Introducing Political Struggle as Contemporary African Politics

Abstract

What do we mean when we speak of ‘African politics?’ Simple answers to this question would be foolhardy (Young, 1999), but much useful discussion has revolved around the concepts and issues which are central to the asking of this question. My aim in this book is to outline a conceptualization of political struggle and demonstrate the enduring importance of struggle in any understanding of African politics. This is not to say that ‘struggle is everything’; certainly there is much empirical material to demonstrate the salience of political disengagement, Machiavellian strategies of power-seeking and the intermixing of political actions/strategies in particular local contexts. But, because there is a striking decline in academic attention paid to struggle, I justify this more parochial contribution as making a worthy point: it would be wrong to abandon a concept of political struggle when discussing how to answer the grand question that commences this book.KeywordsPolitical ActionAfrican StateAfrican SocietyPolitical StruggleRule EliteThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.