The campaign by some (but not all) African states to pull out of the International Criminal Court is but one illustration of the trend. One of these will be the role and weight of various powerful external actors. Typically, such leaders scheme to rig elections or to change constitutional term limitsactions seen in recent years in such countries as Rwanda and Uganda. Legitimate authority, in turn, is based on accepted laws and norms rather than the arbitrary, unconstrained power of the rulers. The political systems of most African nations are based on forms of government put in place by colonial authorities during the era of European rule. Judicial marginalization: Another challenge posed by institutional fragmentation relates to marginalization of the traditional system within the formal legal system. 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). According to this analysis, Africas traditional institutional systems are likely to endure as long as the traditional subsistent economic systems continue to exist. As a result, it becomes highly complex to analyze their roles and structures without specifying the time frame. While this seems obvious, it is less clear what vectors and drivers will have the most weight in shaping that outcome. Our data indicate that traditional leaders, chiefs and elders clearly still play an important role in the lives Features of Yoruba Pre colonial Administration - Bscholarly Governments that rely on foreign counterparts and foreign investment in natural resources for a major portion of their budgetsrather than on domestic taxationare likely to have weaker connections to citizens and domestic social groups. Ancient West Africa: Bantu Migrations & the Stateless Society These include - murder, burglary, landcase, witchcraft, profaning the deities and homicide. The Role of Traditional Leaders in Post Independence Countries Botswana The settlement of conflicts and disputes in such consensus-based systems involves narrowing of differences through negotiations rather than through adversarial procedures that produce winners and losers. The development of inclusive institutions may involve struggles that enable political and societal actors to check the domination of entrenched rulers and to broaden rule-based participation in governance. A Sociology of Education for Africa . To illustrate, when there are 2.2 billion Africans, 50% of whom live in cities, how will those cities (and surrounding countryside) be governed? Indications are, however, that the more centralized the system is, the lower the accountability and popular participation in decision making. 7. Precolonial Political Systems - African Studies - Oxford Bibliographies The link between conflict and governance is a two-way street. 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. However, at the lower level of the hierarchy of the centralized system, the difference between the centralized and decentralized systems tends to narrow notably. South Africa has a mixed economy in which there is a variety of private freedom, combined with centralized economic . At times, these traditional security system elements are sufficient enough for some uses, but there's certainly no denying . Some live in remote areas beyond the reach of some of the institutions of the state, such as courts. 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. 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. The optimistic replyand it is a powerful oneis that Africans will gradually build inclusive political and economic institutions.18 This, however, requires wise leadership. Less than 20% of Africas states achieved statehood following rebellion or armed insurgency; in the others, independence flowed from peaceful transfers of authority from colonial officials to African political elites. But African societies are exposed to especially severe pressures, and governments must operate in an environment of high social demands and limited resources and capacity with which to meet them. Suggested Citation, 33 West 60th StreetNew York, NY 10023United States, Public International Law: Sources eJournal, Subscribe to this fee journal for more curated articles on this topic, Political Institutions: Parties, Interest Groups & Other Political Organizations eJournal, Political Institutions: Legislatures eJournal, We use cookies to help provide and enhance our service and tailor content. What policies and laws will determine relations between farmers and urban dwellers, between farmers and herders, between diverse identity groups living in close proximity or encroaching on each others farm land, and between public officials, criminal networks and ordinary citizens? Third, Africas conflict burden reflects different forms and sources of violence that sometimes become linked to each other: political movements may gain financing and coercive support from criminal networks and traffickers, while religious militants with connections to terrorist groups are often adept at making common cause with local grievance activists. Some of these conflicts are, in reality, low-tech, sporadic skirmishes and armed attacks. Its marginalization, in turn, impedes the transformation of the traditional sector, thus extending the fragmentation of institutions. Features/Characteristics Of Government - 2022 - StopLearn The council of elders, religious leaders, and administrative staff of the chiefs exercise checks on the power of the leaders and keep them accountable (Beattie, 1967; Busia, 1968; Coplan & Quinlan, 1997; Jones, 1983; Osaghae, 1989). The leaders in this system have significant powers, as they often are custodians of their communitys land and they dispense justice in their courts. We do not yet know whether such institutions will consistently emerge, starting with relatively well-governed states, such as Ghana or Senegal, as a result of repeated, successful alternations of power; or whether they will only occur when Africas political systems burst apart and are reconfigured. Posted: 12 May 2011. Hindrance to democratization: Perhaps among the most important challenges institutional fragmentation poses is to the process of democratization. Finally, the chapter considers the future of the institution against the background of the many issues and challenges considered. A command economy, also known as a planned economy, is one in which the central government plans, organizes, and controls all economic activities to maximize social welfare. David and Joan Traitel Building & Rental Information, National Security, Technology & Law Working Group, Middle East and the Islamic World Working Group, Military History/Contemporary Conflict Working Group, Technology, Economics, and Governance Working Group, Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies, Understanding the Effects of Technology on Economics and Governance, Support the Mission of the Hoover Institution. Such adjustments, however, may require contextualization of the institutions of democracy by adjusting these institutions to reflect African realities. Using a second conflict lens, the number of non-state conflicts has increased dramatically in recent years, peaking in 2017 with 50 non-state conflicts, compared to 24 in 2011. not because of, the unique features of US democracy . In traditional African communities, it was not possible to distinguish between religious and non-religious areas of life. In some countries, such as Botswana, customary courts are estimated to handle approximately 80% of criminal cases and 90% of civil cases (Sharma, 2004). Under conditions where nation-building is in a formative stage, the retribution-seeking judicial system and the winner-take-all multiparty election systems often lead to combustible conditions, which undermine the democratization process. When conflicts evolve along ethnic lines, they are readily labelled ethnic conflict as if caused by ancient hatreds; in reality, it is more often caused by bad governance and by political entrepreneurs. The Political History of Africa: The Pre-Colonial Era - African Relevance of African traditional institutions of Governance The earliest known recorded history arose in Ancient Egypt . African Politics: A Very Short Introduction explores how politics is practised on the African continent, providing an overview of the different states and their systems. This brief essay began by identifying the state-society gap as the central challenge for African governance. Another reason is that African leaders of the postcolonial state, who wanted to consolidate their power, did not want other points of power that would compromise their control. States would be more effective in reforming the traditional judicial system if they recognized them rather than neglecting them, as often is the case. It should not be surprising that there is a weak social compact between state and society in many African states. State Systems in Pre-colonial, Colonial and Post-colonial - Jstor This principle is particularly relevant for diversity management, nation-building, and democratization in contemporary Africa. There are very few similarities between democracy and dictatorship. Hoover scholars offer analysis of current policy challenges and provide solutions on how America can advance freedom, peace, and prosperity. The purpose is to stress that such efforts and the attendant will Government as a Structural Element of Society 2.2. The point here is that peer pressure, examples, and precedents are especially important in a region of 54 states, many of them dependent on satisfactory relations with their neighbors. Relatively unfettered access to the internet via smart phones and laptops brings informationand hence potential powerto individuals and groups about all kinds of things: e.g., market prices, the views of relatives in the diaspora, conditions in the country next door, and the self-enrichment of corrupt officials. Government and Political Systems. Africas rural communities, which largely operate under subsistent economic systems, overwhelmingly adhere to the traditional institutional systems while urban communities essentially follow the formal institutional systems, although there are people who negotiate the two institutional systems in their daily lives. Not surprisingly, incumbent leaders facing these challenges look to short-term military remedies and extend a welcome to military partnerswith France, the United States, and the United Nations the leading candidates. It is unlikely, however, that such harmony can be brought about by measures that aim to abolish the traditional system, as was attempted by some countries in the aftermath of decolonization. Before delving into the inquiry, clarification of some issues would be helpful in avoiding confusion. The geography of South Africa is vast scrubland in the interior, the Namib Desert in the northwest, and tropics in the southeast. Of the latter, 10 achieved the top rating of free, a conclusion close to ratings by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).9 A more bullish reading drawn again from multiple sources is that over 60% of people in sub-Saharan Africa live in free or partly free countries, a situation that enabled a Brookings Institution study to conclude that the region [is] moving in fits and starts towards greater democratic consolidation.10 Countries absent from the apparent democratic wave missed its beginnings in the early and mid-1990s, became caught up in protracted or recurrent civil conflicts, or degenerated as a result of electoral violence or big men patrimonialism. Pastoral economic systems, for example, foster communal land tenure systems that allow unhindered mobility of livestock, while a capitalist economic system requires a private land ownership system that excludes access to others and allows long-term investments on land. Government: A Multifarious Concept 1.2. The fourth part draws a conclusion with a tentative proposal on how the traditional institutions might be reconciled with the formal institutions to address the problem of institutional incoherence. 79 (3), (1995) pp. 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 leader is accountable to various levels of elders, who serve as legislators and as judges (Legesse, 1973; Taa, 2017). These different economic systems have corresponding institutional systems with divergent property rights laws and resource allocation mechanisms, disparate decision-making systems, and distinct judicial systems and conflict resolution mechanisms. Features Of Traditional Government Administration. It may be good to note, as a preliminary, that African political systems of the past dis played considerable variety. 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. Thus, another report by PRIO and the University of Uppsala (two Norwegian and Swedish centers) breaks conflict down into state-based (where at least one party is a government), non-state-based (neither party is an official state actor), and one-sided conflicts (an armed faction against unarmed civilians). Obstruction of nation-building: Nation-building entails a process of integrating different segments of the citizenry to form a community of citizens under shared institutions. Basing key political decisions on broad societal and inter-party consensus may help to de-escalate cutthroat competition that often leads to violent conflicts. African Politics - Political Science - iResearchNet Executive, legislative, and judicial functions are generally attributed by most modern African constitutions to presidents and prime ministers, parliaments, and modern judiciaries. Seeming preference for Democracy in Africa over other governance systems in Africa before and after independence 15-17 1.5. Another issue that needs some clarification is the neglect by the literature of the traditional institutions of the political systems without centralized authority structures. One is the controversy over what constitutes traditional institutions and if the African institutions referred to as traditional in this inquiry are truly indigenous traditions, since colonialism as well as the postcolonial state have altered them notably, as Zack-Williams (2002) and Kilson (1966) observe. 3. Government and the Political System 2.1. The quality and durability of such leader-defined adaptive resilience cannot be assured and can be reversed unless the associated norms become institutionalized. 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. Given its institutional disconnect with the state, the traditional sector and the communities that operate under it invariably face marginalization in influencing policy as well as in access to economic resources throughout the continent. Based on existing evidence, the authority systems in postcolonial Africa lie in a continuum between two polar points. Customary law also manages land tenure and land allocation patterns. 2. Africas geopolitical environment is shaped by Africans to a considerable degree. Freedom House calculated that 17 out of 50 countries it covered were free or partly free in 1988, compared to 31 out of 54 countries in these categories by 2015. One influential research group, SIPRI in Sweden, counted a total of 9 active armed conflicts in 2017 (in all of Africa) plus another 7 post-conflict and potential conflict situations.3, More revealing is the granular comparison of conflict types over time. Non-official institutions and civil society may have very different ideas from the national government on this issue, leading to debates about legitimacy. The government system is a republic; the chief of state and head of government is the president. Comparing Ethiopia and Kenya, for example, shows that adherents to the traditional institutional system is greater in Ethiopia than in Kenya, where the ratio of the population operating in the traditional economic system is smaller and the penetration of the capitalist economic system in rural areas is deeper. After examining the history, challenges, and opportunities for the institution of traditional leadership within a modern democracy, the chapter considers the effect of the current constitutional guarantee for chieftaincy and evaluates its practical workability and structural efficiency under the current governance system. This page was processed by aws-apollo-l2 in. Editorial Citizenship and Accountability: Customary Law and Traditional Stated another way, if the abolition of term limits, neo-patrimonialism, and official kleptocracy become a regionally accepted norm, this will make it harder for the better governed states to resist the authoritarian trend. Womens inequality in the traditional system is related, at least in part, to age- and gender-based divisions of labor characterizing traditional economic systems. Types of government practiced in Nigeria, from monarchy to democracy Interestingly, small and mid-size state leaders have won the award so far.) At the same time, traditional institutions represent institutional fragmentation, which has detrimental effects on Africas governance and economic transformation. Second, the levels of direct battle deaths from these events is relatively low when compared with far higher levels in the wars of the Middle East. The introduction of alien economic and political systems by the colonial state relegated Africas precolonial formal institutions to the sphere of informality, although they continued to operate in modified forms, in part due to the indirect rule system of colonialism and other forms of reliance by colonial states on African institutions of governance to govern their colonies. The system of government in the traditional Yoruba society was partially centralised and highly democratic. Their "rediscovery" in modern times has led to an important decolonization of local and community management in order to pursue genuine self-determination. Maintenance of law and order: the primary and most important function of the government is to maintain law and order in a state.
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