African Affairs is the journal of the Royal African Society and leading journal of African Studies.  It is the top-ranked Africanist journal as measured by impact factor.

Members of the Royal African Society and the African Studies Association of the UK receive free print copies of the journal, and can also access the full electronic archive of the journal, which extends back to the first issue in 1901.

Published quarterly by Oxford University Press, the journal is widely read by academics, diplomats, policy-makers, and others with a serious interest in the continent. The journal is jointly edited by Rita Abrahamsen and Sara Rich Dorman, and is supported by an international editorial advisory board consisting of academics and practioners.

To read abstracts of the latest articles and briefing click here

African Affairs publishes articles on a wide variety of subjects- in politics and international relations, as well as economic, literature, art, music, more. It also includes book reviews and review articles, as well as an invaluable list of recently published books, and a listing of articles on Africa that have appeared in non-Africanist journals.

To celebrate the success of the journal, we are granting free access to a number of highly-cited articles from the journal. These articles are just a sample of the impressive collection of research published in the journal.

Peasant grievance and insurgency in Sierra Leone: Judicial serfdom as a driver of conflict
Esther Mokuwa, Maarten Voors, Erwin Bulte, and Paul Richards

Volume 110, Issue 440

May 2011

Change for a Better Ghana’: Party Competition, Institutionalization and Alternation in Ghana’s 2008 Elections
Lindsay Whitfield 
Volume 108, Number 433 
October 2009

Peace and Power Sharing in Africa: A Not So Obvious Relationship
Andreas Mehler 
Volume 108, Number 432 
July 2009

Re-Engineering Rural Society: The Visions and Ambitions of the Rwandan Elite
An Ansoms 
Volume 108, Number 431 
April 2009

Democratization, sequencing, and state failure in Africa: Lessons from Kenya
Daniel Branch and Nic Cheeseman 
Volume 108, Number 430 
January 2009

Jacob Zuma, The Social Body and the Unruly Power of Song
Liz Gunner 
Volume 108, Number 430 
January 2009

Please click here for the latest issue of African Affairs.

African Affairs' African Author Prize

Every second years, African Affairs awards the African Author Prize.  The prize is awarded for the best article published in African Affairs by an author based in an African institution, or an African Ph.D student based in an overseas university.  The prize is in recognition of excellent African scholarship, which often does not reach audiences outside the African continent. To the extent possible, the prize committee will prioritize scholars at the beginning of their career.

The first African Author Prize was awarded in 2010 to George Bob Milliar from Ghana.  The next prize will be awarded in 2012, for articles published in the period 2010-2011. The winner will receive a cash prize of £500, one year’s free subscription to African Affairs, an economy airfare to London, and £500 for expenses to attend the ASAUK Conference in 2012. The runner-up will receive one year's free subscription to the journal.