by PAUL NUGENT
The central question that underlies most of the literature on African states is why they have proved to be such weak Leviathans or, phrased in more normative terms, why they have failed to generate meaningful public goods. The answer is typically sought in some combination of historical and structural factors. On the resolutely historical side of things, Jean-François Bayart seeks an overarching explanation in a history of African ‘extraversion’ dating back to the era of the slave trade, which warped African institutions in fundamental ways. [9] Whereas his account takes the long view, many still continue to insist on colonialism as the operative watershed. Hence it has been argued, in a stronger and a weaker version by Basil Davidson and Patrick Chabal respectively, that pre-colonial traditions of statecraft were fractured during the colonial takeover. [10] The result was that imported institutions lacked basic legitimacy, while the indigenous forms that were permitted to continue were stripped of their mechanisms of accountability—coming to embody what Mahmood Mamdani has described as ‘decentralized despotisms’. [11]
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