Negotiating Statehood

Negotiating Statehood: Dynamics of Power and Domination in Africa provides a conceptual framework for analysing dynamic processes of state-making in Africa. 
  • Features a conceptual framework which provides a method for analysing the everyday making, contestation, and negotiation of statehood in contemporary Africa
  • Conceptualizes who negotiates statehood (the actors, resources and repertoires), where these negotiation processes take place, and what these processes are all about
  • Includes a collections of essays that provides empirical and analytical insights into these processes in eight different country studies in Africa
  • Critically reflects on the negotiability of statehood in Africa



Tobias Hagmann is a Lecturer at the Department of Geography, University of Zürich and a Fellow of the Rift Valley Institute. He is the co-editor of Contested Power: Traditional Authorities and Multi-party Elections in Ethiopia.

Didier Péclard is Senior Researcher at the Swiss Peace Foundation in Bern, where he works on statehood in societies after violent conflicts, and Lecturer in political science at the University of Basel. He has published extensively on nationalism, religion and state formation in Angola.