Editorial: understanding how ‘Africa works’?

It is with great sadness that the African Studies community has learnt of the death of Professor Patrick Chabal. Patrick was a member of the Critical African Studies Advisory Board and he will be greatly missed. This journal previously housed a debate on his recent work Africa: The Politics of Suffering and Smiling in one of our first issues (cf. Critical African Studies, Vol. 1, Issue 2, 2009), and it is perhaps fitting that at this sad time the journal returns to focus on some of the core issues that Patrick debated during his long and illustrious career.

Chabal's book that he co-authored with Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works (Chabal and Daloz 1999) contributed to an on-going debate about the seemingly endemic nature of patron–client ties at the centre of African social and political life. Chabal and Daloz famously declared the urgent need to reconceptualise how we understand what, on the surface, appears to be the dysfunctional and chaotic modus operandi of African state politics. They implored political scientists to find order in the ‘chaos’; to understand the ‘instrumentalisation of disorder’. ‘Africa works’, they claimed, but not in a way that was easily recognizable to Western political scientists. Just because African politics was not conducive to the kind of economic and political development predicted by modernization theorists, this did not mean Africa was in some way bereft of modernity. Chabal and Daloz (1999, 144–147) assert that Africa's ‘modernity’ should not be measured by how well its political institutions mimic those of the Western world, and that it should instead be understood on its own terms.

The ‘Africanised’ political modernity Chabal and Daloz identified was grounded in the logics of reciprocity within patron–client relationships. Engaging with Hyden's (1983) concept of the ‘economy of affection’, they argued that:

The aim of political elites is not just to gather power. It is more fundamentally to use that power, and the resources which it can generate, to purchase, as it were, the ‘affection’ of their people. (Chabal and Daloz 1999, 158)

African politics thus ‘works’ through the distribution of the resources of the state (power, status, wealth, access to markets, etc.) through informal, deeply personalised patron-client networks, rather than the formal, impersonalized channels of the Weberian legal-rational state that supposedly characterizes ‘modern’ Western statehood. A cyclical relationship emerges in which resources are distributed through patronage networks to regenerate the political power of ‘big men’, and political power (access to state spoils) is used to replenish the resources needed to maintain these networks. As Allen (1995, 304) famously argued: ‘to have power was to have the means to reproduce it; to lose power, however, was to risk never having the means to regain it’.

This neopatrimonial politics is, therefore, not synonymous with corruption (though corruption is a pervasive symptom of it). Instead, it reflects a social structure, tied to the state, through which power is disseminated, maintained and cultivated. Such political structures should not be exoticised as a uniquely African dynamic, rooted in some form of age-old tradition that is impervious to Western rationality and modernity: neopatrimonial political systems are a product of the colonial encounter. They are, as Cooper (2002) put it, ‘not “African” institutions, nor are they “European” impositions; they emerged out of a peculiar Euro-African History’. African states are thus successors to the colonial state because, like the colonial state, they are reliant on an external, legal recognition of their sovereignty, and the resources that they can access as a result from it (loans, aid, rents, investment, etc.) are essential for their maintenance of political power. A ‘gatekeeper state’ complex thus emerges where controlling access to the state and its resources becomes the primary preoccupation of ‘big men’ in positions of state authority, who must, like their colonial predecessors, ‘sit astride the interface between a territory and the rest of world, collecting and distributing resources that derived from the gate itself’ (Cooper 2002, 157).

For political elites, power thus becomes a zero sum, winner-takes-all struggle for control of the legally recognized state and its resources. But such power struggles are not just the domain of the political elites, however. They permeate all levels of society, reaching from statehouse to village, as people strive to gain some form of access to resources through local patronage networks. Bayart (2009, 222) famously discusses this as part of the ‘politics of the belly’, where both elites and ordinary people are forced to engage in a ‘life and death social struggle’ for access to state resources (the national cake). Some will get a thick slice, some will be lucky to eat crumbs, but all are nonetheless drawn into the struggle. Maintaining a ‘big man's’ political authority rests, therefore, not necessarily on augmenting positive developmental outcomes for the nation as a whole, but on being capable of meeting the needs of his political family, because while the father/patron is expected to eat, he must also ensure his children/clients are able to eat as well (Schatzberg 2001). This often leads to short-termism, rather than long-term developmental planning because:

The logic of neopatrimonialism is focused on the proximate: the local and the communal. Its legitimacy depends on the ability to deliver to those who are linked with political elites through the micro-networks of patronage and clientelism. There is no scope within such a perspective for deferring to a larger but less immediate macro-rationality, most significantly to the greater good of the country as a whole. Clients will not necessarily accept sacrifices for more ambitious national goals in a context where it is assumed that patrons only work for their clients. So that the claim by one Big Man that he must reduce expenditures on his clients because resources are needed for national development would not normally be credible or acceptable. (Chabal and Daloz 1999, 161)

For Chabal and Daloz (1999, 162), neopatrimonialism thus remains an entrenched feature of African politics, one that even revered leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Julius Nyerere would be unable to overhaul because:

The fact remains … that the ability of such exceptional leaders to move the political system beyond its present rationality is limited, not primarily because of a lack of ambition but much more fundamentally because of the nature of existing forms of political legitimacy. In the end, there is an interlocking neopatrimonial logic between the deep ambitions of the political elites and the well-grounded expectations of their clients.

As they themselves admit, this pessimistic assessment is ‘far from cheering’ (Chabal and Daloz 1999, 162). But is it valid?

Allen (1995) famously warned Africanists against trying to homogenize our understanding of politics in Africa, pointing to the manner in which not all African states follow exactly the same path into one-dimensional neopatrimonial ‘spoils’ politics. In doing so, he echoes the call of Chazan et al. (1992, 14) for us to recognize that ‘there is not one but many Africas’. Indeed, while Chabal and Daloz's ambitious attempt at forging generalizable conclusions about African politics is commendable, recent studies have nonetheless highlighted the importance of examining the heterogeneity of the neopatrimonial politics system.

Scholars working for the ‘Africa Power and Politics Programme’ have argued that neopatrimonialism is not entirely incompatible with a developmental agenda and strong GDP growth rates. Kelsall (2011, 76), for example, argues from case studies of Cote d'Ivoire, Malawi and Rwanda that ‘provided mechanisms can be found to centralize economic rents and manage them with a view to the long term’ that ‘neopatrimonialism can be harnessed for developmental ends’. He argues that developmental institutions should try to work with, rather than against, the grain of neopatrimonial political systems; taking the political systems as they find them and navigating within them, rather than expending all their efforts attempting (often in vain) to transform them. This conclusion is shared by Booth and Golooba-Mutebi (2012) who argue that Rwanda in particular exhibits a form of ‘developmental patrimonialism’ because of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front's (RPF) capacity to curtail short-term rent-seeking behaviour (e.g. petty corruption) in order to generate ‘long-horizon’ rent-seeking opportunities in the form of economic growth from which the RPF's various holding companies can profit. In short, turning efficient neoliberal economic management into a resource-generating vehicle for patronage.

Is it possible for neopatrimonialism to be developmental? How can non-state actors, non governmental organisations (NGOs) and ordinary Africans navigate neopatrimonial politics for their own benefit? It is to these questions that this issue turns with a series of articles grounded in detailed ethnographic studies from across the continent.

Pete Kingsley compares how health professionals and international health NGOs interact with local neopatrimonial political systems in Kebbi State, Nigeria. Engaging with Kelsall's arguments about ‘going with the grain’ of neopatrimonialism, Kingsley argues that doctors have been relatively successful in negotiating with, and navigating around, the local state. He finds that they are:

nimble enough to exploit opportunities (such as upcoming elections) and sufficiently deft to blend occasional confrontation with supportive engagement. They are skilled at moving between roles and registers – one day the dutiful supporter of the government, the next a public-minded physician ready to raise the alarm for his imperilled patients, the day after that, dutiful once more.

He argues that this makes them capable of capitalizing on the malleable, negotiable nature of local neopatrimonial politics. On the other hand, Kingsley finds that, despite pursuing similar goals, the international health NGO is not as flexible in its strategies, and that international pressure for transparency and accountability renders it difficult for the organization to achieve its aims. Kingsley's study does not romanticize the relative success of the doctors, however, and warns that their ‘flexibility in tactics implies a concomitment flexibility in ethics’, echoing Kelsall's (2011) warning that ‘going with the grain’ of neopatrimonialism may serve to undermine democracy and encourage further the pursuit of spoils. Such dilemmas confront all developmental actors in Africa and arguably lie at the centre of debates regarding their future conduct; debates that should also prompt social scientists to rethink our own understandings about the developmental potential of neopatrimonial politics.

Kathy Dodworth also explores the tactics and strategies of NGOs in their dealings with the state, this time with a focus on the work of two NGOs in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. Dodworth is concerned with how NGOs undertake to legitimate themselves through continuously repositioning themselves vis-à-vis the government. Once again, Dodworth's study illuminates a dynamic and ever-changing political playing field rather than a static local politics of neopatrimonialism. This forces the NGOs to adopt a highly flexible and adaptable strategy for dealing with local government authorities. This involves cosying up to the local state in certain circumstances, positioning themselves as a pliant partner of government and thus bolstering their own legitimacy by borrowing from government authority and the deeply entrenched discourse of the ‘development state’ in Tanzania. In other instances, however, Dodworth notes how they are sometimes compelled to change tactics and will resort to ‘crafting a separation and distance from the government when it is expedient to do so’. They are, she concludes, ‘neither “surrogates” of the state nor intrinsic adversaries but strategists in a political playing field who continually and creatively craft their space and opportunity to act’.

The third article in the issue by Davide Chinigo examines top-down governmental reforms in Ethiopia and how, at the local level, such reforms reconfigure the relationship between the state and farmers and how, crucially, farmers are confronted with a dilemma as to whether to swim with the tide of reforms or attempt to resist them. Once again, the article examines issues relating to the notion of the ‘developmental state’ in Africa, drawing on local experiences of the state in the Oromiya region. Chinigo argues that under the cloak of ‘decentralisation’, the agrarian reforms actually serve to enhance and extend the power of the ruling party into the rural areas while also creating ‘considerable opportunities for corruption and patronage’. He finds that in a context ‘where land is an increasingly scarce resource, the power accorded to local officials’ over land allocations ‘is central to the reproduction and legitimation of patronage relations’. Farmers thus find themselves in an unenviable position where, due to the asymmetrical power relationship between themselves and the local party, they are forced into publicly demonstrating their support for such reforms, lest they be cut adrift from the favour of local officials. And yet this disciplinary patronage relationship is also resisted, and Chinigo explores how through the ‘hidden transcript’ of farmers' resistance one can witness the manner in which such inequitable power relationships are challenged.

Felix Conteh and David Harris' article draws attention away from the focus on developmental issues of land and health to instead focus on how neopatrimonial politics affects the practice of politics during elections. Drawing on a detailed case study of Sierra Leone's 2012 national election, they highlight the manner in which the electoral contest continues to be characterized by patronage, vote buying, fraud and violence. Conteh and Harris argue that Sierra Leone's democratization should not be understood as a gradual process towards becoming a more liberal, Western model of democracy, and that if anything, what has been consolidated is a very particular ‘Sierra Leonean’ type of democracy. In doing so, they reaffirm Chabal and Daloz (1999) argument that we must understand Africa's political modernity on its own terms rather than in relation to Western political practice. Their case study also highlights the on-going manner in which elections actually serve to entrench neopatrimonial politics in Africa rather than leading to a move away from such political practice (Lindberg 2003). What their study highlights is the dynamic ways in which ‘the unwritten neopatrimonial rules of the system have been incorporated, adapted, somewhat expanded and occasionally set aside within electoral politics’.

In a similar vein to Chinigo's piece, Stephanie Terreni Brown examines the manner in which state governance serves to marginalize local communities. She examines how sanitation infrastructure provision in Kampala, Uganda has evolved over time, arguing that the current state of the infrastructure still bears the footprint of colonial attempts to systematically exclude certain populations from access to basic sanitation. She argues that the absence of basic sanitation infrastructure in the global South is often presented as a ‘crisis’, illustrative of a deficient level of urban modernity. However, Terreni Brown uncovers a political rationality behind this underdevelopment; what Chabal and Daloz (1999) would call ‘the instrumentalisation of disorder’. The manner in which infrastructure is only extended to commercial and upper-class areas of Kampala ‘perpetuates distinctions between in/formal and un/sanitary urbanity’ and produces ‘vulnerability, marginality and abjectivity’ for the majority of Kampala's residents. This serves political ends because ‘power is consolidated on the basis of exclusion and exemption’ and the absence of sanitation infrastructures ‘became one way of managing, or withholding, the rights of “informal” urban inhabitants’.

The final article has a completely different focus from the other articles within this issue. Alexander Bud examines the Nigerian film industry aka Nollywood, which has gained increasing international attention in recent years to such an extent that some now claim it to be the second largest film industry in the world and a significant employer in the Nigerian economy. Bud disputes these claims but nonetheless examines how such narratives have prompted significant disputes in recent years as the Nigerian state has sought to increase its control and influence within the industry. Bud examines how various actors within the film industry have reacted to such reforms, once again highlighting the multiple repertoires of engagement with the state which local actors use in order to navigate the outreach of state elites.

Through this diverse range of case studies the issue, therefore, offers some important empirical insights into how, as social scientists, we should understand the contemporary nature of state–society relations in Africa. They offer a window into the heterogeneity of neopatrimonial systems, as well illustrating some of the shared logics of neopatrimonialism that can be identified across this varied range of cases. They do not aim to provide a definitive impression that ‘Africa works’, but they nonetheless contribute to our understandings of these important questions lying at the core of African Studies.