The Elite Africa Project is a global network of scholars working to shift how Africa and its elites are understood.

Search the Database
INTRODUCTION

Welcome to The Elite Africa Project

Watch a video introduction to the project and database.

Featured Posts

Introducing: The Elite Africa Project Database

Learn more about the Elite Africa Project and our Online Database!

Dafe Oputu

Scholar Spotlight: Sishuwa Sishuwa - Part 2

Part 2 of our interview with Zambian historian Sishuwa Sishuwa.

Elite Africa Roundup - 22 November 2024

Uganda's opposition leader abducted, artist Shonibare at Art Basel

Read More

Elite Africa Roundup - 1 November 2024

A big week for art in W. Africa, SA supports ICJ case against Israel

Domains of Elite Power

The mechanics of how power—the essential condition of elite status—is meaningfully generated and exercised

Economic

Economic and business elites

Coercive

Military elites and those in security agencies

Ritual

Royalty, nobles, “traditional” rulers

Aesthetic

Art, literature, music- and media-based elites including new online influencers, clothing designers, architects, etc.

Religious

Religious and spiritual leaders, and intellectual/academic elites

Political

State-based or state-focused elites including international techno/bureaucrats

The Elite Africa Project

is a Canadian-based global network of scholars working to challenge predominant understandings of Africa and its elites.

Both in academia and in wider public discourse, African elites have either been ignored or depicted as grasping and self-interested. This framing perpetuates negative depictions of the continent and its peoples and draws on a simplistic understanding of what power is and how it is wielded. Our work aims to counter these perceptions by initiating global conversations about “who leads” in Africa and how they do so.

We seek to disrupt and renew both academic and public discussions of African leadership, refocusing attention on a wider, qualitatively different set of elites from those that have predominated in the past (such as the parasitic “Big Men” of neo-patrimonial politics).

Burna Boy, Nigerian musician, rapper and songwriter; in 2021, his album Twice as Tall won the Best World Music Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, and he enjoyed back to back Grammy award nominations in 2019 and 2020.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigerian economist, fair trade leader, environmental sustainability advocate, human welfare champion, sustainable finance maven and global development expert. Since March 2021, Okonjo-Iweala has been serving as Director-General of the World Trade Organization.

This project focuses on Africa’s elites, defined as those who operate at the highest level across a range of domains, wield significant power, and possess expert knowledge, skills, and personal strengths that are deployed in strategic, creative, and generative ways. While elites are those who possess the most consequential and powerful agenda-setting and decision-making capacity, Africa’s elites have either been sidelined in many of our analyses or rendered monotonal. When we switch frames to consider the continent as embodying and projecting new, generative forms of power, it changes our view of Africa. It may also change how we understand power itself.

We look at six domains of elite power, from the political to the aesthetic, and ask how we might shift how we think about and study Africa, and how this shift would impact our conceptualization of power and its exercise. Our goal is to contribute to popular conversations about Africa and to highlight the achievements of the astonishing new generation of leaders for a broader public audience.

This website will serve as a hub for collaborative activity by scholars, activists, and practitioners working on Elite Africa and house a searchable database of primary and secondary materials on African elites.

Kofi Annan (1938-2018), Ghanaian-born diplomat, trained in economics, international relations and management; was the first UNSG to be elected from within the ranks of the UN staff itself and served in various key roles before becoming Secretary General.

Namwali Serpell, Zambia award-winning novelist and writer; Recognised early on with the Caine prize, her numerous subsequent awards include the Windham–Campbell Literature Prize, one of the world’s richest literary prizes.

Mohammed "Mo" Ibrahim, Sudanese billionaire businessman. He worked for several telecommunications companies, before founding Celtel, which when sold had over 24 million mobile phone subscribers in 14 African countries.

The Elite Africa Project

is a Canadian-based global network of scholars working to challenge predominant understandings of Africa and its elites.

Both in academia and in wider public discourse, African elites have either been ignored or depicted as grasping and self-interested. This framing perpetuates negative depictions of the continent and its peoples and draws on a simplistic understanding of what power is and how it is wielded. Our work aims to counter these perceptions by initiating global conversations about “who leads” in Africa and how they do so.

We seek to disrupt and renew both academic and public discussions of African leadership, refocusing attention on a wider, qualitatively different set of elites from those that have predominated in the past (such as the parasitic “Big Men” of neo-patrimonial politics).

This project focuses on Africa’s elites — those who operate at the highest level across a range of domains, wield significant power, and possess expert knowledge, skills, and personal strengths that are deployed in strategic, creative, and generative ways. When we switch frames to consider the continent as embodying and projecting new, generative forms of power, it changes our view of Africa. It may also change how we understand power itself.

This website is the hub for collaborative activity by scholars, activists, and practitioners working on Elite Africa and will house a searchable database of primary and secondary materials on African elites.

Read More

ELITE AFRICA PROJECT DATABASE

Domains of Power

Clear

Entry Format

Clear

Country of Interest

Clear

Date

Clear
From
To

Tags

Clear
Showing 0 results
of 0 items.
highlight
Reset All
Advanced Search
Filtering by:
Tag
close icon
Sort by:
Select

Ferns, George, and Kenneth Amaeshi. “Rethinking African Business Elites as Change Agents.” In Routledge Handbook of Organizational Change in Africa, 1st ed., 158–75. United Kingdom: Routledge, 2019. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315630113-10.

The authors provide an alternative understanding of business elites as pro-social change agents by exploring how a growing fraction of elites are attempting to directly stimulate economic development. They present a typology of business elites as change agents by distinguishing between the level of change they engage in (systemic vs. small-scale) and the extent to which they utilise their own business ventures to drive change (integrated vs. separated). They suggest a conceptual framework that identifies four change agent types: Visionaries, Philanthropists, Corporates, and Change Leaders and provide several propositions in terms of how African business elites may potentially evolve into Change Leaders.

Source: Extracted from article's abstract

Ferns, George, and Kenneth Amaeshi. Rethinking African Business Elites as Change Agents

This is some text inside of a div block.

The authors provide an alternative understanding of business elites as pro-social change agents by exploring how a growing fraction of elites are attempting to directly stimulate economic development.

Economic

Handley, Antoinette. “The Business of Business Is Politics: Political and Electoral Violence in South Africa and Kenya.” In Business and Social Crisis in Africa, 117–58. Cambridge University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108635356.006.

This book examines the private sector response to a period of intense political violence centred on a struggle for control of the state in Kenya and South Africa respectively. In each case, key political elites at the heart of the state were implicated in this violence and this was therefore a high-risk area for business to venture into. Nonetheless, in South Africa, certain business leaders came to understand the need to confront and nudge the apartheid state towards political reform because they feared that their business interests might be wiped out in a racialised political conflict. On a practical level, the centralised and concentrated nature of South African capital also made it easier for business to organise, as did the overall nature of the institutions that structured the relationship between the country’s predominantly white political elites and its majority black population.

Source: Book description by publisher

Handley, Antoinette. The Business of Business Is Politics

This is some text inside of a div block.

This book examines the private sector response to a period of intense political violence centred on a struggle for control of the state in Kenya and South Africa respectively. In each case, key political elites at the heart of the state were implicated in this violence and this was therefore a high-risk area for business to venture into. Nonetheless, in South Africa, certain business leaders came to understand the need to confront and nudge the apartheid state towards political reform because they feared that their business interests might be wiped out in a racialised political conflict.

Economic
Political

Handley, Antoinette. Business and Social Crisis in Africa. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Much of the time, when confronted with a crisis of national dimensions, businesses do exactly what we expect them to do: they look to their own survival. Occasionally, however, firms in some contexts go beyond this. Based on qualitative, country-based fieldwork in Eastern and Southern Africa, Antoinette Handley examines how African businesses can be key responders to wider social and political crises, often responding well in advance of the state. She reveals the surprising ways in which business responses can be focused, not on short-term profits, but instead on ways that assist society in resolving that crisis in the long term. Taking African businesses in Kenya, Uganda, Botswana and South Africa as case studies, this detailed exploration of the private sector response to crises, including HIV/AIDS and political violence crises, introduces the concept of relative business autonomy, exploring the conditions under which it can emerge and develop, when and how it may decline, and how it might contribute to a higher level of overall societal resilience.

Source: Book description by publisher

Handley, Antoinette. Business and Social Crisis in Africa

This is some text inside of a div block.

Taking African businesses in Kenya, Uganda, Botswana and South Africa as case studies, this detailed exploration of the private sector response to crises, including HIV/AIDS and political violence crises, introduces the concept of relative business autonomy, exploring the conditions under which it can emerge and develop, when and how it may decline, and how it might contribute to a higher level of overall societal resilience.

Economic
Political

Handley, Antoinette. Business and the State in Africa: Economic Policy-Making in the Neo-Liberal Era. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

The dominant developmental approach in Africa over the last twenty years has been to advocate the role of markets and the private sector in restoring economic growth. Recent thinking has also stressed the need for ‘ownership’ of economic reform by the populations of developing countries, particularly the business community. This book studies the business-government interactions of four African countries: Ghana, Zambia, South Africa and Mauritius. Employing a historical institutionalist approach, Antoinette Handley considers why and how business in South Africa and Mauritius has developed the capacity to constructively contest the making of economic policy while, conversely, business in Zambia and Ghana has struggled to develop any autonomous political capacity. Paying close attention to the mutually constitutive interactions between business and the state, Handley considers the role of timing and how ethnicised and racialised identities can affect these interactions in profound and consequential ways.

Source: Book description

Handley, Antoinette. Business and the State in Africa

This is some text inside of a div block.

This book studies the business-government interactions of four African countries: Ghana, Zambia, South Africa and Mauritius. Employing a historical institutionalist approach, Antoinette Handley considers why and how business in South Africa and Mauritius has developed the capacity to constructively contest the making of economic policy while, conversely, business in Zambia and Ghana has struggled to develop any autonomous political capacity.

Economic
Political

Foltz, William J. Social Structure and Political Behaviour Of Senegalese Elites. Sage Journals. Volume, 4. Issue, 2. May 1969.

This paper discusses how traditional and social structures in Senegal influence the political system. It was interesting to note that the traditional and political structures were almost destroyed or discredited during the beginning of the twentieth century with the French introducing political institutions in place of traditional authorities. The paper also looks at different social structures, their attendant patterns of behaviour, and the individuals who fall within each rubric. 

Source: extracted from article

Foltz, William J. Social Structure and Political Behaviour Of Senegalese Elites.

2024
This is some text inside of a div block.

This paper discusses how traditional and social structures in Senegal influence the political system.

Political

Bareebe, Gerald. “An Army with a State or a State with an Army? The Military and Post-Conflict Governance in Uganda and Rwanda.” ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2020.

This dissertation draws from original qualitative data collected from Uganda and Rwanda to explain strategies used by actors that win civil wars to restructure the authority and reach of the state in a new postwar society. It shows how the postwar regime in Uganda inherited a “residue” social structure, characterised by the persistence of resilient and well-entrenched elite interests. A key finding is that, to gain trust and legitimise his rule, the postwar regime leader in Uganda adopted a strategy involving co-optation of, collaboration with, and concessions to these interests, which ultimately led to the creation of a broad-based system of government designed purposely to accommodate varying interests of these social groups. By contrast, the post-genocide regime in Rwanda inherited a political structure that was completely shattered--without much “residue”. To gain legitimacy, the elites within the RPF (who had won the war) exploited the political vacuum to transform what had been a guerrilla group into a strong centralised military regime, justifying the creation of a strong and cohesive military regime as a buttress against genocide.

Source: extracted from dissertation's abstract

Bareebe, Gerald. An Army with a State or a State with an Army

This is some text inside of a div block.

This dissertation draws from original qualitative data collected from Uganda and Rwanda to explain strategies used by actors that win civil wars to restructure the authority and reach of the state in a new postwar society.

Coercive
Political
No results found.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Designed by Ellum Media

Our distinctive typeface, Format-1452, was designed by Frank Adebiaye, a French-Beninese type designer and founder of the experimental Velvetyne Type Foundry.