Notes on 'The Criminalization of the State in Africa' by Jean-Francois Bayart, Stephen Ellis and Beatrice Hibou
1999, Oxford, Bloomington and Indianapolis: James Currey and Indiana University Press

Introduction

Bayart et al link "the debate on the state in Africa [to]...a wider current of thinking on the relationship between war and the formation of states, and on that between illicit economic activity and primitive capitalist accumulation" (xv)
- "these questions are all the more acute today, in part because of the opportunities offered to organized criminals through the globalisation of markets, and partly because of the preponderance of military power over other social forces in most former colonies" (xv)

i.e. an analogy between the role of war in creating states, and the role of illicit trade in forming capitalism

this is a universal process, but once with a specifically African history and traits
- especially the role of dependence - which is "constructed and maintained as much by African societies themselves as by foreign actors" (xvi)

to understand why resources targeted at democratic or humanitarian goals fail, we much place the illegal activities in a historical context
- "the question should be less one about the diversion of aid, even when it is offered for humanitarian purposes, or about corruption, even when it is political in nature, than it should concern the specific historical conditions which govern the process of state formations and economic accumulations" (xvii)

Economic growth in Africa 1930-70s was "based on the widespread, neo-mercantilist exploitation of primary resources...spread across the sectors of agriculture, mining and oil" (xvii)
- "this economic model permitted the growth of a nationalist elite which, after independence administered the system to its own benefit" (xvii)
note: they do acknowledge variations and exceptions to this model

the model demonstrates "a distinct rupture with the predatory economies of the nineteenth century and the colonial period" (xvii)
- but it is a model in decline, replaced by "a new mode of economic exploitation and insertion into the international system" (xvii), ca. post-1980, structural causes of this new system understood, but "its precise character...remains a matter of investigation" (xvii) and is the subject of this book

For Africa, illicit trade could result in "a revival of the predatory economy" or, at the other extreme, "favour its growth and alter the manner of its insertion into the world economy" (xvii)
or
"As in South-East Asia, both scenarios could actually materialize at the same time in one region, with zones of conflict and war, susceptible to certain forms of criminal activity, complementing the economic activity of other areas which are apparently more respectable" (xviii)