Unchain Africa Press

 
Robert H. Bates. When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xv + 191 pp. Graphs. Maps. Charts. Appendix. Bibliography. Index.
 
Theories of state failure have come to dominate contemporary studies on the political economy and governance of African countries. When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa by Robert H. Bates contributes to a well-established body of literature on conflict and state failure in Africa by applying game theory to explain the behavior of state actors.

 
Evoking a prominent theme in Chinua Achebe’s 1958 text Things Fall Apart, Bates presents the reader with a fable to illustrate the challenges of a ruler, his/or elite and the citizenry vying for economic and political security within their communities. The question Bates poses is whether political order can prevail amongst groups with differing interests. Bates answers with a hesitant yes; thus setting up the narrative of the text.

 
In the first part of the text, Bates elegantly distills a review of literature outlining the prevailing theories of state failure; proposes the use of game theory to explain the behavior of actors in creating political disorder, and; presents three units of analysis to measure the possibility of political order in Africa.

 
The theory attempts to explain why governments engage in predatory practices and why citizens take up arms in response. At the root of state failure, is the inability of states to collect and distribute revenues equitably among the citizenry. In a state of insecurity, communities take up arms and governments become increasingly authoritarian and repressive. Government leaders and civil servants extract money from the state revenues for their own survival and conflicts arise between the ruler, the elite and the citizenry.

 
Bates argues that the economic forces in Africa, driven by external and internal policies, have contributed to African states being a source of insecurity to their citizens. Factors such as the collection of public revenues, levels of democratization and natural resource wealth influence the possibility of political order. Political order is also predicated on the links between political competition, political conflict and political incentives. With this theoretical framework, Bates examines the choices made by state actors. Those choices, primarily the choices of “specialists of violence” or rulers and civil servants, often result in creating political and economic insecurity that induce state failure.

 
The second part of the text applies the theory periodically and thematically to a number of African countries, most notably Zambia. Bates has done extensive research in Zambia since the late 1960s. The study covers the period after independence, the Cold War, structural adjustment and the third wave of democratization (1960-1995). He uses cross-national regressions to measure and compare policy choice, political reform, and political disorder. Bates’ research concludes that changes in the global economy and economic mismanagement have led to political disorder in many African states. Even though Bates reluctantly indicates in the first chapter that political order will prevail in Africa, the data and analysis indicate that Africa has been caught in the “perfect storm.” In other words, the foundation of African states has been unstable from the outset– inevitably leading to state collapse.

 
This text expands the debates on the origins of conflict and political instability in Africa by clearly challenging the prevailing explanations of conflict– notably ethnicity, resource wealth, and democratization. Many Africanist scholars want to move beyond theories that dwell on either exogenous or endogenous factors, such as: government mismanagement, clientelism, patronage politics, corruption, state survival, and ‘big man politics.’ Bates’ theory offers a gradual movement away from the prevailing paradigms; by examining the damage, external economic shocks have on African systems. Instead of blaming individual rulers for the crisis of African states, Bates makes the case that the leaders are making choices based on the rationality of the African political and economic situation.

 
However, Bates’ analysis lacks an African perspective. This is a problem with most political science texts on Africa produced in the West. Bates’ analysis is disconnected from the complex histories and realities of African communities—most notably the detrimental role colonial policies has on the formation of the African state. Applying game theory to African politics further disconnects African peoples and communities as the primary units of analysis.

 
Bates employs a theoretical framework that reduces the complexities of Africa to rational choice based models. Fundamentally, there is no universal definition of rational choice. Nevertheless, Bates’ text is a contribution to the field because it factors in both external and internal forces in leading to Africa’s state failure. Africa does not fit neatly into a model originally designed to understand the nature of politics in post war Europe.[1] Bates offers no prescriptions to the problem instead he offers explanations. In conclusion, the text is concise, written primarily for scholars and students interested in a contemporary analysis of state failure and conflict in Africa.

 
 
Anita C. Wheeler
PhD Student
Howard University
Washington, DC

There is perhaps no issue as controversial in the discussion of Cape Verdean identity as that of race. 

As an experiment, someday I’d like to swing by one of the biggest Cape Verdean gatherings in the US—the 5^th of July independence day celebration at India Point Park in Providence, RI—and conduct an informal poll.  Amidst the people enjoying the live music, playing soccer and eating katchupa, I’d pose a simple question: “Are Cape Verdeans … African?”  Or even, “Are Cape Verdeans … black?”

 I’ve never done such a poll, so my reflections here are anecdotal and certainly not scientific.  But in my limited experience, I have come across a wide range of reactions when it comes to Cape Verdean racial identity.  Colonized by the Portuguese in the 15^th century and used as a colonial way-station for hundreds of years, the Cape Verdean people that emerged from this history were largely the product of Portuguese explorers and African slaves.

 Yet, for some Cape Verdeans, it’s as if the 375 miles of ocean between Cape Verde and the West African coast is enough to wipe any trace of African blood from their DNA.  The arguments tend to fall along similar lines.  Oh no, they say, you must remember the culture.  Cape Verdean culture, language, food is unique and unparalleled; but if you must draw a comparison, it would be much more European than African.

 At a library in the capital city of Praia, where I was studying documents related to the independence struggle, I once ran into an elderly man who insisted that the Cape Verdean language bore no resemblance to any African language.  In fact, he asserted that Kriolu, the term for Cape Verdean creoles, was actually a long-lost version of Portuguese, preserved as in a time capsule from the 15^th century. 

 Or, they might accusingly point out, one must always remember to be proud of our Cape Verdean heritage.  It’s like a fingerprint, they seem to say—or ten fingerprints—in the middle of the Atlantic.  Nothing like it anywhere else in the world, and certainly not in Africa.

But then there’s those Cape Verdeans like my parents.  They immigrated to the US in the 1960s and 1970s and got caught in the heady moment of revolution.  On one side of the ocean, black pride was emerging, and they absorbed the words, “Black Is Beautiful.”  On the other side of the ocean, African revolutionaries were picking up their pens and their guns, and with both were saying, “This is our nation, our independence.”

In the jungles of Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verdean leader of the independence movement Amilcar Cabral worked to create a political party of African unity, bringing together Cape Verdeans and Guineans to stand against Portuguese colonialism.  (You could write a dissertation on how well he succeeded or how dismally he failed.)

In that context, my parents embraced their blackness.  Growing up under their influence, it was almost without question that I embraced mine. 

I embraced it just as I embraced my other identities.  I would be a black woman, a Cape Verdean, an American.  I would confront anyone who told me that I couldn’t be any one and all of these things.  I would be a black woman, although my strange name and my strange origins often threatened to throw it into question.  A Cape Verdean, although I never learned to speak my parents’ Kriolu and have only visited the islands twice in my life.  An American, although I have spent only a fraction of my life in this country and so much feels foreign to me here.

Every identity I have embraced has been challenged at one point or another by those who feel entitled to categorize me.  So I realize the potential irony in making the argument that Cape Verdeans should embrace their black African identity, if they are not already so inclined.  Perhaps it’s because I believe in the intersection of experiences and lives – you don’t have to choose just one.

But the real urgency lies in this: when we cut ourselves off from our many identities, we deprive ourselves.  We lose the chance to make connections, to share experiences, to realize that our fortunes are linked and to build movements.  Our Cape Verdean community—whether in the islands or in the diaspora—can’t afford to lose these chances.