AFRICAN WEAK STATES AND COMMERCIAL ALLIANCES

Conventional analyses of Africa's ‘failed states’conclude that patronage networks fragment as state resourcesdecline. As payoffs from rulers decline, once-loyal strongmenbecome warlords, attacking centralized authority. This articleexamines how rulers of weak states actually manage increasinglythreatening patronage networks. The cases of Angola and SierraLeone show how rulers use more reliable foreign mining firmsand foreign private (mercenary) armies to marginalize threateningstrongmen. At home, militarising commerce denies its benefitsto enterprising strongmen. Rulers then receive creditor financialsupport for their offensives against elements of their old patronagenetwork and insurgencies, seeming to battle corruption and inefficiency.Rulers discover that they can use foreign firms to collect revenue,defend territory and conduct diplomacy with other states andmultilateral agencies more reliably then domestic bureaucratsor strongmen whose political authority may threaten their own.This new political alliance increases the economic viabilityof some weak states. Paradoxically, the destruction of conventionalstate institutions eases the hard pressed ruler's efforts torecruit aid from global society and manage the demands of competitionin global markets.