Many of the chieftaincy systems, such as those in much of South Africa, the Asantehene of the Ashanti of Ghana, the Tswana of Botswana, and the Busoga of Uganda seem to fall within this category. On the one side, there are the centralized systems where leaders command near absolute power. 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. It is also challenging to map them out without specifying their time frame. 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. The article has three principal objectives and is organized into four parts. This section attempts to explain these seemingly contradictory implications of traditional institutions. However, the winner takes all system in the individual states is a democracy type of voting system, as the minority gets none of the electoral college votes. That is, each society had a set of rules, laws, and traditions, sometimes called customs, that established how the people would live together peacefully as part of larger group. Under the circumstances, it becomes critical that traditional leaders are directly involved in local governance so that they protect the interests of their communities. This we might call transformative resilience.21. 1. The balance of power between official and non-official actors will likely shift, as networked activists assert their ability to organize and take to the streets on behalf of diverse causes. Another layer represents the societal norms and customs that differ along various cultural traits. for in tradi-tional African communities, politics and religion were closely associated. 3. How these differences in leadership structures impinge on the broader institutions of resources allocation patterns, judicial systems, and decision-making and conflict resolution mechanisms is still understudied. Different property rights laws are a notable source of conflict in many African countries. First, many of the conflicts enumerated take place within a limited number of conflict-affected countries and in clearly-defined geographic zones (the Sahel and Nigeria; Central Africa; and the Horn.) The purpose is to stress that such efforts and the attendant will Since then, many more have been formulated, but the main themes and ideas have remained. Government: A Multifarious Concept 1.2. Other governance systems in the post-independence era and their unique features, if any. In the postcolonial era, their roles changed again. African states, along with Asian, Middle Eastern, and even European governments, have all been affected. Examine the definitions, strengths, and weaknesses of several common governments: monarchy, theocracy . When a seemingly brittle regime reaches the end of its life, it becomes clear that the state-society gap is really a regime-society gap; the state withers and its institutions become hollow shells that serve mainly to extract rents. However, their endurance, along with that of traditional economic systems, have fostered institutional fragmentation, which has serious adverse effects on Africas governance and economic development. Some African nations are prosperous while others struggle. Perhaps a more realistic transitional approach would be to reconcile the parallel institutions while simultaneously pursuing policies that transform traditional economic systems. A more recent example of adaptive resilience is being demonstrated by Ethiopias Abiy Ahmed. The result is transitory resilience of the regime, but shaky political stability, declining cohesion, and eventual conflict or violent change. With the introduction of the Black Administration Act the African system of governance and administration was changed and the white government took control of the African population. Chiefs such as those of the Nuer and Dinka are examples of this category. On the one hand, they recognize the need for strong, responsive state institutions; weak, fragile states do not lead to good governance. 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. 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. 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. The colonial state modified their precolonial roles. The US system has survived four years of a norm-busting president by the skin of its teeth - which areas need most urgent attention? 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. Impact of Historical Origins of African State System2. The debate is defined by "traditionalists" and "modernists." . 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. Another common feature is the involvement of traditional authorities in the governance process, at least at the local level. This point links the reader to the other Africa chapters that have been prepared for this project. There are also various arguments in the literature against traditional institutions.2 One argument is that chieftaincy impedes the pace of development as it reduces the relevance of the state in the area of social services (Tom Mboya in Osaghae, 1989). 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. Each of these societies had a system of government. 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. 2. Learn more about joining the community of supporters and scholars working together to advance Hoovers mission and values. One common feature is recognition of customary property rights laws, especially that of land. 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. 1995 focuses on social, economic, and intellectual trends up to the end of the colonial era. The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (Alkire, Chatterjee, Conconi, Seth, & Vaz, 2014) estimates that the share of rural poverty to total poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is about 73.8%. Understanding the Gadaa System. Often women are excluded from participation in decision making, especially in patrilineal social systems. A key factor in the size of adherents of rural institutions, however, seems to depend on the ratio of the population in the traditional economic systems to the total population. No doubt rural communities participate in elections, although they are hardly represented in national assemblies by people from their own socioeconomic space. Key Takeaways. A second conflict pattern can develop along the lines of ethnic cleavages which can be readily politicized and then militarized into outright ethnic violence. To sum up, traditional institutions provide vital governance services to communities that operate under traditional socioeconomic spaces. The reasons why rural communities adhere to the traditional institutions are many (Logan, 2011; Mengisteab & Hagg, 2017). To complicate matters further, the role of traditional institutions is likely to be critical in addressing the problem of institutional fragmentation. Integration of traditional and modern governance systems in Africa. Traditional governments have the following functions; Executive, legislative, and judicial functions are generally attributed by most modern African constitutions to presidents and prime ministers, parliaments, and modern judiciaries. Yet, the traditional judicial system in most cases operates outside of the states institutional framework. 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 pre-colonial system in Yoruba can be described to be democratic because of the inclusion of the principle of checks and balances that had been introduced in the system of administration. 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. However, they do not have custodianship of land and they generally do not dispense justice on their own. Freedom Houses ratings see a pattern of decline since 2005 and note that 10 out of 25 countries (worldwide) with declining ratings are in Africa. Customary law also manages land tenure and land allocation patterns. 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 book contains eight separate papers produced by scholars working in the field of anthropology, each of which focuses in on a different society in Sub-Saharan Africa. But it also reflects the impact of Arab, Russian, Chinese, Indian, European and U.S. vectors of influence which project their differences into African societies. Chieftaincy is further plagued with its own internal problems, including issues of relevance, succession, patriarchy, jurisdiction, corruption and intra-tribal conflict. For these and other reasons, the state-society gap lies at the heart of the problems faced by many states. The customary structures of governance of traditional leadership were put aside or transformed. 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. Political leaders everywhere face competing demands in this regard. The Obas and Caliphs of Nigeria and the Zulu of South Africa are other examples. Government, Public Policy Performance, Types of Government. FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 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. African indigenous education was. This principle is particularly relevant for diversity management, nation-building, and democratization in contemporary Africa. Regional governance comes into play here, and certain precedents may get set and then ratified by regional or sub-regional organizations. 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. Others contend that African countries need to follow a mixed institutional system incorporating the traditional and formal systems (Sklar, 2003). This fragmentation is also unlikely to go away anytime soon on its own. The third section deals with the post-colonial period and discusses some problems associated with African administration. 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. Click here to get an answer to your question Discuss any similarities between the key features of the fourth republican democracy and the traditional afri Features Of Traditional Government Administration. Democratic and dictatorial regimes both vest their authority in one person or a few individuals. 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. However, at the lower level of the hierarchy of the centralized system, the difference between the centralized and decentralized systems tends to narrow notably. Virtually every group was involved in the . While traditional institutions remain indispensable for the communities operating under traditional economic systems, they also represent institutional fragmentation, although the underlying factor for fragmentation is the prevailing dichotomy of economic systems. Africa contains more sovereign nations than any other continent, with 54 countries compared to Asia's 47. The campaign by some (but not all) African states to pull out of the International Criminal Court is but one illustration of the trend. Finally, the chapter considers the future of the institution against the background of the many issues and challenges considered. Strictly speaking, Ghana was the title of the King, but the Arabs, who left records . These include - murder, burglary, landcase, witchcraft, profaning the deities and homicide. A third objective is to examine the relevance of traditional institutions. example of a traditional African political system. Changes in economic and political systems trigger the need for new institutional systems to manage the new economic and political systems, while endurance of economic and political systems foster durability of existing institutional systems. Nonhereditary selected leaders with constitutional power: A good example of this is the Gada system of the Oromo in Ethiopia and Kenya. As noted, African countries have experienced the rise of the modern (capitalist) economic system along with its corresponding institutional systems. Africas economic systems range from a modestly advanced capitalist system, symbolized by modern banking and stock markets, to traditional economic systems, represented by subsistent peasant and pastoral systems. 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. 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. Oromos are one of the largest ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa belonging to the Cushitic-speaking peoples in Northeastern Africa in general and in modern Ethiopia and Kenya in particular. In general, 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. Traditional leadership in South Africa pre-existed both the colonial and apartheid systems of governance and was the main known system of governance amongst indigenous people. Another measure is recognition of customary law and traditional judicial systems by the state. In most African countries, constitutionally established authorities exercise the power of government alongside traditional authorities. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals . 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. The most promising pattern is adaptive resilience in which leaders facing such pressures create safety valves or outlets for managing social unrest. The opinions expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University. The key . The Dutch dispatched an embassy to the Asantehene's . Act,12 the African system of governance was changed and transformed, and new structures were put in place of old ones.13 Under the Union of South Africa, the Gov- Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Politics. In many cases European or Islamic legal traditions have replaced or significantly modified traditional African ones. 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. Authority in this system was shared or distributed to more people within the community. Admittedly, the problem is by no means uniquely African, but it is very commonly experienced in Africa. 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. Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. Due to the influence of previous South African and Nigerian leaders, the African Union established the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) to review and report on a range of governance criteria. However, the system of traditional government varied from place to place. Additionally, the transaction costs for services provided by the traditional institutions are much lower than the services provided by the state. 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. Against this backdrop, where is African governance headed? Maintenance of law and order: the primary and most important function of the government is to maintain law and order in a state. Introduction: The Meaning of the Concept Government 1.1. (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. The scope of the article is limited to an attempt to explain how the endurance of African traditional institutions is related to the continents economic systems and to shed light on the implications of fragmented institutional systems. In this regard, the president is both the head of state and government, and there are three arms and tiers of rules by which the country is ruled. Why can't democracy with African characteristics maintain the values, culture and traditional system of handling indiscipline, injustice and information management in society to take firm roots. The earliest known recorded history arose in Ancient Egypt . 7. THE FUTURE OF AFRICAN CUSTOMARY LAW, Fenrich, Galizzi, Higgins, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2011, 27 Pages This enhanced his authority. The guiding principle behind these two attributes is that conflict is a societal problem and that resolving conflict requires societal engagement. It is imperative that customary land rights are recognized and respected so that communities in the traditional economic system exercise control of land and other resources under their customary ownership, at least until alternative sources of employment are developed to absorb those who might be displaced. Abstract. Despite such changes, these institutions are referred to as traditional not because they continue to exist in an unadulterated form as they did in Africas precolonial past but because they are largely born of the precolonial political systems and are adhered to principally, although not exclusively, by the population in the traditional (subsistent) sectors of the economy. Government as a Structural Element of Society 2.2. Chief among them is that they remain key players in governing and providing various types of service in the traditional sector of the economy because of their compatibility with that economic system. If more leaders practice inclusive politics or find themselves chastened by the power of civil society to do so, this could point the way to better political outcomes in the region. 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. It may be good to note, as a preliminary, that African political systems of the past dis played considerable variety. Land privatization is, thus, unworkable in pastoral communities, as communal land ownership would be unworkable in a capitalist economy. The abolishment of chieftaincy does not eradicate the systems broader underlying features, such as customary law, decision-making systems, and conflict resolution practices. Another issue that needs some clarification is the neglect by the literature of the traditional institutions of the political systems without centralized authority structures. In Module Seven A: African History, you explored the histories of a wide diversity of pre-colonial African societies. Many other countries have non-centralized elder-based traditional institutions. With respect to their relevance, traditional institutions remain indispensable for several reasons. Despite apparent differences, the strategies of the three countries have some common features as well that may inform other counties about the measures institutional reconciliation may entail. The traditional African religions (or traditional beliefs and practices of African people) are a set of highly diverse beliefs that include various ethnic religions . 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. The usual plethora of bour- The Constitution states that the institution, status and roles of traditional leadership, according to customary law, are recognised. African countries are characterized by fragmentation of various aspects of their political economy, including their institutions of governance. Within this spectrum, some eight types of leadership structures can be identified. Your gift helps advance ideas that promote a free society. To illustrate, when there are 2.2 billion Africans, 50% of whom live in cities, how will those cities (and surrounding countryside) be governed? Allocation of resources, such as land, is also much more egalitarian under the traditional system than it is under the private ownership system in the formal state system. 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. Non-official institutions and civil society may have very different ideas from the national government on this issue, leading to debates about legitimacy. Evidence from case studies, however, suggests that the size of adherents varies from country to country. More frequently, this form of rule operates at the sub-state level as in the case of the emir of Kano or the Sultan of Sokoto in Nigeria or the former royal establishments of the Baganda (Uganda) or the Ashanti (Ghana). Societal conflicts: Institutional dichotomy often entails incompatibility between the systems. THE FUTURE OF AFRICAN CUSTOMARY LAW, Fenrich, Galizzi, Higgins, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2011, Available at SSRN: If you need immediate assistance, call 877-SSRNHelp (877 777 6435) in the United States, or +1 212 448 2500 outside of the United States, 8:30AM to 6:00PM U.S. Eastern, Monday - Friday. In some countries, such as Botswana, customary courts are estimated to handle approximately 80% of criminal cases and 90% of civil cases (Sharma, 2004). Judicial Administration. The role of traditional leaders in modern Africa, especially in modern African democracies, is complex and multifaceted. 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. Legitimate authority, in turn, is based on accepted laws and norms rather than the arbitrary, unconstrained power of the rulers. 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. One is that the leaders of the postcolonial state saw traditional institutions and their leadership as archaic vestiges of the past that no longer had a place in Africas modern system of governance. South Africa has a mixed economy in which there is a variety of private freedom, combined with centralized economic . 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 other cases, however, they survived as paid civil servants of the state without displacing the traditional elder-based traditional authority systems. Some of these conflicts are, in reality, low-tech, sporadic skirmishes and armed attacks. In West Africa, a griot is a praise singer or poet who possesses a repository of oral tradition passed down from generation to generation. The colonial state, for example, invented chiefs where there were no centralized authority systems and imposed them on the decentralized traditional systems, as among the Ibo of Eastern Nigeria, the Tonga in Zambia, various communities in Kenya, and the communities in Somalia. 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. His dramatic tenure since April of 2018 appears to be shaking up the states creaky authoritarian services and creating the space for important adaptations such as ending a long-standing state of emergency, freeing political prisoners, reaching out to a wide range of foreign partners, and extending the olive branch to Eritrea with whom Ethiopia had fought a costly war. Despite such changes, these institutions are referred to as traditional not because they continue to exist in an unadulterated form as they did in Africas precolonial past but because they are largely born of the precolonial political systems and are adhered to principally, although not exclusively, by the population in the traditional (subsistent) sectors of the economy. 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. The nature of governance is central because it determines whether the exercise of authority is viewed as legitimate. The link between conflict and governance is a two-way street. The cases of Nigeria, Kenya, and South Sudan suggest that each case must be assessed on its own merits. These migrations resulted in part from the formation and disintegration of a series of large states in the western Sudan (the region north of modern Ghana drained by the Niger River). Most of the states that had attempted to abolish chieftaincy have retracted the abolitionist decrees and reinstated chiefs. The initial constitutions and legal systems were derived from the terminal colonial era. There were several reasons for such measures. Indications are, however, that the more centralized the system is, the lower the accountability and popular participation in decision making. The traditional Africa system of government is open and inclusive, where strangers, foreigners and even slaves could participate in the decision-making process. 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.
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