ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how violent conflict in Africa is commonly interpreted in terms of 'new wars'. It then offers an alternative conceptual reading of the 'new wars' which will enable us to discuss the likely effects, and possible failure, of current policy approaches towards Africa's 'new wars'. The chapter focuses on the historicity of statehood in Africa and develop a typology of the processes which lead to the loss of a state's monopoly of violence in the post-colonial period. It discusses the results of these processes in terms of the emergence of 'oligopolies of violence'. The chapter provides some of the new forms of governance which empirically have emerged as a result of violent conflict in Africa. It concentrates on some of the responses to the emergence of violent social spaces which were taken by African states, the community of African states and the international state system.
