WAR, MARKETS, AND THE RECONFIGURATION OF WEST-AFRICA WEAK STATES

''Warlord'' politics have come to dominate states like Liberia. Leader s exploited local, regional, and global opportunities to consolidate t heir power, based on control over commercial networks and local popula tions. They produced political units without fixed territorial boundar ies and few conventional credentials of international sovereignty. Wea k neighboring states like Sierra Leone mimicked warlords' power consol idation strategies. while post-cold war shifts in international resour ces and opportunities undermined bureaucratic strategies. Changes in i nternational sovereignty since the end of the cold war encouraged rule rs of weak states to build their power without creating bureaucratic s tates.