@book {5539, title = {Political Topographies of the African State}, year = {2003}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press}, organization = {Cambridge University Press}, address = {Cambridge}, abstract = {Political Topographies shows that central rulers{\textquoteright} powers, ambitions, and strategies of control vary across subregions of the national space, even in countries reputed to be highly centralized. Boone argues that this unevenness reflects a state-building logic that is shaped by differences in the political economy of regions - that is, by relations of property, production, and authority that determine the political clout and economic needs of regional-level elites. Center-provincial bargaining, rather than the unilateral choices of the center, is what drives the politics of national integration and determines how institutions distribute power. Boone{\textquoteright}s innovative analysis speaks to scholars and policy makers who want to understand geographic unevenness in the centralization and decentralization of power, in the nature of citizenship and representation, and in patterns of core-periphery integration and breakdown in many of the world{\textquoteright}s multiethnic or regionally divided states. }, author = {Catherine Boone} }