Africa’s Big Men: Predatory State-Society Relations in Africa
About this ebook
Throughout the chapters the contributors engage with a number of questions from different disciplinary and methodological orientations. How did these states evolve to exhibit various deformities in their composition, functioning and in their relations with the societies that they govern? What roles did Atlantic and other slavery and European colonialism play in creating states that are unable to display the right and good relationships with citizens in civil society? Why did these forms of predatory state-society relations continue to thrive in Africa after the end of Atlantic slave trade and subsequent colonialism? Why did the emerging African leaders at independence fail to effectively dismantle the structures of exploitation and expropriation that were the defining features of slavery and colonialism? Who are Africa’s ‘big men’, and what are their trajectories?
This book is essential reading for all students and scholars of African politics, public policy and administration, political economy, and democratisation.
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About the author
Kenneth Kalu is Assistant Professor at Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. He was most recently a Visiting Research Scholar at The University of Texas at Austin, USA.
Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Babcock University, Nigeria.
Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair Professor in the Humanities and a Distinguished Teaching Professor at The University of Texas at Austin, USA.
