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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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The flexibility and adjustability of Africa's "weak" political orders : A new perspective on the so-called "failure" of African institutions.
| Panel |
60. The challenge of uncertainty and order in African polities
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| Paper ID | 238 |
| Author(s) |
Lang, Andrea Marianne
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| Paper |
View paper (PDF)
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| Abstract | In recent academic and political discourses African political systems are mostly described by their apparent failures. The states are described as “weak” or “failing”, their leaders are characterized as “corrupt” and “incompetent”, African political regimes lack accountability and transparency. In a number of states democratic deficits are being diagnosed. Programs developed to “improve” those “uncertain” conditions call for institution building and training programs to establish reliable organisations operating according to generally accepted norms.
In the proposed paper I would like to take on another perspective. As we know from other aspects of African societies such as pastoral or agricultural activities in Precolonial times survival in highly fragile ecological environments called for strategies oriented to create diversity rather than depending on just one source of income (i.a. Spittler 1997). I would like to discuss whether similar strategies can be found in the modes of organisation of society as well. Rather than depending on institutions meant “to last forever,” societies have created other modes of governments where decision making rests with the most local sphere and have thus found a robust form of societal organisation that allows for short term reconfiguration of social infrastructure after crisis.
The spreading of own initiatives and the development of new forms of local governance requires an understanding of society that does resist the development of dependency towards “higher authorities”. Rather the rational is to gain security by furthering institutional insecurity and thus preserve the ability to adjust society according to the upcoming needs of those participating in this social space.
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