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Routledge Handbook of African Politics, edited by Nic Cheeseman, David M. Anderson, and Andrea Scheibler. London and New York: Routledge, 2013. xv + 437 pp. ISBN 9780415573788 (hardback), 9780203070680 (e-book). £140
This collection of 31 essays represents an ambitious project not only to survey current trends in political research, but also to suggest new opportunities and directions for research on and in sub-Saharan Africa. In their introduction, the editors set out the aims of the Handbook, to analyse how far developments in the available data, as well as trends in politics and political science more widely, have the potential to transform the kind of research and analysis that can be brought to bear on African states.
The editors argue that, lacking the kind of comparative data, especially quantitative data, available for other continents, political research in Africa has tended to borrow methods from the disciplines of history and anthropology. Consequently, studies have tended to be qualitative in nature and closely focused on local areas and issues. Although the quality of such research has been high, the ability to draw comparisons between different countries, or to draw conclusions at a regional level, has been limited. This situation is changing, with greater depth and availability of comparable data from across Africa, for example in World Bank datasets or the Afrobarometer project. In the chapters in this Handbook, the contributors reflect on current research across sub-Saharan African countries, commenting on conclusions that can be drawn at a regional level and identifying new challenges for political research.
The Handbook is divided into six parts: the politics of the state; the politics of identity; the politics of conflict; democracy and electoral politics; political economy and development; and international relations. Each part contains five short chapters (six for politics of the state), and every chapter ends with a short bibliography to provide further...