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State of Africa – Parameters and Legacies of Governance 21 PART 1 Local and National Dimensions Introduction Any interrogation of the reality of the post-colonial/post-adjustment state, and its associated social reality in Africa, has to subject the very idea of the state to thorough scrutiny. The word that will, of necessity, have to occupy centre stage in that process is: war. This is no simple task, given the fact that in many remote parts of the continent pitched battles are fought for recognition , economic opportunity, political power, food, access to resources, and against injustices committed not by outside forces or colonial powers, but by African leaders, armed militias, guerrilla movements, criminal networks and warlords. The so-called ills and failures of the African state make for good media stories, but images of starving people displaced by Àghting between government and guerrilla armies, and those of the expensive shoes worn by the wives of corrupt leaders do little to answer the more fundamental root questions concerning the relative state of health of the state in Africa today. The Àrst historical fact that has to be acknowledged in any engagement with the question of the state in Africa is that the state which rises from the rubble left behind by colonial administrations as they departed African shores during the 20th century, was from its very inception at colonisation, built upon the logic of command and control with the secondary objective of extracting as much value from the territory as possible. Dossou Zounmenou sheds light on this issue when he argues that: ‘Already fragile at independence in their structure, nature and composition, many states in Africa could not resist the post-Cold War multi-dimensional challenges, which shook them in their very existence.’1 However, the speciÀc challenges faced by the post-Cold War state are preceded by the violent history associated with the creation of states in Africa. Zounmenou argues that the colonial borders drawn by European powers put mere empty shells of states in place over internally diverse populations.2 This lays the foundation for much of the post-colonial violence, revolution and rebel activity that continues unabated in many parts of the continent to this day. In addition to the acts of political, military and economic violence that accompany the creation of the state in Africa, the institution itself was often minimalistic, unable to establish control over CHAPTER 2 The African Post-Colonial State/Post-Adjustment State and the Social Contract Petrus de Kock 22 Africa Institute of South Africa PART 1 Local and National Dimensions The African Post-Colonial State/Post-Adjustment State and the Social Contract territories, and limited in its reach to serve the needs of inhabitants. The African state is thus ambushed by its own unfortunate history. This chapter proposes that the challenges of economic growth, continental integration and social development in Africa depend on imagining and implementing state systems that can accommodate and serve vastly different social forces and constituencies present in African states. The task awaiting political leaders, activists and intellectuals calls for an engagement with the basic questions of: why should there be a state and on what conditions do citizens/people consent to being governed? What are the beneÀts and the goal of states and governments? What are the rebel movements telling us? What role does, or can, political imagination play in the engagement with the state in Africa? These questions are answered below. Why the state? The basic question that forms the foundation of this interrogation of the state is: why should there be a state and on what conditions do citizens/people consent to being governed? The basic issue to be discussed here follows on this question, and is informed by an indicator of the extent to which African states are unable to control territories under their sovereign jurisdiction; this being the number of internally displaced people (IDP) on the continent. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) notes in a recent report that: ‘At the end of 2007, there were around 12,7 million IDPs in Africa, close to half of the people forcibly displaced worldwide. During that year, 1,6 million people were newly displaced across the continent, the highest number in any of the regions discussed in this report, as new or continuing armed conÁicts and generalised violence caused displacement in 13 countries.3 The fundamental political question underlying these statistics concerns the ability of the state to project its power internally to...

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