The West African states have reached maturity. This new volume--appearing a decade after the successful West African States: Failure and Promise--provides up-to-date studies of nine states, including Chad, Burkina Faso and Cameroon, which were neglected in the earlier volume, and introduces contemporary theories of West African politics. The book reflects changes on the ground and also in academic debate, notably the remarkable retreat of dependency theory and Marxian analysis and the rise of free-market theorizing by both governments and scholars. The volume also contains important...