AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	60. The challenge of uncertainty and order in African polities
Paper ID	369
Author(s)	Huesken, Thomas Udo; Klute, Georg
Paper	View paper (PDF)
Abstract	The transformation of statehood is among the most important topics debated under the agenda of globalization. This is particularly true with regard to the African continent, where the construction of the nation-state has been confronted with a number of challenges during the last years. At times and in certain areas, state structures even collapsed, transforming contemporary Africa into the symbol of state failure, and marking the end of the globalized statehood utopia. In particular, the peripheries of many post-colonial states in Africa assist to the local emergence of stateless forms of power. The paper refers to central issues of the panel “Uncertainty and Order in African Polities” by the following questions: Are these new forms of political organization only a reaction to the weakness or even the absence of the State? Do they substitute the State? Or do they show that global processes, which see stateless societies overwhelmed by the “Leviathan” State, may be confronted with enduring local representations of order and rule? Can the longevity of local political models lead to the transformation of the state as the only and unique model of organised power in the long run? The paper is based on comparative empirical case studies dealing with the Aulad Ali tribes in the border region of Egypt and Libya and the Kal-Adagh of Mali and Algeria. Georg Klute will introduce the conceptual and theoretical framework. Instead of taking the aetiology for granted that weak state structures are substituted by non state political orders, he will argue for the investigation of the specific conditions which facilitate, or hinder, the emergence of local rule besides or parallel to the state. In a second step he will reflect on the material, political and ideological modes of reproduction that persisting forms of non state orders employ. A particular regard will be dedicated to three forms of legitimacy of these orders: the “moral legitimacy”, the “basic legitimacy of the protection from violence” and the legitimacy gained by shared conceptions of “just governance”. Thomas Hüsken will present empircal findings dealing with complex relationships between different modes of political organization and rule in in the border region of Egypt and Libya. He will argue that these relationships are best described as by the term of “articulation”. Articulation represents dynamic transformations of political organization dissolving the distinction between formal (state) and informal (not state) political organization creating thereby - eventually - innovation. Thomas will give examples for agents of articulation (states, tribes, associations and gangs) and processes of articulation in different fields such as public institutions and realms of the state, legal pluralism, development programs and agencies, organized crime and transnational investment.

Emerging Forms of Power in Contemporary Africa : Theoretical Reflections and Empirical Findings