This book takes as its theme the ways in which governments legitimate their rule, both to themselves and to their subjects. Its introduction explores legitimacy and pre-colonial states, but the three sections of the book deal with colonial legitimacy, the question of legitimation in the transition from colonialism to majority rule, and the contemporary debate about accountability.

Inhalt
Frontispiece - Notes on the Contributors - Preface - Introduction - PART 1: LEGITIMACY AND THE COLONIAL STATE - Purity and Exotica in Legitimating the Empire. Cultural Constructions of Gender, Sexuality and Race; H.Callaway - The Invention of Tradition Revisited. the Case of Colonial Africa; T.Ranger - Garveyism, Akinpelu Obisesan and his Contemporaries: Ibadan, 1920-22; G.Williams - PART 2: LEGITIMACY AND THE NATIONALIST TRANSITION - Decolonisation and Legitimation in Nigeria; O.Vaughan - The Demise of Indirect Rule in the Emirates of Northern Nigeria; A.M.Yakubu - Christianity, Colonial Legitimacy and the Rise of Nationalist Politics in Northern Nigeria; N.Kastfelt - PART 3: LEGITIMACY AND THE CONTEMPORARY STATE - Power in the Name of Jesus: Social Transformation and Pentecostalism in Western Nigeria; R.Marshall - Reappraising Postcolonial Geopolitics: Europe, Africa and the End of the Cold War; D.Bach - Postscript: Legitimacy, Civil Society and the Return of Europe - PART 4: SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF TONY KIRK-GREENE'S WORK; S.Othman - Index