Author: Naomi Chazan, Peter Lewis, Robert Mortimer, Donald Rothchild, Stephen Stedman.

To assist in the task of providing students with an efficacious analysis of Africa and a more informed understanding of political praxis, teachers expect the textbook(s) they use in a course to be clearly written, comprehensive in scope and yet concise, and critical and contemporary in interrogation. These characteristics are admirably met in two recent books on African politics and society by Chazan et al (Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa) and Schraeder (African Politics and Society: A Mosaic in Transformation). Both seek to provide insights into the compar- ative political and social experience of Africans, the contending explanations of the structures, processes, trends, and problems that characterize African politics and societies, and their impli- cations for contemporary Africa. Politics and Society is a third edition of a book that has emerged as one of the standard texts on African politics, whereas African Politics is a first edition which will quickly become one of the leading textbooks on introductory African studies. Chazan et al's introductory chapter begins with an exploration of the diverse historical and contemporary political, economic, and social conditions on the continent. The differ- ent approaches to the study of African politics, including modernization, dependency, and statist approaches, are outlined and the authors propose the political interaction framework as their preferred theoretical tool for interrogating the divergent politics and experiences of Africa. Happily, this eclectic and integrative framework is multidisciplinary, historically informed, and incorporates various scales of analysis. It focuses on the processes and forces that shape the choices made by interacting policymakers, myriad social groups, and external actors. Chazan et al's focus on the exercise of choice raises the question of just how much the political inter- action approach draws on the rational choice ^ public choice perspective, one of whose most adherent proponents is Robert Bates. Broadly similar themes are separately addressed in chapters 1 ^ 6 of Schraeder's book, whose stated purpose is ``to examine continuity and change in African politics and society from the precolonial era to the present with particular focus on the post-Cold War era'' (page vi). However, unlike Chazan et al, Schraeder (in part 2, comprising chapters 2 and 3) does not explicitly outline the theoretical framework that guides his inter- pretation of Africa: in chapters 4 ^ 6 he elaborates the precolonial to the postindependence history of Africa more than do Chazan et al. In chapter 2 Chazan et al begin a discussion on the structures of African politics and how these have shaped political life. Employing the political interaction model, this chapter highlights the evolving character of the structures of governance (from the colonially inherited, heavily centralized, and authoritarian structure to contemporary cuts in the government bureaucracy and multiparty competition) and how these have been influenced by the nature of transactions between coalitions of social groups and state institutions and agencies. In chapter 3 they continue the discussion on political structures with insights on the powerful force exerted by various social groups on social, economic, and political life. Ethnicity and class, the focus of much analysis in African politics (and also the subject of chapter 7 in Schraeder's text), are viewed by Chazan et al as the main vehicles for articulating demands on the typically weak states under conditions of weak popular representation in government. The main concern in chapter 4, entitled ``Ethnicity, class and the state'', is to show that the policies and political actions of the state cannot be adequately understood without indicating how these are influ- enced by social groups, their interests, and the interactions among them.