Noah Nathan and David Mwambari win the APCG Best Book Award

Noah Nathan and David Mwambari are the co-winners of the APCG Best Book Award for their books titled "The Scarce State: Inequality and Political Power in the Hinterland" and "Navigating Cultural Memory: Commemoration and Narrative in Postgenocide Rwanda." The Committee noted:

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"In The Scarce State: Inequality and Political Power in the Hinterland, Noah L. Nathan challenges conventional wisdom about the power of African states by presenting a fresh and counterintuitive argument. The prevailing view in Africanist literature has long been that the state is weak, particularly in peripheral or hinterland regions. However, Nathan refines the concept of the periphery and argues that the seemingly limited interventions of the state can have a profound and far-reaching impact in areas where its presence is scarce. Nathan’s core claim is that in initially peripheral and relatively egalitarian societies, state provision of public goods benefits a select few individuals, enabling them to rise to positions of power and perpetuate inequalities over time. Drawing on extensive qualitative, ethnographic, archival, and quantitative data on colonial and post-colonial state interventions in northern Ghana’s education sector, Nathan demonstrates how even a “weak” African state can exert a disproportionate influence on society by generating political and economic elites who sustain their dominance across generations. The book also highlights the potential endogeneity of state “weakness.” Nathan suggests that states may strategically limit their presence in certain areas, challenging the assumption that weakness is merely a lack of capacity. This reframing invites readers to reconsider the very definition of state weakness and its implications for inequality and governance. The panel of reviewers was impressed by Nathan’s novel theoretical contribution, his rigorous use of diverse data sources to test the empirical implications of his arguments, and his insightful interpretation of the findings. By considering the strategic nature of state presence and its long-term consequences, The Scarce State offers a significant advancement in our understanding of African states, and its downstream impact on inequality, elite capture, political dynasties, the use of clientelism and violence in electoral politics and the strategic dimensions of state power.  It redefines how we understand state power, inequality, and governance in Africa and beyond.

The African Politics Conference Group is thrilled to award the 2024 Best Book Award to Navigating Cultural Memory: Commemoration and Narrative in Postgenocide Rwanda by David Mwambari. Inits investigation of the emergence, evolution, and enforcement of the hegemonic narrative of the 1994 “Genocide Against the Tutsis,” Mwambari’s innovative, interdisciplinary study centers local Rwandan knowledge atall levels: from the conceptual development of an Agaciro (Dignity)approach, to interweaving a range of “everyday” data sources, including Kinyarwandan proverbs, music, social media posts, gray literature, and commemorative exercises throughout Rwanda and in the diaspora, and especially within the illuminating plurality of perspectives within his interviews.  With analytical clarity and sensitivity, Mwambari reveals not only the multiple local and international actors working to create and crystallize a dominant political memory  in partnership with the national government, but also the too-often overlooked fissures, resistance, and silences as well. The committee applauds this remarkable contribution not only to post-conflict and memory studies, and the politics of national narratives as a domestic and foreign policy project, but for its commitment to epistemic decolonization, engaged positionality, and empathic perspective. This book is especially an instructive and crucial work in our current global moment of increasing polarization and master narratives competing for political dominance."

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Congratulation to both!

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