State Decay: A Conceptual Frame of Failing and Failed States in West Africa

Civil wars in Africa have brought many states to near collapse while many others have been plagued by political and economic failures. Studies of Africa have frequently noted the prevalence of weak and failed states. However, the notion of state failure rests more on the outcome of the political, economic, and social crises that have undermined African states, rather than the process of state failure. While the notion of state failure is a useful concept for studying the realities of war-torn African states, it is an inadequate concept to explain the conditions that lead African states into civil war. This study develops the notion of state decay and contends that it is a much more useful concept for examining the conditions that lead to civil wars and state failure in Africa.     

State Transitions from Rigidity to Fragility and Failure: The Case of Middle East and North Africa

ABSTRACT

The taxonomy of the state’s effective governance capacity present in the literature is evolving around state fragility. However, this article argues that a state moves along the state transition curve, resulting in governance capacity variations over time. It begins as a fragile state, consolidating to becoming a vibrant state, only to embark, eventually, on a downward trajectory through phases of rigidity, decaying, and fragility, before becoming a failed state. About one-third of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) countries are either fragile or failed states. Only technological change and knowledge accumulation and diffusion can shift this curve upward, thereby increasing a state’s effective governance capacity.     

Nationality and Nationalism in Africa: the Uganda case

Depuis 2006 et l'exode de migrants ouest-africains tentant de rejoindre l'Europe à bord de pirogues, la lutte contre l'émigration clandestine a été mise à l'agenda des relations afro-européennes. A partir de l'étude du tissu associatif et non-gouvernemental sénégalais, plus particulièrement d'une initiative féminine de la banlieue dakaroise, cet article souhaite revenir sur les conditions d'émergence et de possibilité d'un tel agenda et des mobilisations collectives y ayant trait. Le consensus relatif entre acteurs du Nord et du Sud concernant la lutte contre l'émigration irrégulière provient de l'articulation, dans une conjoncture d'urgence, de facteurs qui tiennent aux conditions structurelles d'insertion à l'international des acteurs du Sud, d'effets d'aubaine et de cadrages interprétatifs rendus compatibles. L'internationalisation d'acteurs sénégalais en charge de cet agenda a alors eu pour conséquences de générer un registre d'action victimaire, contraignant toute action protestataire, et de nourrir factionnalisme et concurrence au sein des champs associatif et politique, locaux et nationaux.     

The third wave: mixed migration from Zimbabwe to South Africa

Migration from Zimbabwe has recently been described as an archetypal form of “mixed migration” in which refugees and migrants are indistinguishable from one another. This paper argues that such a state-centred understanding of mixed migration oversimplifies a far more complex reality and fails to adequately account for the changing nature of Zimbabwean out-migration. Based on data from three separate Southern African Migration Programme (SAMP) surveys undertaken in 1997, 2005 and 2010 at key moments of transition, the paper shows how the form and character of mixed migration from the country has changed over time. The country’s emigration experience since 1990 is divided into three periods or “waves”. The third wave (roughly from 2005 onwards) has seen a major shift away from circular, temporary migration of individual working-age adults towards greater permanence and more family and child migration to South Africa. Zimbabwean migrants no longer see South Africa as a place of temporary economic opportunity for survival but rather as a place to stay and build a future for themselves and their families.     

The Structure of Indigenous Food Crop Markets in sub-Saharan Africa: The Rice Market in Uganda

Using data obtained from a series of nation-wide market surveys in Uganda, this article attempts to document and assess the domestic rice market at all stages in the post-harvest marketing chain from the farm gate to metropolitan area retail outlets. The criteria used are quantities marketed, prices, marketing margins, marketing costs and net returns to traders. The results show that the regional rice markets are integrated into the national market and that on average little surplus is left for rice traders at all market stages if marketing costs are accounted for. The spontaneously developed indigenous crop market works reasonably well.     

Political Failure by Agreement: Learning Liberalism and the Welfare State,by Gerhard Wegner

This article explores the validity of the view that collaboration contributes to public value. The analysis is conceptual and uses graphs to develop a formal statement of public value, collaboration, and government dynamics. The concept of the reason-able person is introduced. The ideal state, the ideal partnership, and conditions for collaboration to contribute to public value are derived. Benefit, support, and acceptability are shown to be necessary conditions for public value to be generated by collaboration. These conditions are shown to link to concepts of management, politics, and public administration.     

The Political Economy of Familial Relations: The Japanese State and Families in a Changing Political Economy

This article explores the ongoing negotiation over the boundaries between the world of political economy and families by analysing the reactions and responses of the Japanese government and feminists to changes in the political economy as well as popular patterns of family forming since the 1990s. This negotiation has occurred through the transition in the political economy brought about by globalisation and neo-liberal political reforms, and the re-calibration of family and gender roles has emerged as its primary ground. As a result, Japanese women are being required to make a hasty leap from the Fordist model of family life to a more self-steering idea of the individual. This ineluctably re-calibrates the bio-political arrangement into a more advanced mechanism, while discussion of the ‘ethics of care’ has been left relatively absent. Taking up these issues, this article discusses the implications of a changing political economy on Japanese families.     

Neoliberal globalisation and the triple crisis of 'modernisation' in Africa: Zimbabwe,the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa

Neoliberal globalisation has renewed and accelerated the triple crisis of capitalist modernisation in Africa. Primitive accumulation, nation-state formation and democratisation remain uncompleted tasks. Neoliberal globalisation simultaneously encourages these trends yet makes them difficult to resolve, given its anti-statism, its exclusionary version of democracy, and the violence inherent in the emergence of private property rights out of pre-capitalist modes of production that have been mediated by colonial and postcolonial institutions and the dynamics of the Cold War. The elements of the modernisation triad are inextricably intertwined, yet in varying social contexts take on unique patterns. To highlight each element in the triple crisis of 'modernisation', this article separates and 'applies' them to three 'southern' African countries. The notion of primitive accumulation is the theoretical lens through which the Zimbabwean crisis is viewed. The war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is analysed through the prism of nation-state construction. South Africa, the most 'developed' (albeit particularly unevenly 'developed') society under study here will be examined through the framework of 'democratisation'.     

外国党旗党徽纵览——南非

南非非洲人国民大会南非非洲人国民大会(简称“非国大”)成立于1912年1月8日,是南非执政党和第一大党,现任党主席为西里尔·拉马福萨。党旗非国大党旗为黑、绿、金三色长方形旗面,党旗中央印有党徽图案。黑色代表世世代代为自由而战的南非土著民。绿色代表哺育着南非土著民,但曾长期被殖民者和种族隔离政府霸占的土地。金色代表属于所有南非人民的矿产及其他自然资源。     

A Dream Deferred: The Microfoundations of Direct Political Action in Pre- and Post-democratisation South Africa

The stability of young democracies may be threatened by persistent protest as the economic legacies of the old autocratic regimes tend to outlive the defunct political structures. This paper seeks to explore the micro-level predictors of protest potential in South Africa before and after the end of apartheid. The results of the cohort analysis reveal that the political consciousness of the anti-apartheid struggle has a lasting effect. The gap between actual income and expected returns to education explains protest potential better than comparison of one's income with that of a reference group. The effect of race on protest potential has diminished over time.     

Political Instability and Export Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

The political landscape of post-independent sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been one of rampant coups d'etat. Existing evidence suggests such elite political instability (PI) has been growth-inhibiting even when exports are accounted for. In the light of the increasing interest in the role of export-promotion strategies in fostering economic growth, however, the present paper examines the impact of PI on export performance in these economies. The paper explores the hypothesis that the lack of a stable political environment adversely influences export performance via competitiveness, and that PI may actually play a more crucial role in export than in overall GDP growth. Based on detailed data on the incidence of coups in 30 SSA countries, real export growth over 1967-1986 is regressed on a principal-component of the various forms of coup events - "successful" coups, abortive coups, and coup plots - as well as on export structure, terms of trade, production capacity, and exchange rate misalignment. The results support the above hypothesis of an adverse impact of PI on export growth, and further suggest that PI has been even more deleterious to exports than to overall GDP.     

The PKK Problem: Explaining Turkey's Failure to Develop a Political Solution

This article discusses why Turkey has failed to propose an effective political solution of the Kurdish problem. It is argued that Turkey's failure to propose an effective political agenda is the main explanation of why Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan (PKK) insurgency has been rampant for so long. Turkey's commitment to militaristic methods worsened the Kurdish problem by creating deeper social problems. Furthermore, it is argued that the explanations tendered also point out the important factors that may affect the fate of any political agenda on the Kurdish problem, including that of the recent Kurdish initiative of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.     

中国新型政党制度的内涵、发展逻辑与文明价值

中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度是我国的一项基本政治制度,中国新型政党制度这一最新提法是马克思主义中国化的创新成果,其内涵体现在制度化的政党关系。马克思主义政党的本质属性、中西政党制度的差异性、新时代执政党和参政党的定位分别构成中国新型政党制度的理论逻辑、历史逻辑和现实逻辑。中国新型政党制度为马克思主义提供了中国版本的实现样态,体现了实质民主与形式民主的统一,反映出全新的政治文化,为后发国家提供了新的制度选择,向世界彰示了中国方案的独特文明价值。     

From Resources to Power: The State and Spatial Change in Post-apartheid Durban, South Africa

After apartheid, local government in Durban, South Africa, attempted to break down the barriers of the apartheid city through a massive program of public investment, intended to close the economic and infrastructure gaps between race groups. The results of this program varied widely. In core areas, growth coalitions were able to influence state infrastructure development, limiting its transformative impact. In peripheral areas, wide ranging infrastructural needs, coupled with pressure on the state to deliver services quickly, resulted in rushed, substandard construction. In buffer zones, previously undeveloped areas between the core and the periphery that under apartheid had separated race groups, the state was able to construct public housing for poor Africans near both economic activity and white and Indian residential areas, an outcome previously unseen in Durban’s history. I argue that the state’s infrastructural power, varying in different parts of the city relative to the power of other actors in society, explains these results. Geocoded census and municipal infrastructure data from 1996 and 2001, together with qualitative data from key informant interviews and workshops, form the empirical basis of this article.     

基于现代化视角对西亚—北非国家革命风暴的内在逻辑解析

二战后中东多数国家虽骤然完成了政治现代化的制度架构,然而长期以来却是真传统、假现代,并且政治危机此起彼伏。究其原因有二:一是传统生产方式导致的部族社会结构依然深厚,部族政治及传统臣民型政治文化致使现代政治制度有形无实;二是外渗型的现代化发展历程导致各领域现代化进程的失序、失衡、失范。因此,基于现代化的理论,解析中东国家的政治动荡,是认识中东政局的一个历史逻辑视角。