INDEPENDENCE? THE FIRST DECADE OF STATE BUILDING

 Intro: State Building, Its Goals and Challenges

 “Distribution of governmental authority is one of the oldest and most abiding problems of society. By our solutions of this distributive problem we determine whether the government will be stable or unstable; whether it will be a dictatorship… whether we shall have the rule of law, the rule of men, or the rule of men under law.”

 James Fessler. 1949. Area and Administration. Birmingham: Univ. of Alabama Press, p. 1.

State, Nation, Nation-State

 What is a state?

1. Territorial entity defined by its borders
2. Unified political entity with political institutions
3. An armed body (Max Weber)
4. A sovereign political organization

 [The modern state: Europe, Treaty of Westphalia 1648]

 What is a nation?

 What is a nation-state?

 Africa’s Colonial Heritage

 Territorial boundaries

Administrative systems

Case 1: Nigeria (see handout for acronyms and names)

Case 2: Madagascar (see handout for acromyms and names)

 Independence or Neo-Colonialism?

POST-COLONIAL LEADERSHIP: SINGLE-PARTY RULE & PERSONAL RULE

Leadership: Key Questions

 Key question 1: Who has power?

Key question 2: How is power exercised? or Who represents the state? 

Key question 3: Whose interest(s) does the state serve?

• How are interests defined?

 Regime types in SSA after independence

        1. Democracy–various forms (Senegal; Botswana; Mauritius)

                  Of Note: Senegal’s Four Presidents since 1960

2. Authoritarianism–various forms

How do authoritarian leaders exercise political control? (Strategies)

·   Coercion / Cooptation
·   Policies (domestic / international)
·   Party domination
·   Personality cult (big man politics)

Result: Single party rule and personal rule

 ·         Félix Houphouët-Boigny (FHB) of Côte d’Ivoire

 ·         Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaïre (see documentary) [not Fall 2017 due to Mugabe talk]

 ·         Idi Amin of Uganda (see Chirot reading)

.       Jean Bedel Bokassa of CAR (see Chirot reading)

Power Point Presentation for 4.1, 4.2

Early African Leaders

Consider Tsiranana (Madagascar), Houphouët-Boigny (Ivory Coast), Mobutu (Zaïre), Idi Amin (Uganda), Bokassa (Central African Republic).

(1) How were these leaders similar? (2) How were their regimes distinct from one another?

 Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaïre)–Screening Guide (NOT FOR Fall 2019)

How did Mobutu come to power?

What was his professional background?

How did he secure citizens’ loyalty? In fact, how was loyalty to the state defined?

How did Mobutu exercise control over the people of Zaïre, over his opponents and over his collaborators? (see Nzongola Ntalaja in addition to the documentary; see Moss Ch.3 also)

What ideology did Mobutu espouse to run Zaïre?

What was zaïranisation? What did it entail?

What is kleptocracy?

How was Mobutu’s rule an example of pure dictatorship (“la dictature à l’état pur”)? What examples can you offer to support this claim?

What three adjectives would you use to capture this leader?