International experiences suggest that if regional powers - what we characterise as ‘swing states’ - are successful they will usually generate political and economic benefits well beyond their borders. When swing states perform badly, the consequences of failures - economic turmoil, political instability, armed conflict - reverberate in the region and continent of which they form part in ways that similar failures in medium or small states typically do not.

Africa as a whole is especially malleable to the influence - positive or negative - of swing states owing to the relative infancy of its nation-building processes. The social and institutional architecture of Africa at the national level can be more easily altered for good or ill by what happens ‘next door’.

In August 2015 the Brenthurst Foundation and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung convened a high-level Dialogue to examine three countries in sub-Saharan Africa - Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa - which are particularly illustrative of the importance of swing states to regional and continental success. This Discussion Paper reflects on some of the main arguments and perspectives that emerged from the Dialogue though, unless otherwise stated, its conclusions are the author’s own.