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. This section attempts to explain these seemingly contradictory implications of traditional institutions. 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 relationship between traditional leadership and inherited western-style governance institutions often generates tensions. Thus, despite abolition efforts by postcolonial states and the arguments against the traditional institutions in the literature, the systems endure and remain rather indispensable for the communities in traditional economic systems. Africa's tumultuous political history has resulted in extreme disparities between the wealth and stability of its countries. Impact of Historical Origins of African State System2. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Yet political stability cannot be based on state power alone, except in the short run. Regardless, fragmentation of institutional systems poses a number of serious challenges to Africas governance and economic development. The initial constitutions and legal systems were derived from the terminal colonial era. But established and recognized forms of inherited rule cannot be lightly dismissed as un-modern, especially when linked to the identity of an ethnic or tribal group, and could be construed as a building block of legitimacy. One-sided violence against unarmed civilians has also spiked up since 2011.4, These numbers require three major points of clarification. However, at the lower level of the hierarchy of the centralized system, the difference between the centralized and decentralized systems tends to narrow notably. 20-27, at p. 21; Carey N. Vicenti 'The re-emergence of tribal society and traditional justice systems' Judicature, Vol. All the characteristic features of a traditional society are, for obvious reasons, reflected in the education system. 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. For example, the election day itself goes more or less peacefully, the vote tabulation process is opaque or obscure, and the entire process is shaped by a pre-election playing field skewed decisively in favor of the incumbents. The article has three principal objectives and is organized into four parts. This chapter examines traditional leadership within the context of the emerging constitutional democracy in Ghana. 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. 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 must know the traditional songs and must also be able to improvise songs about current events and chance incidents. Legitimate authority, in turn, is based on accepted laws and norms rather than the arbitrary, unconstrained power of the rulers. The geography of South Africa is vast scrubland in the interior, the Namib Desert in the northwest, and tropics in the southeast. Legal norms are an integral part of the discussion about inclusivity since they affect every aspect of economic and personal life; this poses a critical question over whether individual rights or group rights take precedence in the normative hierarchy. Even so, customary law still exerts a strong . 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. Less than 20% of Africa's states achieved statehood following rebellion or armed insurgency; in the others, independence flowed from . Executive, legislative, and judicial functions are generally attributed by most modern African constitutions to presidents and prime ministers, parliaments, and modern judiciaries. Chieftaincy is further plagued with its own internal problems, including issues of relevance, succession, patriarchy, jurisdiction, corruption and intra-tribal conflict. As noted, African countries have experienced the rise of the modern (capitalist) economic system along with its corresponding institutional systems. One common feature is recognition of customary property rights laws, especially that of land. Long-standing kingdoms such as those in Morocco and Swaziland are recognized national states. With its eminent scholars and world-renowned library and archives, the Hoover Institution seeks to improve the human condition by advancing ideas that promote economic opportunity and prosperity, while securing and safeguarding peace for America and all mankind. Table 1 shows the proportion of the population that operates under traditional economic systems in selected African countries. The result is transitory resilience of the regime, but shaky political stability, declining cohesion, and eventual conflict or violent change. Introduction: The Meaning of the Concept Government 1.1. Pre-colonial Administration of the Yorubas. 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. Unlike the laws of the state, traditional institutions rarely have the coercive powers to enforce their customary laws. Presently, Nigeria practices the federal system. In Module Seven A: African History, you explored the histories of a wide diversity of pre-colonial African societies. Traditional and informal justice systems aim at restoring social cohesion within the community by promoting reconciliation between disputing parties. 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. Many African countries, Ghana and Uganda, for example, have, like all other states, formal institutions of the state and informal institutions (societal norms, customs, and practices). 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. There is strong demand for jobs, better economic management, reduced inequality and corruption and such outcome deliverables as health, education and infrastructure.22 Those outcomes require effective governance institutions. Government, Public Policy Performance, Types of Government. The place and role of African Youth in Pre-independence African Governance Systems 19-20 1.7. The usual plethora of bour- 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. However, they do not have custodianship of land and they generally do not dispense justice on their own. The Sultanes of Somalia are examples of this category and the community has specific criteria as to who is qualified to be a chief (Ahmed, 2017). Yet, the traditional judicial system in most cases operates outside of the states institutional framework. Your gift helps advance ideas that promote a free society. In Africa, as in every region, it is the quality and characteristics of governance that shape the level of peace and stability and the prospects for economic development. African indigenous education was. Leaders may not be the only ones who support this definition of legitimacy. As Mamdani has argued, understanding the role of traditional leadership and customary law in contemporary African societies requires us to understand its history. Legitimacy based on successful predation and state capture was well known to the Plantagenets and Tudors as well as the Hapsburgs, Medicis, and Romanovs, to say nothing of the Mughal descendants of Genghis Khan.14 In this fifth model of imagined legitimacy, some African leaders operate essentially on patrimonial principles that Vladimir Putin can easily recognize (the Dos Santos era in Angola, the DRC under Mobutu and Kabila, the Eyadema, Bongo, Biya, and Obiang regimes in Togo, Gabon, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea, respectively).15 Such regimes may seek to perpetuate themselves by positioning wives or sons to inherit power. 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. In addition, according to Chirayath et al. The size and intensity of adherence to the traditional economic and institutional systems, however, vary from country to country. It should not be surprising that there is a weak social compact between state and society in many African states. These include macro variables such as educational access (especially for women), climate change impact and mitigation, development and income growth rates, demographic trends, internet access, urbanization rates, and conflict events. 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. The regime in this case captures the state, co-opts the security organs, and dissolves civil society. These partners, for their part, sometimes disengaged from close political ties and often brought new governance conditions into their assistance programs. In sum, the digitization of African politics raises real challenges for political leaders and has the potential to increase their determination to digitize their own tools of political control. Similarly, the process of conflict resolution is undertaken in an open assembly and is intended to reconcile parties in conflict rather than to merely punish offenders. For these and other reasons, the state-society gap lies at the heart of the problems faced by many states. Invented chiefs and state-paid elders: These were chiefs imposed by the colonial state on decentralized communities without centralized authority systems. There is little doubt that colonial occupation and the ensuing restructuring of African political entities and socioeconomic systems altered African traditional institutions of governance. Furthermore, for generations, Africans were taught the Western notion of the tribe as . Prominent among these Sudanic states was the Soninke Kingdom of Ancient Ghana. Council of elders: These systems essentially operate on consensual decision-making arrangements that vary from one place to another. The selection, however, is often from the children of a chief. 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. Third, Africas conflict burden reflects different forms and sources of violence that sometimes become linked to each other: political movements may gain financing and coercive support from criminal networks and traffickers, while religious militants with connections to terrorist groups are often adept at making common cause with local grievance activists. Galizzi, Paolo and Abotsi, Ernest K., Traditional Institutions and Governance in Modern African Democracies (May 9, 2011). The chapter further examines the dabbling of traditional leaders in the political process in spite of the proscription of the institution from mainstream politics and, in this context, analyzes the policy rationale for attempting to detach chieftaincy from partisan politics. Rather, they often rely on voluntary compliance, although they also apply some soft power to discourage noncompliance by members with customary laws. The post-colonial State, on the other hand . Analysis here is thus limited to traditional authority systems under the postcolonial experience. It also develops a theoretical framework for the . 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. A third objective is to examine the relevance of traditional institutions. The colonial system constitutes the second section. 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. Building an inclusive political system also raises the question of what levels of the society to include and how to assure that local communities as well as groups operating at the national level can get their voices heard. Note: The term rural population is used as a proxy for the population operating under traditional economic systems. Despite undergoing changes, present-day African traditional institutions, namely the customary laws, the judicial systems and conflict resolution mechanisms, and the property rights and resource allocation practices, largely originate from formal institutions of governance that existed under precolonial African political systems. Some live in remote areas beyond the reach of some of the institutions of the state, such as courts. media system, was concerned with the more systematized dissemination of information between the traditional administrative organ and the people (subjects). Both can be identified as forms of governance. Hindrance to democratization: Perhaps among the most important challenges institutional fragmentation poses is to the process of democratization. Its ability to influence policy is limited in large part because of its institutional detachment from the state and because of its poverty and lack of capacity to participate in the political process. Today, the five most common government systems include democracy, republic, monarchy, communism and . Why the traditional systems endure, how the institutional dichotomy impacts the process of building democratic governance, and how the problems of institutional incoherence might be mitigated are issues that have not yet received adequate attention in African studies. Highlight 5 features of government. This layer of institutions is the subject of inquiry of this article. This section grapples with the questions of whether traditional institutions are relevant in the governance of contemporary Africa and what implications their endurance has on Africas socioeconomic development. Seeming preference for Democracy in Africa over other governance systems in Africa before and after independence 15-17 1.5. In many cases European or Islamic legal traditions have replaced or significantly modified traditional African ones. Chester A. Crocker is the James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies at Georgetown University. Problems and Purpose. While comprehensive empirical studies on the magnitude of adherence to traditional institutions are lacking, some studies point out that most people in rural areas prefer the judicial service provided by traditional institutions to those of the state, for a variety of reasons (Logan, 2011; Mengisteab & Hagg, 2017). In some countries, such as Botswana, customary courts are estimated to handle approximately 80% of criminal cases and 90% of civil cases (Sharma, 2004). The evidence suggests that traditional institutions have continued to metamorphose under the postcolonial state, as Africas socioeconomic systems continue to evolve. 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. In this respect, they complement official courts that are often unable to provide court services to all their rural communities. The African state system has gradually developed a stronger indigenous quality only in the last twenty-five years or so. These communities select the Aba Gada, who serves a nonrenewable term of 8 years as leader. To illustrate, when there are 2.2 billion Africans, 50% of whom live in cities, how will those cities (and surrounding countryside) be governed? Paramount chieftaincy is a traditional system of local government and an integral element of governance in some African countries such as Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia and Ivory Coast. These circumstances can generate an authoritarian reflex and the temptation to circle the wagons against all sources of potential opposition. West Africa has a long and complex history. Stated another way, if the abolition of term limits, neo-patrimonialism, and official kleptocracy become a regionally accepted norm, this will make it harder for the better governed states to resist the authoritarian trend. Africas rural communities, which largely operate under subsistent economic systems, overwhelmingly adhere to the traditional institutional systems while urban communities essentially follow the formal institutional systems, although there are people who negotiate the two institutional systems in their daily lives. It is also highly unlikely that such broader aspects of traditional institutions can be eliminated without transforming the traditional modes of production that foster them. Another issue that needs some clarification is the neglect by the literature of the traditional institutions of the political systems without centralized authority structures. Chiefs administer land and people, contribute to the creation of rules that regulate the lives of those under their jurisdiction, and are called on to solve disputes among their subjects. The earliest known recorded history arose in Ancient Egypt . The formal institutions of checks and balances and accountability of leaders to the population are rather weak in this system. Typically, such leaders scheme to rig elections or to change constitutional term limitsactions seen in recent years in such countries as Rwanda and Uganda. Paramount chiefs: Another category of leadership structure is that of hereditary paramount chieftaincy with various traditional titles and various levels of accountability. Security challenges can impose tough choices on governments that may act in ways that compound the problem, opening the door to heightened risks of corruption and the slippery slope of working with criminal entities. The Obas and Caliphs of Nigeria and the Zulu of South Africa are other examples. The key lies in identifying the variables that will shape its context. The Pre-Colonial Period: From the Ashes of Pharaohs to the Berlin Conference At the end of the prehistoric period (10 000 BC), some African nomadic bands began to 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). Rules of procedure were established through customs and traditions some with oral, some with written constitutions Women played active roles in the political system including holding leadership and military positions. An election bound to be held in the year 2019 will unveil the new . for in tradi-tional African communities, politics and religion were closely associated. In Africa, as in every region, it is the quality and characteristics of governance that shape the level of peace and stability and the prospects for economic development. 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. There is also the question of inclusion of specific demographic cohorts: women, youth, and migrants from rural to urban areas (including migrant women) all face issues of exclusion that can have an impact on conflict and governance.
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