governments (LGs) in Nigeria issue certificates of indigene, which give access to the job market and university. This issuance of certificate of indigene has received scant academic attention despite

Despite growing interest in party politics in Africa, the activities and roles of African opposition parties are still underexplored, especially in the context of one-party-dominant ‘hybrid’ regimes where they are allowed to operate but face a myriad of constraints. In these settings, opposition parties face a common dilemma: having to participate in the regime’s institutions and protest against them

African Affairs, doi:10.1093/afraf/adaa015.

The path to genocide in Rwanda: Security, opportunity, and authority in an ethnocratic state, by McDoomOmar Shahabudin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. xviii + 412 pp. £75.00 (hardback). ISBN 9781108491464

African economic development: Evidence, theory, policy, by CramerChristopher, SenderJohn, and OqubayArkebe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. xiv + 319 pp. £35.00 (hardback). ISBN 978 0 19 883233 1. £24.79 (e-book). ISBN 978 0 256838 0.

Urban renewal is central to ‘world-class’ city aspirations on the African continent: demolitions and evictions exemplify the power of the state to restructure urban space, prioritizing elite forms of accumulation and enforcing aesthetic norms of cleanliness, order and modernity. The ubiquity of world-class city-making has been taken by urban studies scholars as evidence of African leaders’ converging

This research note explores the ethical and methodological implications of using drones for ethnographic research at events that involve simultaneous activities and/or large crowds and large spaces. Based on the methodological challenges of collecting visual data using cameras in the case of royal funerals in Ghana, this note argues that the aerial viewpoint provided by drones could transform visual

Women’s rights are being enshrined in African constitutions today to an unprecedented extent. African countries have on average more constitutional provisions addressing women’s rights than any other region of the world. This longitudinal cross-national study shows that constitutional reforms in African contexts are increasingly evident in the areas of gender equality, customary law, discrimination

There are striking differences between state buildings in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire and in how citizens living in each country’s capital city think and talk about them. In this article, we explore the degree to which these buildings illustrate very different ideas of statehood in West Africa. We draw on art theories from West Africa to argue that architectural aesthetics rest on juxtapositions of beauty

Livestock owners, elites and non-elites alike, from different parts of Namibia fence in land that belongs to the indigenous San people who collectively manage their land as a conservancy. Fencing violates the Communal Land Reform Act of 2002. The conservancy started a lawsuit in August 2013 with reference to this Act to remove the fences and end the illegal occupation of land. The High Court ruled

Retail worker politics, race and consumption in South Africa: Shelved in the service economy, by KennyBridget. Cham, CH: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. xv + 282 pp. £22.99 (paperback). ISBN 978 3 030 09895 7. £101.00 (hardback). ISBN 978 3 319 69550 1. £17.99 (e-book). ISBN 978 3 319 69551 8.

Beyond history: African development, diplomacy, and conflict resolution, edited by MunyiElijah Nyaga, MwambariDavid, and YlönenAleksi. London: Rowman and Littlefield International Ltd, 2020. Ix + 232 pp. $39.95 (paperback). ISBN 978 1 78661 271 0. $120.00 (hardback). ISBN 978 1 78661 270 7. $38.00 (eBook). ISBN 978 1 78661 272 4.

Sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa: Problems, perspectives, and prospects, edited by De MaioJennifer L, ScheldSuzanne, and WoldeamanuelMintesnot. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018. v + 196 pp. £66 (e-book). ISBN 978 1 4985 7396 2. £69 (hardback). ISBN 978 1 4985 7395 5.

Party proliferation and political contestation in Africa: Senegal in comparative perspective, by KellyCatherine Lena. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. xxv + 243 pp. €52.99 (paperback). ISBN 978 3 030 19619 6. €74.19 (hardback). ISBN 978 3 030 19616 5. €42.79 (e-book). ISBN 978 3 030 19617 2.

The Biafran War and postcolonial humanitarianism: Spectacles of suffering, by HeertenLasse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. xiv + 398 pp. $36.99 (paperback). ISBN 9781107530423. $120.00 (hardback). ISBN 9781107111806. $30.00 (eBook). ISBN 9781108515092.

Institutional explanations of intra-party violence rarely address political economy dynamics shaping the institutions in question, and therefore they fail to understand their emergence and their stability. Specifically, focusing on institutional factors alone does not enable a nuanced understanding of candidate nomination violence and why some constituencies are peaceful while others are violent. This

Uganda’s self-reliance policy for refugees has been recognized as among the most progressive refugee policies in the world. In contrast to many refugee-hosting countries, it allows refugees the right to work and freedom of movement. It has been widely praised as a model for other countries to emulate. However, there has been little research on the politics that underlie Uganda’s approach. Why has Uganda

In 2010, Kenya extended voting rights to its estimated 3,000,000 citizens living abroad, thus joining a growing number of countries in Africa and around the world to recognize emigrant voting rights. Yet despite a politically engaged diaspora, intensive government outreach to emigrants, and high-stakes electoral competition, fewer than 3,000 Kenyans were permitted to vote from abroad in the 2013 and

AbstractEquatorial Guinea is not only one of the world’s most authoritarian regimes but also a striking case of regime and leader survival. This small, oil-rich state and personalist regime defies conventional wisdom because it is both far more resilient and faces far fewer threats from within the regime and from opposition political parties than other resource-rich states. But how does the regime

AbstractScholars debate the role of legal institutions in promoting human rights in Africa. Much of the discussion focuses on Anglophone countries and does not examine the gender of litigants. We propose a constitutionalism constrained perspective that argues that which and whose rights are adjudicated are shaped by the context of constitutional reform. Where reformists are primarily concerned with

AbstractPrevailing constructivist scholarship argues that the evolution of regional organizations is due to the influence of global norms such as liberal democracy. Alternative rational choice theories suggest there might be efficiency gains that explain the evolution of international organizations. However, these explanations struggle to account for some paradoxical institutional outcomes, for example

This study explores two main questions: What are the experiences of soldiers who have fought against Boko Haram? What can these experiences teach us about the seeming incapacity of the Nigerian military to defeat Boko Haram? Six major themes are explored. These are perspectives on the mission, morale of troops, military equipment and weapons, suicide and murder–suicide among troops, intelligence leaks

Explaining and Understanding are considered mutually exclusive in political research. In this view, Explaining involves making observations as an outsider, with emphasis on causal laws, generalizations, and predictions. Conversely, Understanding occurs from the inside, with emphasis on meaning-making. This research note addresses Explaining, Understanding, and the related concept of reflexivity in

AbstractIn 2016, the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) announced plans to re-launch the Somali shilling (SoSh), which had its last official printing before the state collapsed in 1991. The article takes this pivotal moment to address the following three questions: (i) Why has the stateless SoSh persisted? (ii) Why is Somalia considering re-introducing an official currency at this point? (iii) What