Notes on 'States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control' by Jeffry Herbst
2000: Princeton University Press

Introduction

Herbst "examines state creation and consolidation...by examining the fundamental problems confronting leaders of almost all African states: how to broadcast power over sparsely settled lands" (p.3)

James Fessler argues that solutions to "this distributive problem...determine" (p.3) the type of government that exists

many different types of state exist in Africa, so it is therefore "particularly important to developing a truly comparative perspective"

"state creation and consolidation in Africa...proceeded in a radically different manner than it did in Europe...because African political geography poses a completely different set of challenges" (p.3)

- "states are only viable if they are able to control the territory defined by their borders" - it is often assumed that African states do this, but it is not always true; it is important to study this, so that we can explore "different policy options" that the political reality requires;

methodology:
justifies analysing sub-Saharan Africa together by pointing to "similar...population structures, levels of technological development and stocks of material wealth" (p.4)

remarks of the importance of "understand[ing] the continuities in state consolidation over the centuries"
- it is a seeming obvious point to look at history beyond the recent past, but much analysis is based on the "almost universal assumption that colonialism changed everything" (p.4)

recognizes the potential weaknesses in ignoring the "heterogeneity of Africa" (p.5)

Herbst excludes certain African countries from his analysis: those with radically different histories (South African, the states North of the Sahara) and those with different issues relating to land boundaries (the islands)
- within the remaining group of countries, Herbst argues that "the structural argument is powerful and relatively well defined" (p.6)
- describing long-term social processes is necessary and useful - need not mean homogenizing and should allow a more direct challenge to the classic 19th Century social theories
- as well as preventing integration with broader social theory, the lack of comparative studies "is also increasing hurting the of Africa itself" (p.6)

Chapter One - The Challenge of State-Building in Africa

Illife: "underpopulation was the chief obstacle to state formation" (p.11)
- "ecological conditions throughout most of the continent do not allow high densities of population to be easily supported" - (p.11) also states need to adapt to highly varied conditions and lack of long-distance transport

- note how the Europeans found Africa much more difficult to colonize than Latin America, despite it being closer

-not broad geographical determinism, but instead an emphasis of how different leaders adapted to the environment

The European Experience of State Consolidation - growth in population densities made wars to gain land profitable - "in turn, there was significant pressure to strengthen states in order to fight wars" (p.13)

- for defence "links between the cities - the core political areas - and the surrounding territories" (p.14) were needed - these simultaneously helped consolidate the state by increasing taxes, trade and so forth

By contrast, links between African cities and rural areas were much less profound, and inhibited growth
- the cities created by colonizers were not intended to duplicate "the power infrastructure which bound city to hinterland in their homelands" (p.16); instead, the "need for easy communication and transport links with Europe were more important

nationalist movements were heavily urban biased
Hyden "the state does not really enter into the solution of his [the African peasant's] existential problems" (p.19)

lack of connection between rural areas and cities emphasised in post-1970s economic crises - lack of tax collectors, roads etc

"Even the wave of democratisation that swept Africa in the 1990s has not breached the centre-periphery divide...few, if any, of the political parties that have come into existence since 1989 have strong rural roots" (p.20)

we can recognise the importance European imperialism in Africa without using the European experience as "a template for state-making" (p.22)

"state consolidation in Africa can be understood by examining three basic dynamics: the assessment of costs of expansion; the nature of buffer mechanisms...and the nature of the regional state system" (p.23)

without a "security imperative" (p.23) a cost/benefit analysis determined how far, and how deeply a state invests in state consolidation
- because this "the desired characteristics of a state in Africa are different from those traditionally held in Europe"

the purpose of a boundary - secure the area within it, to allow for development
- arbitrarily drawn boundaries "that often did not account for local political, sociological, economic factors" (p.25), are traditional weaknesses for African states

how boundaries work is key to understanding "the relationship between the international and domestic systems" (p.26)

state systems "cooperation...has characterised Africa during the last century of state making, a vision that directly challenges traditional realist assumptions about the anarchical nature of international society" (p.26)

not only is the environment different - the international context in which African states were formed is also radically different to Western Europe

understanding how state systems affect international relations (as well as vice versa) important
- equally important to note that the three levels of analysis interrelate

central argument - changes of colonialism limited - deep continuities persist

"political outcomes are the result of human agency interacting with powerful geographical and historical forces" (p.31)

Chapter Two – Power and Space in Precolonial Africa

“Precolonial rulers in Africa struggled over the centuries to extend their power…the desire to expand control over people was as much a constant in precolonial Africa as [anywhere]” (p.35)
-	BUT – “extension and consolidation of power meant something very different” (p.35) in a precolonial African context

“While political organisations in precolonial Africa do not resemble today’s states…[there was still] a system of relations across polities that could be understood” (p.35)

Conceptions of Power

As “the very basis of modern understandings of state and state systems are tied to control of territory” precolonial Africa was, in breaking from this model, “seen as too exotic to be relevant” (p.36)

Reliance of Weberian, territorially based state conceptions make it easy to “make the mistake of suggesting that precolonial Africa had neither states nor state systems” (p.36)
-	studies of precolonial Africa often limited to single-society anthropological studies; lack of comparative study

Even in Europe, “hard territorial boundaries” (p.37) and codified citizenship laws are relatively recent concepts

Robert S. Smith: (on precolonial West Africa) “international relations in peace and war were carried out in a coherent and rational manner which showed itself capable under favourable conditionsd of leading to political, economic and technical improvements in society” (p.37)

“the sheer availability of land [meant] very little pressure [existed] to adopt instruments to improve the productivity of any piece of land” – i.e. no development of the plough

-	war unlikely because it is always easier to run away than to fight

Mapping, cartography often absent, or unimportant; not uncommon for land to belong to one person and people to another (Ashanti)

“the African acceptance of a far more nuanced understanding of territory was made possible by the fact that land was often not a scarce resource…thus, the development of particular notions of sovereignty is highly dependent on particular political geography…not simply… a particular line of legal thinking” (p.41)

areas of absolute territorial control were small; no infrastructure to broadcast power more broadly – ties with hinterland were therefore sporadic, weak, symbolic
-	this made it easy for kingdoms to break away from the central power, and allowed for considerable cultural diversity
-	complex, diverse kingdoms common

to an extreme level “in some areas of Africa, it was so difficult to broadcast power that there were essentially no centralised political units above village” (p.49)

19th Century Expansions of state largely due to external influences, trade and the introduction of the gun

“Rather than simply being ‘primitive’ or… unique, precolonial Africa polities developed as a logical response to their physical environments”