1995 focuses on social, economic, and intellectual trends up to the end of the colonial era. The Role of Traditional Leaders in Post Independence Countries Botswana These events point to extreme state fragility and a loss of sovereign control over violence in the 11 affected countries, led by Nigeria, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic (CAR). Among them were those in Ethiopia, Morocco, Swaziland, and Lesotho. The Aqils (elders) of Somalia and the chiefs in Kenya are good examples. Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. The rise of non-Western centers of power and the return of global polarization among major powers reduce the presence and weight of western influence. The place and role of African Youth in Pre-independence African Governance Systems 19-20 1.7. Indeed, it should be added that a high percentage of todays conflicts are recurrences of previous ones, often in slightly modified form with parties that may organize under more than one flag. Tribe Versus Ethnic Group. Less than 20% of Africa's states achieved statehood following rebellion or armed insurgency; in the others, independence flowed from . Differences and Similarities between Democracy and Authoritarian Indications are, however, that the more centralized the system is, the lower the accountability and popular participation in decision making. 134-141. On the other hand, weak or destructive governance is sometimes the source of conflicts in the first place. Paramount chiefs: Another category of leadership structure is that of hereditary paramount chieftaincy with various traditional titles and various levels of accountability. Traditional Institutions and Governance in Modern African - SSRN Discuss any similarities between the key features of the fourth 3. In Africa, as in every region, it is the quality and characteristics of governance that shape the level of peace and stability and the prospects for economic development. (PDF) INDIGENOUS AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS - Academia.edu There is also the question of inclusion of specific demographic cohorts: women, youth, and migrants from rural to urban areas (including migrant women) all face issues of exclusion that can have an impact on conflict and governance. With the exceptions of a few works, such as Legesse (1973), the institutions of the decentralized political systems, which are often elder-based with group leadership, have received little attention, even though these systems are widespread and have the institutions of judicial systems and mechanisms of conflict resolution and allocation of resources, like the institutions of the centralized systems. Most of the states that had attempted to abolish chieftaincy have retracted the abolitionist decrees and reinstated chiefs. In the past decade, traditional security systems utilized in commercial or government facilities have consisted of a few basic elements: a well-trained personnel, a CCTV system, and some kind of access control system. Following decolonization, several African countries attempted to abolish aspects of the traditional institutional systems. But the context in which their choices are made is directly influenced by global political trends and the room for maneuver that these give to individual governments and their leaders. A related reason for their relevance is that traditional institutions, unlike the state, provide rural communities the platform to participate directly in their own governance. Problems and Purpose. To complicate matters further, the role of traditional institutions is likely to be critical in addressing the problem of institutional fragmentation. The laws and legal systems of Africa have developed from three distinct legal traditions: traditional or customary African law, Islamic law, and the legal systems of Western Europe. Another measure is recognition of customary law and traditional judicial systems by the state. Before then, traditional authorities essentially provided leadership for the various communities and kingdoms. In many tribes, the chief was the representative of the ancestors. . This study points to a marked increase in state-based conflicts, owing in significant part to the inter-mixture of Islamic State factions into pre-existing conflicts. As a United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) study (2007) notes, traditional leaders often operate as custodians of customary law and communal assets, especially land. To illustrate, when there are 2.2 billion Africans, 50% of whom live in cities, how will those cities (and surrounding countryside) be governed? Unlike the laws of the state, traditional institutions rarely have the coercive powers to enforce their customary laws. Contents 1. Rule that is based on predation and political monopoly is unlikely to enjoy genuine popular legitimacy, but it can linger for decades unless there are effective countervailing institutions and power centers. 14 L.A. Ayinla 'African Philosophy of Law: A Critique' 151, available at Careful analysis suggests that African traditional institutions lie in a continuum between the highly decentralized to the centralized systems and they all have resource allocation practices, conflict resolution, judicial systems, and decision-making practices, which are distinct from those of the state. They succeed when there are political conditions that permit a broad coalition to impose pluralist political institutions and limits and restraints on ruling elites.20 Thus, resilience of both state and society may hinge in the end on the rule of law replacing the rule of men. Legitimacy based on successful predation and state capture was well known to the Plantagenets and Tudors as well as the Hapsburgs, Medicis, and Romanovs, to say nothing of the Mughal descendants of Genghis Khan.14 In this fifth model of imagined legitimacy, some African leaders operate essentially on patrimonial principles that Vladimir Putin can easily recognize (the Dos Santos era in Angola, the DRC under Mobutu and Kabila, the Eyadema, Bongo, Biya, and Obiang regimes in Togo, Gabon, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea, respectively).15 Such regimes may seek to perpetuate themselves by positioning wives or sons to inherit power. This section grapples with the questions of whether traditional institutions are relevant in the governance of contemporary Africa and what implications their endurance has on Africas socioeconomic development. It is also challenging to map them out without specifying their time frame. The traditional Africa system of government is open and inclusive, where strangers, foreigners and even slaves could participate in the decision-making process. This approach to governance was prominent in the Oyo empire. Interestingly, small and mid-size state leaders have won the award so far.) Political and economic inclusion is the companion requirement for effective and legitimate governance. In most African countries, constitutionally established authorities exercise the power of government alongside traditional authorities. There is no more critical variable than governance, for it is governance that determines whether there are durable links between the state and the society it purports to govern. The role of chieftaincy within post-colonial African countries continues to incite lively debates, as the case of Ghana exemplifies. My intention in this chapter is to explore the traditional African ideas and values of politics with a view to pointing up what may be described as the democratic features of the indigenous system of government and to examine whether, and in what ways, such features can be said to be harmonious with the ethos of contemporary political culture and hence can be said to be relevant to . A look at the economic systems of the adherents of the two institutional systems also gives a good indication of the relations between economic and institutional systems. Yet, the traditional judicial system in most cases operates outside of the states institutional framework. Tribes had relatively little power outside their own group during the colonial period. This discussion leads to an analysis of African conflict trends to help identify the most conflict-burdened sub-regions and to highlight the intimate link between governance and conflict patterns. PDF African Governance Systems in the Pre and Post-Independence Periods By 2016, 35 AU members had joined it, but less than half actually subjected themselves to being assessed. The guiding principle behind these two attributes is that conflict is a societal problem and that resolving conflict requires societal engagement. Learn more about joining the community of supporters and scholars working together to advance Hoovers mission and values. Ethiopias monarchy ended in 1974 while the other three remain, with only the king of Swaziland enjoying absolute power. The same technology vectors can also empower criminal, trafficking, and terrorist networks, all of which pose threats to state sovereignty. These consisted of monarchy, aristocracy and polity. In the postcolonial era, their roles changed again. As institutional scholars state, institutional incompatibility leads to societal conflicts by projecting different laws governing societal interactions (Eisenstadt, 1968; Helmke & Levitsky, 2004; March & Olsen, 1984; North, 1990; Olsen, 2007). Traditional Institutions of Governance in Africa A third argument claims that chieftaincy heightens primordial loyalties, as chiefs constitute the foci of ethnic identities (Simwinga quoted in van Binsberger, 1987, p. 156). They dispense justice, resolve conflicts, and enforce contracts, even though such services are conducted in different ways in different authority systems. Form of State: Federal, Unitary or - Jerusalem Center for Public The modern African state system has been gradually Africanized, albeit on more or less the identical territorial basis it began with at the time of decolonization in the second half of the 20 th century. General Overviews. Rules of procedure were established through customs and traditions some with oral, some with written constitutions Women played active roles in the political system including holding leadership and military positions. Located on the campus of Stanford University and in Washington, DC, the Hoover Institution is the nations preeminent research center dedicated to generating policy ideas that promote economic prosperity, national security, and democratic governance. While comprehensive empirical studies on the magnitude of adherence to traditional institutions are lacking, some studies point out that most people in rural areas prefer the judicial service provided by traditional institutions to those of the state, for a variety of reasons (Logan, 2011; Mengisteab & Hagg, 2017). Traditional African religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological advances. African Solutions for African Problems - The Real Meaning Traditional institutions already adjudicate undisclosed but large proportions of rural disputes. Both can be identified as forms of governance. Additionally, inequalities between parallel socioeconomic spaces, especially with respect to influence on policy, hinder a democratic system, which requires equitable representation and inclusive participation. Nation, Tribe and Ethnic Group in Africa | Cultural Survival South Africa: Introduction >> globalEDGE: Your source for Global Large states and those with complex ethnic and geographic featurese.g., the DRC, Nigeria, Uganda, the Sudans, Ethiopiamay be especially prone to such multi-sourced violence. The question then becomes, how to be inclusive?19 A number of African states have decentralized their political decision-making systems and moved to share or delegate authority from the center to provincial or local levels. Strictly speaking, Ghana was the title of the King, but the Arabs, who left records . On the eve of the departure of the colonial power, the Nigerian power elite in collusion with the departing colonial authority, drew up an elaborate constitution for a liberal bourgeois state - complete with provisions for parties in government and those in opposition. Differences and Similarities Between a Democracy and a Republic Nonhereditary selected leaders with constitutional power: A good example of this is the Gada system of the Oromo in Ethiopia and Kenya. Regardless, fragmentation of institutional systems poses a number of serious challenges to Africas governance and economic development. Against this backdrop, where is African governance headed? Table 1 shows the proportion of the population that operates under traditional economic systems in selected African countries. The jury is still out on the merits of this practice. Most African countries are characterized by parallel institutions, one representing the formal laws of the state and the other representing the traditional institutions that are adhered to more commonly in rural areas. In many cases, the invented chieftaincies were unsuccessful in displacing the consensus-based governance structures (Gartrell, 1983; Uwazie, 1994). In Ghana, for example, local governance is an area where traditional leadership and the constitutional government sometimes lock horns. Traditional leaders often feel left out when the government takes decisions affecting their people and land without their consent or involvement. Similarly, the process of conflict resolution is undertaken in an open assembly and is intended to reconcile parties in conflict rather than to merely punish offenders. The campaign by some (but not all) African states to pull out of the International Criminal Court is but one illustration of the trend. However, they are not merely customs and norms; rather they are systems of governance, which were formal in precolonial times and continue to exist in a semiformal manner in some countries and in an informal manner in others.1. The Role and Significance of Traditional Leadership in South African African Political Systems is an academic anthology edited by the anthropologists Meyer Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard which was published by Oxford University Press on the behalf of the International African Institute in 1940. Africa: Laws and Legal Systems - Geography The system of government in the traditional Yoruba society was partially centralised and highly democratic. The third section deals with the post-colonial period and discusses some problems associated with African administration. eLimu | Political developments and systems The Dutch dispatched an embassy to the Asantehene's . The African Charter: A Printed Futility or a Reflection of Human Rights For example, the election day itself goes more or less peacefully, the vote tabulation process is opaque or obscure, and the entire process is shaped by a pre-election playing field skewed decisively in favor of the incumbents. According to this analysis, Africas traditional institutional systems are likely to endure as long as the traditional subsistent economic systems continue to exist. Some African nations are prosperous while others struggle. Introduction: The Meaning of the Concept Government 1.1. Since institutional fragmentation is a major obstacle to nation-building and democratization, it is imperative that African countries address it and forge institutional harmony. Chester A. Crocker is the James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies at Georgetown University. A partial explanation as to why the traditional systems endure was given in the section Why African Traditional Institutions Endure. The argument in that section was that they endure primarily because they are compatible with traditional economic systems, under which large segments of the African population still operate. The movement towards a formal state system is characterized by its emphasis on retribution and punishment. Competing land rights laws, for instance, often lead to appropriations by the state of land customarily held by communities, triggering various land-related conflicts in much of Africa, especially in areas where population growth and environmental degradation have led to land scarcity. African Politics: A Very Short Introduction | Oxford Academic Traditional Types of Government: Definitions, Strengths & Weaknesses Cold War geopolitics reinforced in some ways the state-society gap as the global rivalry tended to favor African incumbents and frequently assured they would receive significant assistance from external powers seeking to build diplomatic ties with the new states. Recent developments add further complications to the region: (a) the collapse of Libya after 2011, spreading large quantities of arms and trained fighters across the broader Sahel region; (b) the gradual toll of desertification placing severe pressure on traditional herder/farmer relationships in places like Sudan and Nigeria; and, (c) the proliferation of local IS or Al Qaeda franchises in remote, under-governed spaces. Perhaps one of the most serious shared weakness relates to gender relations. Violating customary property rights, especially land takings, without adequate compensation impedes institutional reconciliation by impoverishing rather than transforming communities operating in the traditional economic system. The size and intensity of adherence to the traditional economic and institutional systems, however, vary from country to country. He served as assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 1981 to 1989. Subsequent to the colonial experience, traditional institutions may be considered to be informal institutions in the sense that they are often not sanctioned by the state. Traditional affairs | South African Government If African political elite opinion converges with that of major external voices in favoring stabilization over liberal peacebuilding agendas, the implications for governance are fairly clear.17. Although considerable differences exist among the various systems, opportunities for women to participate in decision making in most traditional systems are generally limited. It is too soon to tell whether such institutions can evolve in modern Africa as a result of gradual tinkering with reformist agendas, as the legacy of wise leaders; or whether they will only happen as a result of fundamental tests of strength between social and political groups. The reasons why rural communities adhere to the traditional institutions are many (Logan, 2011; Mengisteab & Hagg, 2017). The population in the traditional system thus faces a vicious cycle of deprivation. Even the court system is designed to provide for consociational, provincial, and local organization, not as separate courts but as divisions of the key national courts; once again, a compromise between a fully federal or consociational arrangement and the realities of the South African situation that emphasize the preservation of national unity .
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