The Elite Africa Project is a global network of scholars working to shift how Africa and its elites are understood.

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INTRODUCTION

Welcome to The Elite Africa Project

Watch a video introduction to the project and database.

Featured Posts

Introducing: The Elite Africa Project Database

Learn more about the Elite Africa Project and our Online Database!

Dafe Oputu

Scholar Spotlight: Jeanne-Marie Jackson - Part 2

Part 2 of our interview with Professor of English Jeanne-Marie Jackson

Elite Africa Roundup - 3 June 2025

Africa Day celebrated in Addis Ababa, AfDB gets new president

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Elite Africa Roundup - 24 May 2025

Social media in the crosshairs, Ramaphosa and Trump meeting, and more

Domains of Elite Power

The mechanics of how power—the essential condition of elite status—is meaningfully generated and exercised

Economic

Economic and business elites

Coercive

Military elites and those in security agencies

Ritual

Royalty, nobles, “traditional” rulers

Aesthetic

Art, literature, music- and media-based elites including new online influencers, clothing designers, architects, etc.

Religious

Religious and spiritual leaders, and intellectual/academic elites

Political

State-based or state-focused elites including international techno/bureaucrats

The Elite Africa Project

is a Canadian-based global network of scholars working to challenge predominant understandings of Africa and its elites.

Both in academia and in wider public discourse, African elites have either been ignored or depicted as grasping and self-interested. This framing perpetuates negative depictions of the continent and its peoples and draws on a simplistic understanding of what power is and how it is wielded. Our work aims to counter these perceptions by initiating global conversations about “who leads” in Africa and how they do so.

We seek to disrupt and renew both academic and public discussions of African leadership, refocusing attention on a wider, qualitatively different set of elites from those that have predominated in the past (such as the parasitic “Big Men” of neo-patrimonial politics).

Burna Boy, Nigerian musician, rapper and songwriter; in 2021, his album Twice as Tall won the Best World Music Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, and he enjoyed back to back Grammy award nominations in 2019 and 2020.

This project focuses on Africa’s elites, defined as those who operate at the highest level across a range of domains, wield significant power, and possess expert knowledge, skills, and personal strengths that are deployed in strategic, creative, and generative ways. While elites are those who possess the most consequential and powerful agenda-setting and decision-making capacity, Africa’s elites have either been sidelined in many of our analyses or rendered monotonal. When we switch frames to consider the continent as embodying and projecting new, generative forms of power, it changes our view of Africa. It may also change how we understand power itself.

We look at six domains of elite power, from the political to the aesthetic, and ask how we might shift how we think about and study Africa, and how this shift would impact our conceptualization of power and its exercise. Our goal is to contribute to popular conversations about Africa and to highlight the achievements of the astonishing new generation of leaders for a broader public audience.

This website will serve as a hub for collaborative activity by scholars, activists, and practitioners working on Elite Africa and house a searchable database of primary and secondary materials on African elites.

Kofi Annan (1938-2018), Ghanaian-born diplomat, trained in economics, international relations and management; was the first UNSG to be elected from within the ranks of the UN staff itself and served in various key roles before becoming Secretary General.

The Elite Africa Project

is a Canadian-based global network of scholars working to challenge predominant understandings of Africa and its elites.

Both in academia and in wider public discourse, African elites have either been ignored or depicted as grasping and self-interested. This framing perpetuates negative depictions of the continent and its peoples and draws on a simplistic understanding of what power is and how it is wielded. Our work aims to counter these perceptions by initiating global conversations about “who leads” in Africa and how they do so.

We seek to disrupt and renew both academic and public discussions of African leadership, refocusing attention on a wider, qualitatively different set of elites from those that have predominated in the past (such as the parasitic “Big Men” of neo-patrimonial politics).

This project focuses on Africa’s elites — those who operate at the highest level across a range of domains, wield significant power, and possess expert knowledge, skills, and personal strengths that are deployed in strategic, creative, and generative ways. When we switch frames to consider the continent as embodying and projecting new, generative forms of power, it changes our view of Africa. It may also change how we understand power itself.

This website is the hub for collaborative activity by scholars, activists, and practitioners working on Elite Africa and will house a searchable database of primary and secondary materials on African elites.

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ELITE AFRICA PROJECT DATABASE

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Kotzé, Hennie, and Jo-Ansie Van Wyk. “Paradise or Parking Lots? A Comparison between the Attitudes of the South African Business Elite and the Rest of the Elite on Selected Environmental Issues.” Politikon 21, no. 2 (1994): 28–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589349408705007.

Corporate South Africa was characterised in the past by a technocratic ideology, namely, that technology and scientific know-how will offer solutions to any environmental problems which might arise. This "marketplace" mentality often brought it into conflict with the environmental movement. This research article examines the new awareness of the South African business elite toward selected environmental issues and compares this to the attitudes of the rest of the South African elite. Although the environment was largely overshadowed by the constitutional negotiations it will continue to remain the crucial issue of this decade as the degradation of the environment is an indication of both poverty and wealth. Environmental questions fall within the sphere of the influence and power which important decision-makers exercise. An investigation into the views of the South African business elite and opinion-leaders on these issues can also give us an idea of their priorities on development.

Source: Article's abstract

Kotzé, Hennie, and Jo-Ansie Van Wyk. Paradise or Parking Lots?

This is some text inside of a div block.

This research article examines the new awareness of the South African business elite toward selected environmental issues and compares this to the attitudes of the rest of the South African elite.

Economic

Bourgouin, France. “Cosmopolitan Culture as Elite Distinction among African Business Professionals in Johannesburg.” Comparative Sociology 10, no. 4 (2011): 571–90. https://doi.org/10.1163/156913311X590637.

This article unpacks the practices of cosmopolitan elite distinction among a group of successful business professionals of African origin, who were employed in middle and senior management positions in Johannesburg during the height of the “bull market” in 2004. It considers the self-identification of these professionals as cosmopolitan in light of our theoretical understanding of social distinction. Building on Veblen, Bourdieu, and Goffman, this article shows how these business professionals claiming to belong to a cosmopolitan community enacted these hierarchies through everyday distinctions in place, leisure and dress. The article concludes that while cosmopolitanism is an escape from local African identity, appeals to a cosmopolitan community transform and reconfigure society through the inscription of new inequalities and particularities.

Source: Article's abstract

Bourgouin, France. Cosmopolitan Culture as Elite Distinction among African Business Professionals in Johannesburg

This is some text inside of a div block.

This article unpacks the practices of cosmopolitan elite distinction among a group of successful business professionals of African origin, who were employed in middle and senior management positions in Johannesburg during the height of the “bull market” in 2004.

Economic

Ferns, George, and Kenneth Amaeshi. “Rethinking African Business Elites as Change Agents.” In Routledge Handbook of Organizational Change in Africa, 1st ed., 158–75. United Kingdom: Routledge, 2019. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315630113-10.

The authors provide an alternative understanding of business elites as pro-social change agents by exploring how a growing fraction of elites are attempting to directly stimulate economic development. They present a typology of business elites as change agents by distinguishing between the level of change they engage in (systemic vs. small-scale) and the extent to which they utilise their own business ventures to drive change (integrated vs. separated). They suggest a conceptual framework that identifies four change agent types: Visionaries, Philanthropists, Corporates, and Change Leaders and provide several propositions in terms of how African business elites may potentially evolve into Change Leaders.

Source: Extracted from article's abstract

Ferns, George, and Kenneth Amaeshi. Rethinking African Business Elites as Change Agents

This is some text inside of a div block.

The authors provide an alternative understanding of business elites as pro-social change agents by exploring how a growing fraction of elites are attempting to directly stimulate economic development.

Economic

Handley, Antoinette. “The Business of Business Is Politics: Political and Electoral Violence in South Africa and Kenya.” In Business and Social Crisis in Africa, 117–58. Cambridge University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108635356.006.

This book examines the private sector response to a period of intense political violence centred on a struggle for control of the state in Kenya and South Africa respectively. In each case, key political elites at the heart of the state were implicated in this violence and this was therefore a high-risk area for business to venture into. Nonetheless, in South Africa, certain business leaders came to understand the need to confront and nudge the apartheid state towards political reform because they feared that their business interests might be wiped out in a racialised political conflict. On a practical level, the centralised and concentrated nature of South African capital also made it easier for business to organise, as did the overall nature of the institutions that structured the relationship between the country’s predominantly white political elites and its majority black population.

Source: Book description by publisher

Handley, Antoinette. The Business of Business Is Politics

This is some text inside of a div block.

This book examines the private sector response to a period of intense political violence centred on a struggle for control of the state in Kenya and South Africa respectively. In each case, key political elites at the heart of the state were implicated in this violence and this was therefore a high-risk area for business to venture into. Nonetheless, in South Africa, certain business leaders came to understand the need to confront and nudge the apartheid state towards political reform because they feared that their business interests might be wiped out in a racialised political conflict.

Economic
Political

Handley, Antoinette. Business and Social Crisis in Africa. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Much of the time, when confronted with a crisis of national dimensions, businesses do exactly what we expect them to do: they look to their own survival. Occasionally, however, firms in some contexts go beyond this. Based on qualitative, country-based fieldwork in Eastern and Southern Africa, Antoinette Handley examines how African businesses can be key responders to wider social and political crises, often responding well in advance of the state. She reveals the surprising ways in which business responses can be focused, not on short-term profits, but instead on ways that assist society in resolving that crisis in the long term. Taking African businesses in Kenya, Uganda, Botswana and South Africa as case studies, this detailed exploration of the private sector response to crises, including HIV/AIDS and political violence crises, introduces the concept of relative business autonomy, exploring the conditions under which it can emerge and develop, when and how it may decline, and how it might contribute to a higher level of overall societal resilience.

Source: Book description by publisher

Handley, Antoinette. Business and Social Crisis in Africa

This is some text inside of a div block.

Taking African businesses in Kenya, Uganda, Botswana and South Africa as case studies, this detailed exploration of the private sector response to crises, including HIV/AIDS and political violence crises, introduces the concept of relative business autonomy, exploring the conditions under which it can emerge and develop, when and how it may decline, and how it might contribute to a higher level of overall societal resilience.

Economic
Political

Handley, Antoinette. Business and the State in Africa: Economic Policy-Making in the Neo-Liberal Era. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

The dominant developmental approach in Africa over the last twenty years has been to advocate the role of markets and the private sector in restoring economic growth. Recent thinking has also stressed the need for ‘ownership’ of economic reform by the populations of developing countries, particularly the business community. This book studies the business-government interactions of four African countries: Ghana, Zambia, South Africa and Mauritius. Employing a historical institutionalist approach, Antoinette Handley considers why and how business in South Africa and Mauritius has developed the capacity to constructively contest the making of economic policy while, conversely, business in Zambia and Ghana has struggled to develop any autonomous political capacity. Paying close attention to the mutually constitutive interactions between business and the state, Handley considers the role of timing and how ethnicised and racialised identities can affect these interactions in profound and consequential ways.

Source: Book description

Handley, Antoinette. Business and the State in Africa

This is some text inside of a div block.

This book studies the business-government interactions of four African countries: Ghana, Zambia, South Africa and Mauritius. Employing a historical institutionalist approach, Antoinette Handley considers why and how business in South Africa and Mauritius has developed the capacity to constructively contest the making of economic policy while, conversely, business in Zambia and Ghana has struggled to develop any autonomous political capacity.

Economic
Political
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