Ethnic Politics and State Power in Africa

Philip Roessler is an Assistant Professor of Government and Director of the Center for African Development at the College of William and Mary, Virginia. He is an expert on conflict, state building, and development in sub-Saharan Africa with extensive field experience across the region. His book builds on his 2011 World Politics article, 'The Enemy Within', which won the Gregory Luebbert Award from the American Political Science Association for the best article in comparative politics. He is also author of Why Comrades Go to War: Liberation Politics and the Outbreak of Africa's Deadliest Conflict (with Harry Verhoeven, forthcoming).

'This is the best book on civil war I have read in quite a while. Drawing on first-rate, relatively traditional 'shoe leather' fieldwork, Roessler makes a genuine theoretical breakthrough in how to understand civil war onset in many developing countries.' James D. Fearon, Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor, School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University

• Part I. Motivation and Central Argument: 1. Introduction; Part II. Puzzle and Theory: 2. A meso-level approach to the study of civil war; 3. Theories of ethno-political exclusion; 4. The strategic logic of war in Africa; Part III. Theory-Building Case Study: 5. Political networks, brokerage and cooperative counterinsurgency: civil war averted in Darfur; 6. The strategic logic of ethno-political exclusion: the breakdown of Sudan's Islamic movement; 7. Political exclusion and civil war: the outbreak of the Darfur civil war; Part IV. Testing the Argument: 8. Empirical analysis of the coup-civil war trap; 9. A model-testing case: explaining Africa's Great War; Part V. Extensions: 10: The strategic logic of peace in Africa; 11. Conclusion.