State Fragility and State Building in Africa: Cases from Eastern and Southern Africa

251 Pages·2016·3.4 MB·English

by  Dele Olowu

United Nations University Series on Regionalism 10
Dele Olowu
Paulos Chanie Editors
State Fragility
and State
Building in
Africa
Cases from Eastern and Southern Africa
United Nations University Series on Regionalism
Volume 10
Series Editors
Philippe De Lombaerde and Luk Van Langenhove
International Editorial Board members include
Louise Fawcett, Oxford University
Sieglinde Gstöhl, College of Europe, Bruges
Henryk Kierzkowski, Graduate Institute of International and Development
Studies, Geneva
Fukunari Kimura, Keio University, Tokyo
Edward D. Mansfi eld, University of Pennsylvania
T. Ademola Oyejide, University of Ibadan
Jacques Pelkmans, College of Europe, Bruges
Joaquin Roy, University of Miami
Ramón Torrent, University of Barcelona
The United Nations University Series on Regionalism, launched by UNU- CRIS and
Springer, offers a platform for innovative work on (supra-national) regionalism
from a global and inter-disciplinary perspective. It includes the policy-oriented
World Reports on Regional Integration, published in collaboration with other UN
agencies, but it is also open for theoretical, methodological and empirical
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Book proposals will be reviewed by an International Editorial Board.
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Dele Olowu (cid:129) Paulos Chanie
Editors
State Fragility and State
Building in Africa
Cases from Eastern and Southern Africa
Editors
Dele Olowu Paulos Chanie
Global Peace Compact OSSREA
Amsterdam , The Netherlands Addis Ababa , Ethiopia
ISSN 2214-9848 ISSN 2214-9856 (electronic)
United Nations University Series on Regionalism
ISBN 978-3-319-20641-7 ISBN 978-3-319-20642-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-20642-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015951977
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
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Fore word
T here are different perspectives on the state today. Some experts believe that states
are no longer relevant to our global society; their existence has been overshadowed
by transnational actors with corporate character—whether legal and civic, like mul-
tinational global companies and not-for-profi t organizations, or illegal and violent,
like Al Qaeda or any of its extremist variants. Other observers maintain, however,
that states remain the most critical institutions that must be rediscovered and recov-
ered to serve their most existential functions of guaranteeing security, welfare, pros-
perity, posterity and peace of ordinary individuals within our world community.
This book belongs to this latter school especially as it relates to Africa. It provides
evidence based on current global studies and especially eight case studies from the
part of the continent in which states are arguably the most developed to demonstrate
how states became systematically weakened to the point of fragility. It also points
the way to how they can be revitalized in view of their critical importance and
relevance.
The authors are scholars who live and work in eastern and southern Africa. They
draw on contemporary scholarship of studies on the state fragility within and out-
side Africa. They use a common conceptual and theoretical framework of the state
and state fragility to illustrate through these case studies—which were selected
through a competitive process by the Organization of Social Science Research in
Southern and Eastern Africa (OSSREA)—to demonstrate how states that have func-
tioned well on the African continent have withered into fragility and failure over
time. Many explanations of Africa’s poor performance have often focused on the
external forces, and there is much truth in this. However, the fortunes of nations
throughout history have been determined not by moaning and complaining against
external forces but by the people themselves shaping and reshaping external forces
in the light of their own needs and challenges. The state is a foremost institution
required in this struggle. Moreover, the positive economic news coming out of
Africa at this time underscores not only the great potentials of the continent but the
critical need to examine how states can acquire the most essential attribute for their
sustainable effectiveness and vitality, namely, r esilience .
v
vi Foreword
I n essence, then, this book demonstrates that states are essential for the
promotion of the welfare, security and prosperity of our global community, individual
nations and citizens. Moreover, it shows that state fragility is more widespread than
thought in our world. In Africa generally and especially in eastern and southern
Africa, the authors argue fi rst that the causes of fragility are quite complex, rooted
in historical, social, political, economic, global and domestic sources. Second, they
also show that state building is a long-term, multidimensional process but one in
which reverses are possible along the way. In the absence of strong and effective
social mechanisms and institutions to contain the symptoms of state failures, state
fragility could be sudden and fast. Finally, they demonstrate that rebuilding state
capacity is a herculean but not an impossible task, especially in light of the fact that
about one-third of all Africans, some 200 million people, are estimated to live in
states classifi ed as fragile. The book concludes by highlighting the critical steps
towards sustainable institutional effectiveness and resilience, core to any state-
rebuilding agenda. Scholars and students of Africa as well as development agencies
interested in state fragility and/or global development would fi nd the book
invaluable.
OSSREA is grateful to the editors and authors for working with us over the years
on this project. In particular, we express our deepest appreciation to Professor Dele
Olowu, who was the lead expert that guided this work, and also to OSSREA’s past
Executive Director, Professor Paschal Mihyo, under whose leadership the project
was initiated and continued by his successors.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Herman Musahara
August 2015
Endorsements
T he Washington-based Fund for Peace has recently changed its ‘State Failure
Index’ to a ‘State Fragility Index’. The interest in political and societal fragility
is growing, following recent dramatic developments in countries like Mali,
Yemen, and Libya. To understand the political dynamics in states struggling
with fragility global and local drivers of this fragility are both important, and it
is obvious that spill-over effects of state fragility ask for a regional approach.
The impact of fragility can be traumatic for many people on earth and the
traumas can be persistent. A recent growth of capacity building programs to
strengthen the capacity of state institutions and non-governmental political
‘watchdogs’ has created fertile grounds for academic attention for their activi-
ties and outcomes. This book offers many results of that new approach, written
by African scholars with hands-on experience. The book can open eyes, and not
only in Washington.
Professor Ton Dietz
Director, African Studies Centre Leiden
www.ascleiden.nl
In S tate Fragility and State Building in Africa: Cases from Eastern and Southern
Africa , Professor Dele Olowu and his associates examine the various manifestations
of the subject through country case studies from Eastern, Central and Southern sub-
regions of the African continent (Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Kenya, Lesotho, South Africa, and Zimbabwe). Readers would fi nd echoes of the
issues examined in the book in the recent instability in Mali and the on-going crises
in the Central African Republic and Southern Sudan. In a thoughtful and insightful
concluding chapter, Olowu recommends a range of sensible measures for assuring
strong governance institutions that can help mitigate the risks of fragility in African
vii
viii Endorsements
countries. This is a timely and well-researched contribution to the literature on state
fragility in Africa.
Ladipo Adamolekun
Professor of Public Administration and a former
Lead Public Sector Management Specialist in the World Bank
State Fragility and State Building in Africa: Cases from Eastern and Southern
Africa is one of the most comprehensive publications on the subject matter of state
fragility in Africa. The authors’ contribution to the current developments in the
African State is by far the most authoritative, well-informed and nuanced commen-
tary that should be taken seriously by academics, policy makers and researchers
alike. Covering social, economic and political foundations of fragility, weakness of
regional institutions, poverty amidst wealth and skewed neighborhood policies in
confl ict and post-confl ict states, this book alerts us of the risk of adopting single
issue attributions of state fragility. It goes further to show the way on how to under-
stand and eventually come to grips with resolving these intricate issues. This book
offers food for thought, a manifesto for professionals and practitioners. It is a must-
read by those concerned with developing the capacity of fragile states in Africa and
elsewhere as well those strive to lament the signifi cant academic and fi ndings intel-
lectual refl ections of Dele Olowu and Paul Chanie’s multidisciplinary research and
study.
Mohamed Salih
Professor Politics of Development both at the International
Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam
(where he is Deputy Rector for Research) and the Department of
Political Science, University of Leiden in the Netherlands.
Contents

1 Introduction: Renewed Interest in State
Weakness and Fragility .......................................................................... 1
Dele Olowu and Paulos Chanie
Part I Drivers of Fragility
2 The Social Foundations of State Fragility in Kenya: Challenges
of a Growing Democracy ........................................................................ 21
Otieno Aluoka
3 Zimbabwe: Institutionalized Corruption and State Fragility ............ 39
Langtone Maunganidze
4 State Fragility as State Incapacity: The Case
of Post-apartheid South Africa .............................................................. 61
Sifi so Ndlovu
Part II Impact of Fragility on Citizens and Neighbouring States
5 The Impact of Fragility on Social Services:
The Case of Zimbabwean State, 2000–2008 ......................................... 91
Norbert Musekiwa
6 Regional Dynamics of Fragile States:
Zimbabwe in the Southern Africa Region ............................................ 113
Lee M. Habasonda
Part III Capacity Building Approaches
7 Effectiveness of Capacity Building Programs
in Fragile States: The Ethiopia Case ..................................................... 135
Wisdom Gagakuma and Zigiju Samuel
ix