Published in Africa@LSE

In Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa, Peer Schouten offers a new way to think about state power and violence in and through infrastructure, exploring blockade points run by an assortment of state officials, military and rebel factions, bandits and villagers that levy transit taxes. This is a powerful and empirically detailed account of the messy politics of control that has characterised the region’s logistical and trade flows over time, writes Jonathan Silver.