We know a good deal about what Africans want and demand from their governments from public opinion surveys by Afrobarometer. However, institutions are rarely static and they undergo changes induced by internal transformations of broader socioeconomic systems or by external influences or imposition, and in some cases by a combination of the two forces. Somalilands strategy has brought traditional leaders into an active role in the countrys formal governance by creating an upper house in parliament, the Guurti, where traditional leaders exercise the power of approving all bills drafted by the lower house of parliament. To sum up, traditional institutions provide vital governance services to communities that operate under traditional socioeconomic spaces. 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. The first objective of the article is to shed light on the socioeconomic foundations for the resilience of Africas traditional institutions. 134-141. 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. There is one constitution and one set of laws and rules for ordinary people, and quite other for the ruling family and the politically connected elite. The colonial system constitutes the second section. Three layers of institutions characterize most African countries. (No award was made in 50% of the years since the program was launched in 2007; former Liberian president Ellen John Sirleaf won the award in 2017. Ideally, African nations will benefit when civil society respects the states role (as well as the other way around); rather than one-sided advocacy, both sides should strive to create a space for debate in order to legitimize tolerance of multiple views in society. In other cases, however, they survived as paid civil servants of the state without displacing the traditional elder-based traditional authority systems. Your gift helps advance ideas that promote a free society. 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? Such post-electoral pacts reflect the conclusion that stability is more important than democracy. 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. FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. Before then, traditional authorities essentially provided leadership for the various communities and kingdoms. It assigned them new roles while stripping away some of their traditional roles. Challenges confronting the institution of chieftaincy have continued from the colonial era into recent times. Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. In the postcolonial era, their roles changed again. by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University.
PDF African Traditional Justice Systems Francis Kariuki* 1.1 Introduction African indigenous education was. Similarities between Democratic and Authoritarian Government. Such chiefs also have rather limited powers. The same technology vectors can also empower criminal, trafficking, and terrorist networks, all of which pose threats to state sovereignty.
Africa: Laws and Legal Systems - Geography If inclusion is the central ingredient, it will be necessary to explore in greater depth the resources leaders have available to pay for including various social groups and demographic cohorts. 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. Three layers of institutions characterize most African countries. West Africa has a long and complex history. A second attribute is the participatory decision-making system. There are several types of government systems in African politics: in an absolute monarchy, the head of state and head of government is a monarch with unlimited legal authority,; in a constitutional monarchy, the monarch is a ceremonial figurehead who has few political competences,; in a presidential system, the president is the head of state and head of government, Figure 1 captures this turn to authoritarianism in postindependence Africa. Almost at a stroke, the relationships between African governments and the major powers and major sources of concessional finance were upended, while political liberalization in the former Soviet bloc helped to trigger global political shock waves. In many tribes, the chief was the representative of the ancestors. example of a traditional African political system. One scholar specializing on the Horn of Africa likens the situation a political marketplace in which politics and violence are simply options along the spectrum pursued by powerful actors.5. On the opposite side are the decentralized systems, led by a council of elders, that command little formal power. The long-term, global pushback by the leading authoritarian powers against liberal governance norms has consequences in Africa and other regions as governments directly act to close the space for civil society to operate. Before delving into the inquiry, clarification of some issues would be helpful in avoiding confusion. The role of chieftaincy within post-colonial African countries continues to incite lively debates, as the case of Ghana exemplifies. There are several types of government that are traditionally instituted around the world. This brief essay began by identifying the state-society gap as the central challenge for African governance. Most African countries have yet to develop carefully considered strategies of how to reconcile their fragmented institutional systems. Ten years later, in 2017, the number of conflicts was 18, taking place in 13 different countries. Only four states in AfricaBotswana, Gambia, Mauritius, and Senegalretained multiparty systems. A long-term route to political and economic success has been comprehensively documented by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson in their global study of why nations fail or succeed. These features include nonprofits, non-profits and hybrid entities are now provide goods and services that were once delivered by the government. .
African Traditional Political Systems and Intitutions - Academia.edu The problems that face African governments are universal.
Indigenous African Education - 2392 Words | Studymode Roughly 80% of rural populations in selected research sites in Ethiopia, for example, say that they rely on traditional institutions to settle disputes, while the figure is around 65% in research sites in Kenya (Mengisteab & Hagg, 2017). Large segments of the rural populations, the overwhelming majority in most African countries, continue to adhere principally to traditional institutions. The quality and durability of such leader-defined adaptive resilience cannot be assured and can be reversed unless the associated norms become institutionalized. Some African leaders such as Ghanas Jerry Rawlings, Zambias Kenneth Kaunda, or Mozambiques Joachim Chissano accept and respect term limits and stand down.
Nation, Tribe and Ethnic Group in Africa | Cultural Survival The express prohibition in the African Charter against discrimination according to ethnic group constitutes a major step for the continent as a whole because the realization of this right will lead to greater economic opportunity for those people not of the same kinship as the head of government. Misguided policies at the national level combined with cultural constraints facing these social groups may increase exclusion and create seeds of future trouble. With its eminent scholars and world-renowned library and archives, the Hoover Institution seeks to improve the human condition by advancing ideas that promote economic opportunity and prosperity, while securing and safeguarding peace for America and all mankind. 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. 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. In Botswana, for example, the consensual decision-making process in the kgotla (public meeting) regulates the power of the chiefs. This provides wide opportunity for governments to experiment, to chart a course independent of Western preferences, but it can also encourage them to move toward authoritarian, state capitalist policies when that is the necessary or the expedient thing to do. This approach to governance was prominent in the Oyo empire. Leaders may not be the only ones who support this definition of legitimacy. Institutions represent an enduring collection of formal laws and informal rules, customs, codes of conduct, and organized practices that shape human behavior and interaction. The link was not copied. A strict democracy would enforce the "popular vote" total over the entire United States. The political history of Africa begins with the emergence of hominids, archaic humans andat least 200,000 years agoanatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens), in East Africa, and continues unbroken into the present as a patchwork of diverse and politically developing nation states. 7. Such adjustments, however, may require contextualization of the institutions of democracy by adjusting these institutions to reflect African realities. The key . Greater access to public services and to productivity-enhancing technology would also help in enhancing the transformation of the subsistence sector. 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. Non-official institutions and civil society may have very different ideas from the national government on this issue, leading to debates about legitimacy. Admittedly, the problem is by no means uniquely African, but it is very commonly experienced in Africa. Botswanas strategy has largely revolved around integrating parallel judicial systems. 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. Large countries such as the DRC, Ethiopia, and Mozambique are likely to experience pressures against centralized, authoritarian, or one-party governance (whether accompanied by real elections or not). 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. 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. Countries such as Burkina Faso, Guinea, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, for example, attempted to strip chiefs of most of their authority or even abolish chieftaincy altogether. Institutional systems emanate from the broader economic and political systems, although they also affect the performance of the economic and political systems. 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. Rather, they often rely on voluntary compliance, although they also apply some soft power to discourage noncompliance by members with customary laws. The Alafin as the political head of the empire was . Music is a form of communication and it plays a functional role in African society . The imperative for inclusion raises many questions: should the priority be to achieve inclusion of diverse elites, of ethnic and confessional constituencies, of a sample of grass roots opinion leaders? Most of the regions states were defined geographically by European cartographers at the start of the colonial period. Certain offences were regarded as serious offences. 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. In most African countries, constitutionally established authorities exercise the power of government alongside traditional authorities. Yet political stability cannot be based on state power alone, except in the short run. By the mid-1970s, the politics of Africa had turned authoritarian. This short article does not attempt to provide answers to all these questions, which require extensive empirical study. This kind of offences that attract capital punishment is usually . The end of colonialism, however, did not end institutional dichotomy, despite attempts by some postcolonial African states to abolish the traditional system, especially the chieftaincy-based authority systems. 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. 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). The jury is still out on the merits of this practice. The same source concluded that 7 out of the 12 worst scores for political rights and civil liberties are African.11 As noted, the reasons vary: patrimonialism gone wrong (the big man problem), extreme state fragility and endemic conflict risks, the perverse mobilization of ethnicity by weak or threatened leaders.
What Is a Command Economy? - The Balance Sometimes, another precedent flows from thesenamely, pressure from outside the country but with some support internally as well for creating a transitional government of national unity. Decision making is generally participatory and often consensus-based. Learn more about joining the community of supporters and scholars working together to advance Hoovers mission and values. Introduction: The Meaning of the Concept Government 1.1. Ndlela (2007: 34) confirms that traditional leaders continue to enjoy their role and recognition in the new dispensation, just like in other African states; and Good (2002: 3) argues that the system of traditional leadership in Botswana exists parallel to the democratic system of government and the challenge is of forging unity. They are the key players in providing judicial service and in conflict management in much of rural Africa. An analytical study and impact of colonialism on pre-colonial centralized and decentralized African Traditional and Political Systems. The government is undertaking a review of local government, which includes a commitment to introduce direct election of metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCEs). Chiefs with limited power: Another category of chiefs is those that are hereditary, like the paramount chiefs, but have limited powers. This article contends that postcolonial African traditional institutions lie in a continuum between the highly decentralized to the centralized systems and they all have resource allocation practices, conflict resolution and judicial systems, and decision-making practices, which are distinct from those of the state. The implementation of these systems often . Because these governmental institutions reject the indigenous political systems on which African society was built, they have generally failed to bring political . 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.
State Systems in Pre-colonial, Colonial and Post-colonial - Jstor However, the traditional modes of production and the institutional systems associated with them also remain entrenched among large segments of the population. In the thankfully rare cases where national governance breaks down completelySouth Sudan, Somalia, CARits absence is an invitation to every ethnic or geographic community to fend for itselfa classic security dilemma. This brief overview of conflict in Africa signals the severity of the security challenges to African governance, especially in those sub-regions that feature persistent and recurrent outbreaks of violence. A third pattern flows from the authoritarian reflex where big men operate arbitrary political machines, often behind a thin democratic veneer. Government: A Multifarious Concept 1.2. Governance also has an important regional dimension relating to the institutional structures and norms that guide a regions approach to challenges and that help shape its political culture.1 This is especially relevant in looking at Africas place in the emerging world since this large region consists of 54 statesclose to 25% of the U.N.s membershipand includes the largest number of landlocked states of any region, factors that dramatically affect the political environment in which leaders make choices. In these relatively new nations, the critical task for leadership is to build a social contract that is sufficiently inclusive to permit the management of diversity. One can identify five bases of regime legitimacy in the African context today.
Traditional Governance Systems - Participedia 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. The terms Afrocentrism, Afrocology, and Afrocentricity were coined in the 1980s by the African American scholar and activist Molefi Asante. This concept paper focuses on the traditional system of governance in Africa including their consensual decision-making models, as part of a broader effort to better define and advocate their role in achieving good governance. A more recent example of adaptive resilience is being demonstrated by Ethiopias Abiy Ahmed. By the mid-1970s, the military held power in one-third of the nations of sub-Saharan Africa. Reconciling the parallel institutional systems is also unlikely to deliver the intended results in a short time; however, there may not be any better alternatives. 1995 focuses on social, economic, and intellectual trends up to the end of the colonial era. In some countries, such as Botswana, customary courts are estimated to handle approximately 80% of criminal cases and 90% of civil cases (Sharma, 2004). Prominent among these Sudanic states was the Soninke Kingdom of Ancient Ghana. The third section deals with the post-colonial period and discusses some problems associated with African administration. The US system has survived four years of a norm-busting president by the skin of its teeth - which areas need most urgent attention? However, they do not have custodianship of land and they generally do not dispense justice on their own. They dispense justice, resolve conflicts, and enforce contracts, even though such services are conducted in different ways in different authority systems.