While most African states are failed states, argues Englebert (politics, Pomona College), it is puzzling that state failure in Africa rarely seems to lead to state disintegration and seems to have little impact on the structural inertia of African states. He attributes state resilience in Africa to the domestic dimensions of international juridical sovereignty. In essence, even though sovereignty does not derive from domestic relations of power, the fact of international recognition endows African state actors with a domestic power of command that resists the erosion of state capacity even in failed state situations. As a result of this situation, the exchange value of legal command in terms of extraction and domination endures in times of failure and promotes continued societal attachment to dysfunctional state systems. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)