An imaginative proposal in a column by Pierre Englebert in today’s NYT:
the international community must move swiftly to derecognize the worst-performing African states.
The problem of Africa that Professor Englebert is nicely fixing was that 50 years ago:
these countries were recognized by the international community before they even really existed.
So because the Western powers (affectionately called here ”the international community”) supported with abundant aid dollars the tyrants who oppressed their own citizens, those same citizens are going to be further punished by those same Western powers who will turn them into stateless persons without a country.
Characteristically for most grand schemes to “fix Africa” from outside, the column does not consider how this proposal might affect individual Africans; it only offers highly speculative hopes for how erasing countries from the map might make the rulers behave better after they no longer have a state to rule.
I have a couple of random thoughts on this for Professor Englebert:
(1) shouldn’t you have considered an intermediate step of stripping the tyrants of just the aid dollars, while allowing the citizens to keep their own countries?
(2) do you really think the World Cup was the best time to propose such a scheme? I myself had not noticed the phenomenon of Africans not caring about the football teams of their non-existent nations.
11 Comments
for once, i agree with you.
what a disgusting column.
Bill, this is a blatant misrepresentation of Englebert’s point. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, but he’s not arguing that Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, South Africa, Cameroon, Algeria, or Ghana lose their international legitimacy that comes through recognition. The fact that these states are able to field viable football teams suggests that they are stronger states. And that’s well outside of the point Englebert is trying to make here.
Englebert is very clearly talking about the states that are basket cases (what we might call “failed states” if you didn’t dislike the term so much). And I think there’s a point to that – one that is directly tied to foreign aid. Why, for example, should we continue with the fiction that the government in Mogadishu is viable in any meaningful sense? Wouldn’t it be better to attribute recognition to a place like Somaliland, which, for all its faults, certainly meets more of the attributes of statehood than the rest of the territory? Cutting off legitimacy means cutting off aid by default; we generally don’t aid non-state actors. If you’re really interested in aid actually benefiting people, why not cut it off – along with all semblance of pretending those tyrants have any real claim to authority over a given territorial area – and redirect it to people who might use it well?
When one reads what Englebert actually says in his scholarly writing, then it seems much along the lines of the recent AidWatchers post criticizing World Bank support for the tyranny in Ethiopia. Here is his summary of points in a paper on failed states in Africa:
“This article is organized around three flawed assumptions that underpin reconstruction failures in Africa. First is the implicit assumption that Western state institutions can be successfully transferred to Africa. The evidence suggests, however, that the region has obstinately resisted attempts at transforming it. The limited success of recent donor-sponsored market reforms and democracy promotion indicates that the grand vision of state building, with its one-size-fits-all approach, is likely to meet resistance. The second faulty assumption concerns the extent to which reconstruction efforts in Africa imply a logic of cooperation between donors and African leaders, which presumes a shared understanding of failure and reconstruction. Many African political elites, however, share neither the diagnosis of failure nor the objectives set out by the foreign promoters of reconstruction policies. Instead, they seek to maximize the benefits accruing to them from these policies, as well as from ongoing political instability. The third flawed assumption is that donors will be able to harness the material, military, and symbolic resources necessary for long-term state reconstruction in Africa. Our data on the international fiscal and military resources allocated to Africa’s failed states suggest instead a lack of political will among donors to sustain the long-term costly efforts that would be consistent with the lofty goals of state reconstruction. In addition, mixed agendas among donors, torn between reconstruction imperatives and their national policy objectives, can undermine the legitimacy of their state-building efforts in the eyes of African societies. In conclusion, we recommend a greater reliance on indigenous state reconstruction efforts and the promotion by donors of African interest groups capable of holding their governments domestically accountable and of generating the processes of social bargaining necessary for sustainable state formation.”
I doubt AidWatchers would disagree with that “In conclusion” recommendation. The full paper is available at: http://www.politics.pomona.edu/penglebert/Flawed%20Ideas_IS2008.32.4.pdf
David’s above point is correct, and Engelbert’s book goes even further in developing those points.
I meant to mention, in the interest of full disclosure, that Pierre was on my dissertation committee, so I am perhaps not an impartial observer to this debate. But I do think you and he have more in common regarding your views on these matters than you might realize.
Interesting debate! I am not familiar with Englebert’s work, but from reading his op-ed I gather his diagnose of African states (and his recomendations) are pretty simmilar to those made before by a number of other authors. Even his idea of “derecognizing” African states is very simmilar to Herbst’s “decertification” of African states – proposed back in 1996 (http://www.audentes.eu/courses/PSCI355/Development/Herbst%201996.pdf)
I can see valid certainly points in the diagnose, but the recomendation of “derecognizing” states will not do. Mostly because it will be limited to not giving aid (which can be good) but insufficient to grant this new name. Unless of course “derecognition” by the UN means that ALL foreign oil companies will stop extracting Ecuatorial Guinea’s oil (to put a relatively straigtforward case). In which case it will work – but it would not be the same world we live in…
I was amused at first when I read the article yesterday but then I later realized that Professor Engleber might be expressing a feeling that I observed many times in Africa, especially after rigged elections. The people usually look up to the international community not to recognize the election and the resulting leaders.
However, that is a few steps away from not to recognize that a country is sovereign.
I think Professor Engleber is very caring about Africa, but I am worry that he may have let his feelings get on the way of his judgment. Although this is an interesting academic debate, it is practically unfeasible and it is reminiscent of colonialism.
As this post points it out, he doesn’t take into account how these countries get to where they are, nor does he take into account the conomics implications for the “International” community for not recognizing Nigeria and DRC (for example), or should I say oil and natural resources?
On an unrelated matters: Go Ghana! what a happy day!
Sadly Professor Englebert has missed it!
he eptomises a group of economist i call “Discover-Channel Economists” because their views are intend to fix Africa from the outside
Why is it that none of the World Cup teams from Africa have African coaches? Doesn’t FIFA care about the optics of that? I haven’t heard one of the commentators mention the irony either. The beauty of this is that absolutely no one seems to think it strange or what the reasons might be. LOL
FIFA is pathetic.
A very interesting discussion brought up by Prof. Englebert.
While I understand where he is coming from to propose this rather combative approach (his frustration with lack of progress in governance) his proposal overlooks another important factor in the equation. The interest western countries have in these states (colonialization was only an instinctive manifestation was that interest). The example of Somaliland, in my mind, can not provide much lesson. I would argue – add oil to Somaliland and it would not be different from the situation in DRC or Nigeria!
The colonial model of predation and plunder was localised in failed African states, with new rulers learning the oppressive methods of the former racist regimes. Decolonisation was botched by the lying politics of spin. Everyone pretended that capacity in poor countries was far higher than the reality, enabling the creation of vicious cycles of corruption and tyranny. Development requires honesty, even if it is painful and confronting. The worst failed states should be made international military protectorates to enforce good governance. This would start them on a virtuous path and provide incentive to their reprobate neighbours to lift their game.
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