States and Power in Africa
Comparative lessons on authority and control
Chapter 1
(review by Sueah Sohn and Defne Ece Yavuz)
In Chapter One, Herbst argues that several factors affect state-building in Africa and Europe. We can categorize them into three groups: differences in territorial conditions, differences in population densities, and differences in warfare.
The first factor is the territorial features:
While Africa has varied ecological features such as coastal, forest, savannah, etc., Europe’s environmental conditions are relatively more constant. Additionally, Africa’s geographical features like limited water travel and tough terrain could be described as quite hostile when compared to Europe’s more hospitable ones.
But how do these territorial features affect state-building in the two regions?
As a result of the varied environmental and geographical conditions of Africa, its hinterlands have relatively low population densities compared to Europe. This brings us to our second factor, which is the difference in population densities. Herbst states that projecting authority over inhospitable territories that contain relatively low densities of people is the fundamental problem faced by state-builders in Africa. This situation makes exerting power over the hinterlands both more expensive and more difficult for Africans since state-builders have to develop models of control for its varied zones and sparsely populated regions.
It is also important to note that only by 1975 had Africa reached the population density of 1500’s Europe. Having had an increase in population density earlier than other regions, European nations began to compete for limited territory, which led to the creation of relatively centralized state apparatuses and infrastructures to fight opposing neighbours. These infrastructures aimed to forge close ties between cities and hinterlands since leaders wanted to put particular emphasis on remote areas that could be lost in battle. European states also established border defences and buffer zones to protect their territory, reinforcing internal consolidation simultaneously. On the other hand, the development of urban areas in Africa occurred only after colonization in the late-nineteenth century and, as Herbst has stated, the pre-existing power infrastructures of Europe were not duplicated in these areas, making it apparent that they were designed to service the needs of the colonizers.
Also, regarding the topic of state capitals, many of the current African states were created before the capital cities had reached maturity, causing them to lack the close ties European capitals had with their hinterlands. Even after the colonial capitals were established, the cities could not extend power inland. This demonstrated that the capitals were meant to serve as easy communication tools and transport links for Europe instead of centers of power for the state.
Finally, the last factor affecting state-building is warfare:
The main goal of war for Africans was to capture people and treasure instead of territory, which was already available. On the other hand, the Europeans fought almost exclusively territorial wars since population densities were high and vacant land was limited. War was also an important player in the development of ties between European capitals and their hinterlands since they mobilized resources from their own populations to fight unlike Africa, which exploited people outside their polity.
Looking at the differences between Europe and African state-building, Herbst explains that state consolidation in Africa must be understood differently and through the assessment of 3 factors:
the costs of expansion of individual leaders within the given conditions
the nature of the buffer mechanisms by the state
and the nature of the regional state system.
So what are the conditions?
What seems to be the case for Africa is that politics is mostly an urban issue. The European colonizers settled down in African countries and created urban centers. These urban centers would be the places where wars of liberation would happen. Around the terminal colonial period, national movements rose and gained independence but this movement did not include the rural population. Therefore what happened was that the nationalist state now only served the urban population with ignorance or even at the cost of the rural population by taxing them heavily.
As Herbst says, there is still an unresolved political struggle in that the political elites want to extend power and the rural peasants want to be taken care of by the state and yet also want to protect a certain amount of their autonomy.
Adding on to this situation, because the countries, in general, are sparsely populated outside of these European made urban centers, it becomes difficult to reap greater benefits from the costs of expansion of power. Politics is still restricted to the urban population.
Another condition is with boundaries.
How were the boundaries of Africa drawn?
These boundaries that were drawn during the post-colonial period were not in consideration of the domestic boundary demarcations or traditional politics. It was based on territorial composite. You can understand the kind of "unnatural" splits between groups that would have risen and how this would affect the way that the individual leaders would govern.
BUT what Herbst says is that these boundaries have been an opportunity for African leaders in setting up buffer institutions. Buffer Institutions are what help insulate polities from international pressures, an example could be the currency exchange mechanisms or citizenship rules…
With these things in mind, we ultimately need to understand the crucial difference in African state systems because state consolidation in Africa happened through cooperation instead of continual conflict as in Europe. And this is not just due to the changes in the international system. We must look within the African context, the nature of the actors, or diverse entities of domestic politics that could have affected the international system as well. The interplay of costs, boundaries, the colonial past, and the state systems are what needs to be considered to understand African politics. Under these conditions, what choices will be made by the African leaders?
This chapter of Herbst’s book was quite helpful for me in understanding the difference that Africa beholds. We can’t simply try to understand it in the way that Europe has progressed and developed. I have learned that the European concept of state-building cannot directly be applied to other regions since Africa has had a different history with state consolidation. Already we know the flaws of the modernization theory, the one line to reach modernization yet, this chapter has helped me to see that still yet, this one-size-fits-all idea was subconsciously there about state formation and consolidation in Africa. This chapter is a good introduction to reanswering the question of “How must we examine and understand Africa?”.
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