Threads

Governance & Political Systems Medieval (500–1500 CE)

Great Zimbabwe — what a stone city tells us about Shona statecraft

For a century after Carl Mauch publicized Great Zimbabwe in 1871, European antiquarians insisted the walls were built by Phoenicians, by Sabaeans, by anyone except the Shona who …

1 min read · Southern Africa · 48 views

Governance & Political Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

The African Union's governance dilemma — sovereignty, intervention, and the Sahel coups

Between 2020 and 2023 the African Union faced six successful military coups in its member states: Mali (twice), Burkina Faso (twice), Guinea, and Niger. In each case the …

1 min read · Pan-African, Sahel · 47 views

Governance & Political Systems Pre-colonial (1500–1884)

Osei Tutu and the Asante Confederation — federalism before Westphalia

The Asante state that Otumfuo Osei Tutu I and the priest-statesman Okomfo Anokye consolidated around 1701 is usually taught as a 'kingdom.' That is misleading. It was a …

5 min read · West Africa, Ghana · 49 views

Governance & Political Systems Ancient (before 500 CE)

Aksumite trade — the debate over how state-formation worked

The Aksumite Empire — centred at the highland city of Aksum in present-day Tigray, flourishing from roughly the first to seventh centuries CE — has been the subject …

2 min read · Horn of Africa, Aksum · 28 views

Governance & Political Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

Sudan's RSF-SAF war — gold trade financing and the regional dimension nobody wants to discuss

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) versus Rapid Support Forces (RSF) war that began on 15 April 2023 has killed an estimated 150,000 Sudanese, displaced over 10 million, and …

2 min read · Horn of Africa, Sudan · 24 views

Governance & Political Systems Independence era (1960s–2000)

Nkrumah's Pan-Africanism — what survived and what didn't

Kwame Nkrumah's *I Speak of Freedom* (1961) opens with a wager: that the only way the newly independent African states would resist becoming neocolonial dependencies of their former …

2 min read · Pan-African · 31 views

Governance & Political Systems Independence era (1960s–2000)

Lumumba's last letter — the declassified Belgian and US documents, and what they confirm

Patrice Lumumba, first Prime Minister of the independent Congo, was assassinated on 17 January 1961 in Élisabethville (now Lubumbashi), three months after his October 1960 dismissal by President …

2 min read · Central Africa, DRC · 22 views

Governance & Political Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

M23 in the DRC — the economic roots of an insurgency the world keeps misreading

The M23 (Mouvement du 23 mars) insurgency in eastern DRC, dormant from 2013 to 2021 and reactivated since November 2021, has captured most of Rutshuru and Masisi territories …

2 min read · Central Africa, DRC · 22 views

Governance & Political Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

Kigali masterplan and the politics of relocation

Kigali's 2013 masterplan, revised in 2019/2020, is the most ambitious top-down African urban transformation programme of the last two decades. The plan reorganizes the city around mixed-use density …

1 min read · East Africa, Rwanda · 21 views

Governance & Political Systems Pre-colonial (1500–1884)

Asante succession — the asantehene, the Queen Mother, and how the Golden Stool changed hands

Among the institutional features of the Asante state that the colonial encounter imperfectly understood, succession to the asantehene is one of the most consequential — and one of …

2 min read · West Africa, Ghana · 22 views

Governance & Political Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

ECOWAS–AES split — economic dimensions for pastoralist border communities

The Alliance of Sahel States (AES — Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger), formed under the Liptako-Gourma framework in September 2023 and consolidated by the January 2024 withdrawal from ECOWAS, …

2 min read · Sahel, West Africa · 21 views

Governance & Political Systems Colonial era (1884–1960s)

Berlin 1884-1885 — reading the primary sources, with Adam Hochschild in hand

The Berlin Conference of November 1884 to February 1885 is treated, in most African high-school curricula, as the moment Africa was 'partitioned' by European powers. The framing is …

2 min read · Pan-African · 21 views