When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)

From the Publisher: In the later decades of the 20th century, Africa plunged into political chaos. States failed, governments became predators, and citizens took up arms. In When Things Fell Apart, Robert H. Bates advances an explanation of state failure in Africa. In so doing, he not only plumbs the depths of the continent's late-century tragedy, but also the logic of political order and the foundations of the state. This book covers a wide range of territory by drawing on materials from Rwanda, Sudan, Liberia, and Congo. Written to be accessible to the general reader, it is nonetheless a must-read for scholars and policy makers concerned with political conflict and state failure 9780521887359 Half-title 2 Series-title 4 Title 6 Copyright 7 Dedication 8 Contents 10 Acknowledgments 12 Part One Introduction 18 1 Introduction 20 The Literature 23 Key Topics 26 2 From Fable to Fact 32 A Fable 33 The Conditions of Political Order 36 Features of Late-Century Politics 37 Revenues 41 Discount Rate 43 Resources 44 Conclusion 45 Part Two Sowing the Seeds 48 3 Political Legacies 50 The Incumbent’s Dilemma 51 Analysis 55 The Example of Zambia 57 The New Political Game 60 The Shrinking Political Arena 64 Conclusion 69 4 Policy Choices 72 The Content of Control Regimes 73 The Control of Trade 73 Macroeconomic Policies 74 Industrial Regulation 75 The Incidence of Costs and Benefits 75 Economic Costs and Political Benefits 79 Political Benefits 81 The Maintenance of Authoritarian Regimes 86 Conclusion 90 5 Subnational Tensions 92 Rural Dynamics 93 Arable and Pastoral Production 94 Investment 95 Variations in Form 96 The Family 97 Age Grades 100 States 100 Impact on Contemporary Politics 102 Kenya 103 Ethiopia 105 Uganda 107 Conclusion 108 Part Three Things Fall Apart 112 6 Things Fall Apart 114 The Decline of Public Revenues 115 The Untaxed Economy 115 The Global Economy 116 Predation 118 The Impact of Declining Revenues 120 Managing Regionalism 124 Political Reform 125 The Local Impulse 126 External Forces 130 Elite Responses 134 Natural Resources 138 Reverberations 141 Conclusion 144 7 Conclusion 146 Changing Perspectives 148 Ethnicity 149 The Resource Curse 151 Democratization 153 State Failure 154 Part Four Appendix 158 Cross-National Regressions 160 The Data 160 General Overview 162 Missingness 163 Qualitative Dependent Variable 164 Patterns of Dependence 165 Discussion 166 Policy Choices 166 Political Reform 177 Political Disorder 182 Bibliography 192 Index 204 In the later decades of the twentieth century, Africa plunged into political chaos. States failed, governments became predators, and citizens took up arms. In When Things Fell Apart, Robert H. Bates advances an exploration of state failure in Africa. In so doing, he not only plumbs the depths of the continent's late-century tragedy, but also the logic of political order and the foundations of the state. This book covers a wide range of territory by drawing on materials from Rwanda, Sudan, Liberia, and Congo. A must-read for scholars and policy makers concerned with political conflict and state failure. In When Things Fell Apart, Robert H. Bates addresses the origins of state failure in Africa in the late decades of the twentieth century. Bates plumbs the depths of the continent's late-century tragedy, the logic of political order, and the foundations of the state for explanations for these tragedies.