State failure in sub-Saharan Africa: the crisis of post-colonial order

Abstract

This is a good book and deserves to be widely read. For the last three decades, a great deal of thought and effort has been put into trying to define what constitutes state failure, what causes it and how it can be overcome. Catherine Scott has made a substantive contribution to this debate in a book that illuminates both the theory and two practical examples of state failure, in Burundi and Uganda. The book has two parts: an extensive, even forensic, examination of the failed state ‘thesis’ and how it has been applied to Africa as a whole; and two case-studies of how the theories match up in practice to the specific examples of Burundi and Uganda, looking at their experience from pre-colonial times, through the colonial period and into the post-independence era when they were at one time or another deemed states that failed. In the first half, Scott challenges the ‘failings of the failed state thesis’, highlighting how much it reflects western assumptions of what a nation-state should be. She notes that the definition has now become so broad (perhaps deliberately, if the international community is looking for a reason to intervene) that it has become almost useless, and redefinitions as ‘weak’, ‘fragile’ or ‘conflict-affected’ do not really help. She concludes that ‘state failure is based on a subjective political judgement, defined and constructed by the “great powers”’ (p. 192). She highlights that in some cases ‘so-called state failure … might actually be a governing strategy’ (p. 56), if central governments see no advantage, or financial benefit, in trying to impose their will on a troublesome hinterland.