The rise of the state system in Africa

Review of International Studies

Volumn 27, Issue SPEC. ISS., 2001, Pages 65-89

  Warner, Carolyn M ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 23044531732     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (138)

1. Michael Oakeshott, On Human Conduct (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 196.
2. For example, J.P. Nettl, 'The State as a Conceptual Variable', World Politics, 20 (1968), pp. 559-92;
3. for a critique, see Peter Gourevitch, 'The Second Image Reversed: the International Sources of Domestic Politics', International Organization, 32:4 (1978), pp. 881-911.
4. David Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1965).
5. See also Oakeshott, On Human Conduct, p. 261.
6. Two striking examples are in Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980);
7. Mabel Berezin, Making the Fascist Self: The Political Culture of Interwar Italy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).
8. Schmitt specified Harold J. Laski, Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1917) as his main target.
9. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1976), pp. 49, 19, 28, 53.
10. F. Meinecke quoted in Crawford Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 9.
11. Schmitt, The Concept, p. 38, 37, 47.
12. D'Entreves, The Notion of the State: An Introduction to Political Theory (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 89.
13. See also Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990);
14. Margaret Levi, Of Rule and Revenue (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988).
15. D'Entreves, The Notion, pp. 92, 93. Emphasis in original.
16. Gianfranco Poggi, The Development of the Modern State: A Sociological Introduction (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1978), pp. 11-12.
17. Schmitt, The Concept, p. 45.
18. J. P. Nettl, 'The State', p. 563.
19. Easton, A Framework.
20. Kenneth Dyson, The State Tradition in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 3.
21. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (eds.), Economy and Society, vol. 2 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978), ch. IX, p. 901.
22. Hendrik Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 39.
23. Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol (eds.), Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 47-8.
24. 'Degrees of Statehood', Review of International Studies, 24 (1998), pp. 143-57, here at p. 154. Italics in original.
25. Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
26. Max Weber, From Max Weber Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 78;
27. Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 219;
28. see also Cynthia Weber, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State and Symbolic Exchange (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
29. A. Claire Cutler, 'Critical Reflections on the Westphalian Assumptions of International Law and Organization: A Crisis of Legitimacy' Review of International Studies, 27 (2001), pp. 133-50, here at 134-5.
30. More generally, Roxanne Doty, Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North-South Relations (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996).
31. Wendt, Social Theory, pp. 335-7.
32. Spruyt, The Sovereign State.
33. Spruyt, The Sovereign State Ibid.;
34. John Gerard Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity (New York: Routledge, 1998);
35. Wendt, Social Theory.
36. B. Barry, 'Senegambia From the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century: Evolution of the Wolof, Sereer and Tukuloor', in Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, pp. 262-99;
37. see also Christophe Wondji, La côte ouest africaine (Paris: Éditions L'Harmattan, 1985).
38. J.O. Hunwick, 'Songhay, Borno and Hausaland in the Sixteenth Century', in J.F. Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa, vol. I, 2nd edn., pp. 264-301.
39. Murray Last, 'Reform in West Africa: the Jihād Movements of the Nineteenth Century' in J.F.A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa, vol. II (London: Longman Group, 1974), pp. 1-29, here at pp. 10-13;
40. S.F. Nadel, 'The Kede: A Riverain State in Northern Nigeria', in Fortes and Evans-Pritchard (eds.), African Political Systems, pp. 165-96, here at p. 166;
41. E.J. Alagoa, 'The Niger Delta States and Their Neighbours to 1800', in Ajayi and Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa, vol. I, pp. 331-73, here at p. 341.
42. Roland Oliver, 'Discernible Developments in the Interior c. 1500-1840', in Roland Oliver and Gervase Mathew (eds.), History of East Africa, vol. I (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 169-211.
43. Ndaywel Nziem, 'The Political System of the Luba and Lunda: Its Emergence and Expansion', in Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, vol. 5, pp. 588-607, here at pp. 593-4.
44. Martin Klein, 'The Slave Trade and Decentralized Societies', Journal of African History, 42 (2001), pp. 49-65, here at p. 52.
45. K. Oberg, 'The Kingdom of Ankole in Uganda', in M. Fortes and E.E. Evans-Pritchard (eds.), African Political Systems (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 121-64, here at p. 135.
46. A.A. Boahen, 'The States and Cultures of the Lower Guinean Coast' in Ogot (ed.), General History, pp. 399-433, here at p. 412.
47. E.J. Alagoa, 'The Niger Delta States and Their Neighbours, to 1800', in Ajayi and Crowder, History, vol. I, pp. 331-73, here at pp. 341, 343, 344.
48. Oliver, 'Discernible Developments', p. 210;
49. Klein, 'The Slave Trade', p. 60;
50. Alagoa, 'The Niger Delta States', pp. 345-6, 352.
51. Peter C. Lloyd, 'The Political Structure of African Kingdoms: An Exploratory Model', in Michael Banton (ed.), Political Systems and the Distribution of Power (London: Tavistock, 1965), pp. 63-112, here at p. 69.
52. Martin Van Creveld, The Rise and Decline of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 315.
53. For an exploration of African concepts of rule, see 'Issues in Divine Kingship'.
54. Thomas Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997);
55. Jeffrey Herbst, 'The Creation and Maintenance of National Boundaries in Africa', International Organization, 43:4 (Autumn 1989).
56. It is interesting to note in this regard that Muslims in contemporary Europe have asked that the traditional right of autonomy in matters of education, personal status, family law, dress, etc., which were granted to European Christians in the Middle East in the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates and then more formally in the Ottoman Empire (and which continue in certain areas to the present day) should be extended to them while they reside in Europe. This claim, and the logic upon which it rests, has been a rather regular 'bargaining position' of Muslims since the mid-1970s, when the Egyptian Imam of the Regent's Park Mosque in London made the case to British authorities. (S.A. Pasha, 'Muslim Family Law in Britain'. Unpublished paper presented to the House of Commons, 1977;
57. cited in: Joergen S. Nielsen, Towards a European Islam (London: Macmillan Press for the University of Warwick, 1999), ch. 7.
58. R.A. Adeleye, 'The Sokoto Caliphate in the Nineteenth Century' in Ajayi and Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa, vol. II, pp. 57-92, here at 75;
59. see also H.A.S. Johnston, The Fulani Empire of Sokoto (London: Oxford University Press, 1967);
60. Murray Last, The Sokoto Caliphate (London: Longmans, 1967), pp. 46-60, 145-9.
61. One of the signs of a sovereign territorial state is that it recognizes other, like entities as being sovereign in their own territory. European trades and colonial officials observed that some African polities signed treaties between themselves, which would imply a recognition of exclusive spheres of authority. John D. Hargreaves (ed.), France and West Africa: An Anthology of Historical Documents (London: Macmillan, 1969), p. 113.
62. David Robinson, The Holy War of Umar Tal (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), p. 263.
63. Lloyd, The Political Structure, p. 71;
64. Johnston, The Fulani Empire, p. 170.
65. Aidan Southall, 'State Formation in Africa', Annual Review of Anthropology, 3 (1974), pp. 153-65, here at p. 156.
66. Adeleye, The Sokoto Caliphate, p. 83.
67. Y.F. Hasan and B.A. Ogot, 'The Sudan, 1500-1800' in B. A. Ogot (ed.), General History of Africa, vol. V (Berkeley, CA: Heinemann, 1992), pp. 170-99, here at pp. 172 and 196-7.
68. Robinson, The Holy War of Umar Tal, p. 79.
69. A.A. Boahen, 'The States and Cultures of the Lower Guinean Coast', in Ogot (ed.), General History, pp. 399-433, here at 412-15;
70. Robin Law, 'The Politics of Commercial Transition: Factional Conflict in Dahomey in the Context of the Ending of the Atlantic Slave Trade', Journal of African History, 38 (1997), pp. 213-33.
71. Martin A. Klein, 'The Slave Trade and Decentralized Societies', Journal of African History, 42 (2001), pp. 49-65, here at p. 49.
72. Klein, 'The Slave Trade', pp. 58, 59, 62.
73. Nehemia Levtzion, 'The Early States of the Western Sudan to 1500', in Ajayi and Crowder (eds.), History, vol. I, pp. 114-151, here at p. 124.
74. Timothy Cleaveland, 'Islam and the Construction of Social Identity in the Nineteenth-Century Sahara', Journal of African History, 39 (1998), pp. 365-88.
75. Patrick Manning, 'Contours of Slavery and Social Chance in Africa', The American Historical Review 88:4 (1983), pp. 835-57, here at pp. 852, 855.
76. Paul E. Lovejoy, 'The Characteristics of Plantations in the Nineteenth-Century Sokoto Caliphate', The American Historical Review, 84:5 (1979), pp. 1267-92;
77. Manning, 'Contours', p. 855.
78. Likewise Christianity left an imprint, albeit of a different sort, on African polities and post-colonial states. On the latter, see Ronald Kassimir, 'Uganda: the Catholic Church and State Reconstruction', in Leonardo A. Villalón and Phillip A. Huxtable (eds.), The African State at a Critical Juncture (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998), pp. 233-53.
79. Manning, 'Contours', p. 854.
80. Paul E. Lovejoy, 'The Characteristics of Plantations in the Nineteenth-Century Sokoto Caliphate', The American Historical Review, 85:5 (1979), pp. 1267-92.
81. Patrick Manning, 'Contours of Slavery and Social Chance in Africa', The American Historical Review, 88:4 (1983), pp. 835-57, here at p. 849.
82. David Eltis and Lawrence C. Jennings, 'Trade Between Western Africa and the Atlantic World in the Pre-Colonial Era', The American Historical Review, 93:4 (1988), pp. 936-59.
83. 'When African Kings Became "Chiefs": Some Transformations in European Perceptions of West African Civilization, c. 1450-1800', Journal of Black Studies, 23:2 (December 1992), pp. 258-78.
84. It is evident in many statements by British and French explorers. F.J. McLynn, Hearts of Darkness: The European Exploration of Africa (London: Hutchinson), pp. 308-311;
85. Le Capitaine Binger [Louis Gustave], Du Niger Golfe de Guinée par le pays de Kong et le Mossi, vols. I & II (Paris: Hachette, 1892). Yet Europeans also laboured to develop an appropriate, respectful terminology for African political/social structures and offices.
86. See, for instance, Ray A. Kea, Settlements, Trade, and Polities in the Seventeenth-Century Gold Coast (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), pp. 98-101, 104-5, 113-4.
87. Carolyn M. Warner, 'The Political Economy of "Quasi-Statehood" and the Demise of 19th Century African Politics', Review of International Studies, 25 (1999), pp. 233-55.
88. A.G. Hopkins, 'Asante and the Victorians: Transition and Partition on the Gold Coast', in Roy Bridges (ed.), Imperialism, Decolonization and Africa (London: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 25-64.
89. The problem is that Constructivists have difficulty accounting for which political organizations can force their definitions on others.
90. Herbst gives the Berlin Conference a different interpretation: these were not states on steroids rolling over Africa, but states seeking to minimize expenditures and conflicts with each other in Africa ('Boundaries', pp. 683-5, 688).
91. Young, The African Colonial State, pp. 244, 278, 280.
92. Roger Gocking, 'A Chieftaincy Dispute and Ritual Murder in Elmina, Ghana, 1945-6', Journal of African History, 41 (2000), pp. 197-219, here at p. 217.
93. In Hargreaves, France and West Africa, p. 213, 212.
94. See also Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
95. Young, The African Colonial State, 9;
96. Apter, 'The Subvention of Tradition';
97. Glenn H. McKnight, 'Land, Politics, and Buganda's 'Indigenous' Colonial State' The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 28:1 (January 2000), pp. 65-89;
98. A.F. Robertson, 'Ousting the Chief: Deposition Charges in Ashanti', Man, 11:3 (September 1976), pp. 410-27;
99. Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
100. A. F. Robertson, 'Ousting the Chief: Deposition Charges in Ashanti', Man New Series 11:3 (1976), pp. 410-27, here at pp. 416, 417. The British, recognizing the significance of the throne for the Asante king, banished it until they realized that doing so made indirect rule more difficult.
101. James Fairhead and Melissa Leach, 'Desiccation and Domination: Science and Struggles over Environment and Development in Colonial Guinea', Journal of African History, 41 (2000), pp. 35-54;
102. Monica M. Van Beusekom, 'Disjunctures in Theory and Practice: Making Sense of Change in Agricultural Development at the Office du Niger, 1920-60', Journal of African History, 41 (2000), pp. 79-99.
103. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 226.
104. Scott, Seeing, p. 230.
105. Scott, Seeing, Ibid., pp. 229, 231, 232-7;
106. also Herbst, 'Boundaries'.
107. Vesna Goldsworthy, Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998);
108. Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Chatto & Windus, 1993).
109. Young, The African Colonial State, p. 283.
110. Scott, Seeing, p. 248.
111. Naaueyalti Warren, 'Pan-African Cultural Movements: From Baraka to Karenca', Journal of Negro History, 75:1-2 (1990), pp. 16-28, here at p. 16.
112. Erasmus H. Kloman, Jr., 'African Unification Movements', International Organization, 16:2 (1962), pp. 387-404.
113. Alexandre Mboukou, 'The Pan African Movement, 1900-1945: A Study in Leadership Conflicts Among the Disciples of Pan Africanism', Journal of Black Studies, 13:3 (1983), pp. 275-88; 277, 280.
114. Mboukou, The Pan African Movement, p. 281.
115. Immanuel Wallerstein, 'The Early Years of the OAU: The Search for Organizational Pre-Eminence', International Organization, 20:4 (1966), pp. 774-87, here at p. 774.
116. Mayall in Young, The African Colonial State, p. 29.
117. Jackson, Quasi-States, p. 104.
118. Herbst, 'Boundaries', p. 688, 689.
119. For a different argument, but which leads to a similar expectation, see Ravi L. Kapil, 'On the Conflict Potential of Inherited Boundaries in Africa', World Politics, 18:4 (1966), pp. 656-73.
120. Spruyt, The Sovereign State, pp. 88, 185-6.
121. Spruyt, The Sovereign State, Ibid., pp. 176, 179.
122. David Williams, 'Aid and Sovereignty: Quasi-States and the International Financial Institutions'. Review of International Studies, 26 (2000), pp. 557-73.
123. 'Sierra Leone: Weak States and the New Sovereignty Game', in Villalón and Huxtable (eds.), The African State, pp. 93-108, here at p. 108.
124. Young, The African Colonial State, p. 23.
125. Personal Rule in Black Africa (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982).
126. 'State Inversion and Nonstate Politics', in Villalón and Huxtable (eds.), The African State, pp. 45-56, here at p. 45.
127. Phillip A. Huxtable, 'The African State Toward the Twenty-first Century: Legacies of the Critical Juncture', in Villalón and Huxtable (eds.), The African State, pp. 279-94, here at p. 279.
128. Catherine Boone, 'Empirical Statehood and Reconfigurations of Political Order', in Villalón and Huxtable (eds), The African State, pp. 129-142, here at p. 131.
129. Phillip A. Huxtable, 'The African State Toward the Twenty-First Century: Legacies of the Critical Juncture', in Villalón and Huxtable (eds.), The African State, pp. 279-93, here at pp. 292.
130. See also Martin van Creveld, The Rise and Decline of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
131. Ruggie, Constructing, p. 149.
132. As contemporary observers noted: Erasmus H. Kloman, Jr., 'African Unification Movements', International Organization, 16:2 (1962), pp. 387-404.
133. 'Westphalia and All That', in Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane (eds.), Ideas and Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 235.
134. Reno, 'Sierra Leone', p. 106;
135. William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner,1998);
136. Boone, 'Empirical Statehood', p. 141.
137. Schmitt, The Concept, pp. 19, 53.
138. 'War, Markets, and the Reconfiguration of West Africa's Weak States', Comparative Politics, 29:4 (1997), pp. 493-510, here at p. 493.