Jeffrey P Herbst

The last decade of the twentieth century was a heyday for the development of international norms and agreements. Non-state actors and states joined together in codifying new international standards in areas as diverse as arms control, war crimes, human rights, violations, environmental protection, s...

The overwhelming challenge that South Africa faces, and has to date failed to address, is unemployment, which falls especially on African youths who were promised a better future after 1994. If the current unemployment challenge is not addressed, it will be impossible to sustainably lift many millio...

Western notions of statehood have tended to influence the analysis of the viability of states in Africa, particularly the view that larger states have the greater potential to sustain economic viability. Yet, against a background of much recent progress on the African continent in terms of economic ...

The U.S.-led intervention in Somalia that began in December 1992 is the most significant instance to date of “peacemaking” by the international community. The heady promise of Operation Restore Hope and the subsequent disappointments have had a resounding impact on the policies of Western government...

Economic reform was the most pressing question for African and other Third World countries during the 1980s, and it will continue to dominate their public policy agendas during the coming decade. In this first full-length examination of the political economy of adjustment in Ghana, Jeffrey Herbst de...

Carrots and sticks have always been used in combination in diplomatic affairs, but scholars and policymakers have focused more on the sticks than the carrots. In this provocative study, policy-savvy scholars examine a wide range of cases―from North Korea to South Africa to El Salvador and Bosnia―to ...

Societies in all countries are split by major divisions—or "fault lines"—caused by differences in race, religion, ethnicity, wealth, class, or power. Some are plainly evident, whereas others are more concealed and can erupt with little warning.In a world facing acute environmental, migration, and re...

Theories of international relations, assumed to be universally applicable, have failed to explain the creation of states in Africa. There, the interaction of power and space is dramatically different from what occurred in Europe. In his groundbreaking book, Jeffrey Herbst places the African state...