Studies of government and politics in Africa are dominated by a focus on the national and are typically set apart by anglophone, francophone and lusophone historical influences, with South Africa as an exception. This volume departs from a different set of questions and employs a novel approach in discussing them: cities in sub-Saharan Africa provide the pivot around which issues of policy and practice, planning and service delivery turn, at different scales and both from the top down as well as from the bottom up. Party politics, for example, is discussed at city level and urban security both within a state and a non-state context. The novelty of the approach is found in thematic rather than single-city chapters written by multiple authors each of whom displays depth knowledge of one of three or more cities treated in each case. This volume will interest scholars of African and of urban studies as well as urban policy-makers and practitioners.

Composed of articles first published in the journal Politique africaine, this book proposes an original interpretation of neoliberalism in Africa. Instead of seeing neoliberal reforms as intrinsically destructive of the post-colonial state, the authors, who include some of Africa's best-known social scientists, focus on the resilience and adaptability of African state structures, economic systems, and social survival mechanisms. They examine the diversity of responses to neoliberalism in what the editors call the "everyday politics of the state." In essays that range from diverse theoretical or historical discussions to close studies of the dynamics of specific reforms in particular places, they argue against univocal interpretations of the effects of neoliberalism. They show that the African state, far from disappearing, is adapting and reconfiguring itself in fascinating new social realities "co-constructed" by state action, as well as by the improvisations of communities and other private actors. These fascinating studies reveal processes far more complex and ambivalent than what entrenched ideas of the distinction between "public" and "private" actors or between the "state," the "market," and "society" allow for. Whether discussing neoliberal theories of sovereignty and property in the context of centuries of African political development or revealing the intricacies of people's adjustments to the restructuring of an urban transport system, these essays show that conventional readings of governance in Africa underestimate the dynamics of reappropriation and adaptation, and the conflicts between differing conceptions of power that are profoundly reshaping the state in contemporary Africa. [Subject: Politics, African Studies]