ABSTRACT
The relationship between state and civil society should be of considerable interest to political scientists, whichever country or countries they choose to study. It is a conceptual approach that helps to place basic political events into some kind of historical and social context. Isolated political incidents gain greater meaning, and political outcomes are easier to explain. Indeed, for Africanists, this technique is invaluable as it allows a sense of order to be imposed on the multitude of (potentially confusing) individual episodes that seem to flow from the continent on an almost daily basis.
