Michael Amoah. The New Pan-Africanism: Globalism and the Nation State in Africa. London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2019. List of Maps. List of Acronyms. Notes. Bibliography. $100.00. Cloth. ISBN: 978-1784533311.

Abstract

The New Pan-Africanism: Globalism and the Nation State in Africa by Michael Amoah examines the responses of the African community to a selection of violent conflicts that arose on the continent between 2010 and 2018. The author suggests that most conflicts in this period resulted from the attempts of national leaders to remain in power beyond their constitutionally mandated terms. This pattern has led political opposition forces to engage in mass demonstrations or armed resistance. In the era of the "New Pan-Africanism," either African sub-regional organizations or the African Union (AU) have intervened diplomatically or militarily in many of these conflicts. The author's main contention is that the African responses "do not follow a particular script. Rather, Africa has responded on a case-by-case basis in whatever manner is deemed convenient or practicable in the circumstances…" (ix). The author is particularly interested in how African actors have coordinated with extracontinental forces, notably the United Nations (UN), but also unilateral actors such as France, in responding to African political crises.The book includes an examination of eight crises of leadership that unfolded in Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Mali, Rwanda, and South Sudan after 2010. Each chapter-length case study systematically provides a short political background, a description of the leadership crisis, an account of the resulting conflict, and finally an account of the African response. Short discussions of "International Political Economy" and "Security Challenges" follow. Oddly, the chapters are organized alphabetically by the country name, rather than chronologically or by the level or scope of African response to the internal crises. The strength of this book lies in strong empirical work done in these chapters, which provide rich descriptions of the various crises and the responses of African organizations to them. The author's rationale for the selection of cases, however, is not clear. Amoah briefly reviews a larger set of nineteen cases of leadership turnover in the book's Introduction. He seems to have selected the cases that involved the