Politics of Post - Colonial Africa

...

Markovitz (1970s) thesis didn’t survive for long and it was attacked by other scholars. The first is Joshua Forrest.

Forrest: “Africa states are a soft state. In soft state, there is no autonomy, political penetration, ability to collect taxes (extracting resources) and legitimacy. A hard state is able to make itself present and to become the most central institution throughout the all areas of the country and over all social groups. African states are trying to hardening themselves but they fail to do so, so they remain soft state. They have low legitimacy, not able to get taxes, don’t penetrate, the state is not autonomous”.

Diamond: “African states are swollen states. Swollen state; the state is an elite state. This elite perceives the state as a resource. This elite sees the state as a weapon to themselves to secure power. The state appropriates the state, and takes over it. L’etat moi. Those resources are the key for the elite survival. By doing it, the elite creates very heavy state machinery, which swallows most, if not all, the resources. The states job is to key the wealth and social status. Kids should all go to school, and to rich school. Therefore, any political competition in this kind of a state witnesses a ‘zero-sum’ game. It is everything or nothing. It can be even violent. Because you are struggling for your life and for your family’s.” So we have a soft state, we have a swollen state.

Young: “African states are colonial states. They remained colonial states to this very day. De-colonialization didn’t change the basic structure of the stage. African inheritance and African patterns are colonial patterns, but what changed is the sin color of the leadership. Comparison between European and African states are quite small. In comparison to the family of colonial states, he says that African states represent the most severe type of colonial state. He proves this argument of African states remained colonial states by examining some of the same parameters like Forrest. He adds; African states lack internal and external security by themselves, that’s why they always need an external force to lean on to exist. Ex: the French in Mali. They lack hegemony, they lack autonomy. External forces can be other countries. African states remained satellite states so they are not exactly on their feet.”

They always ask ‘who are you’ to the African states, but only one of the researchers asked ‘why is the situation this way today?’ who was Young, that he states it is because of colonialism.

Markovitz’s thesis is from 1970s, where Forrest, Diamond and Young are from 1980s.

Jackson (1990s): “African states are quasi-states. Almost a state. In the process of being a state, but not exactly a state. These states are states only in a name, but they lack in a social base. Those states are designed like handicap.

Englebert (1990s)- “The concept of the state, the logic of the state, has nothing to do with Africa. Bureaucracy has no African roots, all these concepts come from outside, they are not African. So they are a state according to what we talked about. If African states are such terrible state conditions what is the thing that keeps them alive? Why don’t they fall apart? What keeps them alive when they are under such bad conditions? Somalia collapsed and Libya is on the verge of collapsing. The African states can be considered to be in a severe state of collapsing. Why don’t the African states collapse? Who doesn’t want the African states to collapse is the elite, which wants the state to keep its resources to be more powerful and richer. So the state is a tool for elite to secure it power. Besides, external forces are also interested in keeping the African state survive. ”

- Who doesn’t want the African states to collapse is the African Union. Besides that, the African state survives because for exploiting resources you need security. Who wants to benefit from resources want the states to survive, which would be in their advantage and that could be through security. If a policeman, who doesn’t get paid for many months, would want the state to survive? They can return something else for the service that they provide. Having a job within a state gives him a possibility to create opportunities to get some sort of returns; it could be money, it could be service, etc. in return for using his formal job. So again, state is needed with its resources in order to be manipulated.

- Most scholars explain why African states stay alive by regarding to the external factors. What are these external forces fearing besides resources? Terror, pirates, immigrations. Therefore there a lot of interest holders that would rather have African states remain not collapsed. Besides that, anybody who wants to challenge the elite also uses the state in order to do so.

LESSON 5 – 13.11.2013 (important for the exam)

- Last week we analyzed African states and different African understanding of the relationship between rulers and citizens.

- In the 1960s conflicts in Nigeria perhaps were more ethnically drive, whereas the conflict s of the last decade is religious based.

,

- What is an ethnicity?

Subjective element is needed, where people feel themselves being to a specific group and they have feelings and emotions for that group.

- What is the difference between ethnicity and nation?

Nation achieves a self-inspiration that gives political identity, and that doesn’t need to be your ethnicity. An ethnicity is commonly perceived as an ancient phenomenon. Why Sudan – North and South- is fighting? It is en ethnic conflict.

- Is ethnicity is the direct reason for the conflicts in Africa?

In the past 100 years we see rapid changes in ethnic groups, new ethic groups appeared. In Kongo, for example, there is Bangala which is a new identity existed in the 20th century.

Hausa and Filani in Nigeria, where Hausa took over Filani.

So ethnicity is very dynamic and historical identity.

- In the 19th century ethnicity was a deep problem which needed to be solved by modernity. Ethnicities existed however belonging to an ethnicity does not mean to belonging to a political identity.

- Nigeria has 3 ethnic groups, big ones. Up until the colonial times, the South-West