Contributors to this volume examine how global forces - from international NGOs and UN agencies to transnational corporations and diamond traders - establish networks of power across Africa that shape the political and economic life of local communities and whole nations.

1. Introduction Robert Latham, Ronald Kassimir and Thomas Callaghy; Part I. Historical Dimensions and Conceptual Frameworks: 2. Networks, moral discourse and history Frederick Cooper; 3. Defining transboundary connections: international arenas, translocal networks and transterritorial deployments Robert Latham; 4. Producing local politics: governance, representation and non-state organization in Africa Ronald Kassimir; Part II. Transboundary Networks, States and Civil Societies: 5. Networks and governance in Africa: innovation in debt regime Thomas Callaghy; 6. When networks blind: human rights and politics in Kenya Hans Peter Schmitz; 7. Global, state and local intersections: a study of power, authority and conflict in the Niger Delta oil communities CyrilI Obi; Part III. Political Economies of Violence and Authority: 8. How sovereignty matters: global markets and political economy of local politics in weak studies William Reno; 9. Post-modern warfare in Sierra Leone? Recovering the local and social in global-local constructions of violence Paul Richards and Caspar Fithen; 10. New sovereigns? The frontiers of wealth creation and regulatory authority in the Chad Basin Janet Roitman; 11. Out of the shadows Carolyn Nordstrom; Part IV. Reflections: 12. Authority and interventions in world politics Michael Barnett; 13. Toward a new research agenda Ronald Kassimir and Robert Latham.