Guinea-Bissau

Patrick Chabal, Toby Green

"Since 1998 Guinea-Bissau has suffered a series of coups which outside analysts have linked to its emergence as West Africa’s first ‘narco-state’. Yet what does this mean for the country and the nature of the state in postcolonial Africa? What links Guinea-Bissau’s instability with questions of wider regional and global security? What would a stable government look like in Guinea-Bissau, and what are the conditions for its achievement? The book constitutes the first synthetic attempt to grasp the consequences of the crisis in Guinea-Bissau. It fills a void in scholarship and policy analysis with a synthesis of both what has happened in the country and the wider implications for postcolonial African nation-building. With the current crisis in Mali, and rising interest among geopolitical actors in the region’s stability, the contributors offer timely reflections on the causes and...