This book takes a fresh approach to the puzzle of sub-Saharan Africäs resource curse. Moving beyond current scholarship¿s state-centric approach, it presents cutting-edge evidence gathered through interviews with mining company executives and industry representatives to demonstrate that firms are actively controlling the regulation of the gold mining sector. It shows how large mining firms with significant private authority in South Africa, Ghana and Tanzania are able to engender rules and regulations that are acknowledged by other actors, and in some cases even adopted by the state. In doing so, it establishes that firms are co-governing Africäs gold mining sector. By exploring the implications for resource-cursed states,