States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control - Second Edition (Princeton Studies in International History and Politics)

Theories of international relations, assumed to be universally applicable, have failed to explain the creation of states in Africa. There, the interaction of power and space is dramatically different from what occurred in Europe. In States and Power in Africa, Jeffrey Herbst places the African state-building process in a truly comparative perspective. Herbst's bold contention―that the conditions now facing African state-builders existed long before European penetration of the continent―is sure to provoke controversy, for it runs counter to the prevailing assumption that colonialism changed everything.

This revised edition includes a new preface in which the author links the enormous changes that have taken place in Africa over the past fifteen years to long-term state consolidation. The final chapter on policy prescriptions has also been revised to reflect the evolution of African and international responses to state failure.

• The Bright Continent
• It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower
• Democratic Capitalism at the Crossroads: Technological Change and the Future of Politics
• Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World
• The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty
• The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective
• Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies
• The Postcolonial State in Africa: Fifty Years of Independence, 1960-2010 (Africa and the Diaspora: History, Politics, Culture)
• Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (Cornell Studies in Political Economy)
• Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures, and the Struggle for Political Reform (New Approaches to African History)