Israel’s Regime Untangled: Between Democracy and Apartheid. By Gal Ariely. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 230p. $99.99 cloth.

which in turn contributes to political instability and, in a significant number of countries, endemic violence and civil wars. The authors caution that these structural constraints are not determinative. Leaders’ decisions matter. Nelson Mandela’s support for a nonviolent end to apartheid in South Africa and its transition to democracy mattered a great deal. The end of the Cold War contributed to enabling protests that led to reforms of political institutions and economic policies that attracted international support. The results led to real improvements in people’s lives in many countries. That historical moment also permitted coordinated international intervention to address conflicts. Efforts of the African Union and regional associations to impose mutually binding rules on member governments that made it harder for coup leaders to gain international recognition have seen some success in promoting a continental commitment to political accountability. Progress notwithstanding, the authors present findings that suggest that the recent acceleration of economic growth across the continent bears little resemblance to the sustainable economic transformations in East Asia. Democratic reforms are reversable, and political order is fragile. Readers looking for “a realistic foundation for imagining a more democratic, a more secure, and a more prosperous continent” (p. 10) receive advice as they reach the end of the book: “Vigilance, for those anxious for success, rather than optimism is the best response for Africa’s current situation” (p. 350). That message suggests a path-dependent continuation of underperformance. At the same time, Christensen and Laitin present ideas and observations that may be more significant than they acknowledge. The benefit for the reader in this situation is that the book provides a framework for thinking for oneself about prospects. These include the authors’ observation that democratic and authoritarian governments in Africa have become more reliant on routinized bureaucracies and procedures, even as personalist elements of authority remain important. They also make a brief but important comparison to the first 70 years of Latin American independence that exhibited many elements of the “political marketplace” and leaders who purposefully undermined the formal institutions of their own states. Then a critical juncture was reached, with much-larger-scale state-building projects and intensified engagement with the global economy. The reader also may ponder the role of the international system in Africa’s lag in state-building and the maintenance of internal order. Perhaps the protections afforded to even the weakest African states, such as global recognition and the prohibition of conquest that Christensen and Laitin point to as partly responsible for the lag in statebuilding, were a holiday from history. One finds now a more competitive global environment and the breakdown of the UN-sanctioned peacekeeping system that may force African states to invest in their own political and economic capacities to survive. Climate change receives brief mention. Technological developments such as improved instruments of communication and surveillance are mentioned and left for interested readers to explore as mechanisms that enable states to broadcast authority at much lower expense and through commercial partnerships with firms and states outside the continent. In sum, it might not be that leaders need to exercise agency to break out of a set of path-dependent structural obstacles. It may be that global and continental structures are changing in ways that put more of a premium on exercising capacity, at the same time that they lower some of the costs of state-building. In sum, this book’s broad overview of important theoretical frameworks and findings that have shaped thinking about Africa’s political and economic dilemmas is what one needs for thinking about contemporary challenges. These are a few missing key works, such as Jean-François Bayart’s L’État en Afrique (1989–2009; English translation) that develops an influential argument about the agency of Africa’s leaders in a global system that enables “strategies of extraversion” in which leveraging state sovereignty in business deals, often shady, and political relationships enable leaders to shape political and economic “reforms” to their advantage. Important African voices are included, though in relatively moderate numbers and none from the francophone Academic tradition. But these are quibbles. This is an important book that provides a fruitful lens for anyone whowants to explore the causes for Africa’s current condition and to think about what the future may hold.