The author examines how awkward, how ambiguous, how unsatisfactory, and often how tragic the encounter has been between African and Western conceptions of statehood.

African independence launched into international politics a group of the world's poorest, weakest, and most artificial states. How have such states managed to survive? To what extent is their survival now threatened? Christopher Clapham shows how an initially supportive international environment has - as a result partly of political and economic mismanagement within African states themselves, partly of global developments over which they had no control - become increasingly threatening to African rulers and the states over which they preside. The author also reveals how international conventions designed to uphold state sovereignty have often been appropriated and subverted by rulers to enhance their domestic control, and how African states have been undermined by guerrilla insurgencies and the use of international relations to serve essentially private ends. He shows how awkward, how ambiguous, how unsatisfactory, and often how tragic, has been the encounter between Africa and Western conceptions of statehood.

Acknowledgements
List of acronyms and abbreviations
Part I. African States and Global Politics: 1. Fragile states and the international system
2. The creation of an African international order
3. Domestic statehood and foreign policy
Part II. Patterns of Alliance: 4. The foreign policies of post-colonialism
5. The politics of solidarity
6. The resort to the superpowers
Part III. Struggling with Decay: 7. The international politics of economic failure
8. The externalisation of political accountability
9. The international politics of insurgency
10. The privatisation of diplomacy
11. Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index.