The scope of the article is limited to an attempt to explain how the endurance of African traditional institutions is related to the continents economic systems and to shed light on the implications of fragmented institutional systems. It should not be surprising that there is a weak social compact between state and society in many African states. Thus, another report by PRIO and the University of Uppsala (two Norwegian and Swedish centers) breaks conflict down into state-based (where at least one party is a government), non-state-based (neither party is an official state actor), and one-sided conflicts (an armed faction against unarmed civilians). Although much has been lost in the shadows and fogs of a time before people created written accounts, historians . Leaders may not be the only ones who support this definition of legitimacy. The debate is defined by "traditionalists" and "modernists." . As noted, African countries have experienced the rise of the modern (capitalist) economic system along with its corresponding institutional systems. This study points to a marked increase in state-based conflicts, owing in significant part to the inter-mixture of Islamic State factions into pre-existing conflicts. Seeming preference for Democracy in Africa over other governance systems in Africa before and after independence 15-17 1.5. While empirical data are rather scanty, indications are that the traditional judicial system serves the overwhelming majority of rural communities (Mengisteab & Hagg, 2017). The rise of non-Western centers of power and the return of global polarization among major powers reduce the presence and weight of western influence. A key factor in the size of adherents of rural institutions, however, seems to depend on the ratio of the population in the traditional economic systems to the total population. They are well known, among others, for their advancement of an indigenous democratic process known as Gadaa. These migrations resulted in part from the formation and disintegration of a series of large states in the western Sudan (the region north of modern Ghana drained by the Niger River). Council of elders: These systems essentially operate on consensual decision-making arrangements that vary from one place to another. Wise leadership respects ethnic diversity and works toward inclusive policies. Command economies, as opposed to free-market economies, do not allow market forces like supply and demand to determine production or prices. A second attribute is the participatory decision-making system. The size and intensity of adherence to the traditional economic and institutional systems, however, vary from country to country. In this paper, I look first at the emergence of the African state system historically, including colonial legacies and the Cold Wars impact on governance dynamics. 3. There is no more critical variable than governance, for it is governance that determines whether there are durable links between the state and the society it purports to govern. Botswanas strategy has largely revolved around integrating parallel judicial systems. One is that the leaders of the postcolonial state saw traditional institutions and their leadership as archaic vestiges of the past that no longer had a place in Africas modern system of governance. African Governance: Challenges and Their Implications. A third argument claims that chieftaincy heightens primordial loyalties, as chiefs constitute the foci of ethnic identities (Simwinga quoted in van Binsberger, 1987, p. 156). The abolishment of chieftaincy does not eradicate the systems broader underlying features, such as customary law, decision-making systems, and conflict resolution practices. One layer represents the formal institutions (laws) of the state. However, the system of traditional government varied from place to place. Traditional governments have the following functions; This proposal will be subject to a referendum on the constitutional changes required.16.2e 2.4 Traditional leadership Traditional leaders are accorded Communities in the traditional socioeconomic space are hardly represented in any of the organizations of the state, such as the parliament, where they can influence policy and the legal system to reflect their interests. The same factors that hinder nation-building hinder democratization. These include macro variables such as educational access (especially for women), climate change impact and mitigation, development and income growth rates, demographic trends, internet access, urbanization rates, and conflict events. By the mid-1970s, the politics of Africa had turned authoritarian. By the mid-1970s, the military held power in one-third of the nations of sub-Saharan Africa. Chiefs administer land and people, contribute to the creation of rules that regulate the lives of those under their jurisdiction, and are called on to solve disputes among their subjects. Ethiopias monarchy ended in 1974 while the other three remain, with only the king of Swaziland enjoying absolute power. On the other hand, weak or destructive governance is sometimes the source of conflicts in the first place. There is no more critical variable than governance, for it is governance that determines whether there are durable links between the state and the society it purports to govern. In the postcolonial era, their roles changed again. The first three parts deal with the principal objectives of the article. According to the African Development Bank, good governance should be built on a foundation of (I) effective states, (ii) mobilized civil societies, and (iii) an efficient private sector. African governance trends were transformed by the geopolitical changes that came with the end of the Cold War. The post-colonial State, on the other hand . (No award was made in 50% of the years since the program was launched in 2007; former Liberian president Ellen John Sirleaf won the award in 2017. Issues of corruption and transparency are likely to become driving themes in African politics. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. According to this analysis, Africas traditional institutional systems are likely to endure as long as the traditional subsistent economic systems continue to exist. Another measure is recognition of customary law and traditional judicial systems by the state. References: Blakemore and Cooksey (1980). . Both types of government can be effective or infective depending on . This kind of offences that attract capital punishment is usually . Legitimate authority, in turn, is based on accepted laws and norms rather than the arbitrary, unconstrained power of the rulers. The regime in this case captures the state, co-opts the security organs, and dissolves civil society. The nature of governance is central because it determines whether the exercise of authority is viewed as legitimate. Chiefs with limited power: Another category of chiefs is those that are hereditary, like the paramount chiefs, but have limited powers. Security challenges can impose tough choices on governments that may act in ways that compound the problem, opening the door to heightened risks of corruption and the slippery slope of working with criminal entities. This outline leads us to examine more closely the sources of legitimacy in African governance systems. The campaign by some (but not all) African states to pull out of the International Criminal Court is but one illustration of the trend. Our data indicate that traditional leaders, chiefs and elders clearly still play an important role in the lives There are several types of government that are traditionally instituted around the world. With its eminent scholars and world-renowned library and archives, the Hoover Institution seeks to improve the human condition by advancing ideas that promote economic opportunity and prosperity, while securing and safeguarding peace for America and all mankind. The place and role of African Youth in Pre-independence African Governance Systems 19-20 1.7. Such adjustments, however, may require contextualization of the institutions of democracy by adjusting these institutions to reflect African realities. The evidence suggests that traditional institutions have continued to metamorphose under the postcolonial state, as Africas socioeconomic systems continue to evolve. Unlike the laws of the state, traditional institutions rarely have the coercive powers to enforce their customary laws. Decision making is generally participatory and often consensus-based. With the exceptions of a few works, such as Legesse (1973), the institutions of the decentralized political systems, which are often elder-based with group leadership, have received little attention, even though these systems are widespread and have the institutions of judicial systems and mechanisms of conflict resolution and allocation of resources, like the institutions of the centralized systems. Even the court system is designed to provide for consociational, provincial, and local organization, not as separate courts but as divisions of the key national courts; once again, a compromise between a fully federal or consociational arrangement and the realities of the South African situation that emphasize the preservation of national unity . In direct contrast is the second model: statist, performance-based legitimacy, measured typically in terms of economic growth and domestic stability as well as government-provided servicesthe legitimacy claimed by leaders in Uganda and Rwanda, among others. Competing land rights laws, for instance, often lead to appropriations by the state of land customarily held by communities, triggering various land-related conflicts in much of Africa, especially in areas where population growth and environmental degradation have led to land scarcity. The institution of traditional leadership in Africa pre-existed both the colonial and apartheid systems and was the only known system of governance among indigenous people. Societal conflicts: Institutional dichotomy often entails incompatibility between the systems. History. Despite such changes, these institutions are referred to as traditional not because they continue to exist in an unadulterated form as they did in Africas precolonial past but because they are largely born of the precolonial political systems and are adhered to principally, although not exclusively, by the population in the traditional (subsistent) sectors of the economy. Government and the Political System 2.1. However, at the lower level of the hierarchy of the centralized system, the difference between the centralized and decentralized systems tends to narrow notably. Among the key challenges associated with institutional fragmentation are the following: Policy incoherence: Fragmented economies and institutions represent dichotomous socioeconomic spaces, which makes it highly challenging for policy to address equitably the interests of the populations in these separate socioeconomic spaces. These partners, for their part, sometimes disengaged from close political ties and often brought new governance conditions into their assistance programs. The population in the traditional system thus faces a vicious cycle of deprivation. The quality and durability of such leader-defined adaptive resilience cannot be assured and can be reversed unless the associated norms become institutionalized. The challenge facing Africas leadersperhaps above all othersis how to govern under conditions of ethnic diversity. The structures of leadership of African traditional institutions are diverse and they have yet to be mapped out comprehensively. Comparing Ethiopia and Kenya, for example, shows that adherents to the traditional institutional system is greater in Ethiopia than in Kenya, where the ratio of the population operating in the traditional economic system is smaller and the penetration of the capitalist economic system in rural areas is deeper. The purpose is to stress that such efforts and the attendant will There was a lot of consultation between the elders before any major decision was made. Contents 1. African indigenous education was. But the context in which their choices are made is directly influenced by global political trends and the room for maneuver that these give to individual governments and their leaders. 14 L.A. Ayinla 'African Philosophy of Law: A Critique' 151, available at This situation supported an external orientation in African politics in which Cold War reference points and former colonial relationships assured that African governments often developed only a limited sense of connection to their own societies. The modern African state system has been gradually Africanized, albeit on more or less the identical territorial basis it began with at the time of decolonization in the second half of the 20th century. THE FUTURE OF AFRICAN CUSTOMARY LAW, Fenrich, Galizzi, Higgins, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2011, Available at SSRN: If you need immediate assistance, call 877-SSRNHelp (877 777 6435) in the United States, or +1 212 448 2500 outside of the United States, 8:30AM to 6:00PM U.S. Eastern, Monday - Friday. A Sociology of Education for Africa . This provides wide opportunity for governments to experiment, to chart a course independent of Western preferences, but it can also encourage them to move toward authoritarian, state capitalist policies when that is the necessary or the expedient thing to do. "Law" in traditional Africa includes enforceable traditions, customs, and laws. Institutional systems emanate from the broader economic and political systems, although they also affect the performance of the economic and political systems. Building an inclusive political system also raises the question of what levels of the society to include and how to assure that local communities as well as groups operating at the national level can get their voices heard. They include: Monarchs (absolute or constitutional): While the colonial state reduced most African kings to chiefs, a few survived as monarchs. Afrocentrism, also called Africentrism, cultural and political movement whose mainly African American adherents regard themselves and all other Blacks as syncretic Africans and believe that their worldview should positively reflect traditional African values. Government, Public Policy Performance, Types of Government. Impact of Historical Origins of African State System2. Regardless, fragmentation of institutional systems poses a number of serious challenges to Africas governance and economic development. A partial explanation as to why the traditional systems endure was given in the section Why African Traditional Institutions Endure. The argument in that section was that they endure primarily because they are compatible with traditional economic systems, under which large segments of the African population still operate. In some countries, such as Botswana, customary courts are estimated to handle approximately 80% of criminal cases and 90% of civil cases (Sharma, 2004). Institutions represent an enduring collection of formal laws and informal rules, customs, codes of conduct, and organized practices that shape human behavior and interaction. Chieftaincy is further plagued with its own internal problems, including issues of relevance, succession, patriarchy, jurisdiction, corruption and intra-tribal conflict. Certain offences were regarded as serious offences. The African Charter embodies some of the human . In Botswana, for example, the consensual decision-making process in the kgotla (public meeting) regulates the power of the chiefs. Despite the adoption of constitutional term limits in many African countries during the 1990s, such restrictions have been reversed or defied in at least 15 countries since 2000, according to a recent report.6, The conflict-governance link takes various forms, and it points to the centrality of the variable of leadership. MyHoover delivers a personalized experience atHoover.org. Africas rural communities, which largely operate under subsistent economic systems, overwhelmingly adhere to the traditional institutional systems while urban communities essentially follow the formal institutional systems, although there are people who negotiate the two institutional systems in their daily lives. Paramount chiefs with rather weak system of accountability: The Buganda of Uganda and the Nupe in Nigeria are good examples. Space opened up for African citizens and civil society movements, while incumbent regimes were no longer able to rely on assured support from erstwhile external partners. The selection, however, is often from the children of a chief. 1. The formal institutions of checks and balances and accountability of leaders to the population are rather weak in this system. Stated another way, if the abolition of term limits, neo-patrimonialism, and official kleptocracy become a regionally accepted norm, this will make it harder for the better governed states to resist the authoritarian trend. Cold War geopolitics reinforced in some ways the state-society gap as the global rivalry tended to favor African incumbents and frequently assured they would receive significant assistance from external powers seeking to build diplomatic ties with the new states. Even old-fashioned tyrants learn that inclusion or co-option are expensive. Rule that is based on predation and political monopoly is unlikely to enjoy genuine popular legitimacy, but it can linger for decades unless there are effective countervailing institutions and power centers. The first type is rights-based legitimacy deriving from rule of law, periodic elections, and alternation of political power, the kind generally supported by western and some African governments such as Ghana and Senegal. Uneven access to public services, such as educational, health, and communication services, and the disproportionately high poverty rates in the traditional sector are manifestations of the sectors marginalization. Because these governmental institutions reject the indigenous political systems on which African society was built, they have generally failed to bring political . The traditional Africa system of government is open and inclusive, where strangers, foreigners and even slaves could participate in the decision-making process. One can identify five bases of regime legitimacy in the African context today. Although considerable differences exist among the various systems, opportunities for women to participate in decision making in most traditional systems are generally limited. South Africa has a mixed economy in which there is a variety of private freedom, combined with centralized economic . First, many of the conflicts enumerated take place within a limited number of conflict-affected countries and in clearly-defined geographic zones (the Sahel and Nigeria; Central Africa; and the Horn.) Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural, include belief in a supreme creator, belief in spirits, veneration of the dead, use of magic and traditional African . 134-141. 20-27, at p. 21; Carey N. Vicenti 'The re-emergence of tribal society and traditional justice systems' Judicature, Vol. They dispense justice, resolve conflicts, and enforce contracts, even though such services are conducted in different ways in different authority systems. The colonial state, for example, invented chiefs where there were no centralized authority systems and imposed them on the decentralized traditional systems, as among the Ibo of Eastern Nigeria, the Tonga in Zambia, various communities in Kenya, and the communities in Somalia. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Ehret 2002 emphasizes the diversity and long history of precolonial social and political formations, whereas Curtin, et al. Many African countries, Ghana and Uganda, for example, have, like all other states, formal institutions of the state and informal institutions (societal norms, customs, and practices). Yet, governments are expected to govern and make decisions after consulting relevant stakeholders. The optimistic replyand it is a powerful oneis that Africans will gradually build inclusive political and economic institutions.18 This, however, requires wise leadership. Against this backdrop, where is African governance headed? The introduction of alien economic and political systems by the colonial state relegated Africas precolonial formal institutions to the sphere of informality, although they continued to operate in modified forms, in part due to the indirect rule system of colonialism and other forms of reliance by colonial states on African institutions of governance to govern their colonies. Three layers of institutions characterize most African countries. However, they are not merely customs and norms; rather they are systems of governance, which were formal in precolonial times and continue to exist in a semiformal manner in some countries and in an informal manner in others. Some live in remote areas beyond the reach of some of the institutions of the state, such as courts. The US system has survived four years of a norm-busting president by the skin of its teeth - which areas need most urgent attention? This enhanced his authority. The fourth part draws a conclusion with a tentative proposal on how the traditional institutions might be reconciled with the formal institutions to address the problem of institutional incoherence. Examine the definitions, strengths, and weaknesses of several common governments: monarchy, theocracy . The laws and legal systems of Africa have developed from three distinct legal traditions: traditional or customary African law, Islamic law, and the legal systems of Western Europe. In these relatively new nations, the critical task for leadership is to build a social contract that is sufficiently inclusive to permit the management of diversity.
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