Author
Abstract
In the 1960s and 1970s elite studies formed an integral part of the research agenda on newly independent African states. Commentators sought to predict the likely political and economic paths of independent African states based on the social backgrounds and political orientations of existing elites. Historians looked back in time, and debated the social continuities across the pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial eras. But elite studied dropped off the research agenda in the 1980s and 1990s. This paper revisits earlier literature about elite continuity and change in Africa. It provides a broad sweep of the arguments about the origins of elites and sources of elite power across different epochs, and analyses the characteristics of the African ‘top 1%’ today using census data. It concludes by charting a research agenda that would enhance knowledge of the social origins and mobility paths of Africa’s contemporary elites.