Long-standing kingdoms such as those in Morocco and Swaziland are recognized national states. Many others choose the customary laws and conflict resolution mechanisms because they correspond better to their way of life. An election bound to be held in the year 2019 will unveil the new . To complicate matters further, the role of traditional institutions is likely to be critical in addressing the problem of institutional fragmentation. In traditional African communities, it was not possible to distinguish between religious and non-religious areas of life. As noted, African countries have experienced the rise of the modern (capitalist) economic system along with its corresponding institutional systems. Traditional affairs. Political leaders everywhere face competing demands in this regard. The cases of Nigeria, Kenya, and South Sudan suggest that each case must be assessed on its own merits. Another reason is that African leaders of the postcolonial state, who wanted to consolidate their power, did not want other points of power that would compromise their control. 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 This chapter examines traditional leadership within the context of the emerging constitutional democracy in Ghana. 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. 2. They succeed when there are political conditions that permit a broad coalition to impose pluralist political institutions and limits and restraints on ruling elites.20 Thus, resilience of both state and society may hinge in the end on the rule of law replacing the rule of men. Another issue that needs some clarification is the neglect by the literature of the traditional institutions of the political systems without centralized authority structures. Stagnant economy, absence of diversification in occupational patterns and allegiance to traditionall these have a bearing on the system of education prevailing in these societies. Three layers of institutions characterize most African countries. Womens inequality in the traditional system is related, at least in part, to age- and gender-based divisions of labor characterizing traditional economic systems. 134-141. This layer of institutions is the subject of inquiry of this article. If African political elite opinion converges with that of major external voices in favoring stabilization over liberal peacebuilding agendas, the implications for governance are fairly clear.17. Leaders may not be the only ones who support this definition of legitimacy. Three layers of institutions characterize most African countries. African conflict trends point to a complex picture, made more so by the differing methodologies used by different research groups. Regardless, fragmentation of institutional systems poses a number of serious challenges to Africas governance and economic development. The traditional justice system, thus, does not have the power to grant any rights beyond the local level. Maintenance of law and order: the primary and most important function of the government is to maintain law and order in a state. However, institutions are rarely static and they undergo changes induced by internal transformations of broader socioeconomic systems or by external influences or imposition, and in some cases by a combination of the two forces. Perhaps a more realistic transitional approach would be to reconcile the parallel institutions while simultaneously pursuing policies that transform traditional economic systems. Presently, Nigeria practices the federal system. Admittedly, the problem is by no means uniquely African, but it is very commonly experienced in Africa. In many tribes, the chief was the representative of the ancestors. The implementation of these systems often . In direct contrast is the second model: statist, performance-based legitimacy, measured typically in terms of economic growth and domestic stability as well as government-provided servicesthe legitimacy claimed by leaders in Uganda and Rwanda, among others. media system, was concerned with the more systematized dissemination of information between the traditional administrative organ and the people (subjects). They dispense justice, resolve conflicts, and enforce contracts, even though such services are conducted in different ways in different authority systems. African political systems are described in a number of textbooks and general books on African history. Most African countries are characterized by parallel institutions, one representing the formal laws of the state and the other representing the traditional institutions that are adhered to more commonly in rural areas. Our data indicate that traditional leaders, chiefs and elders clearly still play an important role in the lives However, three countries, Botswana, Somaliland, and South Africa, have undertaken differing measures with varying levels of success. 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. Such post-electoral pacts reflect the conclusion that stability is more important than democracy. Hoover scholars form the Institutions core and create breakthrough ideas aligned with our mission and ideals. African Traditional Political System and Institution: University of The Gambia, Faculty of humanities and social sciences. This discussion leads to an analysis of African conflict trends to help identify the most conflict-burdened sub-regions and to highlight the intimate link between governance and conflict patterns. He served as assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 1981 to 1989. Large states and those with complex ethnic and geographic featurese.g., the DRC, Nigeria, Uganda, the Sudans, Ethiopiamay be especially prone to such multi-sourced violence. Thus, another report by PRIO and the University of Uppsala (two Norwegian and Swedish centers) breaks conflict down into state-based (where at least one party is a government), non-state-based (neither party is an official state actor), and one-sided conflicts (an armed faction against unarmed civilians). The traditional African religions (or traditional beliefs and practices of African people) are a set of highly diverse beliefs that include various ethnic religions . Institutional dichotomy also seems to be a characteristic of transitional societies, which are between modes of production. The evidence suggests that traditional institutions have continued to metamorphose under the postcolonial state, as Africas socioeconomic systems continue to evolve. The key . Changes in economic and political systems trigger the need for new institutional systems to manage the new economic and political systems, while endurance of economic and political systems foster durability of existing institutional systems. 1. The quality and durability of such leader-defined adaptive resilience cannot be assured and can be reversed unless the associated norms become institutionalized. In these relatively new nations, the critical task for leadership is to build a social contract that is sufficiently inclusive to permit the management of diversity. 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. The roles that traditional authorities can play in the process of good governance can broadly be separated into three categories: first, their advisory role to government, as well as their participatory role in the administration of regions and districts; second, their developmental role, complementing government?s efforts in mobilizing the . Invented chiefs and state-paid elders: These were chiefs imposed by the colonial state on decentralized communities without centralized authority systems. This category of chiefs serves their communities in various and sometimes complex roles, which includes spiritual service. The traditional Africa system of government is open and inclusive, where strangers, foreigners and even slaves could participate in the decision-making process. A related reason for their relevance is that traditional institutions, unlike the state, provide rural communities the platform to participate directly in their own governance. But African societies are exposed to especially severe pressures, and governments must operate in an environment of high social demands and limited resources and capacity with which to meet them. This approach to governance was prominent in the Oyo empire. After examining the history, challenges, and opportunities for the institution of traditional leadership within a modern democracy, the chapter considers the effect of the current constitutional guarantee for chieftaincy and evaluates its practical workability and structural efficiency under the current governance system. This brief essay began by identifying the state-society gap as the central challenge for African governance. African states are by no means homogeneous in terms of governance standards: as the Mo Ibrahim index based on 14 governance categories reported in 2015, some 70 points on a scale of 100 separated the best and worst performers.16. However, the traditional judicial system has some weaknesses, especially with respect to gender equality. In some societies, traditional, tribal authorities may offer informed and genuinely accepted governance, provided that they are not merely government appointees pursuing decentralized self-enrichment. African Governance: Challenges and Their Implications. 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. States would be more effective in reforming the traditional judicial system if they recognized them rather than neglecting them, as often is the case. Hoover scholars offer analysis of current policy challenges and provide solutions on how America can advance freedom, peace, and prosperity. 20-27, at p. 21; Carey N. Vicenti 'The re-emergence of tribal society and traditional justice systems' Judicature, Vol. They are the key players in providing judicial service and in conflict management in much of rural Africa. In African-style democracy the rule of law is only applicable to ordinary people unconnected to the governing party leadership or leader. Such chiefs also have rather limited powers. Command economies, as opposed to free-market economies, do not allow market forces like supply and demand to determine production or prices. Issues of corruption and transparency are likely to become driving themes in African politics. The government is undertaking a review of local government, which includes a commitment to introduce direct election of metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCEs). It may be useful to recall that historical kingships or dynasties were the common form of rule in Europe, India, China until modern times, and still is the predominant form of rule on the Arabian Peninsula. Nonhereditary selected leaders with constitutional power: A good example of this is the Gada system of the Oromo in Ethiopia and Kenya. The leader is accountable to various levels of elders, who serve as legislators and as judges (Legesse, 1973; Taa, 2017). Traditional and informal justice systems aim at restoring social cohesion within the community by promoting reconciliation between disputing parties. The traditional and informal justice systems, it is argued offers greater access to justice. They must know the traditional songs and must also be able to improvise songs about current events and chance incidents. The key lies in identifying the variables that will shape its context. the system even after independence. With the dawn of colonialism in Africa, the traditional African government was sys-tematically weakened, and the strong and influential bond between traditional lead- . One is that the leaders of the postcolonial state saw traditional institutions and their leadership as archaic vestiges of the past that no longer had a place in Africas modern system of governance. However, they do not have custodianship of land and they generally do not dispense justice on their own. In some countries, such as Botswana, customary courts are estimated to handle approximately 80% of criminal cases and 90% of civil cases (Sharma, 2004). While this attribute of the traditional system may not be practical at the national level, it can be viable at local levels and help promote democratic values. Using a second conflict lens, the number of non-state conflicts has increased dramatically in recent years, peaking in 2017 with 50 non-state conflicts, compared to 24 in 2011. An analytical study and impact of colonialism on pre-colonial centralized and decentralized African Traditional and Political Systems. for in tradi-tional African communities, politics and religion were closely associated. Traditional leaders would also be able to use local governance as a platform for exerting some influence on national policymaking. The system of government in the traditional Yoruba society was partially centralised and highly democratic. To illustrate, when there are 2.2 billion Africans, 50% of whom live in cities, how will those cities (and surrounding countryside) be governed? Institutional systems emanate from the broader economic and political systems, although they also affect the performance of the economic and political systems. Violating customary property rights, especially land takings, without adequate compensation impedes institutional reconciliation by impoverishing rather than transforming communities operating in the traditional economic system. It seems clear that Africas conflict burden declined steadily after the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s owing to successful peace processes outstripping the outbreak of new conflicts; but the burden has been spiking up again since then. Table 1 shows the proportion of the population that operates under traditional economic systems in selected African countries. They also serve as guardians and symbols of cultural values and practices. 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. 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. The first three parts deal with the principal objectives of the article. The size and intensity of adherence to the traditional economic and institutional systems, however, vary from country to country. A second argument is that traditional institutions are hindrances to the development of democratic governance (Mamdani, 1996; Ntsebeza, 2005). Unfortunately, transforming the traditional sector is not an easy undertaking and cannot be achieved in a reasonably short time. The article has three principal objectives and is organized into four parts. Understanding the Gadaa System. In new countries such as most of those in Africa,7 where the rule of law is in competition with the rule of men, leaders play a strikingly critical role, for good or ill. The point here is that peer pressure, examples, and precedents are especially important in a region of 54 states, many of them dependent on satisfactory relations with their neighbors. Posted: 12 May 2011. The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (Alkire, Chatterjee, Conconi, Seth, & Vaz, 2014) estimates that the share of rural poverty to total poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is about 73.8%. More frequently, this form of rule operates at the sub-state level as in the case of the emir of Kano or the Sultan of Sokoto in Nigeria or the former royal establishments of the Baganda (Uganda) or the Ashanti (Ghana). Galizzi, Paolo and Abotsi, Ernest K., Traditional Institutions and Governance in Modern African Democracies (May 9, 2011). 2. At times, devolution has had major fiscal and governance consequences, including serving as a vehicle for co-option and corruption. Large segments of the rural populations, the overwhelming majority in most African countries, continue to adhere principally to traditional institutions. There are also various arguments in the literature against traditional institutions.2 One argument is that chieftaincy impedes the pace of development as it reduces the relevance of the state in the area of social services (Tom Mboya in Osaghae, 1989). Their endurance and coexistence with the institutions of the state has created an institutional dichotomy in much of Africa. Virtually every group was involved in the . For these and other reasons, the state-society gap lies at the heart of the problems faced by many states. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals . What sets Hoover apart from all other policy organizations is its status as a center of scholarly excellence, its locus as a forum of scholarly discussion of public policy, and its ability to bring the conclusions of this scholarship to a public audience. The challenge facing Africas leadersperhaps above all othersis how to govern under conditions of ethnic diversity. Following decolonization, several African countries attempted to abolish aspects of the traditional institutional systems. Prominent among these Sudanic states was the Soninke Kingdom of Ancient Ghana. Music is a form of communication and it plays a functional role in African society . Beyond the traditional sector, traditional institutions also have important attributes that can benefit formal institutions. The pre-colonial system in Yoruba can be described to be democratic because of the inclusion of the principle of checks and balances that had been introduced in the system of administration. Large countries such as the DRC, Ethiopia, and Mozambique are likely to experience pressures against centralized, authoritarian, or one-party governance (whether accompanied by real elections or not). African countries are characterized by fragmentation of various aspects of their political economy, including their institutions of governance. All life was religious . There are several types of government that are traditionally instituted around the world. Such adjustments, however, may require contextualization of the institutions of democracy by adjusting these institutions to reflect African realities. However, the winner takes all system in the individual states is a democracy type of voting system, as the minority gets none of the electoral college votes. Throughout our over one-hundred-year history, our work has directly led to policies that have produced greater freedom, democracy, and opportunity in the United States and the world. These include - murder, burglary, landcase, witchcraft, profaning the deities and homicide. Institutions represent an enduring collection of formal laws and informal rules, customs, codes of conduct, and organized practices that shape human behavior and interaction. Settling a case in an official court, for example, may involve long-distance travel for villagers and it may require lawyers, translators, a long wait, and court fees, while a traditional court rarely involves such costs and inconveniences. In any case, as . While this seems obvious, it is less clear what vectors and drivers will have the most weight in shaping that outcome. Towards a Definition of Government 1.3. Others contend that African countries need to follow a mixed institutional system incorporating the traditional and formal systems (Sklar, 2003). Africas geopolitical environment is shaped by Africans to a considerable degree. Such a consensus-building mechanism can help resolve many of the conflicts related to diversity management and nation-building. Hoover Education Success Initiative | The Papers. Problems and Purpose. His dramatic tenure since April of 2018 appears to be shaking up the states creaky authoritarian services and creating the space for important adaptations such as ending a long-standing state of emergency, freeing political prisoners, reaching out to a wide range of foreign partners, and extending the olive branch to Eritrea with whom Ethiopia had fought a costly war. Its marginalization, in turn, impedes the transformation of the traditional sector, thus extending the fragmentation of institutions. The post-colonial State, on the other hand . There are several types of government systems in African politics: in an absolute monarchy, the head of state and head of government is a monarch with unlimited legal authority,; in a constitutional monarchy, the monarch is a ceremonial figurehead who has few political competences,; in a presidential system, the president is the head of state and head of government, Aristotle was the first to define three principal types of government systems in the fourth century B.C. 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. In this paper, I look first at the emergence of the African state system historically, including colonial legacies and the Cold Wars impact on governance dynamics. This situation supported an external orientation in African politics in which Cold War reference points and former colonial relationships assured that African governments often developed only a limited sense of connection to their own societies. Chester A. Crocker is the James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies at Georgetown University. History. Before delving into the inquiry, clarification of some issues would be helpful in avoiding confusion. This principle is particularly relevant for diversity management, nation-building, and democratization in contemporary Africa. Under conditions where nation-building is in a formative stage, the retribution-seeking judicial system and the winner-take-all multiparty election systems often lead to combustible conditions, which undermine the democratization process. by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University. Legitimate authority, in turn, is based on accepted laws and norms rather than the arbitrary, unconstrained power of the rulers. What policies and laws will determine relations between farmers and urban dwellers, between farmers and herders, between diverse identity groups living in close proximity or encroaching on each others farm land, and between public officials, criminal networks and ordinary citizens? 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 nature of governance is central because it determines whether the exercise of authority is viewed as legitimate. In the thankfully rare cases where national governance breaks down completelySouth Sudan, Somalia, CARits absence is an invitation to every ethnic or geographic community to fend for itselfa classic security dilemma. 14 L.A. Ayinla 'African Philosophy of Law: A Critique' 151, available at

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