political science multi-part question and need guidance to help me learn.
Short Answers. Respond to three of the following questions, and make sure to note the number of the question that you are answering. There is no word limit for these short answer questions, but be sure to fully respond to the question. Please write in complete sentences in paragraph form (i.e., do not simply create a bullet-point list).
Essays. Answer two of the following questions, and make sure to note the number of the question that you are answering. Each response should be at least 500 words in length. Define your terms and make reference to concepts, theories, and thinkers discussed in class.
Requirements: 500 words for long answers
PLSI
Short Answers. Respond to three of the following questions, and make sure to note the number of the question that you are answering. There is no word limit for these short answer questions, but be sure to fully respond to the question. Please write in complete sentences in paragraph form (i.e., do not simply create a bullet-point list).
Analyze Herbst’s argument about African state formation with reference to two of theoretical approaches discussed in class.
How has democratic backsliding changed over time? Be sure to reference the Bermeo reading in your response.
How does Weber define the state? Break down this definition and explain each part. Be sure to reference three sources of legitimacy in your response.
How does Anderson define the nation? What invention was key to the development of national identities? How did this invention facilitate the construction of national identities?
What is a polyarchy, and how does it differ from other regime types described by Dahl?
Compare and contrast the two processes of regime change described in class. In your answer, you should explicitly discuss the role of elites in each process.
Essays. Answer two of the following questions, and make sure to note the number of the question that you are answering. Each response should be at least 500 words in length. Define your terms and make reference to concepts, theories, and thinkers discussed in class.
How do we know if a country is a democracy? Be sure to reference a procedural definition of democracy, and discuss how you would translate that definition into a quantitative indicator.
Explain which combination of systems of democratic governance and electoral systems that you think is best. Make sure to define your terms and offer a clear standard for how you are using the term “best.” Be sure to identify the three systems of democratic governance and two types of electoral systems in your answer.
How would you characterize the relationship between the state and violence? What does a successful state do with violence? Be sure to reference both definitions of “the state” and theories of state formation in your response.
PLSI 250 – Reading Guide
Nancy Bermeo (2016)
“On Democratic Backsliding”
Are there any words you don’t know? (Write them here, and look up their definitions.)
What are some of the challenges we face when analyzing democratic backsliding?
What are the six major types of backsliding? How has backsliding changed over time?
What are the origins of the term “backsliding”?
What kind of regime results from backsliding?
What is a coup d’état? How is an executive coup or a self-coup different? What about a promissory coup?
How does executive aggrandizement differ from coups?
How might the presence of international election monitors have changed the way election manipulation takes place?
How do these changes in democratic backsliding impact possibilities of resistance?
4IMAGINEDCOMMUNITIESBenedictAndersonINTRODUCTIONMypointofdepartureisthatnationality,or,asonemightprefertoputitinviewofthatword’smultiplesignifications,nation-ness,aswellasnationalism,areculturalartefactsofaparticularkind.Tounderstandthemproperlyweneedtoconsidercarefullyhowtheyhavecomeintohistoricalbeing,inwhatwaystheirmeaningshavechangedovertime,andwhy,today,theycommandsuchprofoundemotionallegitimacy.Iwillbetryingtoarguethatthecreationoftheseartefactstowardstheendoftheeighteenthcenturylwasthespontaneousdistillationofacomplex’crossing’ofdiscretehistoricalforces;butthat,oncecreated,theybecame’modular’,capableofbeingtransplanted,withvaryingdegreesofself-consciousness,toagreatvarietyofsocialterrains,tomergeandbemergedwithacorrespondinglywidevarietyofpoliticalandideologicalconstellations.Iwillalsoattempttoshowwhytheseparticularculturalartefactshavearousedsuchdeepattachments.CONCEPTSANDDEFINITIONSBeforeaddressingthequestionsraisedabove,itseemsadvisabletoconsiderbrieflytheconceptof’nation’andofferaworkabledefinition.Theoristsofnationalismhaveoftenbeenperplexed,nottosayirritated,bythesethreeparadoxes:(1)Theobjectivemodernityofnationstothehistorians’eyevs.theirsubjectiveantiquityintheeyesofnationalists.(2)TheformaluniversalityofBenedictAnderson(1983),ImaginedCommunities:ReflectionsontheOriginandSpreadofNationalism,London:Verso.48BENEDICTANDERSON~.nationalityasasocio-culturalconcept-inthemodernworldeveryonecan,should,will’have’anationality,asheorshe’has’agender-vs.theirremediableparticularityofitsconcretemanifestations,suchthat,bydefinition,’Greek’nationalityissuigeneris.(3)The’political’powerofnationalismsvs.theirphilosophicalpovertyandevenincoherence.Inotherwords,unlikemostotherisms,nationalismhasneverproduceditsowngrandthinkers:noHobbeses,Tocquevilles,Marxes,orWebers.This’emptiness’easilygivesrise,amongcosmopolitanandpolylingualintellectuals,toacertaincondescension.LikeGertrudeSteininthefaceofOakland,onecanratherquicklyconcludethatthereis’notherethere’.ItischaracteristicthatevensosympatheticastudentofnationalismasTomNairncannonethelesswritethat:”’Nationalism”isthepathologyofmoderndevelopmentalhistory,asinescapableas”neurosis”intheindividual,withmuchthesameessentialambiguityattachingtoit,asimilarbuilt-incapacityfordescentintodementia,rootedinthedilemmasofhelp-lessnessthrustuponmostoftheworld(theequivalentofinfantilismforsocieties)andlargelyincurable.’2PartofthedifficultyisthatonetendsunconsciouslytohypostasizetheexistenceofNationalism-with-a-big-N(ratherasonemightAge-with-a-capi-tal-A)andthentoclassify’it’asanideology.(Notethatifeveryonehasanage,Ageismerelyananalyticalexpression.)Itwould,Ithink,makethingseasierifonetreateditasifitbelongedwith’kinship’and’religion’,ratherthanwith’liberalism’or’fascism’.Inananthropologicalspirit,then,Iproposethefollowingdefinitionofthenation:itisanimaginedpoliticalcommunity-andimaginedasbothinherentlylimitedandsovereign..Itisimaginedbecausethemembersofeventhesmallestnationwillneverknowmostoftheirfellow-members,meetthem,orevenhearofthem,yetinthemindsofeachlivestheimageoftheircommunion.3Renanreferredtothisimagininginhissuavelyback-handedwaywhenhewrotethat’Orl’essenced’unenationestquetouslesindividusaientbeaucoupdechosesencommun,etaussiquetousaientoubliebiendeschoses.’4WithacertainferocityGellnermakesacomparablepointwhenherulesthat’Nationalismisnottheawakeningofnationstoself-consciousness:itinventsnationswheretheydonotexist.’5Thedrawbacktothisformulation,however,isthatGellnerissoanxioustoshowthatnationalismmasqueradesunderfalsepretencesthatheassimilates’inven-tion’to’fabrication’and’falsity’,ratherthanto’imagining’and’creation’.Inthiswayheimpliesthat’true’communitiesexistwhichcanbeadvantageouslyjuxtaposedtonations.Infact,allcommunitieslargerthanprimordialvillagesofface-to-facecontact(andperhapseventhese)areimagined.Communitiesaretobedistinguished,notbytheirfalsity/genuineness,butbythestyleinwhichtheyareimagined.Javanesevillagershavealwaysknownthattheyareconnectedtopeopletheyhaveneverseen,butthesetieswereonceimaginedparticularistically-asindefinitelystretchablenetsofkinshipandclientship.Untilquiterecently,theJavaneselanguagehadnowordmeaningtheabstraction’society’.Wemay49
THEORIGINSOFNATIONALISMtodaythinkoftheFrencharistocracyoftheancienregimeasaclass;butsurelyitwasimaginedthiswayonlyverylate.6Tothequestion’WhoistheComtedeX?’thenormalanswerwouldhavebeen,not’amemberofthearistocracy’,but’thelordofX’,’theuncleoftheBaronnedeY’,or’aclientoftheDucdeZ’.Thenationisimaginedaslimitedbecauseeventhelargestofthem,encom-passingperhapsabillionlivinghumanbeings,hasfinite,ifelastic,boundaries,beyondwhichlieothernations;Nonationimaginesitselfcoterminouswithmankind.Themostmessianicnationalistsdonotdreamofadaywhenallthemembersofthehumanracewilljointheirnationinthewaythatitwaspossible,incertainepochs,for,say,ChristianstodreamofawhollyChristianplanet.ItisimaginedassovereignbecausetheconceptwasborninanageinwhichEnlightenmentandRevolutionweredestroyingthelegitimacyofthedivinely-ordained,hierarchicaldynasticrealm.Comingtomaturityatastageofhumanhistorywheneventhemostdevoutadherentsofanyuniversalreligionwereinescapablyconfrontedwiththelivingpluralismofsuchreligions,andtheallomorphismbetweeneachfaith’sontologicalclaimsandterritorialstretch,nationsdreamofbeingfree,and,ifunderGod,directlyso.Thegageandemblemofthisfreedomisthesovereignstate.Finally,itisimaginedasacommunity,because,regardlessoftheactualinequalityandexploitationthatmayprevailineach,thenationisalwaysconceivedasadeep,horizontalcomradeship.Ultimatelyitisthisfraternitythatmakesitpossible,overthepasttwocenturies,forsomanymillionsofpeople,notsomuchtokill,aswillinglytodieforsuchlimitedimaginings.Thesedeathsbringusabruptlyfacetofacewiththecentralproblemposedbynationalism:whatmakestheshrunkenimaginingsofrecenthistory(scarcelymorethantwocenturies)generatesuchcolossalsacrifices?Ibelievethatthebeginningsofananswerlieintheculturalrootsofnationalism.CULTURALROOTSNomorearrestingemblemsofthemoderncultureofnationalismexistthancenotaphsandtombsofUnknownSoldiers.Thepublicceremonialreverenceaccordedthesemonumentspreciselybecausetheyareeitherdeliberatelyemptyornooneknowswholiesinsidethem,hasnotrueprecedentsinearliertimes.Tofeeltheforceofthismodernityonehasonlytoimaginethegeneralreactiontothebusy-bodywho’discovered’theUnknownSoldier’snameorinsistedonfillingthecenotaphwithsomerealbones.Sacrilegeofastrange,contemporarykind!Yetvoidasthesetombsareofidentifiablemortalremainsorimmortalsouls,theyarenonethelesssaturatedwithghostlynationalimaginings.(Thisiswhysomanydifferentnationshavesuchtombswithoutfeelinganyneedtospecifythenationalityoftheirabsentoccupants.WhatelsecouldtheybebutGermans,Americans,Argentinians…?)Theculturalsignificanceofsuchmonumentsbecomesevenclearerifonetriestoimagine,say,aTomboftheUnknownMarxistoracenotaphforfallenLiberals.Isasenseofabsurdityavoidable?ThereasonisthatneitherMarxism50BENEDICTANDERSONnorLiberalismaremuchconcernedwithdeathandimmortality.Ifthenation-alistimaginingissoconcerned,thissuggestsastrongaffinitywithreligiousimaginings.Asthisaffinityisbynomeansfortuitous,itmaybeusefultobeginaconsiderationoftheculturalrootsofnationalismwithdeath,asthelastofawholegamutoffatalities.Ifthemannerofaman’sdyingusuallyseemsarbitrary,hismortalityisinescapable.Humanlivesarefullofsuchcombinationsofnecessityandchance.Weareallawareofthecontingencyandineluctabilityofourparticulargeneticheritage,ourgender,ourlife-era,ourphysicalcapabilities,ourmother-tongue,andsoforth.Thegreatmeritoftraditionalreligiousworld-views(whichnaturallymustbedistinguishedfromtheirroleinthelegitimationofspecificsystemsofdominationandexploitation)hasbeentheirconcernwithman-in-the-cosmos,manasspeciesbeing,andthecontingencyoflife.TheextraordinarysurvivaloverthousandsofyearsofBuddhism,ChristianityorIslamindozensofdifferentsocialformationsatteststotheirimaginativeresponsetotheover-whelmingburdenofhumansuffering-disease,mutilation,grief,age,anddeath.WhywasIbornblind?Whyismybestfriendparalysed?Whyismydaughterretarded?Thereligionsattempttoexplain.Thegreatweaknessofallevolutionary/progressivestylesofthought,notexcludingMarxism,isthatsuchquestionsareansweredwithimpatientsilence’.Atthesametime,indifferentways,religiousthoughtalsorespondstoobscureintimationsofimmortality,generallybytransformingfatalityintocontinuity(karma,originalsin,etc.)Inthisway,itconcernsitselfwiththelinksbetweenthedeadandtheyetunborn,themysteryofre-generation.Whoexperiencestheirchild’sconceptionandbirthwithoutdimlyapprehendingacombinedconnectedness,fortuity,andfatalityinalanguageof’continuity’?(Again,thedisadvantageofevolutionary/progressivethoughtisanalmostHeracliteanhostilitytoanyideaofcontinuity.)IbringuptheseperhapssimplemindedobservationsprimarilybecauseinWesternEuropetheeighteenthcenturymarksnotonlythedawnoftheageofnationalismbuttheduskofreligiousmodesofthought.ThecenturyoftheEnlightenment,ofrationalistsecularism,broughtwithititsownmoderndarkness.Withtheebbingofreligiousbelief,thesufferingwhichbeliefinpartcomposeddidnotdisappear.Disintegrationofparadise:nothingmakesfatalitymorearbitrary.Absurdityofsalvation:nothingmakesanotherstyleofcon-tinuitymorenecessary.Whatthenwasrequiredwasaseculartransformationoffatalityintocontinuity,contingencyintomeaning.Asweshallsee,fewthingswere(are)bettersuitedtothisendthananideaofnation.Ifnation-statesarewidelyconcededtobe’new’and’historical’,thenationstowhichtheygivepoliticalexpressionalwaysloomoutofanimmemorialpast,7and,stillmoreimportant,glideintoalimitlessfuture.Itisthemagicofnationalismtoturnchanceintodestiny.WithDebraywemightsay,’Yes,itisquiteaccidentalthatIambornFrench;butafterall,FranceiseternaL’Needlesstosay,Iamnotclaimingthattheappearanceofnationalismtowardstheendoftheeighteenthcenturywas’produced’bytheerosionof51
THEORIGINSOFNATIONALISMreligiouscertainties,orthatthiserosiondoesnotitselfrequireacomplexexplanation.NoramIsuggestingthatsomehownationalismhistorically’super-sedes’religion.WhatIamproposingisthatnationalismhastobeunderstoodbyaligningit,notwithself-consciouslyheldpoliticalideologies,butwiththelargeculturalsystemsthatprecededit,outofwhich-aswellasagainstwhich-itcameintobeing.[…]Beforeproceedingtoadiscussionofthespecificoriginsofnationalism,itmaybeusefultorecapitulatethemainpropositionsputforwardthusfar.Essentially,Ihavebeenarguingthattheverypossibilityofimaginingthenationonlyarosehistoricallywhen,andwhere,threefundamentalculturalconceptions,allofgreatantiquity,losttheiraxiomaticgriponmen’sminds.Thefirstofthesewastheideathataparticularscript-languageofferedprivilegedaccesstoontologicaltruth,preciselybecauseitwasaninseparablepartofthattruth.ItwasthisideathatcalledintobeingthegreattranscontinentalsodalitiesofChristendom,theIslamicUmmah,andtherest.Secondwasthebeliefthatsocietywasnaturallyorganizedaroundandunderhighcentres-monarchswhowerepersonsapartfromotherhumanbeingsandwhoruledbysomeformofcosmological(divine)dispensation.Humanloyaltieswerenecessarilyhierarchicalandcentripetalbecausetheruler,likethesacredscript,wasanodeofaccesstobeingandinherentinit.Thirdwasaconceptionoftemporalityinwhichcosmologyandhistorywereindistinguishable,theoriginsoftheworldandofmenessentiallyidentical.Combined,theseideasrootedhumanlivesfirmlyintheverynatureofthings,givingcertainmeaningtotheeverydayfatalitiesofexistence(abovealldeath,loss,andservitude)andoffering,invariousways,redemptionfromthem.Theslow,unevendeclineoftheseinterlinkedcertainties,firstinWesternEurope,laterelsewhere,undertheimpactofeconomicchange,’discoveries'(socialandscientific),andthedevelopmentofincreasinglyrapidcommunica-tions,droveaharshwedgebetweencosmologyandhistory.Nosurprisethenthatthesearchwason,sotospeak,foranewwayoflinkingfraternity,powerandtimemeaningfullytogether.Nothingperhapsmoreprecipitatedthissearch,normadeitmorefruitful,thanprint-capitalism,whichmadeitpossibleforrapidlygrowingnumbersofpeopletothinkaboutthemselves,andtorelatethemselvestoothers,inprofoundlynewways.THEORIGINSOFNATIONALCONSCIOUSNESSIfthedevelopmentofprint-as-commodityisthekeytothegenerationofwhollynewideasofsimultaneity,still,wearesimplyatthepointwherecommunitiesofthetype’horizontal-secular,transverse-time’becomepossible.Why,withinthattype,didthenationbecomesopopular?Thefactorsinvolvedareobviouslycomplexandvarious.Butastrongcasecanbemadefortheprimacyofcapitalism.Asalreadynoted,atleast20,000,000bookshadalreadybeenprintedby52BENEDICTANDERSON1500,8signallingtheonsetofBenjamin’s’ageofmechanicalreproduction’.Ifmanuscriptknowledgewasscarceandarcanelore,printknowledgelivedbyreproducibilityanddissemination.9If,asFebvreandMartinbelieve,possiblyasmanyas200,000,000volumeshadbeenmanufacturedby1600,itisnowonderthatFrancisBaconbelievedthatprinthadchanged’theappearanceandstateoftheworld,.l0Oneoftheearlierformsofcapitalistenterprise,book-publishingfeltallofcapitalism’srestlesssearchformarkets.TheearlyprintersestablishedbranchesalloverEurope:’inthiswayaveritable”international”ofpublishinghouses,whichignorednational[sIc]frontiers,wascreated.’l1Andsincetheyears1500-1550wereaperiodofexceptionalEuropeanprosperity,publishingsharedinthegeneralboom.’Morethanatanyothertime’itwas’agreatindustryunderthecontrolofwealthycapitalists.’12Naturally,’book-sellerswereprimarilyconcernedtomakeaprofitandtoselltheirproducts,andconsequentlythey,soughtoutfirstandforemostthoseworkswhichwereofinteresttothelargestpossiblenumberoftheircontemporaries.’13TheinitialmarketwasliterateEurope,awidebutthinstratumofLatin-readers.Saturationofthismarkettookaboutahundredandfiftyyears.ThedeterminativefactaboutLatin-asidefromitssacrality-wasthatitwasalanguageofbilinguals.Relativelyfewwerebor’ntospeakitandevenfewer,oneimagines,dreamedinit.InthesixteenthcenturytheproportionofbilingualswithinthetotalpopulationofEuropewasquitesmall;verylikelynolargerthantheproportionintheworld’spopulationtoday,and-proletarianinternationalismnotwithstanding-inthecenturiestocome.Thenandnow.thebulkofmankindismonoglot.ThelogicofcapitalismthusmeantthatoncetheeliteLatinmarketwassaturated,thepotentiallyhugemarketsrepresentedbythemonoglotmasseswouldbeckon.Tobesure,theCounter-ReformationencouragedatemporaryresurgenceofLatin-pub-lishing,butbythemid-seventeenthcenturythemovementwasindecay,andferventlyCatholiclibrariesreplete.Meantime,aEurope-wideshortageofmoneymadeprintersthinkmoreandmoreofpeddlingcheapeditionsinthevernaculars.14Therevolutionaryvernacularizingthrustofcapitalismwasgivenfurtherimpetusbythreeextraneousfactors,twoofwhichcontributeddirectlytotheriseofnationalconsciousness.Thefirst,andultimatelytheleastimportant,wasachangeinthecharacterofLatinitself.ThankstothelaboursoftheHumanistsinrevivingthebroadliteratureofpre-Christianantiquityandspreadingitthroughtheprint-market,anewappreciationofthesophisticatedstylisticachievementsoftheancientswasapparentamongthetrans-Europeanintelli-gentsia.TheLatintheynowaspiredtowritebecamemoreandmoreCiceronian,and,bythesametoken,increasinglyremovedfromecclesiasticalandeverydaylife.InthiswayitacquiredanesotericqualityquitedifferentfromthatofChurchLatininmediaevaltimes.FortheolderLatinwasnotarcanebecauseofitssubjectmatterorstyle,butsimplybecauseitwaswrittenatall,i.e.becauseof53
THEORIGINSOFNATIONALISMitsstatusastext.Nowitbecamearcanebecauseofwhatwaswritten,becauseofthelanguage-in-itself.SecondwastheimpactoftheReformation,which,atthesametime,owedmuchofitssuccesstoprint-capitalism.Beforetheageofprint,RomeeasilywoneverywaragainstheresyinWesternEuropebecauseitalwayshadbetterinternallinesofcommunicationthanitschallengers.Butwhenin1517MartinLuthernailedhisthesestothechapel-doorinWittenberg,theywereprintedupinGermantranslation,and’within15days[hadbeen]seenineverypartofthecountry.’15Inthetwodecades1520-1540threetimesasmanybookswerepublishedinGermanasintheperiod1500-1520,anastonishingtransforma-tiontowhichLutherwasabsolutelycentral.HisworksrepresentednolessthanonethirdofallGerman-languagebookssoldbetween1518and1525.Between1522and1546,atotalof430editions(wholeorpartial)ofhisBiblicaltranslationsappeared.’Wehavehereforthefirsttimeatrulymassreadershipandapopularliteraturewithineverybody’sreach.’16Ineffect,Lutherbecamethefirstbest-sellingauthorsoknown.Or,toputitanotherway,thefirstwriterwhocould’sell’hisnewbooksonthebasisofhisname.I?WhereLutherled,othersquicklyfollowed,openingthecolossalreligiouspropagandawarthatragedacrossEuropeforthenextcentury.Inthistitanic’battleformen’sminds’,Protestantismwasalwaysfundamentallyontheoffensive,preciselybecauseitknewhowtomakeuseoftheexpandingvernacularprint-marketbeingcreatedbycapitalism,whiletheCounter-Re-formationdefendedthecitadelofLatin.TheemblemforthisistheVatican’sIndexLibrorumProhibitorum-towhichtherewasnoProtestantcounterpart-anovelcataloguemadenecessarybythesheervolumeofprintedsubversion.NothinggivesabettersenseofthissiegementalitythanFran\=oisI’spanicked1535banontheprintingofanybooksinhisrealm-onpainofdeathbyhanging!Thereasonforboththebananditsunenforceabilitywasthatbythenhisrealm’seasternborderswereringedwithProtestantstatesandcitiesproducingamassivestreamofsmugglableprint.TotakeCalvin’sGenevaalone:between1533and1540only42editionswerepublishedthere,butthenumbersswelledto527between1550and1564,bywhichlatterdatenolessthan40separateprinting-presseswereworkingovertime.18ThecoalitionbetweenProtestantismandprint-capitalism,exploitingcheappopulareditions,quicklycreatedlargenewreadingpublics-notleastamongmerchantsandwomen,whotypicallyknewlittleornoLatin-andsimulta-neouslymobilizedthemforpolitico-religiouspurposes.Inevitably,itwasnotmerelytheChurchthatwasshakentoitscore.ThesameearthquakeproducedEurope’sfirstimportantnon-dynastic,non-citystatesintheDutchRepublicandtheCommonwealthofthePuritans.(Fran\=oisI’spanicwasasmuchpoliticalasreligious.)Thirdwastheslow,geographicallyuneven,spreadofparticularvernacularsasinstrumentsofadministrativecentralizationbycertainwell-positionedwould-beabsolutistmonarchs.Hereitisusefultorememberthattheunivers-54!’iBENEDICTANDERSONalityofLatininmediaevalWesternEuropenevercorrespondedtoauniversalpoliticalsystem.ThecontrastwithImperialChina,wherethereachofthemandarinalbureaucracyandofpaintedcharacterslargelycoincided,isinstruc-tive.Ineffect,thepoliticalfragmentationofWesternEuropeafterthecollapseoftheWesternEmpiremeantthatnosovereigncouldmonopolizeLatinandmakeithis-and-only-hislanguage-of-state,andthusLatin’sreligiousauthorityneverhadatruepoliticalanalogue.Thebirthofadministrativevernacularspredatedbothprintandthereligiousupheavalofthesixteenthcentury,andmustthereforeberegarded(atleastinitially)asanindependentfactorintheerosionofthesacredimaginedcommunity.Atthesametime,nothingsuggeststhatanydeep-seatedideolo-gical,letaloneproto-national,impulsesunderlaythisvernacularizationwhereitoccurred.Thecaseof’England’-onthenorthwesternperipheryofLatinEurope-ishereespeciallyenlightening.PriortotheNormanConquest,thelanguageofthecourt,literaryandadministrative,wasAnglo-Saxon.ForthenextcenturyandahalfvirtuallyallroyaldocumentswerecomposedinLatin.Betweenabout1200and1350thisstate-LatinwassupersededbyNormanFrench.Inthemeantime,aslowfusionbetweenthislanguageofaforeignrulingclassandtheAnglo-SaxonofthesubjectpopulationproducedEarlyEnglish.Thefusionmadeitpossibleforthenewlanguagetotakeitsturn,after1362,asthelanguageofthecourts-andfortheopeningofParliament.Wycliffe’svernacularmanuscriptBiblefollowedin1382.19Itisessentialtobearinmindthatthissequencewasaseriesof’state’,not’national’,languages;andthatthestateconcernedcoveredatvarioustimesnotonlytoday’sEnglandandWales,butalsoportionsofIreland,ScotlandandFrance.Obviously,hugeelementsofthesubjectpopulationsknewlittleornothingofLatin,NormanFrench,orEarlyEnglish.2oNottillalmostacenturyafter.EarlyEnglish’spoliticalenthronementwasLondon’spowersweptoutof’France’.OntheSeine,asimilarmovementtookplace,ifataslowerpace.AsBlochwrilyputsit,’French,thatistosayalanguagewhich,sinceitwasregardedasmerelyacorruptformofLatin,tookseveralcenturiestoraiseitselftoliterarydignity’,21onlybecametheofficiallanguageofthecourtsofjusticein1539,whenFran\=oisIissuedtheEdictofVillers-CotteretsPInotherdynasticrealmsLatinsurvivedmuchlonger-undertheHabsburgswellintothenineteenthcentury.Instillothers,’foreign’vernacularstookover:intheeighteenthcenturythelanguagesoftheRomanovcourtwereFrenchandGerman.23Ineveryinstance,the’choice’oflanguageappearsasagradual,unselfcon-scious,pragmatic,nottosayhaphazarddevelopment.Assuch,itwasutterlydifferentformtheselfconsciouslanguagepoliciespursuedbynineteenth-cen-turydynastsconfrontedwiththeriseofhostilepopularlinguistic-nationalisms.Oneclearsignofthedifferenceisthattheoldadministrativelanguageswerejustthat:languagesusedbyandforofficialdomsfortheirowninnerconvenience.Therewasnoideaofsystematicallyimposingthelanguageonthedynasts’varioussubjectpopulations.24Nonetheless,theelevationofthesevernacularsto55
THEORIGINSOFNATIONALISMthestatusoflanguages-of-power,where,inonesense,theywerecompetitorswithLatin(FrenchinParis,[Early]EnglishinLondon),madeitsowncon-tributiontothedeclineoftheimaginedcommunityofChristendom.Atbottom,itislikelythattheesotericizationofLatin,theReformation,andthehaphazarddevelopmentofadministrativevernacularsaresignificant,inthepresentcontext,primarilyinanegativesense-intheircontributionstothedethronementofLatin.Itisquitepossibletoconceiveoftheemergenceofthenewimaginednationalcommunitieswithoutanyone,perhapsall,ofthembeingpresent.What,inapositivesense,madethenewcommunitiesimaginablewasahalf-fortuitous,butexplosive,interactionbetweenasystemofproductionandproductiverelations(capitalism),atechnologyofcommunications(print),and’thefatalityofhumanlinguisticdiversity.2sTheelementoffatalityisessential.Forwhateversuperhumanfeatscapitalismwascapableof,itfoundindeathandlanguagestwotenaciousadversaries.26Particularlanguagescandieorbewipedout,buttherewasandisnopossibilityofhumankind’sgenerallinguisticunification.Yetthismutualincomprehensi-bilitywashistoricallyofonlyslightimportanceuntilcapitalismandprintcreatedmonoglotmassreadingpublics.Whileitisessentialtokeepinmindanideaoffatality,inthesenseofageneralconditionofirremediablelinguisticdiversity,itwouldbeamistaketoequatethisfatalitywiththatcommonelementinnationalistideologieswhichstressestheprimordialfatalityofparticularlanguagesandtheirassociationwithparticularterritorialunits.Theessentialthingistheinterplaybetweenfatality,technology,andcapitalism.Inpre-printEurope,and,ofcourse,elsewhereintheworld,thediversityofspokenlanguages,thoselanguagesthatfortheirspeakerswere(andare)thewarpandwoofoftheirlives,wasimmense;soimmense,indeed,thathadprint-capitalismsoughttoexploiteachpotentialoralverna-cularmarket,itwouldhaveremainedacapitalismofpettyproportions.Butthesevariedidiolectswerecapableofbeingassembled,withindefinitelimits,intoprint-languagesfarfewerinnumber.TheveryarbitrarinessofanysystemofsignsforsoundsfacilitatedtheassemblingprocessP(Atthesametime,themoreideographicthesigns,thevasterthepotentialassemblingzone.OnecandetectasortofdescendinghierarchyherefromalgebrathroughChineseandEnglish,totheregularsyllabariesofFrenchofIndonesian.)Nothingservedto’assemble’relatedvernacularsmorethancapitalism,which,withinthelimitsimposedbygrammarsandsyntaxes,createdmechanicallyreproducedprint-languagescapableofdisseminationthroughthemarket.28Theseprint-languageslaidthebasesfornationalconsciousnessesinthreedistinctways.Firstandforemost,theycreatedunifiedfieldsofexchangeandcommunicationbelowLatinandabovethespokenvernaculars.SpeakersofthehugevarietyofFrenches,Englishes,orSpanishes,whomightfinditdifficultorevenimpossibletounderstandoneanotherinconversation,becamecapableofcomprehendingoneanotherviaprintandpaper.Intheprocess,theygraduallybecameawareofthehundredsofthousands,evenmillions,ofpeopleintheir56BENEDICTANDERSON’\particularlanguage-field,andatthesametimethatonlythosehundredsofthousands,ormillions,sobelonged.Thesefellow-readers,towhomtheywereconnectedthroughprint,formed,intheirsecular,particular,visibleinvisibility,theembryoofthenationallyimaginedcommunity.Second,print-capitalismgaveanewfixitytolanguage,whichinthelongrunhelpedtobuildthatimageofantiquitysocentraltothesubjectiveideaofthenation.AsFebvreandMartinremindus,theprintedbookkeptapermanentform,capableofvirtuallyinfinitereproduction,temporallyandspatially.Itwasnolongersubjecttotheindividualizingand’unconsciouslymodernizing’habitsofmonasticscribes.Thus,whiletwelfth-centuryFrenchdifferedmarkedlyfromthatwrittenbyVilloninthefifteenth,therateofchangesloweddecisivelyinthesixteenth.’Bythe17thcenturylanguagesinEuropehadgenerallyassumedtheirmodernforms.’29Toputitanotherway,forthreecenturiesnowthesestabilizedprint-languageshavebeengatheringadarkeningvarnish;thewordsofourseventeenth-centuryforebearsareaccessibletousinawaythattoVillonhistwelfth-centuryancestorswerenot.Third,print-capitalismcreatedlanguages-of-powerofakinddifferentfromtheolderadministrativevernaculars.Certaindialectsinevitablywere’closer’toeachprint-languageanddominatedtheirfinalforms.Theirdisadvantagedcousins,stillassimilabletotheemergingprint:language,lostcaste,aboveallbecausetheywereunsuccessful(oronlyrelativelysuccessful)ininsistingontheirownprint-form.’NorthwesternGerman’becamePlattDeutsch,alargelyspoken,thussub-standard,German,becauseitwasassimilabletoprint-GermaninawaythatBohemianspoken-Czechwasnot.HighGerman,theKing’sEnglish,and,later,CentralThai,werecorrespondinglyelevatedtoanewpolitico-culturaleminence.(Hencethestrugglesinlate-twentieth-centuryEur-opebycertain’sub-‘nationalitiestochangetheirsubordinatestatusbybreakingfirmlyintoprint-andradio.)Itremainsonlytoemphasizethatintheirorigins,thefixingofprint-languagesandthedifferentiationofstatusbetweenthemwerelargelyunselfconsciousprocessesresultingfromtheexplosiveinteractionbetweencapitalism,technol-ogyandhumanlinguisticdiversity.Butaswithsomuchelseinthehistoryofnationalism,once’there’,theycouldbecomeformalmodelstobeimitated,and,whereexpedient,consciouslyexploitedinaMachiavellianspirit.Today,theThaigovernmentactivelydiscouragesattemptsbyforeignmissionariestoprovideitshill-tribeminoritieswiththeirowntranscription-systemsandtodeveloppublicationsintheirownlanguages:thesamegovernmentislargelyindifferenttowhattheseminoritiesspeak.ThefateoftheTurkic-speakingpeoplesinthezonesincorporatedintotoday’sTurkey,Iran,Iraq,andtheUSSRisespeciallyexemplary.Afamilyofspokenlanguages,onceeverywhereassemblable,thuscomprehensible,withinanArabicorthography,haslostthatunityasaresultofconsciousmanipulations.ToheightenTurkish-Turkey’snationalconsciousnessattheexpenseofanywiderIslamicidentification,Atatiirkimposedcompulsoryromanization.3OTheSovietauthoritiesfollowed,57
THEORIGINSOFNATIONALISMsuit,firstwithananti-Islamic,anti-Persiancompulsoryromanization,then,inStalin’s1930s,withaRussifyingcompulsoryCyrillicization.31Wecansummarizetheconclusionstobedrawnfromtheargumentthusfarbysayingthattheconvergenceofcapitalismandprinttechnologyonthefataldiversityofhumanlanguagecreatedthepossibilityofanewformofimaginedcommunity,whichinitsbasicmorphologysetthestageforthemodernnatian.Thepotentialstretchofthesecommunitieswasinherentlylimited,and,atthesametime,borenonebutthemostfortuitousrelationshiptoexistingpoliticalboundaries(whichwere,onthewhole,thehighwatermarksofdynastic.expansionisms).j~Yetitisobviousthatwhiletodayalmostallmodernself-conceivednatians,..andalsonation-states-have’nationalprint-languages’,manyofthemhavetheselanguagesincommon,andinothersonlyatinyfractionofthepopulation..’uses’thenationallanguageinconversationaronpaper.Thenation-statesof~,,1SpanishAmericaorthaseafthe’Anglo-Saxanfamily’areconspicuousexam’piesafthefirstoutcome;manyex-calanialstates,particularlyinAfrica,afthe;second.Inatherwards,thecancretefarmatianofcantempararynatian-states/;’bynomeansisomorphicwiththedeterminatereachofparticularprintclan-guages.To.accauntforthediscantinuity-in-connectednessbetweenprint-Ian,guages,natianalconsciousness,andnatian-states,itisnecessaryto.turnto,thelargeclusterafnewpoliticalentitiesthatsprangupintheWesternhemisphetibetween1776and1838,allafwhichself-cansciouslydefinedthemselves,as
Review: States and Power in Africa by Jeffrey I. Herbst: A Review Essay Reviewed Work(s): States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control by Jeffrey I. Herbst Review by: James A. Robinson Source: Journal of Economic Literature, Jun., 2002, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Jun., 2002), pp. 510-519 Published by: American Economic Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2698386JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/termsis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Economic LiteratureThis content downloaded from 132.174.252.179 on Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:49:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Journal of Economic Literature Vol. XL (June 2002), pp. 510-519 States anrd Power in Africa by Jeffrey I. Herbst: A Review Essay’ JAMES A. ROBINSON2 1. Introduction T HE MOST CONVINCING theory of 1 comparative economic development asserts that it is institutions-the way so- cieties are organized that are the fun- damental cause of countries’ develop- ment or underdevelopment. To attain prosperity, a country needs to accumu- late physical and human capital and cre- ate and adopt technology. Whether or not it does so is determined by the in- centives that stem from the institutional environment. While these ideas are most closely connected with the work of Douglass North, they are much older than this. Adam Smith’s analysis of mercantilism stressed the adverse effects of this set of institutions on economic develop- ment, and he argued in 1755 that “little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of jus- tice; all the rest being brought about by 1 States and Power in Africa: Comparative Les- sons in Authority and Control. By Jeffrey I. Herbst. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Pp. x-280. ISBN: 0-691-01027-7 cloth; 0- 691-01028-5 pbk. 2 Department of Political Science and Depart- ment of Economics, University of California, Berkeley. I am grateful to Clark Leith, John McMillan, and Ted Miguel for their helpful suggestions. the natural course of things” (quoted in Jones 1987, p. 235). In the nineteenth century, liberal reformers in Latin America proposed institutional theories of the relative underdevelopment there. They argued that the institutional in- heritance of the Spanish colonial period had survived independence and held back economic progress. Colombian in- tellectual Salvador Camacho Roldan summarized this view nicely in 1850 when he wrote, “The great revolution of 1810, which transformed our political system at a blow, barely touched our system of taxation, leaving . . . the mo- nopolies, the abuses, and the inequi- ties that . . . deserved to be labeled organized pillage.” The institutional approach to com- parative development accounts for eco- nomic divergence by positing institu- tional divergence. There are two key questions. First, exactly what institu- tions are causally important in stimulat- ing or retarding development? Second, what explains why different countries have different institutions? Though some scholars have begun to tackle these questions, there is as yet little consensus. North’s basic idea was that enforced property rights were a neces- sary condition for development. He ar- gued that such secure property rights were achieved by particular political 510This content downloaded from 132.174.252.179 on Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:49:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Robinson: States and Power in Africa 511 institutions such as the Constitution of the United States, and the Magna Carta and eventual rise of parliament in Brit- ain (North and Weingast 1989). These sets of institutions restrained state pre- dation, guaranteed citizens that their property rights would be secure, and thus stimulated investment and devel- opment. Others, for example Andrei Shleifer and his coworkers, have instead emphasized differences in legal institu- tions, with the Common Law system providing more protection for property rights (e.g., Glaeser and Shleifer 2001). Most cross-country empirical work on institutions and development (Hall and Jones 1999; Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson 2001a,b) has used measures of institutions that capture equilibrium outcomes rather than specific institu- tions themselves, and these studies re- main agnostic about exactly what insti- tutions guarantee that property rights are stable. This question might be easy to resolve if there was close correspon- dence between the stability of property rights and whether or not, for example, a country had a constitution with sepa- ration of powers. Unfortunately there is not. Countries such as Mexico before the revolution, China in the last two decades, and Indonesia after 1965 grew rapidly with political and legal institu- tions that look very different from those of the United States and Britain. What is common about these differ- ent ideas, however, is that they empha- size collective institutions. In the views of North, Shleifer, and Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson, it is not eco- nomic institutions such as particular markets that are key. This is because these are endogenous to key collective institutions that determine how society is organized. This suggests therefore that a theory of comparative institutions is ultimately about politics and political institutions, since politics is precisely about how society decides on the things that affect it collectively. As economists begin to develop and test theories of comparative institutions, they can therefore learn much by pay- ing attention to the work of scholars in political science and political sociology, who have long investigated these issues. Questions about the origins of different types of political and state institutions are at the heart of these subjects, and they have proposed important theories of the origins of nation states, democ- racy, bureaucracy, fiscal systems, and political organizations such as parties. These institutions are of interest not just to political scientists, but also to economists. This body of research is particularly interesting because it con- tains comparative static results, of which so far there have been few in the economics literature. North and Wein- gast (1989), for instance, provided few clues as to why particular political insti- tutions became established in some countries, such as in Britain after 1688, but not others. In States and Power in Africa, Jeffrey Herbst proposes a theory of state for- mation in Africa. Economists with the slightest familiarity with development will know of “Africa’s Growth Tragedy” (to use the evocative phrase of Easterly and Levine 1997), and they are also doubtless aware from the evening news and journalistic accounts of the appar- ent chaos, instability, and disorganiza- tion of African states and polities. It seems highly likely that this failure of state institutions is intimately con- nected to development failures in Af- rica. What economists lack is a social scientific explanation that integrates these observations into a coherent pic- ture. Why do states seem so ineffective in Africa? Why are they unable to do what states are supposed to do? Why do bad policy, corruption, and venalityThis content downloaded from 132.174.252.179 on Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:49:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
512 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XL (June 2002) seem so endemic? Herbst provides an answer to these puzzles. The book is es- sential reading for economists inter- ested in comparative institutions- and development and anybody trying to understand why the world is the way it is. It is chock full of insights, ideas, and wisdom. It will generate fruitful lines of research for years to come. The next section briefly summarizes Herbst’s main arguments. I then focus my discussion on several key parts of his thesis: First, his emphasis on popu- lation density as a causal factor behind institution building and a source of in- stitutional comparative statics; second, the notion that colonialism has only a minor role to play in explaining the na- ture of modern African states; third, whether it is such a good thing to have the sort of state Herbst argues is miss- ing from Africa. In the conclusions I return to the general question of why this work is important for economists. 2. States and Power in Africa: The Basic Thesis The starting point of Herbst’s analy- sis is that Africa is plagued by “state failure.” A state is meant to provide cer- tain public goods in society, such as law and order, defense, contract enforce- ment, and infrastructure. Yet in Africa most states provide very few of these. They are unable to exercise control over much of their territory; they do not pro- vide order or public goods. The litera- ture talks dramatically about state “fail- ure, even “collapse.” What then is different about African states that leads them to diverge so radically from our ideal? Herbst’s explanation builds on a rich tradition of work on the origins of European nation states initiated by Max Weber. This literature attempted to ex- plain the origins of modern institutions such as nation states with well-defined territories. Nation states are charac- terized not just by borders and citizens with national identities, but also by bu- reaucracies, fiscal systems, and repre- sentative institutions such as parlia- ments. Especially influential has been the work of Charles Tilly (1990). The central idea of this literature is that the high population density of Europe made land relatively scarce and valu- able to control, particularly from the late Middle Ages onward. This and technological change in the methods of warfare (e.g., more sophisticated battle tactics and firearms) drew states into continual conflict. But warfare is costly, and early modern states required re- sources to attack and defend. Kings were therefore in a continual battle with lords and commoners over taxes. To get money for wars, kings had to build bureaucracies, gather informa- tion, and map their territory and peo- ple. They also had to make concessions- such as creating regular parliaments where citizens could have a voice. An alternative to concessions was to crush domestic opponents who resisted the demands of kings. All these things were necessary to survive. If a state did not become “stronger,” then typically it became extinct. This process created the modern sys- tem of nation states with their familiar institutional infrastructures that con- solidated in Europe in the nineteenth century. Herbst’s argument is that this process has not taken place in Africa. It did not take place historically in the precolonial era, it did not take place during the colonial epoch, and it is not taking place since or now. Why? Africa is different because the struc- tural conditions that led to the path of state formation and institution building in Europe were absent in Africa. Unlike in Europe, land was and is not scarce inThis content downloaded from 132.174.252.179 on Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:49:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Robinson: States and Power in Africa 513 Africa. Rather, labor was scarce. Thus in the precolonial period, states did not fight over land, but rather people. This explains why property rights in people (slavery) are well defined, but those in land were not (to this day most land in Africa is held communally). This meant that precolonial states had vague bor- ders and were often very “weak.” With- out the constant necessity of defending a well-defined territory, states did not need to invest in bureaucracies, cen- suses of their populations, tax collec- tors, or permanent militaries. Herbst also argues interestingly that this ex- plains the absence of precolonial map- ping in Africa.3 This absence of external threats coupled with low population densities persisted. During the colonial period there was little fighting over bor- ders between the colonial powers. The conference of Berlin in 1885 largely de- termined which European power would have which bit of Africa. This meant that, like the precolonial polities, Euro- pean colonial powers had little incen- tive to develop state institutions. In- stead they focused on commercial exploitation and outright plunder of the mineral and natural wealth. The excep- tions to this are the settler-colonies of South Africa, Rhodesia, and to a lesser extent Kenya. Following independence, the situation could have changed but did not, because the international state system and the United Nations decided to enforce the colonial boundaries that had largely determined the form that the new nations took. This trend was re- inforced by Cold-War politics. Thus Af- rican states were still able to survive without having to engage in the type of 3 In line with his thesis, it is interesting to note that in Britain the first Ordinance Survey, the gov- ernment institutionalization of mapping, was orga- nized during the Napoleonic Wars so that the mili- tary would have first-rate maps in case the French invaded. institution building that occurred his- torically in Europe. When the borders were threatened, such as when Libya invaded Chad, they could rely on the United Nations or European powers to send troops to the rescue. Herbst argues that the lack of devel- opment of African state institutions helps explain many aspects of modern Africa. Since states never had to fight to survive they never had to build effec- tive fiscal institutions. Therefore they have no tax bases and instead have to engage in highly distortionary methods of raising taxes (such as taxing trade) or redistributing income (for example via employment in parastatals). Since states never had to fight to survive, rulers never had to consolidate their rule and crush domestic opposition; hence the incidence of warlordism so evident in countries such as Angola, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. States never had to make political concessions to their citizens, hence the lack of functioning domestic political institutions such as parliaments and the completely unconsolidated na- ture of democracy in Africa. Moreover, the lack of these institutions can help explain the extent of venality and state corruption in Africa since these institu- tions provide key checks on such abuses. Finally, this set of institutions has been further encouraged in the last fifty years by foreign aid and develop- ment assistance. These transfers give states valuable resources that allow them to stay in power without having to develop indigenous state institutions to raise taxes. Thus the incapacity of Afri- can states was reinforced not just by Cold-War politics but also by less cynical attempts to help.4 The extent to which Herbst uses his simple theory to paint an explanation of 4 See van de Walle (2001) for a related argu- ment.This content downloaded from 132.174.252.179 on Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:49:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
514 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XL (June 2002) so many of Africa’s apparent problems is startling. But how convincing is it? I address several aspects. 3. Population Density Herbst emphasizes the role of popu- lation density in importantly influenc- ing the retarded development of mod- ern state institutions in Africa. The idea that states are closely connected to the density of population is a natural one. From an efficiency point of view it seems likely that the density of popula- tion may affect the desirability of pro- viding a public good, and more preda- tory theories have similar implications. Even within the African literature the idea has been studied; Stevenson (1968) and Robert Bates (1983) provided some tentative empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis within Africa. Is it right? Certainly, within Europe, the notion that early states emerged in the most populous places fits the facts. Yet out- side of Europe, in countries that be- came colonies of Europe, the picture is less clear. Prior to the expansion of Europe after 1415,5 the notion that areas of higher population density had more developed states is correct. Within the Americas, for example, the highest areas of population density were in the central valley of Mexico, the highlands of Chiapas and Guate- mala, and the Andes. These were the places with the most-developed state in- stitutions. The same is true of Africa and Asia. Yet if we look at the five hun- dred years following this date, what is the connection between population density and state formation outside of Europe? The countries today that have the most effective and well-developed states are not those that had high popu- 5 It is conventional to date the expansion of Europe to 1415 when the Portuguese took Ceuta in North Africa. lation density in 1500. Rather they are the countries the “Neo-Europes” as Crosby (1986) called them, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand that historically had very low population densities. Indeed, Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001b) show that, amongst former colonies of the European powers, there is a robust and statistically significant inverse relationship between population density in 1500 and per-capita GDP in 1995. What accounts for these patterns? The obvious explanation is the nature of colonial conquest and institution build- ing.6 On the one hand, in places where the Europeans found high densities of population, they created institutions that exploited them as a resource. In places such as Mexico, Peru, and Haiti, there was little protection for property rights. Indeed, the colonial state and its commercial partners constructed “ex- tractive institutions” to plunder the re- sources of the colonies and ship them back to the metropole. On the other hand, places with low population den- sity were often in temperate latitudes with climate and mortality risks that favored Europeans relative to the trop- ics. Moreover, these places were largely without indigenous peoples to exploit, and colonies could only be built on the basis of European migration. Thus the Jamestown colony founded in the United States in 1607 had to induce Englishmen to go and work there to make money. Settler colonies devel- oped remarkably different institutions and political economies than “colonies of plunder.” Settler colonies quickly featured more representative political institutions and property rights and so the colonial powers were unable to extract resources from them in the 6 I follow Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001a,b).This content downloaded from 132.174.252.179 on Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:49:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Robinson: States and Power in Africa 515 same way that they could in nonsettler colonies. Paradoxically therefore, the more a country had developed previous to European contact, the worse it sub- sequently performed. Apart from the at- tractiveness of enslaving dense popula- tions to do forced labor, such polities might have also innovated institutions of tribute and taxation that the Europe- ans could take over. Good examples of this are French Indochina, and British India where, Marshall (1998, p. 504) notes, “Indian states were built on the taxation levied from the cultivators of the land; the British Empire in India was built on the same foundations. Whereas the public revenues in British American colonies consisted of grants, usually grudgingly voted by assemblies, or the limited customs duties actually levied in the colonies, the East India Company inherited a system of taxation which aimed at taking without consent one third or even more of the produce of millions of cultivators, and which also laid heavy taxes on trade.” Interestingly, within all former Euro- pean colonies, there is therefore a re- versal in the relationship between population density and state formation over the last half millennium. Focusing on Africa alone, one misses this story, because there is less variation within the continent than the whole sample of former colonies. Moreover, because of the very adverse disease environment for Europeans in Africa, there was little temptation to create settler colonies in sparsely populated tropical areas. It could be that Herbst is correct about Africa. After colonialism the re- versal did not occur because even in the most densely settled areas the popula- tion was not attractive enough to ex- ploit. Alternatively, Europeans did not bother with the population but concen- trated on mineral wealth that was dis- tributed independently of population. Yet we know that there was extensive forced labor, for example in French West Africa and Belgian Congo. My feeling is that the general evidence about the relationship within European colonies between population density and institutions within the last five hun- dred years should make us somewhat skeptical about the specific argument for Africa. 4. Colonialism and Institutions Instead of emphasizing the impact of colonialism on institutions and state formation in Africa, Herbst focuses on factors that he argues are more funda- mental, constraining the choices of precolonial, colonial, and post-colonial institutions: ” . . . it was impossible for Europeans to have changed ‘everything’ in the few decades they ruled Africa. They also had to take Africa’s political geography as a given because they were unwilling and unable to change the landscape” (p. 4). But was the impact of European colo- nialism limited to a few decades? Al- though it is true that formal colonialism was limited in Africa until the “Scram- ble for Africa” following the Berlin con- ference of 1885, western influence on African institutions was pernicious and much older. The Atlantic slave trade gathered force in the early seventeenth century, almost two hundred years be- fore formal colonization took place. There is a large amount of historical evidence that European influence was important long before colonization. One of the most dramatic examples of this comes for the expansion of the Dutch East Indies Company during the seventeenth century. Brown (1997, p. 5) notes, “The forces of the Dutch East India Company . . . seized Batavia in 1619 and the tiny Banda archipelago inThis content downloaded from 132.174.252.179 on Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:49:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
516 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XL (June 2002) 1621. Almost the entire population of Banda, some 15,000, was massacred, taken as slaves or left to starve, while the Company re-populated the islands with Dutch planters and their slave workers, who were to deliver all their production of nutmeg to them . . . by 1680 almost all the remaining ports in the Archipelago had been coerced into exclusive and oppressive trading ar- rangements with the Dutch . . . to cre- ate a monopoly on the highly valuable trade of cloves, [they] destroyed all clove trees outside of Ambon. With Dutch control of production and trade secure, the prices paid to cultivators were set at low levels and Asian inter- mediaries were eliminated from the trading system.” The result “was a deci- sive retreat on the part of Southeast Asians from international commerce. A number of rulers in the Malay archipel- ago brought the cultivation of spices and pepper to a halt, in the hope that this would spare their domain the atten- tion of the marauding Dutch.” There is direct evidence that this caused a dra- matic collapse in the economies and polities of the region, particularly mani- fested in steeply declining urbanization (Reid 1993, ch. 2). Notice that this is a full two and a half centuries before most of Southeast Asia was colonized. The Dutch held little outside of Java and a few key ports before the nineteenth century. Similar impacts were felt in Africa, with the Atlantic slave trade being the most pernicious form of western con- tact.7 Though Herbst notes that (p. 43) “the slave trade only contributed to the notion that true power was not synony- 7I do not want to argue that only Westerners were involved in the slave trade, or even that the Atlantic slave trade was more pernicious than other sorts. Slaving across the Sahara and along the east coast of Africa long predated the Atlantic trade. mous with the control of land,” my hunch is that, relative to other factors, he underestimates the impact of the trade on institutions. As Manning (1990, p. 147) argues, “with the allure of imported goods and the brutality of capture, slave traders broke down barri- ers isolating Africans in their communi- ties. Merchants and warlords spread the tentacles of their influence into almost every corner of the continent. By the nineteenth century, much of the conti- nent was militarized; great kingdoms and powerful warlords rose and fell, their fate linked to fluctuations in the slave trade.” There is a lot of evidence that the slave trade had a significant and sustained impact on political and social institutions in Africa (see Miller 1988, ch. 4 for examples). One major casual channel appears to have been that states reorganized themselves to- ward slave raiding and predation of their own citizens instead of providing public goods. For example, Miller (1988, p. 23) notes that judicial institu- tions were transformed from “institu- tions of arbitration to tribunals con- demning [the] accused . . . to sale.” The expansion of the slave trade ap- pears to have been a type of “resource curse” rather like the modern emphasis on how natural resource rents can lead ultimately to institutional failure. Indeed, even in terms of Herbst’s own emphasis on population density slavery may have been significant. Fol- lowing Curtin’s seminal study (1969) it is now estimated that about ten million Africans were enslaved and shipped across the Atlantic. This was a signifi- cant proportion of the total population. For instance, Manning (1990, p. 71) notes, “To summarize for the Western Coast of Africa as a whole . . . popula- tion growth was slowed by the export of slaves even before the eighteenth cen- tury, but . . . from 1730 to 1850 theThis content downloaded from 132.174.252.179 on Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:49:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Robinson: States and Power in Africa 517 population . . . as whole was reduced . . . The African slave population cre- ated by this trade rose . . . at the turn of the nineteenth century, to perhaps 15 percent of the total Western Coast population.” It is interesting that the current con- ventional wisdom (see for example Engerman and Sokoloff 1997) is that slavery in the Americas had a significant and enduring perverse impact on insti- tutions and development patterns. I would hypothesize that slavery induced predatory institutions and significant adverse influence on development paths not just in the Americas where the slaves were used, but also in Africa where the slaves originated. 5. A State Organized for What? There is remarkably little discussion in the literature on state formation and state capacity about whether the pro- cess of state building was a good thing on balance. Herbst’s discussion follows in this tradition. He takes it for granted that it would be better if in Africa there were more competent states which were better organized. This view is impor- tant, for the policy implications he suggests follow from his analysis. Modern states in Europe and North America not only provide public goods like order, education, health and wel- fare services for their people (or at least some of their people), they also spend a huge amount of resources on the military and weaponry. Though modern nation states appeared as the industrial revolution unfolded, it is not clear to what extent they can gain any direct credit for this. What they can certainly gain credit for is a huge militarization of society that led to two world wars and almost to the annihilation of hu- manity with nuclear weapons. Perhaps it would have been better if Germany and Japan had had less-developed state institutions in the twentieth century. I think this suggests that we need to con- sider the question: state capacity for what? History suggests that there can be no guarantee that fiscal institutions and bureaucracies are necessarily used to promote social welfare. Interestingly, there is an African example that is stark testimony to this-Rwanda. Rwanda and Burundi have very high population den- sities, indeed the highest in Africa. In line with Herbst’s thesis they have his- torically had relatively well-developed, bureaucratized state institutions. Yet in- stead of allowing these states to better promote the welfare of their citizens;, they have instead enabled these states to more effectively massacre them. As the definitive study by Alison Des Forges and her coworkers (1999) demonstrates, one of the main reasons why the Rwan- dan genocide of 1994 entailed such a huge loss of life was that the killers used the bureaucratic capacity of the state to undertake it in a more systematic way than would have been possible in other African countries. The genocide was planned and systematically executed. We should therefore exercise caution in discussing state capacity without at the same time discussing institutions for determining the goals to which the capacity is used. 6. Conclusions Social science theories aim to provide simple ways of classifying and under- standing an endlessly complex reality. No social science theory has an R2 equal to one, and Herbst’s theory of comparative state formation is not an exception.8 With a few simple notions, however, Jeffrey Herbst provides an 8 I am grateful to Canice Prendergast for providing me with this analogy.This content downloaded from 132.174.252.179 on Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:49:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
518 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XL (June 2002) explanation of state failure in Africa. It seems highly plausible that this institu- tional failure is the key source of misery in the lives of millions of people. It means that basic services such as clean water, health care, and education are not provided. It means that people have to live plagued by lawlessness and inse- curity, that they live short lives in soci- eties over which they have little ability to influence collective decisions. Herbst persuasively argues that the key to this situation is to be found in the historical evolution of African state institutions. Due to low population density, lack of interstate conflict, and the perverse role of colonialism and the international state system, African states did not de- velop institutions that could effectively control and police their territories. They did not develop institutions to mo- bilize resources or mobilize people. Out of this flows a lack of democracy, much corruption, and bad economic policies. I think Herbst is correct in his focus on state failure and its deep historical roots. My main disagreement is on the relative influence of different forces on the origins of African state institutions. Rather than emphasize population den- sity, I would instead argue that it is the expansion of Europe starting in the fif- teenth century and ultimately leading to full colonization that played the major role. Nevertheless, this is ultimately an empirical issue. Many factors affect state formation, and European colonial- ism interacted with existing population density and institutions in ways that we do not fully understand. I completely agree with him about the perverse role of the international state system, the Cold War, and foreign development assistance, and I think his account of the evolution of African post-colonial states is highly convincing. One final caveat: In the final chapter of his book Herbst asks what we can do about state failure in Africa. His main conclusion is that we should be pre- pared to encourage the disintegration of the system of African states as we now know them. Although there is a worry that (p. 266) “recognizing new African states will lead to a splintering process that would promote the creation of ever-smaller units while entailing seem- ingly endless political chaos,” Herbst argues that “at some point, the reality of disintegrating dysfunctional African states stands in such contrast to the le- gal fiction of sovereign states that ex- perimentation with regard to new states is in order.” I am not convinced by his argument. Historically arbitrary states consolidated in Latin America, and though this process takes time it does seem to create national identity that is endogenous to national boundaries. Surely promoting democracy and voice is a better option in Africa. If building state capacity is socially desirable, but not in the interests of narrow elites, then it ought to be an outcome of democratic political choice where elites have to respond to what citizens want. Moreover, democracy would simultane- ously solve the problem of the uses to which expanded state capacity would be put (surely a grave worry). If we are to develop a satisfying the- ory of comparative development by ap- pealing to differences in institutional structures then we have to embark on the type of study that Jeffrey Herbst has undertaken. We have to study politics and we have to study history. Collective institutions persist over long periods of time. This is not appealing to econo- mists because of the lack of hard quan- titative data. Yet much factual informa- tion remains unexploited, and there is a vast wealth of knowledge in economic and political history, political science, and political sociology that can be tapped. What is needed is the type ofThis content downloaded from 132.174.252.179 on Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:49:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Robinson: States and Power in Africa 519 bold, historically informed theoretical analyses that Herbst has provided. After this comes measurement, testing, and refining of hypotheses. Though I have already indicated that I am not wholly convinced by parts of Herbst’s empiri- cal emphasis, I am entirely convinced of the value and power of his approach. REFERENCES Acemoglu, Daron; Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson. 2001a. “The Colonial Origins of Com- parative Development: An Empirical Investiga- tion,” Amer. Econ. Rev. 91:5, pp. 1369-1401. . 2001b. “Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution,” NBER work. paper 8460. Bates, Robert H. 1983. “The Centralization of Af- rican Societies,” Chapter 2 of his Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa, Berkeley: U. Cal Press. Brown, Ian. 1997. Economic Change in South-East Asia, 1830-1980, NY: Oxford U. Press. Camacho Roldan, Salvador. 1895. Escritos Varios, vol. 3. Bogota: Librerfa Colombiana. Crosby, Alfred. 1986. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900, NY: Cambridge U. Press. Curtin, Phi[ip D. 1969. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: U. Wisconsin Press. Des Forges, Alison et al. 1999. Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda. NY: Human Rights Watch. Easterly, William and Ross Levine. 1997. “Africa’s Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divi- sions,” Quart. J. Econ. 112, pp. 1203-50. Engerman, Stanley L. and Kenneth L. Sokoloff. 1997. “Factor Endowments, Institutions, and Differential Growth Paths among New World Economies,” in How Latin America Fell Be- hind. Stephen Haber, ed. Stanford: Stanford U. Press. Glaeser, Edward and Andrei Shleifer. 2001. “Legal Origins,” NBER work. paper 8272. Hall, Robert E. and Charles I. Jones. 1999. “Why Do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?” Quart. J. Econ. 114, pp. 83-116. Jones, Eric L. 1987. The European Miracle: Envi- ronments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia, 2nd ed., NY: Cam- bridge U. Press. Manning, Patrick. 1990. Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental and African Slave Trades. NY: Cambridge U. Press. Marshall, P. J. 1998. “The British in Asia: Trade to Dominion, 1700-1765,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. II, The Eighteenth Century. P. J. Marshall ed. NY: Oxford U. Press. Miller, Joseph C. 1988. Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730- 1830. Madison: U. Wisconsin Press. North, Douglass C. and Barry R. Weingast. 1989. “Constitutions and Commitment: Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seven- teenth Century England,” J. Econ. Hist. 49, pp. 803-32. Reid, Anthony. 1993. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450-1680; vol. 2, Expansion and Crisis. New Haven: Yale U. Press. Stevenson, Robert F. 1968. Population and Politi- cal Systems in Tropical Africa. NY: Columbia U. Press. Tilly, Charles. 1990. Coercion, Capital and Euro- pean States AD 990-1992, Cambridge MA: Blackwell. van de Walle, Nicolas. 2001. African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 19 79- 1999. NY: Cambridge U. Press.This content downloaded from 132.174.252.179 on Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:49:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
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