In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in international politics in Africa. After the initial post-independence discussion of pan-Africanism the international dimension seemed overshadowed by the concern to account for domestic developments in many new states, and it is this imbalance which is now being redressed. Indeed, it has recently been argued by Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg that, contrary to the situation elsewhere, Africa's international politics have assumed an order which is sadly lacking in the domestic affairs of many states: ‘At the level of international society, a framework of rules and conventions governing the relations of the states in the region has been bounded and sustained for almost two decades.’ If the contrast between internal anarchy and international order seems somewhat exaggerated, the distinction between domestic and foreign politics appears both conventional and appropriate.
