Development challenges for a resurgent African diaspora

This article seeks to explore the politics of an increasingly prominent African diaspora. It does so by locating the growing debate on diasporas and development in a broader political economy context to provide a historical understanding of how the African diaspora, and its contribution to development outcomes, is shaped by Africa’s distinctive politics. In particular, the article considers the significance of neo-patrimonial systems of governance and the crisis of stateness in order to evaluate whether diaspora networks and income represent a significant opportunity to address long-standing problems on the continent.