Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone

by William Reno

Overview

William Reno provides a powerful, scholarly yet shocking account of the inner workings of an African state. He focuses upon the ties between foreign firms and African rulers in Sierra Leone, where politicians and warlords use private networks that exploit relationships with international businesses to buttress their wealth and so extend their powers of patronage. This permits them to expand the reach of their governments in unorthodox ways, but in the process they undermine the bureaucracty of their own states. Dr Reno suggests that as the post-colonial state is eroded there is a return to the enclave economies and private armies that characterised the pre-colonial and colonial arrangements between European businessmen or administrators and some African political figures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521103473
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/11/2008
Series:	African Studies , #83
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

Table of Contents

1. Informal markets and the shadow state: some theoretical issues; 2. Colonial rule and the foundations of the shadow state; 3. Elite hegemony and the threat of political and economic reform; 4. Reining in the informal market: the early Stevens' years, 1968–1973; 5. An exchange of services: state power and the diamond business; 6. The shadow state and international commerce; 7. Foreign firms, economic 'reform' and shadow state power; 8. The changing character of African sovereignty.