Criminalization of the State in Africa (African Issues)

Rating:
Summary: Criminal States and State's Criminals in Africa
Review: Drawing extensively on first-hand fieldwork in several African states (namely Cameroon, Liberia, Sierra-Leone) and on a truely impressive array of high-level academic works, this book offers a deeply stimulating analysis of contemporary state-formation processes in Africa. It shows that war itself can become the vehicle of a far-reaching reorganization of political allegiances and life-styles, which at last consolidates the state apparatus by helping it to reach out to new sources of wealth. Army-backed criminal business ventures in border-zones and the use of private militias to help secure ressource-rich territories are seen as a defining feature of contemporary African power-systems. The authors, who all are leading european political scientists already well known in the field of African Studies, aptly show how these current transformations of war and state-sponsored criminality lead to the risk of region-wide violences. The relationship between petty thugs, professional mercenaries and state officials is highly unstable, but also extremely efficient as far as the reaping out of natural resources (such as diamonds) is at stake. The authors also demonstrate that the International Monetary Fund so-called "structural adjustment programs" didn't manage in getting rid of corruption practices, but that, on the contrary, they helped local and overseas financial crooks devise new schemes of underground economic transactions. The whole book is full of gloomy details about state-terror and financial mismanagement practices in Sub-saharian Africa. It is also very well-written and therefore remains accessible to a wide readers' audience. It is a necessary reading for those who are interested both in African politics and in the analysis of Third-World post-colonial states.

Rating:
Summary: A Departure From Traditional African Studies
Review: The best essay in the book is Beatrice Hibou's, on the nature of the African state. She terms the 1980s as Africa's "lost decade," and views development strategies of economic growth that ignore social and consequences as being politically destabilizing. But her conception of the triggering mechanism for this destabilization is much different from that of most traditional political scientists (like Samuel Huntington's, for instance) perhaps owing to the different historical contexts in which they write (the institution-building of the 1960s versus the institutional decay of the 1990s).

Huntington and other past scholars posit that under conditions of economic stimulus in a modernizing society, social mobilization is the trigger for destabilization. Hibou, however, points to the nature of the African state itself as being responsible for political instability under conditions of economic stimulus. In other words, neoliberal market stimulus fails in Africa not because of mobilized citizens whose demands cannot be met, but because of the complex nature of the African state.

What is Hibou's conception of the African state, and how does it differ from Huntington's? Huntington tends to see the state in terms of how "institutionalized" it is, with a well-institutionalized state presumably having well-functioning formal political institutions that are adaptable, complex, autonomous and coherent. Hibou, however, goes far beyond a conventional political science view of institutions, by conceptualizing the African state as a "shadow" state:

"the relationships, institutions and people most prominently in public view are not necessarily the most powerful. Elements which at first sight appear to be obstacles to the functioning of the state may turn out, on closer inspection, actually to belong to the state . . . via a web of informal concessions, carefully negotiated privileges - notably including impunity for economic offences - and personal and political relationships" (88-89).

Accordingly, Hibou argues that neoliberalism has failed in Africa because it fails to take account of the state's informal shadow as an economic actor. In seeking to tie the hands of formal state actors to prevent conventional "rent-seeking" behavior, neoliberals have given more power to the informal sector, which tends to engage in economic activity that may not only be "rent-seeking," but also "criminal" by many standards. Neoliberalism thus destroys formal institutions in Africa, and encourages "the development of personal networks, of informal or even illegal practices" (93).

Thus, unlike Huntington's theory that social mobilization coupled with economic inequality destabilizes developing polities, Hibou posits instead that the nature of African states should be given prime explanatory weight in showing why economic stimulus might produce results opposite to those intended.

Rating:
Summary: A Departure From Traditional African Studies
Review: The best essay in the book is Beatrice Hibou's, on the nature of the African state. She terms the 1980s as Africa's "lost decade," and views development strategies of economic growth that ignore social and consequences as being politically destabilizing. But her conception of the triggering mechanism for this destabilization is much different from that of most traditional political scientists (like Samuel Huntington's, for instance) perhaps owing to the different historical contexts in which they write (the institution-building of the 1960s versus the institutional decay of the 1990s).

Huntington and other past scholars posit that under conditions of economic stimulus in a modernizing society, social mobilization is the trigger for destabilization. Hibou, however, points to the nature of the African state itself as being responsible for political instability under conditions of economic stimulus. In other words, neoliberal market stimulus fails in Africa not because of mobilized citizens whose demands cannot be met, but because of the complex nature of the African state.

What is Hibou's conception of the African state, and how does it differ from Huntington's? Huntington tends to see the state in terms of how "institutionalized" it is, with a well-institutionalized state presumably having well-functioning formal political institutions that are adaptable, complex, autonomous and coherent. Hibou, however, goes far beyond a conventional political science view of institutions, by conceptualizing the African state as a "shadow" state:

"the relationships, institutions and people most prominently in public view are not necessarily the most powerful. Elements which at first sight appear to be obstacles to the functioning of the state may turn out, on closer inspection, actually to belong to the state . . . via a web of informal concessions, carefully negotiated privileges - notably including impunity for economic offences - and personal and political relationships" (88-89).

Accordingly, Hibou argues that neoliberalism has failed in Africa because it fails to take account of the state's informal shadow as an economic actor. In seeking to tie the hands of formal state actors to prevent conventional "rent-seeking" behavior, neoliberals have given more power to the informal sector, which tends to engage in economic activity that may not only be "rent-seeking," but also "criminal" by many standards. Neoliberalism thus destroys formal institutions in Africa, and encourages "the development of personal networks, of informal or even illegal practices" (93).

Thus, unlike Huntington's theory that social mobilization coupled with economic inequality destabilizes developing polities, Hibou posits instead that the nature of African states should be given prime explanatory weight in showing why economic stimulus might produce results opposite to those intended.