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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Anthropologists, political scientists and sociologists have produced many excellent studies of political developments in modern Africa. Much, however, remains to be done; for work interpreting the meaning of modern African politics is barely under way. This essay seeks to contribute to that work. It analyzes African political thought and action in order to uncover the major premises that underlie African political phenomena, and it suggests that clarification of these premises is the necessary preliminary to an adequate theoretical interpretation of modern African politics.
1 Since my analysis has a theoretical rather than the usual sociological orientation, I am concerned throughout this essay with essential themes of African politics and not with the many variations on them in existential reality. The data used are well known to Africanists; and to prevent the article from becoming unduly long, I have refrained from providing documentation. The following books, among many, will be useful to readers interested in tracing the data and in following more elaborate discussions of some themes of this article. Davidson, Basil, Which Way Africa? (Baltimore: Penguin, 1964)Google Scholar. Emerson, Rupert and Kilson, Martin, eds., The Political Awakening of Africa (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965)Google Scholar. Hanna, William John, ed., Independent Black Africa (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964)Google Scholar. Legum, Colin, Pan-Africanism. 2nd ed. (New York: Praeger, 1965)Google Scholar.
2 See Voegelin, Eric, The New Science of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952)Google Scholar. This work is fundamental to the line of thought pursued in this article, and indeed to any adequate analysis of political societies.
3 I sharply distinguish this integral type of understanding from that sought by those who see societies in two dimensions as structural-functional systems and who see the history of societies as mere processes of change.
4 The military coups in 1965–1966 will ultimately have to be explained, but their recentness precludes anything approaching a definitive treatment.
5 Crutcher, John, “Pan-Africanism: African Odyssey,” Current History, 44 (01 1963), 2Google Scholar. Consider the implications for Africans of Arnold Toynbee's thesis that the proper unit of historical intelligibility is the civilization and not the nation or state. In claiming that Africa is the relevant unit, Africans are claiming to be civilized.
6 For the proper and improper uses of the concept charismatic see Friedrich, Carl J., “Political Leadership and the Problem of the Charismatic Power,” Journal of Politics, XXIII (1961), 3–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Compare the attainment of legitimacy by the sultans from the powerless Abbassid caliphs during the 12th century, without the complications of modern ideas. See Sharabi, H. B., Government and Politics of the Middle East in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, 1962), pp. 15–16Google Scholar.
8 It is perhaps not merely coincidental that a similar idea of truth as practical-historical is found in Marxism, an ideology adopted by the leaders of some states as modern and yet anti-Western. See Marx, Karl, “Theses on Feuerbach,” in Marx, and Engels, , Selected Works, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1955), II, 402–404Google Scholar. Also in Islam, which has had a strong influence below the Sahara, divine revelation is a truth about the destiny of the Islamic community in this world as well as a soteriological truth. See Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, Islam in Modern History (New York, 1959), Ch. IGoogle Scholar.
9 It is a relevant fact that the military assumption of power in some African states was supported or welcomed by traditional tribal authorities. The chiefs see the military leaders as little inclined toward ideological nationalism, and they expect from the military some decentralization of power once the formerly dominant party organization is dissolved.