States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control.

• Author: Samii, Cyrus
• Position: Book Review

STATES AND POWER IN AFRICA: COMPARATIVE LESSONS IN AUTHORITY AND CONTROL Jeffrey Herbst (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 280 pages.

Herbst broadens the field of comparative analyses of state building and state formation processes by exploring the nature of contemporary African states. Herbst finds that most African leaders, even the most ardently nationalist ones, have failed to "broadcast power" beyond their coastal or fluvial major cities. Herbst suggests a number of plausible reasons for this. One is the legacy of the European powers' cheap extractive approach to ruling the African colonies. Another is the diminishment of international territorial competition that emerged as an effect of post-1945 territorial sovereignty norms. Herbst also finds that the imposition of statehood onto the post-colonial space has obstructed traditional behavioral patterns, such as migratory flight from natural disasters or war-waging tribes. Finally he argues that the international community is unjustifiably complicit in allowing capital city elites...