ritual BlackAfrica

8/7/2019 ritual BlackAfrica

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Ethonationalism on the continent, formerly viewed as a quaint creed espoused by eccentrics, royalists, and reactionaries,

resurfaces as revolutionary doctrine.

one of the most vigorous and creative social processes in modern Africa. Moreover, tribalism, far from being an index of

African states' fragility, may well be an indication of their strength, precisely because what states have to offer in smoothing

access to world markets is so important.

ritual black

africa:making the case for

ethnic nationalism &

pan Africanism

on the clan, nation and sovereignty in precolonial africa,

ritual and ethnicity in the pursuit of continental

governance and a pan African experience.

curated by

amma birago

At some point, the reality of disintegrating,

dysfunctional African states stands in such contrast to the legal fiction of

sovereign states that experimentation with regards to new states is in order.

Let them fail. State failure, in theory and practice. Jeffrey Herbst

However, the reality on the ground in some African countries is that sovereign control

is not being exercised by the central state in outlying areas, and sub-national groups are already

exerting authority in certain regions. By recognizing and legitimating those groups, the international

community has the opportunity to ask that they respect international norms regarding

human rights and also has a chance to bring them into the international economy.

Responding to State Failure in Africa. Jeffrey Herbst


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Ivor Wilks, in writing about the Ashanti theory of sovereignty,

noted that "rights of sovereignty were regarded as distinguishable

from the exercise of authority.States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority

and Control. Jeffrey Herbst

Nationalizing the Third- World State:

Categorical Imperative or Mission Impossible?

Crawford Young

The contemporary state system in Asia, Africa, and the Americas is largely a product of Western imperialism. The

territorial grid reflects the spatial partition resulting from colonial rivalries, the internal sub-divisions devised by

colonizers for administrative convenience, or subsidiary processes triggered by European intrusion (much of the

Middle Eastern state system).

The contemporary state system in Asia, Africa, and the Americas is largely a product of Western imperialism. The

territorial grid reflects the spatial partition resulting from colonial rivalries, the internal sub-divisions devised by

colonizers for administrative convenience, or subsidiary processes triggered by European intrusion (much of the

Middle Eastern state system).

Third-world nationalism received its central impulse from anticolonialism. After originating in the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries as affective attachment to existing states, nationalism in the nineteenth century became the

battle cry of communities, founded on common language and culture, asserting their right to constitute sovereign

states. From these movements came the crucial doctrine of self-determination, which provided the bridge between

European ethnolinguistic nationalism and third-world, anticolonial nationalism. The doctrine gained partial inter-

national acceptance after World War I at Versailles, although the peace negotiators had no intention of extending its

application beyond Europe. The idea, however, was abroad and quickly became a potent weapon in the gathering

challenge to imperial rule. Nationalism as an ideology of liberation inverted the logic of nineteenth-century

ethnolinguistic movements in Europe. The latter began with the assertion of "we" and deduced political entitlements

from it. Anticolonial nationalism began with "they"- the illegitimate relevant other whose alien hegemony was

rejected. The task of nationalism was to create the "we," yet the only practical focus was the territorial unit of

colonial administration, however lacking it might be in historical or cultural sanction. In the early stages, the focus

was frequently uncertain; one may recollect the inter-territorial activity of the great Latin American liberator Simon

Bolivar, or the continental rather than more specific territorial thrust of early African nationalism. Even where ample

historical material was available for rendering legitimate a territorial basis for anticolonial nationalism, authors of

nationalist ideologies had to find and assemble the elements; the title of Nehru's nationalistic epic, The Discovery of

India, is an apt illustration.

The global triumph of anticolonial nationalism created an urgent agenda for the new states. The "we" brought into

being by way of antithesis to the alien, hegemonical "they" required new moral content. The states of Europe

considered models of modernity were nation-states. Anticolonial nationalism must therefore be redefined as the

diffusion of transcendent affective ties to the decolonized states. But anticolonial nationalists would soon discover

the problematic aspects of national identity. Frequently, the political competition which colonizers permitted in the

terminal colonial era mobilized cultural cleavages which had been overshadowed by the racial division of the

"colonial situation." In the aftermath of independence, new communal claims rose to the surface.

Nationalizing the Third-World State:Categorical Imperative or Mission Impossible?

Crawford Young


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Review by Graham W. Irwin of

V.G. Kiernans The Lords of Human Kind:

Black Man, Yellow Man, and White Man in an Age of Empire

Western Europeans of the century and a half before the First World War were "lords of human kind," at least in their

own eyes. Most of the world they conquered and absorbed into their empires; over much of the rest they won

economic control. As their rule expanded, they gained impressions and formed opinions about the diverse peoples

with whom they came in contact and adopted particular attitudes and modes of behavior toward them. It is the nature

and development of these attitudes and this behavior-of what might be called Europe's intellectual posture vis-a-vis

non-Europe-that is the subject of this unusual and stimulating book.

Nationalizing the Third-World State:


Crawford Young

Yet a closer study of the linguistic and culturally based nationalities of Europe would have shown these assumptions

to be false. The spread of literacy; the growth of cities and the higher degree of social consciousness usually

encountered in the urban environment; the intensification of networks of social communications drawing rural folk

into a sense of membership in larger collectivities: in Europe all these processes were attended by heightened

ethnonational consciousness, which required only the catalyst of politicization. Modernization in the third world has

produced parallel trajectories of consciousness and solidarity. Although the solidarities of cultural pluralism were

not necessarily antithetical to the extension of some enhanced measure of national commitment, historical sociology

provided no warrant for the assumption that time labored to erode subnational loyalties. Second, the succession to

state power of the nationalist leadership at once raised a series of issues colloquially described, in a widespread

African metaphor, as "slicing the national cake." The allocation of societal resources took on new social meanings.

Some fear that opportunities in their own areas are limited and they would therefore wish to... venture unhampered

in other parts. Some fear the sheer weight of numbers of other parts which they feel could be used to the detriment

of their own interests. Some fear the sheer weight of skills and the aggressive drive of other groups which they feel

has to be regulated if they are not to be left as the economic, social, and possible political, underdogs in their own

areas of origin in the very near future. These fears may be real or imagined; they may be reasonable or petty.Whether they are genuine or not, they have to be taken account of because they influence to a considerable degree

the actions of the groups towards one another and, more important perhaps, the daily actions of the individual in

each group towards individuals from other groups.

The state has long been recognized as a necessary unit and derives additional legitimacy from affective symbols

created by anticolonial nationalism. The register of emotional resonance for such states is, at the outset, limited.

Reexamining Sovereign States in Africa States and Power in Africa:Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control, Jeffrey Herbst.

A Review by Edmond J. Keller

States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control, Jeffrey Herbst boldly attempts to

challenge the conventional wisdom about African states, their formation, and operations from precolonial times to


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the present day. He assumes that "states are only viable if they are able to control the territory defined by their

borders"(p. 3). Yet he argues that this is not the case in most of Africa and that power is distributed and wielded

differently than what is generally assumed by the international community. The author deems most African states as

weak and unable to command legitimacy and governmental effectiveness in wide areas of their domain. This reality

is based on the fact that African states historically have had difficulty extending their authority because of low

population densities, traditionally common in most parts of the continent.

To rule effectively, African state leaders have always been confronted with the dilemma of cost because it costs to

broadcast state power to the far reaches of any state, and African state leaders have been relatively resource poor. In

the modern era, this has led to what is commonly referred to as an "urban bias" in the policymaking of African state

leaders since it is easier to reach the urban areas and be administratively effective than it is to reach the countryside.

Herbst claims that a fundamental reason for the lack of governmental effectiveness of modern-day African states is

that they accepted without question the boundaries bequeathed to them by their former colonial overlords. Colonial

states were constructed on the basis of administrative convenience, and not according to a logic that emphasized the

creation of sovereign states with effective administrative capacities. He contends that in fashioning states, authorities

should have taken the geography of the territory into account.

Most African states today, according to Herbst, are states only because the international community has deemed

them so. Crawford Young has convincingly shown that state sovereignty for former European colonies in Africa was

an afterthought. Rather than accept this conventional wisdom, Herbst calls for a revolutionary reassessment of the

concept of the "sovereign state" in Africa today. He boldly challenges the international community to engage in newthinking on this matter and to support African intellectuals and political leaders who are willing to design

alternatives to sovereign states. If this reassessment were to take place and alternatives chosen, Herbst contends that

there would then be congruence between how power is actually exercised by states in Africa and the design of the

governmental units adopted.

Reexamining Sovereign States in Africa States and Power in Africa:

Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control, Jeffrey Herbst.

A Review by Edmond J. Keller

Quasi states, dual regimes, and Neo-classical Theory.

Robert H. Jackson

In what has become a modern classic Stanislav Andreski coins the apt term "kleptocracy" to characterize Africansystems of government. The state in Africa is consequently more a personal - or primordial - favoring political

arrangement than a public-regarding realm. Government is less an agency to provide political goods such as law,

order, security, justice, or welfare and more a fountain of privilege, wealth, and power for a small elite who control

it. If there is a consensus among political scientists it is probably that the state in Africa is neo-patrimonial in

character. Those who occupy state offices, civilian and military, high and low, are inclined to treat them as

possessions rather than positions: to live off their rents-very luxuriously in some cases-and use them to reward

persons and cliques who help maintain their power. According to a candid recent analysis, "west African

governments represent in themselves the single greatest threat to their citizens, treat the rule of law with contempt,

and multiply hasty public schemes designed principally for their own private and collective enrichment."

"Development" in such circumstances is empty rhetoric: "a world of words and numbers detached from material and

social realities." Large segments of national populations - probably a big majority in most cases-cannot or will not

draw the necessary distinction between office and incumbent, between the authority and responsibility of officials

and their personal influence and discretion, upon which the realization of modern statehood depends. Manygovernments are incapable of enforcing their writ throughout their territory. In more than a few countries-

particularly large ones like Sudan, Ethiopia, Zaire, Chad, Mozambique, and Angola-some regions have escaped

from national control, and either regional warlords or internal anarchy reign. Most African countries, even the

smallest ones, are fairly loose patchworks of plural allegiances and identities somewhat reminiscent of medieval

Europe, with the crucial difference that they are defined and supported externally by the institutional framework of


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sovereignty regardless of their domestic conditions. Ironically, they are "medieval" and "modem" at one and the

same time. Can we speak intelligibly of African "states" in such circumstances?

African states are indeed states by courtesy, but the real question is why such courtesy has been so extensively and

uniformly granted almost entirely in disregard of empirical criteria for statehood. It is surely because a new practice

has entered into the determination and preservation of statehood on the margins of international society. The new

states, at any rate those in Africa, are not merely quasi-states. They are states by virtue of a novel mode of

establishing and preserving statehood in environments which other- wise more often discourage than encourage

state-building. I prefer to speak of them as possessing "juridical statehood" derived from a right of self-

determination-negative sovereignty-without yet possessing much in the way of empirical statehood, disclosed by a

capacity for effective and civil government-positive sovereignty.

Juridical statehood can be understood as, among other things, the international institution by which Africa and some

other extremely underdeveloped parts of the world were brought into the international community on a basis of

equal sovereignty rather than some kind of associate statehood. It was invented because it was, arguably, the only

way these places could acquire constitutional independence in a short period of time in conformity with the new

international equality. Juridical statehood in international law We can begin to clarify the juridical framework of

African states by glancing at the relevant international law on the subject. Although "juridical statehood" is not a

legal term of art, there are of course established legal practices concerning the criteria of statehood. They are

significant not only in what they disclose of the new constitutive rules of sovereignty but also in what they intimate

about international theory.

Relations between the two spheres, between Europe and the rest of the world, were nevertheless pragmatic

politically, uncertain morally, and untidy legally.62 They were conducted on a basis of rough equality

notwithstanding the accelerating inequality of power in favor of Europe, and they expressed a fair measure of

international toleration. There was not yet anything resembling a global regime under common rules. Insofar as

European relations with Africa were concerned, African heads of state had not yet been downgraded from Kings to

Chiefs.... African states were clearly not considered members of the family of nations. They sent no accredited

ambassadors to Europe and received none in return.... Nevertheless, their legal rights were recognized in a series of

treaties on which the Europeans based their own rights to their footholds along the coast. It was a tentative and

initially accommodating encounter between two utterly different worlds, but Africa was a political world and not

merely terra nullias. Traditional continental Africa is far better characterized by anthropology or sociology,

however, than by political theory, jurisprudence, diplomatic history, or international law. It was a world of societies

more than states: "the nation-State in the European sense did not really develop in Africa. " Even "states" in the

anthropological definition-centralized political systems-of which there were not a large number, exercised uncertain

control, and "the authority and power of the central government faded away more and more the further one went

from the centre toward the boundary. Thus boundaries between the states were vague, sometimes overlapping. "

Although there were of course complex and particular customs which regulated intercourse among contiguous local

societies, "(t)here was no African international system or international society extending over the continent as a

whole, and it is doubtful whether such terms can be applied even to particular areas. "

Africa scarcely existed even as a politically recognizable, not to mention a diplomatically recognized, international

jurisdiction. Until well into the 19th century, little emphasis was placed by Europeans on the legal criteria of

statehood in the encounter, and there were consequently no general limitations on the recognition of non-Western

governments. It was not yet an ordering of relations in terms of the power and beliefs of Europe. Treaties between

European emissaries and African rulers were made by Europeans with an eye on rival European states and with the

aim of acquiring trading rights or territorial claims which conformed with European international law. Africans

probably made them to gain commercial and political advantage over local rivals. They could hardly have real- izedthe European international legal implications of what they were doing, and there is little reason to assume the

transactions meant the same to both parties. After the middle of the 19th century a new form of international dualism

appeared which was connected with European colonial expansion in Asia and Africa: rough equality and diversity

was replaced by precise hierarchy and uniformity in the relations between European and non-European countries,

with the former in a position of superiority. The determination of sovereignty throughout the world now derived


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from a Western and specifically liberal concept of a civil state which postulated certain criteria before international

personality could be recognized. As previously indicated, these included the standard of "civilization" as well as

effective government. Europe had the power and the will to impose this conception on the rest of the world. Even

highly credible non-Western states which were never colonized, such as Japan, had to assert their statehood in these

terms. The consequence - and arguably the design - was the establishment of numerous colonial dependencies in

those parts of the world, such as Africa, which were not considered to have any positive claim to sovereignty on

these grounds and could therefore legitimately and legally be ruled by Europeans.

N. L. Wallace-Bruce argues, to the contrary, that colonialism interrupted the sovereignty of traditional African s tates

and placed it "into an eclipse" but did not terminate it. Thus, African independence was also a reversion to

sovereignty and not an attempt to create it for the first time. The difficulty with this argument is the fact that in the

vast majority of cases sovereignty in Africa has never reverted to anything remotely resembling traditional states. It

has been acquired by ex-colonies which were, as indicated, novel and arbitrary European creations. Most African

governments consequently have no authority by virtue of succession to traditional states. One cannot therefore argue

that juridical statehood has restored and is protecting the traditional political identities and values of the non-

Western world which were the historical subjects of natural law prior to Western imperialism. The new sovereignty,

as indicated to the contrary, is far more often undermining and even destroying non-Western political tradition than

protecting it.

This is Grotius turned on his head: inverted rationalism. Realism Juridical statehood, at first glance, presents

difficulties of strict realism because it discloses toleration of powerless quasi-states, particularly in Africa where thelargest number are concentrated, on the grounds of their absolute claim to sovereignty. Is realism not lurking

somewhere in the background, however? For example, is juridical statehood not a consequence perhaps of Africa's

lack of global significance in the balance of power between East and West? Can realism account for the existence of

quasi-states and the contemporary dual international regime? Africa is unquestionably less important in global

power politics than most African statesmen or even most students of African states would care to admit. Incapable

and impoverished states can only very marginally contribute to or detract from the interests and security of the West

or the Soviet Bloc.


Robert H. Jackson

Nationalizing the Third- World State:


Crawford Young

The Imperative of Nation-BuildingThus the new states of the postwar era in Asia and Africa inherited an ambitious charge. Independence and

affirmation of the sovereignty of the state did not suffice. Realization of nationhood was thought to be indispensable

to the state's consolidation. The finite energies of the state would be dissipated in fissiparous conflict unless the

transcendent loyalties of the citizenry could be firmly tied to a national ideal.

Not only was the necessity of the nation accepted, at least by the leadership, so also was the possibility of its

attainment. Few went so far as Sekou Tour of Guinea, who at the time of independence declared: "In three of fouryears, no one will remember the tribal, ethnic or religious rivalries which, in the recent past, caused so much damage

to our country and its population." But many believed that the sentiments of unity attained in the anticolonial

struggle could be transformed into a securely rooted national orientation. The presumed experience of the first and

second worlds was taken as an exemplary model.


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One of Africas thorniest problems is political instability which is caused by ethnicity manifest in interethnic and

interstate conflicts, civil wars, military coups and the tendency towards ethnic domination and the perpetuation of

power. Ethnicity is, as shown in section one above, a colonial legacy arising from the ar tificial and arbitrary

boundaries of the colonial state which were drawn to reflect foreign rather than African interest and which were

inherited intact by the postcolonial state. Thus, ethnicity which is the main, if not the sole cause of political

instability in postcolonial Africa is a function of the nature of the postcolonial state Boundaries.

The state and development in Africa

Fonchingong Tangie

Indeed, the growth and crystallization of tribes has been recognized as one of the most vigorous

and creative social processes in modern Africa. Moreover, tribalism, far from being an index of African states'

fragility, may well be an indication of their strength, precisely because what states have to offer

in smoothing access to world markets is so important.

As a result, many precolonial African states were far more dynamic than has been the case in the world since 1945.

Many outlying territories found that they could escape their rulers' authority relatively easily. For instance, in the

Central African kingdoms, "provinces could break off from the kingdom whenever circumstances were favorable.

This happened in Kongo, in the Kuba kingdom, and in the Luanda empire, where every ruler who was far enough

away... became independent."

European tribalism and African nationalism

Mazi Okoro Ojiaku

Responding to State Failure in Africa. Jeffrey HerbstIn Africa, however, there was an abrupt discontinuity between the old political order and the new one that

essentially began with the Berlin West African Conference in 1885. In the space of a few decades, the facade of the

new state system was formed, shortly thereafter, the states were given independence. The hard-earned structures ofpolitical control and authority that allowed for the exercise of political power in the precolonial period were abruptly

cast aside, and there were almost no efforts to resurrect them. Indeed, the demarcation of Africa into colonies

differed even from imperial practices in other areas of the world in the speed at which it was done, due to the

multitude of countries seeking to rule the same area, and the reliance on force to the exclusion of developing

loyalties among the subject population.

There was nothing exotic about the precolonial African state system. Where Europe and Africa diverge is in the

speed in which they moved from one system to another. The European evolution from the old system of states where

territory was not well defined and sovereignty was shared was very slow, taking centuries. While the slow

transformation from one system to another made it difficult for states to deal with crises, there were advantages to a

state in not being called upon to exercise all aspects of modern sovereignty at once.

The Organization of African Unity and the United Nations bestowed recognition on governments that controlled

their capitals, irrespective of whether those states had much of a physical presence in the rural areas. When there

were attempts at revolt in the rural areas, the international community both implicitly and explicitly gave its

approval to the use of force to quash the revolts, demonstrating that a state's treatment of its rural population would

have little bearing on its international position. Thus, the bias toward urban dwellers and the neglect of the majority

of Africans in the rural areas can be traced, in part, to a state system that encouraged elites to cultivate their urban

constituencies. Second, part of the failure to accommodate ethnic diversity in some states comes from the


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international community's acquiescence in the freezing of boundaries. If secession had been a viable threat, as it had

been during the precolonial period, African politicians would have had a profound incentive to reach

accommodation with disaffected populations, especially those that were spatially defined, lest they threaten to leave

the nation-state.

However, the international community's view that the boundaries were inviolable and that, therefore, the use of

force was justified against potential secessionists, removed incentives for ethnic accommodation. Indeed, the great

powers often went beyond acquiescence to actively providing arms and expertise for the crushing of secessionist

movements, so that even obviously dysfunctional states could maintain their territorial integrity. Perhaps more

important, the current static state system in Africa has institutionalized weakness and decline, irrespective of the

sources of failure.

Unfortunately, the evidence of poor performance is taken either as the best that

could be done under thecircumstances by advocates of current policies, or as an indication

that the current policies are incorrect by those who want some other set of policies adopted. Few

have asked the more important question of whether the policies, even if correctly designed, are not

working because the nation-states themselves are profoundly flawed.

A criterion for recognition appropriate to the particular circumstances of Africa's failing states could be: does the

break-away area provide more political order on its own over a significant period of time (say, five years) than is

provided by the central government? By order, I mean functioning military, police, and judicial systems, which arethe fundamental prerequisites for political and economic progress. These public goods are precisely what Africa's

failing states do not provide. Such a standard would rule out many attempts at secession that were not of the utmost

seriousness, and also return, to a degree, to older understandings of sovereignty that are resonant with the African

past. The long-term aim would be to provide international recognition to the governmental units that are actually

providing order to their citizens as opposed to relying on the fictions of the past.

The primary objection to recognizing new states in Africa has been the basis for selection. Given that there

are very few "natural" boundaries in Africa which would allow for the rational demarcation of land on the

basis of ethnic, geographic, or economic criteria, the worry is that recognizing new African states will lead to

a splintering process that would promote the creation of ever-smaller units, with seemingly endless political

chaos. Thus, Gidon Gottlieb argues against the creation of new states because he fears "anarchy and disorder on a

planetary scale."

Responding to State Failure in Africa.

Jeffrey Herbst












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Hardt and Negri argue that, under globalization, national sovereignty is no longer the locus of power;

power is situated in an amorphous web of economic and political relations outside of any state - what

they call Empire. Thus, in a perverse way, the logic of globalization does not so much distinguish

between First and Third World sovereignty, but subsumes and debilitates both of them, thoughperhaps not equally, in the service of a new world economic order.

Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law.

Antony Anghie, Reviewed by Mark Kleyna.


Robert H. Jackson

"Political Africa is an intrinsically imperial cum international construct. Colonial governments were never

particularly large or imposing, and it is something of a misnomer to speak of them as colonial "states."

President John F. Kennedy once characterized decolonization as "a worldwide declaration of independence." This iscertainly true of sub- Saharan Africa, where in 1955 there were only three independent countries: Ethiopia, Liberia,

and South Africa. By the end of 1965, there were thirty- one, and decolonization was looming even in the so-called

white redoubt of southern Africa. By 1980, the entire continent was sovereign apart from Namibia.

It was not the case, for instance, that Africa experienced a sudden splintering of states after Eritrea achieved its

independence, At some point, the reality of disintegrating, dysfunctional African states stands in such contrast to

the legal fiction of sovereign states that experimentation with regards to new states is in order.

This is not to say that granting the right to secession to at least some groups which were able to establish order

within their own areas would be without its dangers. Clearly, any signal from the international community that its

commitment to the territorial integrity of African states is being reduced could result in considerable instability and

uncertainty, and would be met by vehement opposition on the part of many African states which have growndependent on the post-World War II understanding of sovereignty. However, the reality on the ground in some

African countries is that sovereign control is not being exercised by the central state in outlying areas, and sub-

national groups are already exerting authority in certain regions. By recognizing and legitimating those groups, the

international community has the opportunity to ask that they respect international norms regarding human rights and

also has a chance to bring them into the international economy.


Kwame Nkrumah several decades ago thus;

--- the continental union of African is an inescapable desideratum if we are determined to move forward to a

realisation of our hopes and plans for creating a modern society which will give our peoples the opportunity to enjoy

a full and satisfying life (1963;224).The next question we ask is: why was precolonial centralization so beneficial?In line with the political economy literature on centralization and public goods provision (see Bardhan 2002), our

results are inconsistent with the central capture view, holding that decentralization fosters public goods provision

by increasing the accountability of local administrators (Tiebout 1956, Besley and Case 1995, Seabright 1996). Our

findings support instead the opposite local capture view, holding that in developing countries democratic

mechanisms often fail at the local level, leading to policy capture by local elites interested in blocking

socioeconomic reforms (Riker 1964, Bardhan and Mookherjee 2000, Blanchard and Shleifer 2001).


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Precolonial Centralization and Institutional Quality in Africa,

Nicola Gennaioli and Ilia Rainer

Africa: The way forward

Tangie Nsoh Fonchingong the fact that ethnically homogenous groups are found to be more conducive than heterogeneous ones to the

development of democratic values and practices (MacLean 2004). This is essentially as a result of the mutual trust

that exists among the members of the former group: Consequently it is arguable that ethnically homogenous African

states could be more conducive than heterogeneous ones for the formation of a continental government. In the

present set up ethnic interest necessitates the acquisition of power by all means, its perpetuation and a rbitrary

exercise, that is, there is no agreement on how power is acquired, its duration and manner of exercise, and as such,

there can be no agreement about relinquishing part of that power to a continental government. On the other hand it

seems easier for the leadership of an ethnically homogenous state to agree to relinquish some of its powers to a

continental government because of the certainty of its interest being represented at that level by some of its kin than

it is for the leadership of an ethnically heterogeneous state because of the fear of ones groups losing out arising from

the uncertainty of representation.

In precolonial Africa, a wide variety of political organizations - villages, city-states, nation-states, empires-rose andfell. After independence, Africa's heterogeneous political heritage was brushed aside in the rush by nationalists to

seize the reins of power of the nation - states as defined politically and geographically by their European colonizers.

Ironically, even as Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, and Sekou Toure were proclaiming a break with Europe and

the West, they uniformly seized upon that most western of political organizations - the nation-state- to rule. .

Even as they borrowed the names of great states from Africa's past such as Benin, Ghana, and Mali, "the educated

elites in West Africa-for a long time, it would be much the same in South Africa- saw Africa's own history as

irrelevant and useless.... they demanded a more or less complete flattening of the ethnic landscape."

The primary objection to recognizing new states in Africa has been the basis for selection. Given that there are very

few "natural" boundaries in Africa which would allow for the rational demarcation of land on the basis of ethnic,

geographic, or economic criteria, the worry is that recognizing new African states will lead to a splintering process

that would promote the creation of ever-smaller units, with seemingly endless political chaos.

Hardt and Negri argue that, under globalization, national sovereignty is no longer the locus of power; power is

situated in an amorphous web of economic and political relations outside of any state what they call Empire.

Thus, in a perverse way, the logic of globalization does not so much distinguish between First and Third World

sovereignty, but subsumes and debilitates both of them, though perhaps not equally, in the service of a new world

economic order.

Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law.

Antony Anghie, Reviewed by Mark Kleyna.


dysfunctional African states stands in such contrast to the legal fiction ofsovereign states that experimentation with regards to new states is in order.



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The now-burgeoning literature on failed states also focuses largely on preventing crises,

so that states with poor track records can continue to exist, or on discovering methods to put

the failed states back together.

In a number of countries, the state is slowly being merged into a web of informal business associations instituted by

rulers who have little interest in carrying out the traditional functions of the state and who do not recognize or

respect boundaries while enriching themselves through trade.

Africa thus presents a picture of heterogeneous state formation. Unfortunately, the international community, in itsresponse to state failure in Africa, has refused to acknowledge the structural factors at work, despite mounting

evidence that the loss of sovereign control is becoming a pattern in at least parts of Africa. Rather, each state failure

is taken as a unique event. No doubt, the confluence of factors supporting African sovereignty in the past was so

strong that considerable inertia within international organizations now supports the assumption that there is no

alternative to the current nation-states. Moreover, African diplomats, who are among the chief beneficiaries of

current attitudes towards sovereignty, work hard to suppress any change in international diplomatic practices.

Unfortunately, the evidence of poor performance is taken either as the best that could be done under thecircumstances by advocates of current policies, or as an indication that the current policies are incorrect by those

who want some other set of policies adopted. Few have asked the more important question of whether the policies,

even if correctly designed, are not working because the nation-states themselves are profoundly flawed.

Review by Graham W. Irwin of

V.G. Kiernans The Lords of Human Kind:

Black Man, Yellow Man, and White Man in an Age of Empire

Western Europeans of the century and a half before the First World War were "lords of human kind," at least in their

own eyes. Most of the world they conquered and absorbed into their empires; over much of the rest they won

economic control. As their rule expanded, they gained impressions and formed opinions about the diverse peoples

with whom they came in contact and adopted particular attitudes and modes of behavior toward them. It is the nature

and development of these attitudes and this behavior-of what might be called Europe's intellectual posture vis-a-vis

non-Europe-that is the subject of this unusual and stimulating book.

The Paradox of Decolonization,


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Anghie concludes that rather than being peripheral to international law,

colonialism was central to the constitution of international law and sovereignty doctrine.

First, the current domination has internal corroborators in the African political and economic elites whose overall

objective is to ensure their survival by maintaining the status quo, and secondly, the political, economic and cultural

forces of the current domination are too subtle to be perceived by the man on the street. This implies that the status

quo will remain for a foreseeable future. Yet we must begin to chart a way forward as outlined above, if Africa must

be recaptured and made to serve African interests.

The status quo has rendered Africa the poorest region in the world, as such it is not only prostrate, but is actually

lying flat on its back. And so, the question is, whose interest is the status quo serving? And can Africa be any

weaker than it currently is? To assume that Africa can be weaker is implying that one can die beyond death.

Moreover, and besides the fact that the restructuring is only a stepping stone, there is no reason to suppose that the

restructuring will necessarily produce states that are smaller than the present ones. For instances, a state composed

of the fangs in Cameroon, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea will be much larger than either of the last two named

states. The same could be true of other groups.

Jeffrey Herbst. Responding to State Failure in Africa

The Paradox of Decolonization

In precolonial Africa, a wide variety of political organizations - villages, city-states,nation-states, empires-rose

and fell. However, the formal colonization of Africa and the demarcation of the continent into national states

between 1885 and 1902 replaced that diversity of forms with the European model of the national state.' After

independence, Africa's heterogeneous political heritage was brushed aside in the rush by nationalists to seize the

reins of power of the nation - states as defined politically and geographically by their European colonizers.

Ironically, even as Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, and Sekou Toure were proclaiming a break with Europe and

the West, they uniformly seized upon that most western of political organizations - the nation-state-to rule.

The African embrace of the nation-state as theorized, designed, and demarcated by Europeans was propelled byseveral forces. First, many Africans were glad to be rid of the confused mixture of political institutions that

characterized the precolonial period. Even as they borrowed the names of great states from Africa's past such as

Benin, Ghana, and Mali, "the educated elites in West Africa - for a long time, it would be much the same in South

Africa- saw Africa's own history as irrelevant and useless.... when it came down to brass tacks, to the question of

who should take over from the British when the British withdrew, they demanded a more or less complete flattening

of the ethnic landscape." Of course, the leaders themselves had a profound interest in maintaining the nation-states

they inherited from the Europeans because there was no guarantee, if they began to experi-ment with different types

of political organization, that they would continue to be in power.

Immediately upon decolonization, the United Nations General Assembly-the gatekeeper to statehood-immediately

declared the new countries to be sovereign and ratified their borders. The General Assembly was encouraged to do

so by the new states who soon constituted a large percentage of that body, by the excitement generated worldwide as

so many states gained their freedom largely through non-violent means and the determination to support those newexperiments, and by the considerable anxiety worldwide to avoid the kind of violence that accompanied the division

of the Indian subcontinent in the late 1940s.

However, the UN grant of sovereignty by administrative fiat, simply because a country had achieved independence,

was a revolutionary departure from traditional practices whereby sovereignty had to be earned. Indeed, the central

paradox of the international treatment of African states is that although sovereignty was granted simply as a result of


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decolonization, it was immediately assumed that the new states would take on features that had previously

characterized sovereignty, most notably unquestioned physical control over the defined territory, but also an

administrative presence throughout the country and the allegiance of the population to the idea of the state.

Implicitly, the granting of sovereignty to the new nations also suggested that every country that gained freedom

from colonization would be politically and economically viable, despite the fact that most colonies in Africa had

been demarcated with the assumption that they would not become separate, independent states. Indeed, the principal

criteria for state recognition today are a permanent population, a defined territory, and the ability to enter into

relations with other states. The ability to control and administer the territory assigned are irrelevant to the modern

conception of sovereignty; the ability to develop ties to the population even more so. The notion that Africa was

ever composed of sovereign states classically defined as having a monopoly on force in the territory within their

boundaries is false. Most colonial states did not make any effort to extend the administrative apparatus of

government much beyond the capital city. "In most cases," the colonial governments "were little more than

elementary bureaucracies with limited personnel and finances and were more comparable to rural country

governments in Europe than to modern independent States." After independence, African countries did try to extend

the administrative reach of the state, but were always more focused on the urban populations. Although sovereignty

was for some countries little more than a legal fiction, it was relatively easy to maintain appearances in the 1960s

and 1970s.

In a number of countries, the state is slowly being merged into a web of informal business associations instituted by

rulers who have little interest in carrying out the traditional functions of the state and who do not recognize orrespect boundaries while enriching themselves through trade.

Africa thus presents a picture of heterogeneous state formation. Unfortunately, the international community, in its

response to state failure in Africa, has refused to acknowledge the structural factors at work, despite mounting

evidence that the loss of sovereign control is becoming a pattern in at least parts of Africa. Rather, each state failure

is taken as a unique event. No doubt, the confluence of factors supporting African sovereignty in the past was so

strong that considerable inertia within international organizations now supports the assumption that there is no

alternative to the current nation-states. Moreover, African diplomats, who are among the chief beneficiaries of

current attitudes towards sovereignty, work hard to suppress any change in international diplomatic practices. For

instance, even though it was obvious that Somalia had collapsed by December 1992, when the U.S.-UN intervention

force was being planned, no one seriously considered trusteeship or any other legal concept other than continuing

the fiction that Somalia was still a sovereign nation-state. Thus, the resolution on intervention to the Security

Council was actually proposed by a former Somali prime minister, so that the UN could pretend that the Somali

state was asking for the foreign troops. Numerous critiques of the performance of African states also assume that

there is no alternative to the status quo. For instance, the North-South Round-table recognized that "institutional

decay is currently of endemic proportion in Africa. In all sectors of the polity, the great institutions of the State have

failed woefully. Evidence of institutional crisis abounds: in the political system, in the public service, in the

management of the economy and even in the military." Even so, the Roundtable restricted itself to asking how the

existing states could be reinvigorated despite the long-term record of failure associated with Africa's extant political

institutions. No energy was devoted to exploring alternatives.

The now-burgeoning literature on failed states also focuses largely on preventing crises, so that states with poor

track records can continue to exist, or on discovering methods to put the failed states back together. For instance,

William Zartman, while admitting that a case can potentially be made for changes in the nature of the nation-state,

still argues: It is better to reaffirm the validity of the existing unit and make it work, using it as a framework for

adequate attention to the concerns of citizens and the responsibilities of sovereignty, rather than experimenting with

smaller units, possibly more homogeneous but less broadly based and stable.... In general, restoration of stateness isdependent on reaffirmation of the precollapse state.

Old and New Conceptions of African Sovereignty


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Ivor Wilks, in writing about the Ashanti theory of sovereignty,

noted that "rights of sovereignty were regarded as distinguish-able

from the exercise of authority.

Sub-Saharan Africa is populated by several hundreds ethnic groups. Before the large scale colonization

undertakenby European powers toward the end of the 19th century, those groups varied tremendously in their

political institutions. Colonial powers, and later the international community, superimposed on top of these

precolonial institutions new state organizations borrowed from the Western historical experience that are identified

with todays African countries. Yet, these developments did not prevent precolonial institutions to exert a profound

influence across the African continent.

As a result, many precolonial African states were far more dynamic than has been the case in the world since

1945. Many outlying territories found that they could escape their rulers' authority relatively easily. For instance,

in the Central African kingdoms, "provinces could break off from the kingdom whenever circumstances were

favorable. This happened in Kongo, in the Kuba kingdom, and in the Luanda empire, where every ruler who was far

enough away... became independent."

In Africa, however, there was an abrupt discontinuity between the old political order and the new one that

essentially began with the Berlin West African Conference in 1885. In the space of a few decades, the facade of thenew state system was formed, shortly thereafter, the states were given independence. The hard-earned structures of

political control and authority that allowed for the exercise of political power in the precolonial period were abruptly





ritual black

africa:making the case for

ethnic nationalism &

pan Africanism

on the clan, nation and sovereignty in precolonial africa,

ritual and ethnicity in the pursuit of continental

governance and a pan African experience.

Understanding what was lost when the Europeans imposed the territorial nation-state is a first step towardinvestigating what might be appropriate for Africa today. This is not to engage in misty-eyed nostalgia that

somehow political formations developed hundreds of years ago can be replicated today. As Davidson notes, "the

precolonial past is not recoverable." However, understanding what the colonialists destroyed little more than a


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century ago should be helpful to the development of a more indigenous alternative to the nation-state as theorized,

designed, and imposed by the Europeans. Precolonial sovereignty had two features radically different from

sovereignty exercised in modern Africa. First, in large parts of precolonial Africa, control tended to be exercised

over people rather than land. Land was plentiful and populations thin on the ground. Indeed, many precolonial

polities were "surrounded by large tracts of land that were open polit ically or physically or both." As land was not

seen as the constraining resource, exercising political power primarily meant control over individuals.

Precolonial African practices were thus not that different from feudal Europe, where hard territorial boundaries were

a rather late development. However, the precolonial practices were radically different from the later European and

post-independence African view that "states are territorial entities." The second notable aspect of precolonial

political practices was that sovereignty tended to be shared. It was not unusual for a community to have nominal

obligations and allegiances to more than one political center. As power was not strictly defined spatially, there was

much greater confusion over what it meant to control a particular community at any one time. At the same time,

communications and technology were so poorly developed that few political centers could hope to wield

unquestioned authority, even over the areas that they were thought to control.

Ivor Wilks, in writing about the Ashanti theory of sovereignty, noted that "rights of sovereignty were regarded as

distinguish-able from the exercise of authority." Thus, it was not an uncommon practice in Ashanti law for the land

to belong to one authority (e.g., the southern provinces to the Asantehene) but for the people to owe allegiance to

another (in the case of the south, to the Fante or the British Governor). Indeed, such were the limits of territorial

authority that the central government was often not concerned about what outlying areas did as long as tribute waspaid. In this respect, precolonial Africa was similar to medieval Europe, where shared sovereignty e.g., between the

Church and various political units-was not uncommon. However, again, this differs markedly from the modern

notion of statehood, where sovereign control over each piece of territory is unambiguous: "there is never any doubt

about where one stands, and that one always stands on the domain of a single sovereign state.

As a result, many precolonial African states were far more dynamic than has been the case in the world since 1945.

Political organizations were created, and they rose and fell naturally in response to opportunities and challenges.

Many outlying territories found that they could escape their rulers' authority relatively easily. For instance, in the

Central African kingdoms, "provinces could break off from the kingdom whenever circumstances were favorable.

This happened in Kongo, in the Kuba kingdom, and in the Luanda empire, where every ruler who was far enough

away... became independent." Indeed, war was a common feature of precolonial African politics.' Political control in

precolonial Africa had to be acquired through the construction of loyalties, the use of coercion, and the creation of

an infrastructure. Indeed, political control over outlying areas could never be taken for granted given that the

environment made it so difficult to continually exert control over any significant distance.

There was nothing exotic about the precolonial African state system. Where Europe and Africa diverge is in the

speed in which they moved from one system to another. The European evolution from the old system of states where

territory was not well defined and sovereignty was shared was very slow, taking centuries. While the slow

transformation from one system to another made it difficult for states to deal with crises, there were advantages to a

state in not being called upon to exercise all aspects of modern sovereignty at once: for instance, in many European

countries, local notables were still responsible for arresting criminals and providing social services long after the

modern state was created, because the state did not have the capacity to carry out these functions. Thus, in Europe

there was time for relatively viable states to develop.

In Africa, however, there was an abrupt discontinuity between the old political order and the new one that

essentially began with the Berlin West African Conference in 1885. In the space of a few decades, the facade of the

new state system was formed, shortly thereafter, the states were given independence. The hard-earned structures ofpolitical control and authority that allowed for the exercise of political power in the precolonial period were abruptly






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The Implications of the New Sovereignty

Thus, the bias toward urban dwellers and the neglect of the majority of Africans in the rural areas can be traced,

in part, to a state system that encouraged elites to cultivate their urban constituencies. Second, part of the failure to

accommodate ethnic diversity in some states comes from the international community's acquiescence in the freezing

of boundaries. If secession had been a viable threat, as it had been during the precolonial period, African politicians

would have had a profound incentive to reach accommodation with disaffected populations, especially those that

were spatially defined, lest they threaten to leave the nation-state. However, the international community's view that

the boundaries were inviolable and that, therefore, the use of force was justified against potential secessionists,

removed incentives for ethnic accommodation. Indeed, the great powers often went beyond acquiescence to actively

providing arms and expertise for the crushing of secessionist movements, so that even obviously dysfunctional states

could maintain their territorial integrity. Perhaps more important, the current static state system in Africa has

institutionalized weakness and decline, irrespective of the sources of failure.

The profound changes in the nature of sovereignty both aggravated decline in Africa and institutionalized it. First,

the natural bias of African leaders to serve the urban population, who could threaten to riot and physically challenge

leaders, was encouraged because the new theory of sovereignty provided few incentives for leaders to develop

networks of support in the rural areas. The Organization of African Unity and the United Nations bestowed

recognition on governments that controlled their capitals, irrespective of whether those states had much of a physical

presence in the rural areas. When there were attempts at revolt in the rural areas, the international community bothimplicitly and explicitly gave its approval to the use of force to quash the revolts, demonstrating that a state's

treatment of its rural population would have little bearing on its international position. Thus, the bias toward urban

dwellers and the neglect of the majority of Africans in the rural areas can be traced, in part, to a state system that

encouraged elites to cultivate their urban constituencies. Second, part of the failure to accommodate ethnic diversity

in some states comes from the international community's acquiescence in the freezing of boundaries. If secession

had been a viable threat, as it had been during the precolonial period, African politicians would have had a profound

incentive to reach accommodation with disaffected populations, especially those that were spatially defined, lest

they threaten to leave the nation-state. However, the international community's view that the boundaries were

inviolable and that, therefore, the use of force was justified against potential secessionists, removed incentives for

ethnic accommodation. Indeed, the great powers often went beyond acquiescence to actively providing arms and

expertise for the crushing of secessionist movements, so that even obviously dysfunctional states could maintain

their territorial integrity. Perhaps more important, the current static state system in Africa has institutionalized

weakness and decline, irrespective of the sources of failure.

The current complete disassociation between a country's economic and political performance and its sovereign status

means that, no matter how poorly a country performs, the international community continues to give it legitimacy,

pretends that it is a functioning state, and supports efforts to preserve its integrity. the price of boundary stability

has been that even dysfunctional states have claims on the international system. There are thus repeated efforts by

the United States, the UN, or African neighbors to put back together Somalia, Liberia, and other countries even

though there is little evidence that they ever worked well. It is thus hardly a surprise that the African development

experience has been peculiarly bad. Patrick Conway and Joshua Greene concluded that for "the macroeconomic

performance and policies of African countries differed significantly from those of non-African developing countries

in many respects.... African countries had lower investment and inflation rates. In addition, they exhibited lower

rates of real economic growth even after adjustment for external and developmental factors."

Unfortunately, the evidence of poor performance is taken either as the best that could be done under the

circumstances by advocates of current policies, or as an indication that the current policies are incorrect bythose who want some other set of policies adopted. Few have asked the more important question of whether

the policies, even if correctly designed, are not working because the nation-states themselves are profoundly

flawed.


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Recognizing new nation-states

After thirty years of assuming that the boundaries of even the most dysfunctional African state are inviolable,

another important initiative for the international community would be to consider the possibility of allowing for the

creation of new sovereign states. Opening the possibility for new states to be created would challenge the basic

assumption held by African leaders and the international community that boundaries drawn haphazardly during the

scramble for Africa a century ago with little regard to the social, political, economic, or ethnic realities on the

ground should continue to be universally respected. At the same time, allowing for more dynamism in the creation

of African states would help recapture the element of the precolonial perspective on sovereignty that insisted that

political control had to be won, not instituted by administrative fiat. A criterion for recognition appropriate to the

particular circumstances of Africa's failing states could be: does the break-away area provide more political order on

its own over a significant period of time (say, five years) than is provided by the central government? By order, I

mean functioning military, police, and judicial systems, which are the fundamental prerequisites for political and

economic progress. These public goods are precisely what Africa's failing states do not provide. Such a standard

would rule out many attempts at secession that were not of the utmost seriousness, and also return, to a degree, to

older understandings of sovereignty that are resonant with the African past. The long-term aim would be to provide

international recognition to the governmental units that are actually providing order to their citizens as opposed to

relying on the fictions of the past.

The primary objection to recognizing new states in Africa has been the basis for selection. Given that thereare very few "natural" boundaries in Africa which would allow for the rational demarcation of land on the

basis of ethnic, geographic, or economic criteria, the worry is that recognizing new African states will lead to

a splintering process that would promote the creation of ever-smaller units, with seemingly endless political

chaos. Thus, Gidon Gottlieb argues against the creation of new states because he fears "anarchy and disorder

on a planetary scale."





This is not to say that granting the right to secession to at least some groups which were able to establish order

within their own areas would be without its dangers. Clearly, any signal from the international community that its

commitment to the territorial integrity of African states is being reduced could result in considerable instability and

uncertainty, and would be met by vehement opposition on the part of many African states which have grown

dependent on the post-World War II understanding of sovereignty. However, the reality on the ground in some

African countries is that sovereign control is not being exercised by the central state in outlying areas, and sub-

national groups are already exerting authority in certain regions. By recognizing and legitimating those groups, the

international community has the opportunity to ask that they respect international norms regarding human rights and

also has a chance to bring them into the international economy.

The international community thus faces the choice between ignoring successful secessionist movements and thereby

forcing them to remain semi-criminal affairs, or trying to help create new state institutions. The fact that some

African states will dissolve will be the reality no matter which policy stance is adopted.


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Alternatives to the Sovereign State

A far more revolutionary approach would be for at least parts of Africa to be reordered around some organization

other than the sovereign state. While such reforms would be a dramatic change for international society, their

adoption would be an important acknowledgment of what is actually happening in parts of Africa where many states

do not exercise sovereign authority over their territories. Indeed, in a world where capital knows no boundaries and

where force projection over distance is increasingly easy, it is peculiar that political power continues to be firmly

demarcated according to territory. Developing alternatives to the current understanding of sovereignty would be

consistent with older African practices where sovereignty was sometimes shared and where there were many

different arrangements regarding the exercise of political authority depending on local circumstances. It will

primarily be up to the Africans to come up with alternatives to the nation-state. However, the international

community can play an important role in signaling that the atmosphere has changed and that there is at least the

possibility that alternatives to the sovereign state could be accepted. Indeed, alternatives to the nation-state are being

developed now.

The idea that complex humanitarian disasters of the type experienced by Somalia and Liberia must, at some level, be

the responsibility of the international community is a new phenomenon in international relations, and is at odds with

the post-World War II notion of sovereignty for any territory that can achieve self-rule. Accordingly, new tools mustbe developed to deal with these problems, and the old practice of simply accepting that all countries must always be

sovereign should be rejected.

The international society has yet to acknowledge that some states simply do not work. Indeed, it will require

significant effort simply to create an environment where the possibility of alternatives to the current nation-states is

admitted. Ending the intellectual log-jam caused by the current insistence on retaining the old nation-states would

allow Africans in particular to begin to develop, for the first time in over a century, indigenous plans for their

nation-states. Given the extent of the problems in Africa's failing states, it would be incorrect to suggest that any

innovation will be low-cost, or will be guaranteed to address the root causes of failure. However, the very magnitude

of the problems affecting millions of people also suggests that the current emphasis on resuscitating states that have

never demonstrated the capacity to be viable is a mistake.

It would be too simple to infer that an autonomist paradigm of the colonial state must be supplanted by an

instrumental one. After all, colonies were increasingly justified to metropolitan and African publics in terms of the

good they did to Africans, and on those terms colonies themselves came increasingly to be judged. They were

certainly external apparatuses of control "created for the express purpose of dominating the local society" (Dunn,

1978: 5), but they were also far more than that. Colonial revenues required the intensification of production and

trade, the deepening of capitalist relations. Colonial peace therefore depended on coping with a variety of

contradictions (Lonsdale and Berman, 1979). Capitalists had to be satisfied; their competing claims, metropolitan

and local, had to be reconciled. Their rapacities often had to be restrained lest they destroy the African production on

which they fed.

Modernization theory took an optimistic view of all this. Nativistic religious enthuasiams were a passing phase.

Towns were melting pots. As the politically relevant strata expanded so tribes would fade away, residual categories


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in the brave new world of voluntary associations (Deutsch, 1961). Africa's transitionals, like those in the middle

east, were "nomads of the spirit in search of a new identity" (Riseman, 1958: 5). Scholars did indeed capture the

precious atmosphere of excitement in this time of hope, this "stumbling from night into day" (Davidson, 1975: 44).

However much nationalism may now be argued to have been a delusion, it did for a few years appear to make all

things new. Then we did at least have human actors on our pages, even if too many of them were rootless

individuals. Now, unless we are careful, we have the bearers of class forces. That is the language of cardboard

caricature. Modernization theory and rigid class analysis are equally empty in this respect. Colonial Africa

remained unpredictable to its end. Independence, the power of decision, did count, even if one must also ask,

How much?

There have been sharp disagreements over what constitute the important relations of power and, therefore, over the

sense in which they can be said to be in crisis. Africa's troubles have been attributed to the fact that it is a continent,

successively, of states without nations, of neo-colonies, and of syncretic social processes.

Indeed, the growth and crystallization of tribes has been recognized as one of the most vigorous and creative social

processes in modern Africa (e.g., Low, 1971: 3-7; Young, 1976; Iliffe, 1979: ch. 10). Moreover, tribalism, far from

being (as was once supposed) an index of African states' fragility, may well be an indication of their strength,

precisely because what states have to offer in smoothing access to world markets is so important. St ronger, richer

areas, the ones that count, will use assertive tribalism to gain state access; it is the weaker ones which tend to

mobilize retreatist ethnicity to resist state power in its alliance with capital (Post, 1972). Tribalism may as much

strengthen states as weaken them. The second point relates tribe and class. Tribes are like states or, indeed, capital.They themselves do nothing. They are mobilized by groups of like-interested people who can persuade a latent or

potential community to think and act like one in their support. Those who most need access to the state and can

profit by it were and are Africa's emergent bourgeoisies (Sklar, 1965; 1967). Even before access to the state was so

important to them, they had learned that the social relation of merchant capital was most easily deployed among

those who shared their cultural symbols and spoke the same language (Ehrensaft, 1977).

Development or underdevelopment are two perspectives on the process of Africa's incorporation into some variously

defined global society, but there was no one such process and therefore no one necessary outcome.

Precolonial Centralization and Institutional Quality in Africa,Nicola Gennaioli and Ilia Rainer

We find that the centralized precolonial political institutions of African ethnic groups reduced corruption and

fostered the rule of law in colonial and postcolonial Africa. These results complement our earlier finding (Gennaioli

and Rainer 2005) that precolonial centralization improved public goods provision in colonial and postcolonial

Africa. The data support the view that precolonial institutions are crucial to understanding governmental quality in

Africa and in former colonies more generally. The evidence also stresses the desirability of centralization when

unaccountable local elites capture local politics for private gain.

1. Introduction

Sub-Saharan Africa is populated by several hundreds ethnic groups. Before the large scale colonization undertaken

by European powers toward the end of the 19th century, those groups varied tremendously in their political

institutions. Colonial powers, and later the international community, superimposed on top of these precolonial

institutions new state organizations borrowed from the Western historical experience that are identified with todays

African countries. Yet, these developments did not prevent precolonial institutions to exert a profound influence

across the African continent.

- The Basic Empirical Finding


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The basic finding of The Modern Impact of PrecolonialCentralization in Africa is a strong and positive

association across African countries between Centralization and public goods. African countries where a larger share

of the population belongs to centralized (rather than fragmented) ethnic groups display superior capacity to provide

public goods such as health, education and infrastructure between 1960 and 2002. Infan

ritual BlackAfrica

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