The inaugural issue of the Journal of Retracing Africa is out. Huub Ruel (Windesheim): How African Countries Can Get on with the Business of Diplomacy. Issouf Soumare (Laval): Does Foreign Direct Investment Improve Welfare in North African Countries? Paulina Kruminaite (Sydney): The Potential of African States to Emulate the East Asian Developmental Model. Abdifatah Tahir (Sussex): Does Successful Peacebuilding Lead to Successful Statebuilding? Nasir Ali (ISS): Building State Capacity in a Post-Conflict Situation: The Case of Somaliland; Somaliland: Curbing Corruption and the Quest for Effective Governance; and Making the State Work: The Role of the Civil Society Actors in Somaliland. A new depth of horror in South Sudan: The civil war’s worst massacre ensures that the war will get still bloodier. Annyssa Bellal on the Central African Republic: From conflict to chaos and back again? Damn us if we don't lift a finger for the Central African Republic: Graeme Wood on a gripping dispatch from Africa's scariest conflict. From New Left Review, an interview with Ousmane Sidibe on the Malian crisis. Previously hailed as an exemplary democracy, then followed by a coup, Mali has fallen out of the media spotlight, but new research finds optimism and confidence among ordinary Malians. Kim Yi Dionne on the multiple international dimensions of an election in the small African country of Guinea-Bissau. Africa’s tech edge: Dayo Olopade on how the continent's many obstacles, from widespread poverty to failed states, allowed African entrepreneurs to beat the West at reinventing money for the mobile age. Kim Yi Dionne on five things you probably didn’t know about African politics today.
