This is a study of statecraft and nation building in Africa in the post-colonial era. Subjects covered include early years of independence, state legitimacy, constitutional primacy, institutional transformation, autocracy, quest for democracy, national integration, consolidation of the state, and others. It focuses on case studies whose relevance is continental in scope.

The challenge of state formation and national integration is evident, and the need f or a solution is even more demanding in places like Africa where nation states were formed under very special historical circumstances. In Perspectives on Nation-State Formation in Contemporary Africa, auth or Godknows Boladei Igali presents a digest that examines the challenges of state formation and national integration in Africa and off ers preferred solutions within the context of the symbolic diversities. In this study, Igali outlines the immediate context and challenges of national integration in Africa in its human dimension. He reviews the political formations of ancient Africa--which varied in size, philosophical premise, and organisational structures--and discusses partition, military invasions, conquest, and colonisation. He then addresses colonial rule or administration, African nationalism, and decolonisation and analyses the process of nation-state formation in post-independent Africa from the perspective of the political systems and ideologies Reviewing a wide range of time from ancient times through the colonial period and since independence, this survey discusses the processes of national integration and nation-state formation in Africa, providing perspectives that deepen the understanding of these nation-building processes.

The author looks at different approaches towards regional and continental unity, and the need to restructure the African state. He contends that reconfiguration of the African state is necessary after the institutions inherited at independence, especially centralisation of power, have failed to serve the people. He calls for decentralisation of power in order to enable the people - different groups - to set their own agenda for sustainable development. Power should be in the hands of the people at the grassroots level using local institutions to formulate development plans, control and allocate resources in their own areas. Reconfiguration of the African state will also help to accommodate different ethnic groups on equal basis and enable marginalised groups, especially smaller and weaker groups, to fully participate in the political process and get a fair share of the nation's resources without being dominated and exploited by others, especially dominant groups. Restructuring the state will also enable all groups to play an equal role in achieving unity, stability and development. The work is also an examination of the transition African countries have gone through since independence and the problems they have faced and continue to face in terms of nation building and trying to achieve and maintain peace and stability without which prosperity is impossible. It is a call for rebuilding Africa through a combination of innovative approaches.

This book examines the extent to which Russia’s strategic behavior is the product of its imperial strategic culture and Putin’s own operational code. The work argues that, by conflating personalistic regime survival with national security, Putin ensures that contemporary Russian national interest, as expressed through strategic behavior, is the synthesis of a peculiar troika: a long-standing imperial strategic culture, rooted in a partially imagined past; the operational code of a counter-intelligence president and decision-making elite; and the realities of Russia as a hybrid state. The book first examines the role of structure and agency in shaping contemporary Russian strategic behavior. It then provides a conceptual understanding of strategic culture, and applies this to Tsarist and Soviet historical developments. The book’s analysis of the operational code, however, demonstrates that Putinism is more than the sum of the past. At the end, the book assesses Putin’s statecraft and stress-tests our assumptions about the exercise of contemporary power in Russia and the structure of Putin’s agency. This book will be of interest to students of Russian politics and foreign policy, strategic studies and international relations.

Intended for those interested in the African continent and the diversity of human history, this work looks at Africa's past and reflects on the changing ways it has been imagined and represented. It illustrates key themes in modern thinking about Africa's history with a range of historical examples.

In this innovative and stimulating volume, Francis Deng outlines a new relationship between governments and societies--a relationship informed by Western concepts but based on traditional African values such as respect for human dignity, equality, and self-rule.

The author looks at how Namibia was founded as a German colony known as Deutsch-Südwestafrika (German South-West Africa) and how it evolved into a nation. He explains how it was founded on brutal suppression of the indigenous people, including extermination of large numbers of some groups, and how, on becoming a colony of South Africa, its people continued to be subjected to brutal treatment by the white minority rulers who denied them racial equality. The author also focuses on the liberation struggle against apartheid and how the country won independence from apartheid South Africa. He also looks at how the leaders of the new nation are trying to build the country and construct a national identity on the basis of unity in diversity. It is an analysis of identity formation at the national level, and consolidation of the state, whose relevance is continental in scope: studies of other African countries in their quest for unity and construction – or reconstruction – of their national identities during the post-colonial era can benefit from this work. It is also a work of comparative analysis in terms of nationhood in the African context and how Namibia and Tanzania – two case studies – have sought to construct their national identities, the obstacles they have faced and continue to face in the quest for national unity, especially in the case of Namibia, and why Tanzania has been more successful than most countries on the continent in building a cohesive society where tribalism is virtually non-existent, enabling it to consolidate its unity and national identity. The author also looks at the concept of national character and its relevance to national identity formation and why the national identities of different African countries are weak and what can be done to address the problem. It is also an introductory text which may be helpful to some people who are going to Namibia for the first time although it is essentially a scholarly work intended for members of the academic community and specialists in some fields dealing with this southwest African country and its people. But members of the general public who want to learn more about Namibia may also find the book to be useful.

Godfrey Mwakikagile looks at the major changes Africa has gone through since the end of colonial rule including some of the events he witnessed in his home country Tanganyika – later Tanzania – since the late 1950s, the dawn of a new era when Africa was headed towards independence. One of the fundamental changes he looks at took place in the 1990s when most countries across the continent gradually moved from authoritarian rule to democracy, although he contends that the gains made during that transitional period have not been consolidated and sustained through the years. The majority of Africans still live under one form of authoritarian rule or another including outright dictatorship.

This title tells the story of the African leaders who ignited independence in black Africa during the 1960s through the eyes of two Americans who knew them well.

This work focuses on the liberation struggle from the 1960s to the 1990s in the countries of southern Africa to end white minority rule. The author writes from personal experience. When the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was formed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in May 1963, Tanganyika (now Tanzania) was chosen to be the headquarters of the OAU Liberation Committee. All the African liberation movements went on to open their offices in Tanzania's capital Dar es Salaam. Many refugees fleeing oppression in the countries of southern Africa also went to live in Tanzania. The author was a young news reporter in Dar es Salaam in the early seventies and got the chance to know some of the freedom fighters and their leaders who were based there during those days. He also interviewed a number of them and has provided an additional perspective to his work as a primary source of some of the material included in his book. It was one of the most important periods in the history of post-colonial Africa. Most countries on the continent had won independence by 1968. The toughest struggle was in the few strongholds of white minority rule in the southern part of the continent and in the Portuguese colony of Guinea-Bissau/Cape Verde in West Africa which finally ended in victory. As President Nyerere once said: "Throughout history, nationalist struggles have had one end: victory."