This pathbreaking work integrates African countries into broader comparative theories of how spatial inequality shapes political competition over the construction of markets, states, and nations. Existing literature on African countries has found economic cleavages, institutions, and policy choices to be of low salience in national politics. This book inverts these arguments. Boone trains our analytic focus on the spatial inequalities and territorial institutions that structure national politics in Africa, showing that regional cleavages find expression in both electoral competition and policy struggles over redistribution, sectoral investment, market integration, and state design. Leveraging comparative politics theory, Boone argues that African countries' regional and core-periphery tensions are similar to those that have shaped national economic integration in other parts of the world. Bringing together electoral and economic geography, the book offers a new and powerful map of political competition on the African continent.

Catherine Boone is Professor of Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her works include Property and Political Order: Land Rights and the Structure of Conflict in Africa (2014); Political Topographies of the African State (2003), and Merchant Capital and the Roots of State Power in Senegal (1993).

1. Economic inequalities and territorial oppositions in African politics; 2. Region and regionalism in African politics; 3. Endowment, institutions, and spatial inequality: regions by design; 4. Regional blocs and bloc voting in national elections; 5. Regional hierarchies and winning coalitions; 6. Territorial oppositions in African politics; 7. Regionalism and the national agenda; Conclusion: inequality and political cleavage in African politics; Appendices.