Issues of Governance, Security, and Development in Contemporary Africa

Governance, security, and development are three critical components of a dialectical nexus that is both dominant and determinant for any objective and fruitful quest for the understanding of the trajectory of a country, a region or, in the case of Africa, a continent from a colonial past to a neocolonial and meta-colonial present, and toward a future of strategic optimal independence and self-reliance. That colonial past and the ensuing neocolonial and meta-colonial present have made these critical components and the dialectical nexus that they form particularly challenging for the African continent. For this reason, Issues of Governance, Security and Development in Contemporary Africa offers an in-depth, interdisciplinary analysis of the challenges that contemporary Africa faces within these critical areas, as well as the resources and prospects that the continent possesses and can leverage to overcome the said challenges. Using case studies involving a range of countries across the continent, Mohamed Saliou Camara, Alem Hailu, and Sabella O. Abidde argue that Africa needs to decolonize the terms of reference that guide its nation-building, statecraft, and national development agenda in ways that will facilitate the establishment of viable systems of governance and security, and the promotion of genuine development.

Mohamed Saliou Camara is a professor of history, philosophy, and mass communication and the current chair of the Department of African Studies at Howard University. He is the author of seven books and numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed articles on African studies, with a focus on political history, political communication, media and society, religion and philosophy, the civil-military relations, human security, and intra-African foreign relations. He is the winner of the 2023 Le Grand Prix de la Francophonie award.