Are intrastate conflicts in Africa products of state collapse or state formation?

By Dieter Gijsbrechts.

M.A. Contemporary War and Peace

Course: Contemporary War and Society.

Tutor: Martin Shaw.

The African sub-continent, more than any other region has endured more intra-state conflicts since its countries became independent. Since then, more than 80 violent changes of government and country after country have been engaged in either civil strife or full-scale war. In 1998 no less than 18 countries were faced with armed conflict of some kind.[1]

The question of whether intrastate wars are a symptom of the formation of a state or the collapse of state is problematic since the two are very much interrelated. Intrastate wars occur overwhelmingly in relatively new states of the post-colonial and post-soviet world. In looking at post-colonial conflicts, the African sub-continent provides us with a multitude of cases. For example, only a year after its independence, the newfound Nigeria was plunged into the brutal Biafran war. Since then the continent has seen numerous intra-state conflicts were mass targeting of civilians and extreme abuses of human rights have taken place. It is thus vital to look at how these wars arise, and in doing the state plays a vital role in understanding the dynamics of these conflicts.

The nature of the ‘state’ in Africa is intrinsically tied to its colonial past. Holsti points out that European colonies on the continent especially, and worldwide generally, were not created to become participatory democracies. The colonials in Africa were primarily created for wealth extraction and were a prize of imperialistic power for European nations. In the Berlin Conference arbitrary borders divided communities and indigenous ‘nations’ and grouped others together. The indirect rule policies and assimilation policies of Britain and France respectively, ensured the creation of new ‘tribes’ or ‘ethnicities’ and the assimilation of others. For example the Hutu-Tutsi racial divide was set in stone by the German and subsequent Belgian administration when identity cards were introduced which stipulated the carriers ‘ethic’ origin. The Hutu-Tutsi dynamic was much more of a class/profession based one, where there were fluid lines between the agriculturist and pastoralists. Tribal or ethnic differences were often merely European creations. Tutsis, with their noble kingships were seen as a higher race than the Hutus. It is these identities of ‘imagined communities’ that play a key role in the politics of African states.

Holsti described the experience of state building in the post-colonial world as a project whereby metropolitan powers, the U.N., indigenous elites’ educational experiences in London and Paris, Western political concepts and liberal constitution were transplanted into these territories.[2] The expectations, assumptions and aspirations of these state builders have proven to have been mistaken. Some, like Patric Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, have argued that many Sub-Saharan countries do not have the required political, social, or economic structures to be a functioning state. They argue that although all post-colonial states in Africa have been formally constituted on the model of the modern western state, the degree of its institutionalisation leaves something to be desired. The modern state is supposed to be the outcome of a process whereby the realms of politics is gradually emancipated from society and constituted into autonomous political institutions. The state has to acquire the monopoly of legitimate violence, and more importantly the successful establishment of an independent bureaucracy.[3] In contrast, they find that the holders of political power in many African states hold claim on the assets and resources that they administer, in a lack of distinction between the civic and personal spheres. In this environment, where a political leader profits financially from his position, where there is competition for a piece of the pie that is the countries resources, you have what Jean-Francois Bayart termed La politique du ventre (politics of the belly).

Furthermore, as Holsti points out, colonial rule was one in which the relation between the state and society was characterised by downward links of domination, not upward links of representation.[4] This does not mean that the independent nation that followed was a strong one; authoritarian rule does not mean the ruler has authority over its people. One of the main facets often missing in the post-colonial state is a social contract. The state is not there to provide security and opportunities for its people, but is seen by many is predator state, based on a patrimonial system.

An important historical feature is not to be left out of the argument, and that is the end of the Cold War and the subsequent collapse of ht Soviet Block, which had severe implications not only in Africa but globally and in the former soviet Eastern Europe specifically. For African nations, it meant the cutting off of vital assistance in the security and economy of donor super-powers. The subsequent decline in either the size or the budgets of military institutions in Africa and elsewhere has led to a proliferation of surplus weapons, especially small arms and light weapons. This coupled with economic cuts and the failure of states to provide security for its people has lead to very unstable regions.

It is vital to take these factors into account when discussing intrastate war in relation to either the construction or collapse of the state in Africa. If talking about state collapse one has to ask whether there was really something we can call a state (in the Weberian sense) at all. This also has to be coupled with the weak or non-existent form of nationalism present in many African countries, resulting in the re-emergence of localism over national identity.[5] This form of ‘tribalism’- as it is referred to- is easily a type of politics that can lead to violent and non-violent conflict within the state. So-called ‘ethnic’ or 'religious’ riots and conflicts in Nigeria have probably more to do with these factors mentioned above than the issue of Islam or Christianity in itself.

In this context of the breakdown of centralised state power and authority, let us see how the Clauzwitz’s description of war fits into the patterns of interstate conflict. Clauswitz describes war as “a continuation of politics (or policy) with an admixture of other means”. If one does not confine politics or policy solely to the state, but instead as Alex de Waal sees it, to the political interests of groups, it does fit the pattern.[6] Conflicts in Africa and elsewhere generally arise when individuals or groups of individuals have different interests, values and needs, who in turn seek to control the scarce resources that the nation offers. According to Toure, these factors “intrinsically cause[s] conflicts”.[7]

This is a worrying insight seeing as most post-colonial and post-Soviet states contain numerous groups along religious, linguistic, or cultural lines. Nigeria, for instance has between 250 and 300 languages alone, one of the reasons why it has kept its ex-colonial tongue English as the official language.

Chabal and Daloz provide an interesting insight into violence and war in Africa. They argue that the dichotomy within political and social life of legal and illegal violence and activity is irrelevant. It is not irrelevant because there are no accepted notions of legal and illegal, but because the legal activities of the “patrons” and the illegal activities of the “bosses” resemble and straddle each other.[8] Thus we need to look at these activities, including war-making or arbitrary violence, in the perspective of legitimacy and accountability. In this perspective, Chabal and Daloz find that armed conflicts in Africa are nothing more than “the continuation by other means of the violence of everyday life”.[9] There are according to them two types of conflict; political and criminal, where the political conflicts, however brutal are seen as legitimate by a significant proportion of the populations that support the warring parties. Criminal wars are not seen as legitimate as it is understood that such conflicts are the outcome of the private greed of the war-makers.

Their argument runs along the idea that since the state in African countries cannot protect its people from violence (through either lack of resources or bad practice) and is itself responsible for a high level of violence, due to its abuse of power and the predatory nature of the ‘patrimonial state’, it is not surprising that men and women will seek alternative strategies for coping with this violence. Furthermore, Chabal and Daloz argue that in poor, and disorderly societies where politics is weakly institutionalised, and the parallel economy is strong, organised violence thrives as the management of violence becomes a resource.[10] This ‘management of violence’ is done through the regulation of that part of society which can be usefully marshalled for the pursuit of well-define economic goals.

An example of this phenomenon Chabal and Daloz describe can be found in Abia state in Nigeria. When in the late 90’s crime in the area rose to such a level that vigilante groups sprung up, as the state was unable to tackle the problem. The Bakassi Boys, as they became known, however, became organised as a criminal group themselves and inflicted serious human rights abuses on people in the area for self-profit.[11] The subsequent co-option and legalisation of the vigilante group by the government brings into light some serious questions of the capacity of the state to protect its citizens and seems to run well with Chabal and Daloz’s argument.

It seems a simplification however, if one takes this to be an all-occurring phenomenon and anything like a prerequisite to intra-state conflict. It is important to remember that Rwanda, although not void of corruption, was seen as the ‘Switzerland of Africa’ by the international community not long before it plunged into one of the most horrific conflicts of the latter part of the 20th century. Chabal and Daloz argue that the genocide in Rwanda was a result of economic, social and political grievances among the population which were used as a pretext for politicians bent on asserting themselves through violence and terror. They have categorised it as a criminal war since in their view, legitimacy did not run outside the immediate circle of politicians.

I find Chabal’s and Daloz’s categorisation of intra-state wars and their preconceived notion of the “tendency to indulge in ethnic war”[12] in Africa highly problematic. Although the clumping together of the diverse political history (through different forms of colonialism) and subsequent socio-political outcomes, into one unit is simplistic, it does provide some useful insights into the nature of the state in many African countries. The weakness of vertical and horizontal legitimacy, the lack of political institutionalisation, resulting in a weak bureaucracy and often a loss of the state’s monopoly of legitimate violence are intrinsic elements of intra-state wars in the African sub-continent.

The question of whether conflicts arose due to either state-building or state collapse really boils down to the question of the condition of the state in Africa. I would be more inclined to argue that the formation of the state, through colonial and post-colonial practice, and the problems of the imposition of the European state structure on post-colonial territories in Africa, if not resulted, plays an important part in the development of intra-state war. The conditions for unstable states are thus set in some ways by the way the state was formed. However, it would be mistaken to argue that they are the causes of war and armed conflict. A discussion of the all forces that can lead to conflict is beyond the scope of this essay. Nevertheless, the factors mentioned above, with unfair distribution of state resources, ‘global’ forces and easy availability of weapons in the region, do not make the continent have a ‘tendency’ of war making, but they do in some ways make the region vulnerable to intrastate conflict.

Mark: B+

Martin’s criticisms:

A Well-researched, thoughfull and critical essay that raises some important questions.

In confining you paper to Africa, you should really have dealt with the ‘new wars’ literature suggests there are basically common problems across war zones from Bosnia to Afghanistan to the Caucasus and Indonesia- is Africa really different? Indeed, isn’t the ‘politics of the belly’ only an extreme form of the ‘pork-barrel politics’ found in the USA, or Halliburton.Cheney’s profiting from the US occupation in Iraq?

You describe ethnic groups, rather than nations as ‘immagined communities’- in using Anderson’s phrase, you might have reflected on the significance of the shift from nation to ethnie as its reference point.

Yopu might have developed the ‘state-formation’ side more, by thinking about the role of ‘strong’ state power in places like eritrea/ethiopia, Uganda/Rwanda, in recent wars.

Too many typo’s, use spell-check.

Perhaps a stronger conclusion,

A promising piece despite these criticisms.