Preface -- Introduction Violence, Power and Rationality: A Political Analysis of Conflict in Contemporary Africa (Patrick Chabal) -- PART ONE EXPLAINING CONFLICT AND UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT PREVENTION IN AFRICA -- 1. Angola and the Theory of War (Christopher Cramer) -- 2. Ethnicity and Citizenship in Sub Saharan Africa (Anna-Maria Gentili) -- 3. Natural Resources, Scarcity and Conflict: A Perspective from Below (Mirjam de Bruijn & Han van Dijk) -- 4. Empirical Perspectives on African Conflict Resolution (Klaas van Walraven) -- 5. Area Studies, the Analysis of Conflicts and the Evaluation of Preventive Practice in Africa (Andreas Mehler) -- PART TWO MANAGING CONFLICT AND IMPLEMENTING CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN AFRICA -- 6. The Social Cost of Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Theodore Trefon) -- 7. Assessing Africa's Two-Phase Peace Implementation Process: Power-sharing and Democratization (Donald Rothchild) -- 8. Administrative Decentralization and Political Conflict in Mali (Gerti Hesseling & Han van Dijk) -- 9. Principles for Conflict Transformation: Practitioners in Africa (Shamil Idriss) -- Conclusion Violent Conflict and Conflict Prevention in Africa: An Alternative Research Agenda (Ulf Engel) -- List of Contributors -- Index.