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Disengagement from the State in Africa: Reflections on the Experience of Ghana and Guinea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Victor Azarya  and
Naomi Chazan
Victor Azarya
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Naomi Chazan
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Extract

Few questions have galvanized the attention of observers of African affairs in recent years as forcefully as the performance of the state on the continent. The debate on the nature of the state—its capabilities, weaknesses, external and societal connections, and impact—has come to occupy center stage in the field of African political studies. This overriding preoccupation emanates from the underlying assumption that the state constitutes a superior means for the fulfillment of economic and social aspirations; participation in its activities is deemed beneficial, and various sectors of society strive to associate with its institutions and gain access to its resources. Some recent works have cast doubt on this assumption, however, and the trend in the literature has been shifting towards an emphasis on the diminishing role of the state in African social life. However, even in these new studies the focus has been primarily on the state itself, its difficulties, incapacities, and failures, rather than on societal response to its actions.

Type
Escaping the State
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , January 1987 , pp. 106 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1987

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References

The authors would like to thank Eli Bentor, Eti Yakobovich, and Tami Weinstein for their invaluable research assistance, and the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for providing the funds, facilities, and community that made research for this article possible. Thanks are also due to the anonymous reviewers whose comments were most helpful in revising an earlier version of this article.

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