Political Instability in Guinea-Bissau

How can we make sense of the persistent political instability in Guinea-Bissau, a small country that has hosted extensive international interventions and made world news headlines over several decades? This book tackles this question, arguing for the need to understand politics in Guinea-Bissau as intricately linked to and deeply embedded in transnational, regional and trans-regional dynamics.

Taking a multidimensional approach, the book brings together international scholars who have studied politics in Guinea-Bissau and Africa for many years, at different levels and from diverse perspectives. Together, the contributors provide an up-to-date analysis of crucial actors and processes, whilst also putting them in historical perspective. The volume connects the study of politics in Guinea-Bissau to a range of empirical phenomena and theoretical debates that have wider relevance far beyond its borders. In this way, it enables a better understanding of regional and international politics, demonstrating how apparently marginal cases are not marginal at all, but are actively entangled in broader multi-dimensional politics.

With important new perspectives and insights both on Guinea-Bissau, and wider regional dynamics, this book will be an important read for researchers and policy makers involved in African politics and security issues.

Ricardo Real P. de Sousa is an Assistant Professor in International Relations at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FCSH) of the University of Beira Interior (UBI), where he serves as the President of the Department of Sociology. He is an integrated researcher at the Centre for International Studies – Iscte, at the International University of Lisbon (IUL). He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) at Erasmus University of Rotterdam (EUR) in the Netherlands. His research focuses on multilateral security institutions, external interventions, and conflict resolution, particularly with case studies centered on Africa.

Jens Herpolsheimer is a post-doctoral researcher at the Research Centre Global Dynamics, based at Leipzig University (Germany), and Head of the Junior Research Training Group “African Regional Economic Communities in Global Politics,” funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in the Emmy-Noether program. He holds a PhD in global studies from Leipzig University and is the author of Spatializing Practices of Regional Organizations during Conflict Intervention (Routledge, 2021). Other publications have focused on the security cooperation of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries, African regional organizations, interregional maritime security cooperation, and practices of regional security governance, as well as Africa-EU relations.

Jara Cuadrado is Professor in Contemporary History at the University of Valladolid and Deputy Director of the Observatory of African Studies at the same University. PhD in International Security from the UNED (Madrid) with a thesis titled Early warning systems in the prevention of armed conflicts. A comparative study in West Africa. Her research interests focus on studies of armed conflict and political violence, international security, conflict prevention and early warning policies, particularly in Africa. She was a visiting scholar at IPRI (New University of Lisbon) and SOAS (University of London) and participated in two projects in Africa.