Beyond the Gatekeeper State explores the dynamic changes occurring within and between African states, and the international system since the turn of the century.
Frederick Cooper’s model of ‘gatekeeper states’ – shaped as much by their international links as by their domestic practices – provides the basis for the contributors’ thinking about international relations in Africa and the wider international system. The chapters explore the political implications of Africa’s new relations with the old super-powers, former colonial powers, and the emerging powers from the South. These new relationships reflect and affect changing technology, infrastructure, and resource flows within and between African states. Drawing on both rich empirical cases and theoretical approaches, the book interrogates the implications of these changes on how we think about states and state systems.
Exploring the impact of changing technology, finance, and resources on African politics, Beyond the Gatekeeper State will be of great interest to scholars of African Politics and International Relations (IR), as well as African Studies, IR, and the politics of the Global South more broadly. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Thematics.
1. Beyond the Gatekeeper state? Studying Africa’s states and state systems in the twenty-first century
Sara Rich Dorman
2. Still one size fits all? Uneven and combined development and African gatekeeper states
William Brown
3. Beyond the gatekeeper state: African infrastructure hubs as sites of experimentation
Jana Hönke
4. Gatekeepers of financial power: from London to Lagos
Elizabeth Cobbett
5. Energy producers in sub-Saharan Africa: beyond the gatekeeper state?
Stefan Andreasson
6. Beyond gatekeeper spatial metaphors of the state in Africa: relational geo-histories of Angola
Aharon de Grassi
7. Gatekeeping practices in global environmental politics: African biopolitics and oil assemblages in Nigeria
Carl Death
8. Zimbabwe’s consolidation as a gatekeeper state
Julia Gallagher
9. Gatekeeping practices, gatekeeper states and beyond
Frederick Cooper
Biography
Sara Rich Dorman is Senior Lecturer in Politics and IR at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She is a former Editor and Book Reviews Editor of African Affairs, and is currently Senior Editor of the Journal of Southern African Studies.
