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Key Text The Challenge of State Building in Africa

Author: J Herbst
Date: 2000
Size: 20 pages

Summary

How can we form a coherent view of African politics? This chapter argues that scholars have been unsuccessful in developing a view of African politics that takes the pre-colonial period seriously while acknowledging the traumas created by white rule. It suggests that there are broad continuities that become apparent when the approach of successive leaders to the same political geography is examined. As some African states break down, it becomes more important to understand the past in order to foresee a better future for Africa.

Until now scholars have focused on the European experience of state-building, despite the fact that Europe contains only a small proportion of the states formed throughout history. The European experience does not provide a template for state-building in other regions of the world. Nevertheless, to understand the extension of power in Africa, the traditional tools of political science that stress leadership decisions, institutional structures and systemic considerations can continue to be used.

For a truly comparative study of politics to develop, the great but incomplete drama of African state creation must be understood. How did those who sought to create African states respond to the continual problem of extending authority over distance, given a particular political geography? By examining both the environment that leaders had to confront and the institutions they created in the light of their own political calculations, the entire trajectory of state creation in Africa can be recovered. Fundamentally, there is nothing exotic about African politics. Rather, as elsewhere, political outcomes are the result of human agency interacting with powerful geographical and historical forces.

As is the case in other parts of the world, the viability of African states depends on their leaders successfully meeting the challenges posed by their particular environment.

The fundamental challenge facing state builders in Africa is to project authority over inhospitable territories that contain relatively low densities of people.
Low population densities have meant that it has been more expensive for states to exert control over a given number of people compared with Europe and other densely settled areas.
Ecological conditions don't allow high densities of people to be supported easily. More than 50 percent of Africa has inadequate rainfall.
State consolidation in Africa can be understood by examining several basic dynamics: the assessment of costs of expansion by individual leaders; the nature of buffer mechanisms established by the state and the nature of the regional state system.

Only by understanding all three levels is a complete analysis of the consolidation of power in Africa possible. It is important to disregard the boundaries between comparative politics and international relations because a more holistic analysis is necessary to understand the consolidation of power.

Maximum analytic leverage is gained when the interplay between the cost of state expansion, boundary mechanisms and the state system can be understood.
For instance, the cost of territorial expansion can be manipulated by states by changing the international understanding of what it means to control territory.
Similarly, particular types of buffer mechanisms increase or reduce the cost of territorial expansion.
Likewise, the nature of the international system affects what kind of buffer mechanisms states can establish.

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Source: Herbst, J., 2000, ‘The Challenge of State Building in Africa’, chapter 1 in States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control, Princeton University Press, New Jersey