1
Week One Notes: Why African Politics Matter
______________________________________________________
Reading Notes
Reading One: W(h)ither the State?
SOURCE: Engelbert, Pierre and Dunn, Kevin Inside African Politics, (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner
Publishers, 2013) Chapter 1
SUMMARY: summarized 13 pages of paragraphs to 7 pages covering everything, with a lot of spaces,
bullet points, etc.
Introduction
It often seems that analysts are more concerned with confirming their own theoretical or conceptual
preferences rather than understanding the realities of the structure of political power in post-colonial
African societies.
Multiple paradigms on the institutionalization of power fail to convincingly account for the role of the
state in contemporary Africa.
Our starting point is the Weberian approach to the formation of the modern state
➔ Why the overcoming of patrimonialism is a prerequisite to the successful emergence of the state.
Our own argument is that the state in Africa was never properly institutionalized because it was never
significantly emancipated from society. Partly as a result of historical factors linked to the specific
development of the colonial state - a state both arbitrary and poorly bureaucratized - and partly with
important cultural considerations.
The Non-Emancipated State
Below are three of the most predominant interpretations of the state that tend to either remain excessively
teleological or neglect relevant cultural considerations.
1. The first approach assumes that any relatively centralized political structure presiding over the
destiny of the peoples of a given geographical area can be assimilated into a state.
However,
- The state is not merely the ‘inevitable’ result of the evolution of a system for the
regulation of power within the social order.
- Depends above all on the gradual emancipation of established political structures from
society.
2. The second, (Marxist or neo-Marxist perspective), is that the state is simply the instrument of
accumulation and violence wielded by a dominant social class - “the superstructure”.
However,
, 2
- It is difficult to establish (ideologically), whether in Africa there are identifiable social
classes with discrete and coherent political ambitions.
- It is self-evidently the case that the modern state (whether in the West or in Asia) has
been instrumental in fostering and co-ordinating economic growth for the benefit of a
large array of social classes - and not just of the political elites
3. The third, on the origins of African polities, tends to confuse appearance with reality.
However,
- The fact that all post-colonial states have been formally constituted on the model of the
modern Western state is not in itself evidence of the degree of their institutionalization.
- The public display of the attributes of the modern state could also be deceptive
For our part, we approach the question from the perspective of the Weberian tradition, a sociological
approach.
● From this viewpoint, the modern state is the outcome of a process by which the realm of politics
is gradually emancipated from society and constituted into increasingly autonomous
political institutions.
- the successful establishment of a truly independent bureaucracy.
- the emancipation of the state rests on the establishment and operation of a civil service
unconstrained by the dynamics of social pressures.
The implication of such an analysis is that the emergence of the modern state means the end of
patrimonialism. By contrast, the patrimonial model implies an instrumentally profitable lack of
distinction between the civic and personal spheres.
● The ruler allocates political office to his clients on the basis of patronage, rather than according to
the criteria of professionalism and competence which characterize the civil service.
● On these grounds alone, it would be fair to say that there is no such civil service on the continent.
The state in Africa is thus not institutionalized.
The overriding criterion for selection is kin, communal or other types of loyalty to the ruling elites rather
than qualification or competence. It is clear that the practice of appointment to state employment on
ascriptive or personalized grounds is the norm on the continent.
➔ There appears to be a sense of resigned fatalism: it is expected that civil servants will abuse their
power.
On the continent, no country has a functioning system of personal taxation.
● In a situation where the most basic rules of bureaucratic accountability are disregarded at will,
there cannot be the most elementary institutional infrastructure which would make it possible
to sustain the modern state (as it is defined in the West).
- Note: there are significant differences in respect of the norms of bureaucratic efficiency
between African countries.
- It serves no purpose to generalize excessively and to reduce all African political systems
to their lowest common denominator, however, some generalization is possible.
