Herbst Chapter 6 - Chiefs, States, and the Land

Herbst Chapter 6 - Chiefs, States, and the Land

Is Dispersion of Power An Absolute Good?

(review provided by Baris Kaan Basdil and Aybars Arda Kilicer)

Today, we see that several of the world's most "developed" nations have decentral political structures, that allow for local administrations to have more political and economic power. United States of America is a union of 50 states, whose rights are put forward by the 10th Amendment to the US constitution. Issues that have raised controversy such as the legalization of marijuana, gun control, and the death penalty are either partially or exclusively left to the jurisdiction of the state. Switzerland is actually a confederation, comprised of 26 cantons. These cantons can set their own budgets, political systems, taxes and so on. Germany is also a federation, compromised of sixteen federal states, whose powers extend everywhere except those specified in the Basic Law.

Therefore if these developed and rich countries have decentralized systems, is it possible to exogeneously implement federalist policies in order to achieve development, similar to what IMF does in the economic realm? We would like to argue against this proposition, and set forward the example of Africa. African states have gained their sovereignty gradually in the twentieth century, and have been trying to extend the power of the state all around their territories. In doing so, they have maintained different relations with local powers, and these different relations have resulted in different outcomes for the state. In this paper and concurrent podcast, we intend to offer a discourse on state - chief relations in Africa.

Local Powers in Africa

It is proposed that chiefs came about in the colonial era as "village despots". After the colonial era, countries that gained independence saw that they were not alone in their position of power: Although national parliaments and parties were the major macro-scale political players, in the micro level political power nested with local chiefs, who controlled the local political and economic life to a great degree. These chiefs were the antitheses of the democratic rule. These new political actors sought to resolve this ontological conflict in various ways in various countries. The scope of these resolutions ranged from storming their palaces in Uganda in 1966, to adopting them as government officials to become the new executive officials in their own communities, and to resorting to these local powers in order to gain legitimacy.

It is central to understand why governments and/or people depend on the power of chiefs and why it is hard to get rid of them. Chiefs are important because of their control over land, one of the two main inputs of production. Also, chiefs enjoy better relations with their local compatriots than the new local governments. People may be reluctant to trust the new politicians they have never heard of, and resort to their "good old" local chiefs for refuge.

In building a modern state and a capitalist economy, African governments pursued to ensure private property within their borders. Individual possession of agricultural land may foster competition and incentivize farmers to innovate and increase their productivity, resulting in nationwide development. Alternatively, states may opt to collectivize agricultural land in order to benefit from economies of scale, protect farmers' income and redistribute resources more efficiently.

Here, we should mention the role of states in appropriating land. Regardless of the type of property, states may either legally acknowledge "traditional tenure" or not. Although acknowledging traditional tenure may be contrary to its aim, states may accordingly classify land where these traditional practices apply and where they are no longer relevant. Therefore states can choose to gradually decrease the amount of traditional tenure and transition into state ownership, private ownership or another type of ownership. However, this approach may be incompatible with the already-weak states that could otherwise cope with the local chiefs alone. This was the case for Nigeria where the Land Use Decree of 1978 intended to replace traditional tenure altogether failed, because Nigeria did not have adequate resources to implement this law. Therefore it may be the case for these countries to take a gradual approach to eliminating traditional land tenure. 

Today, countries like Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritania, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe have largely controlled the issue of land tenure, whereas countries like Burkina Faso, Congo-Brazzaville, D.R.O.C., Gabon, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal have persistent land tensions.

Why Reforms Fail?

The analysis of African politics has so far been mainly atomistic, and comparative analyses have so far been scarce. We will begin with case analyses, and try to abstract conclusions from these experiences.

Kenya was among the first countries to experience comprehensive land reform and has gone farthest in promoting individual freehold.

States in appropriating land, have initially focused on controlling harbor regions, overlooking hinterlands. Mauritania, one such hinterland, has significant individual private and state ownership. However, because it is a relatively small country, with high urbanisation rates and lower rate of land devoted to agriculture, it can be argued that Mauritania intrinsically had a smaller problem to deal with. In addition to scarce agricultural land, Mauritania has suffered many draughts, hindering agricultural produce. Therefore non-lucrative land may not lead to the traditional form of land tenure.

Botswana also has its people closer to its capital, and also has a lower rate of land devoted to agriculture. In addition, its booming economy has helped its government better implement its laws, something that was not the case for Nigeria as we discussed before.

Apart from these observations, we can make inferences by focusing at colonial histories. Countries that had white settlers had land tenure in favor of the white elite, such is the case for Namibia and Zimbabwe. Francophone countries in Africa, with the exception of Nigeria and Somalia, performed worse in implementing land reform. Perhaps this is partially drawn by the fact that French colonies in Africa had higher crop rates than other colonies.

It may be useful to discuss the effect of urbanisation and country size in combating rival political powers. Herbst has argued that higher urbanisation rates in a country tend to draw the state apparatus closer to the people and therefore minimize the influence of local chiefs on people, rendering them useless. Therefore, states with higher urbanisation rates (or lower landmass) may be better off in combating these local chiefs.

Another historical factor that affects land tenure is colonial history: Countries that had traumatic experiences such as Malawi, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe intended to overcome their colonial land legacies. A problem with this is that not all countries had similar experiences so commonalities may not be extrapolated.

Some countries have integrated the chiefdom into their political structure: Some states acknowledge them as political powers, while some of them go even further and create "House of Chiefs" types of assemblies for them. South Africa has put them on payroll.

Conclusion

African countries saw the rise of local chiefs in the colonial era. After independence, the initial democratic reformers intended to combat these local chiefs who controlled significant amounts of land and influence over people. The success of their combat has been variant, and the cause of this variation can be attributed to geographical, historical and other factors. Even the notion that states had to fight these local sources of power demarcates them from the Western federal structures: Although federations control land in a way that is responsible to the people living in them, local chiefs act as feudal lords in their area and hinder local and nationwide development. As such, African states either have to get rid of these chiefs, or find ways to integrate them into the new political structures in a way beneficial to the entire population.