The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective

Young, Crawford; Brown, Woodward H.

doi:10.1080/03612759.1995.9949208

Cited by 43 publications

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“…In particular, the pervasive role of localized and personalized modes of political control, combined with an inordinately strong measure of autocratic paternalism, is a critical feature of colonial policy that was to have a profound and long-lasting impact on the social and political system of independent African states. Through marketing boards and other forms of state trading monopolies that took over positions held by European merchant houses in the colonial period, but also through agricultural cooperatives and a host of rural development projects including settlement schemes, post-colonial states pursued the earlier policy aimed at concentrating control of rural surpluses in the hands of bureaucrats, politicians, and other M a n u s c r i p t 11 influential persons linked to new regimes (Boone 1994, 122-3 ;Bates 1981 ;Gentil 1986;Bayart 1989;Platteau 1990;Young 1994). Thus, for example, rural cooperatives distributing cheap credit and subsidized inputs were typically formed by local units of the governing party so that access to such advantages was made contingent upon political loyalty.…”

Section: S)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional obstacles to African economic development: State, ethnicity, and custom

Platteau

2009

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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Section: S)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional obstacles to African economic development: State, ethnicity, and custom

Platteau

2009

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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“…The social science literature on African development has identified the weakness of institutional constraints prohibiting the abuse of state power as a potent cause of poor governance and low growth in Africa (for example Bates, 1981, Sandbrook, 1985, Bayart, 1993, Young, 1994, Herbst, 2000, and the essays in Ndulu, O'Connell, Bates, Collier, Soludo eds., 2007). On a predominantly rural continent, where the reach of the central state is often short, a lack of accountability at the local level may be just as important.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chiefs: Elite Control of Civil Society and Economic Development in Sierra Leone

Acemoğlu

Reed

Robinson

2013

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The lowest level of government in sub-Saharan Africa is often a cadre of chiefs who raise taxes, control the judicial system and allocate the most important scarce resource -land. Chiefs, empowered by colonial indirect rule, are often accused of using their power despotically and inhibiting rural development. Yet others view them as traditional representatives of rural people, and survey evidence suggests that they maintain widespread support. We use the colonial history of Sierra Leone to investigate the relationships between chiefs' power on economic development, peoples' attitudes and social capital. There, a chief must come from one of the ruling families recognized by British colonial authorities. Chiefs face less competition and fewer political constraints in chiefdoms with fewer ruling families. We show that places with fewer ruling families have significantly worse development outcomes today -in particular, lower rates of educational attainment, child health, and non-agricultural employment. But the institutions of chiefs' authority are also highly respected among villagers, and their chiefdoms have higher levels of "social capital," for example, greater popular participation in a variety of "civil society" organizations and forums that might be used to hold chiefs accountable. We argue that these results are difficult to reconcile with the standard principle-agent approach to politics and instead reflect the capture of civil society organizations by chiefs. Rather than acting as a vehicle for disciplining chiefs, these organizations have been structured by chiefs to control society.

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“…By this logic, the salience of one cleavage over another is a function of the particular stage of historical development in which the political system happens to be located at the time. Yet a fourth approach emphasizes how the experience of colonialism led to the reification of some social cleavages over others (e.g., Young 1994). For example, Laitin's (1986) investigation into the nonpoliticization of religious divisions in Yorubaland shows how the experience of British colonialism endowed social identities revolving around connections with one's ancestral city-state with hegemonic status vis-à-vis other kinds of identities.…”

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The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and Tumbukas Are Allies in Zambia and Adversaries in Malawi

2004

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This paper explores the conditions under which cultural cleavages become politically salient. It does so by taking advantage of the natural experiment afforded by the division of the Chewa and Tumbuka peoples by the border between Zambia and Malawi. I document that, while the objective cultural differences between Chewas and Tumbukas on both sides of the border are identical, the political salience of the division between these communities is altogether different. I argue that this difference stems from the different sizes of the Chewa and Tumbuka communities in each country relative to each country's national political arena. In Malawi, Chewas and Tumbukas are each large groups vis-à-vis the country as a whole and, thus, serve as viable bases for political coalition-building. In Zambia, Chewas and Tumbukas are small relative to the country as a whole and, thus, not useful to mobilize as bases of political support. The analysis suggests that the political salience of a cultural cleavage depends not on the nature of the cleavage itself (since it is identical in both countries) but on the sizes of the groups it defines and whether or not they will be useful vehicles for political competition.

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The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective

Cited by 43 publications

References 0 publications

Institutional obstacles to African economic development: State, ethnicity, and custom

Institutional obstacles to African economic development: State, ethnicity, and custom

Chiefs: Elite Control of Civil Society and Economic Development in Sierra Leone

The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and Tumbukas Are Allies in Zambia and Adversaries in Malawi

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