Introduction: the legacies of Crawford Young / Scott Straus and Aili Mari Tripp
Part I. The colonial and postcolonial state in Africa. State development in contemporary Africa / William Reno
Third wave democracy and the state in Sub-Saharan Africa / John W. Harbeson
The colonial legacy of policing as state building / Kaden Paulson-Smith
Part II. Rethinking the politics of identity. Rethinking the politics of identity / Rachel Betty Riedl
Sectarian identity formation and the future of the African postcolonial state: lessons from Nigeria / Dauda Abubakar
The politics of identity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: the enduring power of Crawford Young's analysis and its limits / Timothy Longman
Ethnicity, interests, and class in Tanzania: constructing explanations / Joel Samoff
State construction, ethnicity, and social status: the bifurcated trajectories of Haalpulaaren in the Mauritania-Senegal borderland / Cédric Jourde
Crawford Young's cultural politics analytic paradigm applied to Ukraine-Russia / Joshua B. Forrest
Part III. Women, gender, and politics. Women do everything except politics: gender quota in a postconflict society / Ladan Affi
Territorial nationalism, cultural pluralism, and women's peace mobilization in Cameroon / Melinda J. Adams
"Who will open the door?" Women in parliament and cabinet in Ghana / Gretchen Bauer and Akosua K. Darkwah
Afterword / Edmond J. Keller.