In earlier comments, I considered Somalia's status as the world's most failed states and wondered how far Yemen would fall on the list before it resembled the former state. In this section, I will very briefly note some of the reasons for the poor governance in Sub-Saharan Africa, with some final comments on a recent paper that considers how "contagious" a failed state is.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains a pretty terrible place in terms of governance, especially Central and East Africa. Consider the countries considered “Critical” that are all connected to one another through a chain of borders. Of course, these “borders” are often nothing more than lines on a map:
(1) Somalia (9 million)
(2) Chad (10.3 million)
(3) Sudan (42 million)
(5) Democratic Republic of the Congo (68 million)
(8) Central African Republic (4.4 million)
(13) Kenya (39 million)
(17) Ethiopia (79 million)
(20) Niger (15 million)
If you include some states listed as “In Danger”, including Guinea-Bissau, Burkina Faso, Burundi and Cameroon, the picture becomes even more clear. I would argue that Guinea-Bissau has already failed, particularly when compared to higher-ranked states such as Ethiopia (where the government is strong enough to rig elections [link]), but I will not debate the exact place of the rankings.
Rather, the goal of the rankings to provide a framework for comparative analysis between states, based upon certain factors. The problem is that each year a new list is created, and many states simply float up or down in rankings, never really making much progress at improving governance.
It's not possible for me to touch on how or why Sub-Saharan African states remain so impoverished, as that would require a detailed examination of the colonial rulers (it was better not to be under Portuguese, Belgian, Spanish or Italian control, not that the British or French were benevolent), the Cold War and the consistent and blatant failures of African rulers to build state institutions. With few (notable) exceptions, most of the first independence leaders chose one of two paths, or some combination thereof:
1) Kleptocracy – After a short democratic period, the Democratic Republic of the Congo came under the rule of Mobutu Sese Seko, who pilfered the state to an incredible degree. He even refused to build roads in most of the country in order to stop would-be opponents from being able to take the capital of Kinshasa. Over his decades-long rule, his accomplishments were few – aside from the massive personal fortune he stole from the impoverished population.
2) Bad Policy – From Nyerere's short-sighted and poorly designed “African Socialism” to François Tombalbaye's forced tribal rituals for civil servants, the earliest of African leaders implemented bad policy and often ignored the terrible problems they caused. At times, leaders attempted to be benevolent and ended up harming their population and state institutions. At others, they simply forced their own tribal/ethnic/religious/cultural beliefs upon the population as a whole – contributing to social fractures that in some places exploded with ferocity. In addition, several leaders such as Houphouët-Boigny provided subsidies to farmers – with the hope of helping them – that instead bankrupted the state and saddled future generations with terrible debt.
It's one thing to ruin your own country, I suppose, and another to spread your destruction to others. Idi Amin tried to steal territory from Tanzania, resulting in his downfall – but the conflict hardly helped Nyerere implement his “African socialism”. Indeed, a quick look at the history of these countries will see a pattern of conflict – whether internal or external. And even then, the external forces could be the United States, the USSR or fellow African neighbours and contiguous states. Libya, for instance, has played a relatively strong role in the history of both Chad, Sudan, Liberia and Sierra Leone, among other states.
One issue at stake here is how “contagious” failed states are to their neighbours. That is, how the failure of governments in one state can have a negative impact upon neighbours and contiguous states. Indeed, that’s the thesis of an article by two academics on the regional implications of failed states.
The essence of the authors’ argument is not that failed states beget failed states, but rather that failed states have a negative effect not merely on their neighbours but also on contiguous states. Looking at Central and East Africa, it’s hard not to agree with that conclusion. The paper is worth a read, and while open to debate the authors present relatively robust results.
I dispute this man.....Nigeria is not a failed state my friend. It is a state with many problems...but failure is not one of them. I urge you to look at the governance of Lagos state, the vast improvements that have been made in 5 years....and see if that qualifies as a failure?? In fact my fine friend it will qualify as a state success. Goodluck Johnathan is a man of the delta, he has a real chance to end the insurgency there. As for baba go slow...well he didnt accomplish much. That much is facts
Posted by: Will vishloff | 07/06/2010 at 10:09 PM