Thoughts from a governance perspective
Dear all,
These ideas on the possible roots of Cote d'Ivoire's crisis are from an academic book that trys to figure out the nature of government and the state in Africa.
Would very much appreciate your thoughts:
Colin
Chabal & Daloz discuss three potential alternate models of weak state political governance in their 1999 book ‘Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument.’ These are a neo-patrimonial model derived directly from Weberian sociology, the hybrid state perspective, and the ‘paradigm of the transplanted state.’
Chabal and Daloz argue that from the perspective of the neo-patrimonial model of governance, the African state is both illusory and substantial. ‘It is illusory because its modus operandi is essentially informal, the rule of law is feebly enforced and the ability to implement public policy remains most limited. It is substantial because its control is the ultimate prize for political elites: indeed, it is the chief instrument of patrimonialism.’ Chabal and Daloz say the neo-patrimonial model’s two main advantages are that it accounts for the overlapping of the public and private spheres, and that it helps to explains in which ways the operation of the political system is no longer entirely traditional. The outward façade conforms to Western standards while the actual workings ‘derive from patrimonial dynamics.’
The hybrid state perspective ‘focuses on the effects for politics of the mixing of the Western norms introduced under colonial rule and the values inherent to African social systems.’ Chabal and Daloz say that the hybrid state stresses the re-appropriation and successful adaptation of the Western model of the state to the African context. Within the fixed boundaries referred to by Herbst, mentioned in the literature review chapter, the African state has been reshaped according to local political practices. The state is then used as an instrument of ‘primitive accumulation’ achieved through the monopoly seizure of the means of production by the political elites.
The ‘paradigm of the transplanted state,’ Chabal and Daloz note, is more accurately a paradigm conceptualizing the rejection of the transplanted state. The wholesale transfer of the Western state to Africa, they say, has failed very much because of cultural factors. The development of the modern Western European state, itself the outcome of a particular development path, cannot be simply transported to a wholly different socio-cultural setting. Both the institutions and the trappings of the Western state acquire entirely different meanings and modes of operation outside their original Western European habitat. The transplanted state, therefore is generically distinct, and large parts of the original model are discarded or cease to function.
Chabal and Daloz advance their own model, the political instrumentalization of disorder, as preferable to any of the other three options when analyzing African states. They emphasize the ‘profit to be found in the weak institutionalization of political practices.’ In other words, elites find it advantageous when the state is only allowed a certain degree of effectiveness. Political elites gain from a weak state because it allows them to maximize their political and economic returns. Chabal and Daloz say that the state is both ‘vacuous’ and ‘ineffectual.’ This has profound implications for SSR and other types of governance efforts that are commenced by Western donor states. Chabal and Daloz rhetorically ask why African political elites should dismantle a political system which advantages them so much. ‘The notion that politicians, bureaucrats, or military chiefs should be the servants of the state simply does not make sense.’
Chabal and Daloz note however that regarding Africa, the neo-patrimonial model is useful only if it is made clear that colonial administrative penetration only went so far. Colonial administrators, they argue, ‘never managed to overcome the strongly instrumental and personalized characteristics of ‘traditional’ African administration.’ Chabal and Daloz’s warning about not overcoming strongly instrumental and personalized characteristics of traditional administration, however, may also be applicable to the tribal nature of governance in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Originally Posted by JMA
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