Political Topographies of the African State: Territorial Authority and Institutional Choice (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)

This 2003 study brings Africa into the mainstream of studies of state-formation in agrarian societies. Territorial integration is the challenge: institutional linkages and political deals that bind center and periphery are the solutions. In African countries, as in territorially diverse states around the world, rulers at the center are forced to bargain with regional elites to establish stable mechanisms of rule and taxation. Variation in regional forms of social organization make for differences in the interests and political strength of regional leaders who seek to maintain or enhance their power vis-à-vis their followers and subjects, and also vis-à-vis the center. The uneven political topography of the regions ultimately produces unevenness in the patterns and depth of center-region linkage. Six sub-regions of three West African countries - Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, and Ghana - are the backbone of the study. "Political Topographies of the African State shows that central rulers' power, ambitions, and strategies of control have always varied across subregions of the national space, even in countries reputed to be highly centralized. Catherine Boone argues that this unevenness reflects a state-building logic that is shaped by differences in the political economy of the regions - that is, by relations of property, production, and authority that determine the political clout and economic needs of regional-level elites. Center-provincial bargaining, rather than the unilateral choices of the center, is what drives the politics of national integration and determines how institutions distribute power. When devolution occurs, will we get local democracy, decentralized despotism, or disintegration of authority? Political Topographies shows why and how the answer can vary across space within a single national unit."--Jacket. Catherine Boone examines political regionalism in Africa and how it affects forms of government, and prospects for democracy and development. Boone's study is set within the context of larger theories of political development in agrarian societies. It features a series of compelling case studies that focus on regions within Senegal, Ghana, and C?te d'Ivoire and ranges from 1930 to the present. The book will be of interest to readers concerned with comparative politics, Africa, development, regionalism and federalism, and ethnic politics. Taken from inside cover: "[This book] shows that central rulers' power, ambitions, and strategies of control have always varied across subregions of the national space ... [the author] argues that this uneveness reflects a state-building logic that is shaped by the political economy of the regions ... Central-provincial bargaining rather than the unilateral choices of the center, is what drives the politics of national integration, and determines how institutions distribute power." Changes sweeping sub-Saharan Africa have rekindled interest in popular politics, local communities, and institutional reforms that might decentralize and democratize everyday political life.