To what extent do Chinese construction firms foster linkages with the local economy and support local development outcomes? Despite increasing literature on the impact of Chinese infrastructure projects in Africa, relatively less attention has been paid to the specifics of this interaction, particularly concerning the characteristics of Chinese firms and the host country’s environment in which such partnership unfolds. Drawing on official documents, firm-level surveys and semi-structured interviews, this article examines how both private and public Chinese firms influence local development in Ethiopia’s infrastructure sector. The analysis focuses on several key factors shaping this impact, including employment generation, collaboration and subcontracting with domestic firms, technology and skills transfer and the creation of linkages between infrastructure projects and local manufacturing. The findings indicate that in Ethiopia, many Chinese companies are becoming increasingly integrated with the local economy. However, these synergies are neither uniform nor consistent across all firms or sectors. The study concludes that local economic benefits are contingent upon multiple factors, including the specific characteristics of Chinese firms, the strength of local capacity and the effectiveness of policies designed to regulate and promote local development.

This paper investigates the connection between political settlements and foreign policy in Tanzania, focusing on how domestic power shifts impact external relations. Utilising Political Settlements Analysis (PSA), it examines the transition from John Magufuli’s presidency to Samia Suluhu Hassan’s, uncovering how elite configurations and intra-party dynamics shape foreign policy choices. The analysis draws on fieldwork, interviews and document reviews, revealing how changes in Tanzania’s political settlement – from Magufuli’s centralisation and populism to Hassan’s return to cooperative diplomacy – have influenced policies on resource management, international legal commitments and regional engagement. By illustrating the reciprocal relationship between domestic political configurations and foreign policy, this paper not only enhances the understanding of Tanzania’s case but also contributes to broader debates on the significance of political settlements in shaping the foreign policies of African states.

In recent times, the effects of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and other natural disasters have undermined global efforts to reduce poverty and inequality among rural farmers. While efforts at mitigating the impacts of climate change, particularly in developing countries, have not yielded significant improvements, the global health crises of the COVID-19 pandemic have, in many ways, undermined the positive adaptations to climate change. Based on data produced through mixed methods, the paper explores how COVID-19 affected farmers’ ability to adapt to the changing climatic conditions in Ghana’s Coastal and Guinea savannah ecological zones. The paper argues that the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has undermined farmers’ access to markets, knowledge, innovations, technologies and critical inputs such as fertilisers, seeds and weedicides/herbicides/pesticides. This has decreased farm output, increased post-harvest loss and increased farmers’ vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change.

While Africa’s rapid urbanisation is expected to transform many aspects of political, economic and social life, decades of Africanist research shows that urban migration rarely severs rural ties. Building on this tradition, we use original survey data from 472 residents of Nairobi, Kenya, to examine how multiple forms of rural connection vary with urban duration and urban (re)orientation. We conceptualise four analytically distinct linkages – direct personal contact, provision of material support, anticipation of a rural safety net and spiritual connection – and measure each within a single empirical framework. We find that rural linkages do not diminish over time among first-generation migrants, but do decline across generations, with spiritual ties being especially persistent. Strong rural linkages are generally associated with weaker integration into urban social and political life. By disaggregating rural–urban connections and situating them in the temporal dynamics of urban residence, this article clarifies when and how African urbanisation transforms social and political orientations and provides a framework for cross-city and cross-country comparison.

This paper examines state-business relations in Somalia. It argues that the Somali case presents a unique model of private sector development, where advanced businesses in the telecommunications, banking and financial sectors emerged despite the lack of formal state structure. The establishment of a formal government in 2012, however, raised questions about the ‘nexus between state and capital’, particularly on whether state institutions were ‘pivotal’ for business. In interrogating this question, the paper employs a qualitative process tracing approach and examines the relationship between the state and one of the largest private sector players – the telecommunications sector. It focuses on tracing the tax relations, which, as the material basis of the social contract between the state and society, offered fundamental clues into the sector’s willingness to invest in the state project. The article finds that despite capital’s capacity to survive in such contexts, there are certain junctures when formal state institutions emerge as critical for business operations. Thus, rather than a straightforward structural relationship between public and private power, the Somali case explicates the moments and instances when the state becomes critical for capital accumulation and offers greater insight into the molecular processes that underlie state-capitalist relations within the African context.

Why is exposure to political violence associated with both mobilising and demobilising outcomes? Community dynamics influence the local materialisation of violence engendered by supra-local political conflict. The reification of the driving political conflict as intracommunal or intergroup produces disparate outcomes. Exposure to violence may generate an enduring rift concretised through intimate bloodshed or could fashion a shared victimisation experience viable as a collective political mobilisation resource. In Cameroon, the Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC) opposed French colonialism through political action and guerilla warfare. Many saw the UPC as a heroic nationalist movement, others as murderers. Through interviews, I examine narratives that [re]construct social and political meaning out of conflict and death. These narratives of conflict are used to mobilise in places where the UPC was locally hegemonic and demobilise in politically competitive areas.

Cross-border remittances from South Africa have played a central role in the food availability and well-being of migrant labour households in semi-arid Zimbabwe. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and containment measures introduced by both the South African and Zimbabwean governments hampered the cross-border remittance system and the movement of goods. This paper explores the food provisioning and availability impacts of the changes brought by the cocktail of policy measures on migrant sending households, and whether these households were able to find alternative food sources locally. The study highlights a precarious situation for affected households, which saw their main source of food provisioning curtailed. It argues that the situation was further aggravated by the risk associated with alternative remittance channels, and the non-availability of local alternatives for these households, which were excluded from accessing food parcels/aid by the criteria used to determine beneficiaries. The paper demonstrates the vulnerability of migrant labour households to economic and labour market changes.

What does the institutionalisation of a protest movement into an opposition party in an electoral autocracy mean for its members? This article examines this question by analysing the conversion of People Power, a political pressure group in Uganda, into the National Unity Platform (NUP), focusing on the dilemmas of organisation, strategy and identity. NUP sought to broaden and institutionalise People Power’s activities to be seen as a credible party capable of holding state power. Simultaneously, its initial political weight was closely tied to the defiant, extra-parliamentary energy of the grassroots – a resource the party needed to preserve. These tensions were intensified by Uganda’s authoritarian context, where state repression and demobilisation intersected with uneven access to resources and patronage, producing frictions between privileged actors and grassroots members. The paper shows how these dilemmas generated frustrations among bottom-up constituencies and highlights the importance of examining intra-party processes from a grassroots perspective.

Debates over the links between ethnicity and conflict often focus on the national level and take an ahistorical approach. This approach hides cases of ethnic conflict that arise at the subnational level and leaves unanswered questions over how ethnicity became a driver of conflict. This article explores these blind spots, using three cases in the African Great Lakes region. The cases reviewed here are the bipolar situations of Hema v. Lendu in Ituri (DRC), Banyarwanda/Banyamulenge v. ‘Autochthons’ in South and North Kivu (DRC), and Hima v. Iru in Ankole (Uganda). These cases suggest that polarisation is a more useful approach than fragmentation, but simple correlations between ethnic dyads and conflict obfuscate the nature and depths of the cleavages, as well as the mechanisms fuelling them. We elaborate on the pathways of escalation, highlighting how and when elite manipulations can activate deeply held identitarian norms. We conclude by emphasising the many lulls and moments of de-escalation, countering the portrayal of ethnic conflict as somehow inevitable.

The end of Operation Barkhane in the Sahel in 2022 raises many questions about French foreign policy in Africa. Yet the government has stifled public debate by insisting on the urgency of other wars in the world. As for the Members of Parliament, they never demanded an inquiry into the setbacks of France’s biggest overseas military operation since the Algerian war. Clearly, lessons were not learned. This article reviews the arguments and the political, military, historical and cultural reasons that led the Elysée to conceal, or even deny, a failure that also resulted in a loss of influence in its Francophone ‘preserve’ and among European Union partners who had overestimated the former colonial power’s ability to solve crises south of the Sahara. Blaming others, conspiracy theories and complaints about a lack of resources or the restrictions of international mandates to fight a global war on terror’ were part of the rhetorical weapons used to counter criticism, while some claimed that the end of Operation Barkhane was only a political defeat but not a military one.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s religious rhetoric and policies stand in sharp contrast to his predecessors during the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Front (EPRDF) period, who carefully and deliberately kept the political discourse free of any religious references. Many were taken by surprise by his pronounced Pentecostal faith. This surprise is arguably a reflection of how scholars and observers have ignored developments within Ethiopia’s Protestant community – and religious dynamics in general – that Abiy is a product of. This paper examines how religious developments within Ethiopia’s Protestant community produced and shaped Abiy as a Pentecostal politician. The paper also seeks to understand some of the main characteristics of the prime minister’s religious ideas and the possible impacts they may have had on his political decisions. My discussion centres on two major aspects. Countering the claims that Abiy aims to ‘Pentecostalize’ Ethiopian politics, I examine what possible implications he might have for Ethiopia’s secular framework and demonstrate how he uses religion in an inclusive way, viewing it as a resource to bring prosperity to Ethiopia. Secondly, to understand the actual content of the prime minister’s religious worldview, I analyse the affective affinities between the so-called prosperity gospel and positive thinking teachings.