Identity, Citizenship, and Political Conflict in Africa by Edmond J. Keller (review)

For more than five centuries, African peoples have been confronted by huge political and economic problems and sociocultural crises due to the expansion of the European-dominated, racialized capitalist world system to Africa via racial slavery and colonialism and associated terrorism, gross human rights violations, and persistent underdevelopment and poverty. The achievement of “flag independence” starting in the mid-twentieth century through the process of political decolonization resulted in neocolonial state formations in which black faces replaced white faces without engaging in democratic state formations and establishment of the rule of law that are required for promoting sustainable development and peace and security.

Edmond J. Keller, a veteran Africanist, has written this important book to unravel the complex political, economic, and sociocultural problems in contemporary Africa in relation to ethnonational identity and intergroup and society-state relations and social conflicts by focusing on the case studies of five countries: Nigeria, Ethiopia, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Rwanda. Keller demonstrates that contemporary African states face serious problems in nation-building processes in the areas of ethnonational identity, citizenship, and social conflict, partially because “nation-states that formed after the end of colonialism in Africa have, in large measure, been the result of efforts to conservatively preserve the polities that were artificially constructed by European colonialists” (p. 5).

Identity, Citizenship, and Political Conflict in Africa has been published during a time when the African continent is facing serious political and economic crises. Africa lags behind all continents in every aspect, not due to the lack of economic and human resources, but due to the lack of effective political leadership and functioning democratic institutions. The book raises and discusses the complex relationships among ethnonational identity, citizenship, and political conflict in determining the essence and characteristics of the African nation-states that have drastically failed to fulfill their obligations. These states have been unable to establish the rule of law, democratic governance, and sustainable economic development. As Keller demonstrates, “the autocratic tendencies of political leaders with entrenched bad governance practice and neopatrimonialism regularly fail to apply laws relating to citizenship in an unbiased manner. In fact, leaders often misuse state institutions, such as the courts and security forces intended to protect citizenship rights, and appropriate legal institutions as instrument of personal rule” (p. 150). Moreover, dictatorial or kleptocratic practices, land grabbing or dispossession, theft or corruption, embezzlement or misappropriation of public resources, and gross human rights violations have been manifested in the behaviors and practices of most African state elites and others who are associated with them. These state elites have misused the institution of the state as the instrument of capital/ wealth accumulation to illegally enrich themselves at the cost of the populations they rule.

Keller formulates his political ideal types for Africa as follows:

[O]ne of present-day Africa’s most burning political issues is the establishment of widely accepted notions of national citizenship that apply equally across ethnic communities. Citizens themselves want to solidify their rights as individuals and as ethnic groups to belong to a particular national community. States that seek to reduce incidents of ethnic conflict to create the political stability needed for economic development also would like to resolve this issue. Yet, the right formulas for achieving this end have not been identified and widely accepted.

(p. x)

As Keller clearly notes, African neocolonial states have failed to establish multinational democratic societies. He correctly points out the failure of the assumption of modernization theorists who predicted the dissolution of indigenous African ethnonational identities and institutions through the processes of modernization and national political integration. Unfortunately, Keller does not explain the fundamental fallacy of modernization theorists who have explained and justified colonial capitalist expansion through racial slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism. The main goal of this expansion has been to spread European capitalist civilization in order to enrich European capitalists at the cost of African peoples.

Even in the...