Abstract
This paper situates the Sub-Saharan African state amidst the conflictual interface between the forces of political (Note 1) and economic globalization (Note 2) that have been ushered in the state milieu by neo-liberalism (Note 3). The paper argues that states are situated in an imperialistic globalization with capitalistic economic extirpation as central concern and social justice as a peripheral one. This categorically explicates the persistence of globalised economies and localized oppressive state apparatuses, ideologies and practices. The paper also contends that the forces of economic globalization have superimposed the cultural mantra in the Sub-Saharan Africa state milieu, rendering it virtually impossible to pursue a Rights Based Approach to Development (RBAD). The apparent assault by this globalization from above (economic globalization), continues almost unabated due to absence of an afro centric globalization from below to mitigate the homogenizing effects of economic globalization. Worse still, the inability of political globalization to check the daunting implications of economic globalization using a human rights antidote and the consequent slumber of the glocalisation dialectic in the African state locale explicate the problematic of Africa in the wake of erosion from above (global pillage) and devolution from below.
Highlights
IntroductionThe Sub-Saharan African State a once ontological transcendence (territorial sovereignty) appears to have been subsumed in a neo-liberal empire (global sovereignty) which is an ontological immanence without an outside or centre (Hardt & Negri, 2000, p. xi)
The Sub-Saharan African State a once ontological transcendence appears to have been subsumed in a neo-liberal empire which is an ontological immanence without an outside or centre (Hardt & Negri, 2000, p. xi)
Bourdieu‟s conception makes sense if applied to western liberal states but is very disconnected from the reality of Sub-Saharan African states that have been rendered fragile with the upsurge of neo-liberalism. 1.2 Sovereignty and Reterritorialization In their magnum opus, “empire”, Hardt and Negri explore the immersion of states in an empire without an outside and centre
Summary
The Sub-Saharan African State a once ontological transcendence (territorial sovereignty) appears to have been subsumed in a neo-liberal empire (global sovereignty) which is an ontological immanence without an outside or centre (Hardt & Negri, 2000, p. xi). He sees the “modern state emerging from the culmination of a process of concentration of different species of capital: capital of physical force or instruments of coercion (army, police), economic capital, cultural capital or (better) informational capital, and symbolic capital It is this concentration as such which constitutes the state as the holder of a sort of meta-capital granting power over other species of capital and over their holders” It is pertinent to understand globalization through the means of critical ethnography—a methodology that explores how markets interact with political rule, social forms, and the production of cultural values across uneven geographies and histories of the modern. There is no doubt that global economic liberalization leads to the crack up of sovereign states but this does not mean de-sovereignisation, in other words there is a difference between diminishing sovereignty and sovereignty extirpation
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