The CEAN wishes to mark its fiftieth anniversary by holding an international Meeting of political analysis on Africa. Although it does not intend to make a self-congratulatory event, those first fifty years of its existence will indeed have their place. There are many questions to be addressed: who, at the beginning of the 21st century, can truly claim to understand the full scope of the many realities of “Africa” – sub-Saharan regions, Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, diasporas and emigration? Difficult as it is to address this sort of macro-question, it is nonetheless necessary (What is Africa? What is “development”? What does “post-colonial” mean? etc.). The intention is to address this set of questions from a perspective that is directly political, taking the word in its broadest acception, by studying not only the Republic but also the republic. It is quite purposefully that no precise definition is given in the title, the idea being that the analysis should range from its strictest sense (the “government”) to its broadest meaning (res publica), including the various acceptions of the state (in the sense of Weber, Marx, Elias, etc.). At all events, the focus will be on the standards of distribution, regulation and integration, and on the social, identity and gender participation and marginalisation that are appended, imposed or applied, by more or less authoritarian or democratic means, in societies that are inventing or reinventing “ways of making do” (evasion, trickery, appropriation, etc.).

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