African political leadership

Abstract

A more holistic, in-depth, and incisive study of African political leadership has become an important part of scholarship in the study of political leadership. This realization generates a number of critically important and related questions that the chapter will attempt to address: what is the state of the study of African political leadership? Which prominent scholars (internationally and on the African continent) have devoted significant time towards contributions in the field? Are there different approaches to the study of African political leadership that have been generated by scholars in the discipline? Has a sufficient amount of scholarship on African political leadership been generated to warrant speaking of different waves, schools, or traditions of scholarship in the study of African political leadership or is the study of African political leadership still in its infancy, consisting of only a few distinctive studies at present? It is essential to stress from the outset that this contribution will by no means represent an exhaustive account of the study of African political leadership. Instead a more modest objective which it will seek to achieve is to provide a primer on some salient and distinctive scholarship and studies already produced in various realms of African political leadership.