Africa at the turn of the century: state failure?

• Author: van der Windt, Peter
• Position: 'When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa' - Book review

When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa

Robert H. Bates

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 216 pages.

Despite the optimism after independence and the end of the Cold War, violence and political disorder became widespread in Africa at the end of the 20th century. Why is this the case? This is the question that Robert Bates, a Harvard University professor and a prominent scholar of Africa, sets out to answer in When Things Fell Apart.

This concise book consists of four parts. In part one, Bates argues that governments can use coercion to either protect or prey upon their citizens. Whether a government chooses to be a guardian or a warlord depends on three factors: public revenues, the government's valuation of the future and the benefits from predation. According to Bates, events at the end of the 20th century negatively altered both governments' public revenues and their valuations of the future. First, predation became a more attractive option when the energy crisis of the 1980s led to a crisis in public revenues for many African governments. Second, the wave of democratization following the end of the Cold War threatened incumbent governments in Africa. Faced with potentially shorter political horizons, predation became a more attractive option for Africa's leaders. Finally, most African states have rich (and lootable) natural resources, making predation an attractive option.

In part two of When Things' Fell Apart, Bates argues that the seeds of African political disorder were sown several decades ago. Soon after independence, Africa's political institutions became increasingly monopolized by military and single party regimes. Rather than distributing benefits widely, these authoritarian regimes operated on the logic of exclusion, resulting in political opportunism and economic inequality. Also, following independence many Africa governments implemented so-called control regimes: economic policies that generated benefits for political elites at the expense of the larger population. Finally, Bates emphasizes that demographic growth, territorial expansion and competing claims to land generated tremendous domestic tension in African states.

In part three, Bates discusses how the drift towards authoritarianism and subsequent implementation of control regimes influenced public revenues and governments' valuation of the future. These events also made African governments vulnerable to the two sharp external shocks...