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Thought Leadership
2004 - Big African States
In 2006, Dr Greg Mills and Professors Christopher Clapham and Jeffrey
Herbst combined efforts to produce a volume on Big African States (published by
Wits University Press). This was the outcome of a two-year project which asked
the question: Are there special development and governance problems faced by
larger African countries, defined by their geographic or population size, and
what can be done to assist?
Given that state creation is an inherently difficult process, this
study, which included country papers on Angola, DR Congo, Nigeria, Sudan,
Ethiopia and South Africa, found that big African states will have their
viability more strongly challenged. In this, one of the most difficult aspects
of state creation - reorienting allegiances from local and regional leaders to
a distant capital - goes directly to the heart of the vulnerability of the
bigger states. Realising these special challenges is, however, a first step in
developing realistic solutions to the needs of their own citizens and to their
neighbourhoods, since big states have routinely exported instability rather
than prosperity.
This publication can be purchased from
Wits
University Press
This work has been carried forward more recently through analysis on the
Congo by Drs Mills and Herbst.
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