States and Power in Africa

"This is an academic study, a really important one trying to understand the puzzle of why states in Africa have been relatively weak compared to other regions of the world. In full disclosure, I have to say that Jeffrey Herbst was my undergraduate thesis advisor, and the chair of the Princeton politics department when I was first hired as an assistant professor there, but I would pick this book despite those loyalties. By ‘weak’ he means that the people who are in the central offices of government aren’t able to get people to do as they want or to control how life functions, particularly outside of the core cities. That phenomenon is, again, not completely universal or consistent across all of Africa . But, it’s a fundamental reason why levels of human development and economic growth have not been as strong in Africa as in some other regions, and why many African countries lag. He highlights various dimensions of the African context that account for this outcome, one of the most interesting of which is simply the political geography of Africa. Much of the continent has been so sparsely populated and the costs of extending rule were simply too high. Colonial rulers, when they came and conquered Africa, didn’t want to spend the money, and frankly, didn’t want to invest to extend their reach to the outer limits of these demarcated countries. Similarly, for those leaders that came and inherited these new, independent African entities, it was also very expensive, and so they didn’t broadcast that power either. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter He shows that within Africa, countries vary a fair bit in terms of their particular configuration. In places that are much more densely populated—for instance, Rwanda—it’s much easier for the government to extend its rule and to have that uniform rule throughout the territory. But many others are very large countries where there’s a lot of hinterland and mountainous territory. It becomes much more difficult in those countries, and the government is just inherently much weaker. He was writing in 2000. He suggested that some of weakest or most failed states, like Sudan or Somalia, might have been better served under some kind of UN protectorship because these fictional states are simply unable to broadcast power in the ways that are necessary to maintain rule. Now, more than 20 years later, I think that we have seen a lot of change. For example, in recent years, many governments have vastly expanded the registration and taxation of citizens and provided a range of services throughout the territory in ways that defy the label of a weak state. I think new technologies and continued efforts over time have begun to address a lot of the problems that he initially identified. Nonetheless, I think his work is very important for those interested in understanding the challenges of making government work better in various African contexts."