MadLib #32: The (Blank) African State: Rethinking the Sovereign State in International Relations Theory

Abstract

When I was growing up, we had books called ‘MadLibs’ in which each page had a short narrative with numerous words missing and replaced with blanks. Under the blanks, grammatical labels signaled the type of word missing — i.e. verb, noun, adjective, or adverb. The idea behind the game was that one person would come up with random nouns, verbs and so forth which would be put into the text. Once completed, the passage would then be read aloud for the uproarious amusement of our young minds.

The writing of this chapter was facilitated by a grant from the Belgian American Education Foundation and assistance from the Université Catholique de Louvain (SPRI and Institut d’Etudes du Developpement) and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. I would also like to thank Anna Creadick, Jasper C. Dunn, Patrick Chabal, David Blaney, Naeem Inayatullah, and Peter Vale for their comments on earlier drafts.