Good and inclusive governance is imperative for Africa's future Impact of Historical Origins of African State System2. States would be more effective in reforming the traditional judicial system if they recognized them rather than neglecting them, as often is the case. Ancient West Africa: Bantu Migrations & the Stateless Society 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. Such adjustments, however, may require contextualization of the institutions of democracy by adjusting these institutions to reflect African realities. African Politics - Political Science - iResearchNet African Traditions - Centuries of African heritage - Victoria Falls Guide One of these is the potential influence exerted by the regions leading states, measured in terms of size, population, economic weight, and overall political clout and leadership prestige. The third section looks at the critical role of political and economic inclusion in shaping peace and stability and points to some of the primary challenges leaders face in deciding how to manage inclusion: whom to include and how to pay for it. Problems and Purpose. Some of these conflicts are, in reality, low-tech, sporadic skirmishes and armed attacks. The endurance of traditional institutions entails complex and paradoxical implications for contemporary Africas governance. The scope of the article is limited to an attempt to explain how the endurance of African traditional institutions is related to the continents economic systems and to shed light on the implications of fragmented institutional systems. Because these governmental institutions reject the indigenous political systems on which African society was built, they have generally failed to bring political . A key factor in the size of adherents of rural institutions, however, seems to depend on the ratio of the population in the traditional economic systems to the total population. 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). The African state system has gradually developed a stronger indigenous quality only in the last twenty-five years or so. Since then, many more have been formulated, but the main themes and ideas have remained. PDF The Local Government System in Ghana - Clgf 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 FUTURE OF AFRICAN CUSTOMARY LAW, Fenrich, Galizzi, Higgins, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2011, Available at SSRN: If you need immediate assistance, call 877-SSRNHelp (877 777 6435) in the United States, or +1 212 448 2500 outside of the United States, 8:30AM to 6:00PM U.S. Eastern, Monday - Friday. Cookie Settings. A partial explanation as to why the traditional systems endure was given in the section Why African Traditional Institutions Endure. The argument in that section was that they endure primarily because they are compatible with traditional economic systems, under which large segments of the African population still operate. Institutions represent an enduring collection of formal laws and informal rules, customs, codes of conduct, and organized practices that shape human behavior and interaction. There is one constitution and one set of laws and rules for ordinary people, and quite other for the ruling family and the politically connected elite. By the mid-1970s, the politics of Africa had turned authoritarian. In many cases European or Islamic legal traditions have replaced or significantly modified traditional African ones. The Obas and Caliphs of Nigeria and the Zulu of South Africa are other examples. South Africa: Introduction >> globalEDGE: Your source for Global 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. the system even after independence. Still another form of legitimacy in Africa sometimes derives from traditional political systems based on some form of kingship. Legitimate authority, in turn, is based on accepted laws and norms rather than the arbitrary, unconstrained power of the rulers. The African Charter: A Printed Futility or a Reflection of Human Rights Traditional Institutions of Governance in Africa With respect to their relevance, traditional institutions remain indispensable for several reasons. One layer represents the formal institutions (laws) of the state. A command economy, also known as a planned economy, is one in which the central government plans, organizes, and controls all economic activities to maximize social welfare. This brief overview of conflict in Africa signals the severity of the security challenges to African governance, especially in those sub-regions that feature persistent and recurrent outbreaks of violence. Recent developments add further complications to the region: (a) the collapse of Libya after 2011, spreading large quantities of arms and trained fighters across the broader Sahel region; (b) the gradual toll of desertification placing severe pressure on traditional herder/farmer relationships in places like Sudan and Nigeria; and, (c) the proliferation of local IS or Al Qaeda franchises in remote, under-governed spaces. 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. For example, the election day itself goes more or less peacefully, the vote tabulation process is opaque or obscure, and the entire process is shaped by a pre-election playing field skewed decisively in favor of the incumbents. Admittedly, the problem is by no means uniquely African, but it is very commonly experienced in Africa. Another issue that needs some clarification is the neglect by the literature of the traditional institutions of the political systems without centralized authority structures. The essay concludes with a sobering reflection on the challenge of achieving resilient governance. for a democratic system of government. In Botswana, for example, the consensual decision-making process in the kgotla (public meeting) regulates the power of the chiefs. The Role of Traditional Leaders in Post Independence Countries Botswana Within this spectrum, some eight types of leadership structures can be identified. "Law" in traditional Igbo and other African societies assumes a wide dimension and should be understood, interpreted, and applied as such, even if such a definition conflicts with the Western idea. However, they are not merely customs and norms; rather they are systems of governance, which were formal in precolonial times and continue to exist in a semiformal manner in some countries and in an informal manner in others.1. African Political Systems is an academic anthology edited by the anthropologists Meyer Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard which was published by Oxford University Press on the behalf of the International African Institute in 1940. The optimistic replyand it is a powerful oneis that Africans will gradually build inclusive political and economic institutions.18 This, however, requires wise leadership. not because of, the unique features of US democracy . Such a transformation would render traditional institutions dispensable. Ousted royals such as Haile Selassie (Ethiopia) and King Idriss (Libya) may be replaced by self-anointed secular rulers who behave as if they were kings until they, in turn, get overthrown. The Role and Significance of Traditional Leadership in South African Typically, such leaders scheme to rig elections or to change constitutional term limitsactions seen in recent years in such countries as Rwanda and Uganda. As institutional scholars state, institutional incompatibility leads to societal conflicts by projecting different laws governing societal interactions (Eisenstadt, 1968; Helmke & Levitsky, 2004; March & Olsen, 1984; North, 1990; Olsen, 2007). 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. Institutions represent an enduring collection of formal laws and informal rules, customs, codes of conduct, and organized practices that shape human behavior and interaction. 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. 1.4. Following decolonization, several African countries attempted to abolish aspects of the traditional institutional systems. Discuss any similarities between the key features of the fourth However, the system of traditional government varied from place to place. In addition, they have traditional institutions of governance of various national entities, including those surrounding the Asantehene of the Ashanti in Ghana and the Kabaka of the Buganda in Uganda. Basing key political decisions on broad societal and inter-party consensus may help to de-escalate cutthroat competition that often leads to violent conflicts. Other governance systems in the post-independence era and their unique features, if any. 2. Africa: Laws and Legal Systems - Geography 1. What Is a Command Economy? - The Balance The traditional and informal justice systems, it is argued offers greater access to justice. Our data indicate that traditional leaders, chiefs and elders clearly still play an important role in the lives (PDF) INDIGENOUS AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS - Academia.edu 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. By Sulayman Sanneh Date: September 10th, 2021. fIntroduction Africa is a vast and . The settlement of conflicts and disputes in such consensus-based systems involves narrowing of differences through negotiations rather than through adversarial procedures that produce winners and losers. In sum, the digitization of African politics raises real challenges for political leaders and has the potential to increase their determination to digitize their own tools of political control. 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. But it also reflects the impact of Arab, Russian, Chinese, Indian, European and U.S. vectors of influence which project their differences into African societies. Traditional African religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological advances. Against this backdrop, where is African governance headed? A Functional Approach to define Government 2. Most African countries have yet to develop carefully considered strategies of how to reconcile their fragmented institutional systems. Government as a Structural Element of Society 2.2. The differences are in terms of how leaders come to assume their positions, how much power they command, and how accountable they are to their communities. This is in part because the role of traditional leaders has changed over time. By the mid-1970s, the military held power in one-third of the nations of sub-Saharan Africa. Misguided policies at the national level combined with cultural constraints facing these social groups may increase exclusion and create seeds of future trouble. This is done through the enforcement agencies such as the police force. At the same time, traditional institutions represent institutional fragmentation, which has detrimental effects on Africas governance and economic transformation. The same source concluded that 7 out of the 12 worst scores for political rights and civil liberties are African.11 As noted, the reasons vary: patrimonialism gone wrong (the big man problem), extreme state fragility and endemic conflict risks, the perverse mobilization of ethnicity by weak or threatened leaders. Features Of Traditional Government Administration. South Africas strategy revolves around recognition of customary law when it does not conflict with the constitution and involves traditional authorities in local governance. The selection, however, is often from the children of a chief. On the other hand, weak or destructive governance is sometimes the source of conflicts in the first place. 1. In some countries, such as Botswana, customary courts are estimated to handle approximately 80% of criminal cases and 90% of civil cases (Sharma, 2004). Towards a Definition of Government 1.3. The development of inclusive institutions may involve struggles that enable political and societal actors to check the domination of entrenched rulers and to broaden rule-based participation in governance. The express prohibition in the African Charter against discrimination according to ethnic group constitutes a major step for the continent as a whole because the realization of this right will lead to greater economic opportunity for those people not of the same kinship as the head of government. Comparing Ethiopia and Kenya, for example, shows that adherents to the traditional institutional system is greater in Ethiopia than in Kenya, where the ratio of the population operating in the traditional economic system is smaller and the penetration of the capitalist economic system in rural areas is deeper. The most promising pattern is adaptive resilience in which leaders facing such pressures create safety valves or outlets for managing social unrest. eLimu | Political developments and systems However, their endurance, along with that of traditional economic systems, have fostered institutional fragmentation, which has serious adverse effects on Africas governance and economic development. The Sultanes of Somalia are examples of this category and the community has specific criteria as to who is qualified to be a chief (Ahmed, 2017). This category of chiefs serves their communities in various and sometimes complex roles, which includes spiritual service. In this regard, the president is both the head of state and government, and there are three arms and tiers of rules by which the country is ruled. Afrocentrism | Definition, Examples, History, Beliefs, & Facts The imperative for inclusion raises many questions: should the priority be to achieve inclusion of diverse elites, of ethnic and confessional constituencies, of a sample of grass roots opinion leaders? Democracy, Monarchy and Dictatorship: Types of Government Systems Obstruction of nation-building: Nation-building entails a process of integrating different segments of the citizenry to form a community of citizens under shared institutions. The key lies in identifying the variables that will shape its context. Such a consensus-building mechanism can help resolve many of the conflicts related to diversity management and nation-building. The reasons why rural communities adhere to the traditional institutions are many (Logan, 2011; Mengisteab & Hagg, 2017). Among the key challenges associated with institutional fragmentation are the following: Policy incoherence: Fragmented economies and institutions represent dichotomous socioeconomic spaces, which makes it highly challenging for policy to address equitably the interests of the populations in these separate socioeconomic spaces. Both types of government can be effective or infective depending on . As noted, there are notable differences in the authority systems of African traditional institutions. Overturning regimes in Africas often fragile states could become easier to do, without necessarily leading to better governance. Pre-colonial Political System In Nigeria (Yoruba Traditional System) At times, these traditional security system elements are sufficient enough for some uses, but there's certainly no denying . 1995 focuses on social, economic, and intellectual trends up to the end of the colonial era. During the colonial period, "tribe" was used to identify specific cultural and political groups in much the same way as "nation" is defined above. Today, the five most common government systems include democracy, republic, monarchy, communism and . Relatively unfettered access to the internet via smart phones and laptops brings informationand hence potential powerto individuals and groups about all kinds of things: e.g., market prices, the views of relatives in the diaspora, conditions in the country next door, and the self-enrichment of corrupt officials. In Sierra Leone, paramount chiefs are community leaders and their tasks involve - among others - protecting community safety and resolving disputes. They must know the traditional songs and must also be able to improvise songs about current events and chance incidents. 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, Authority in this system was shared or distributed to more people within the community. Traditional affairs. Galizzi, Paolo and Abotsi, Ernest K., Traditional Institutions and Governance in Modern African Democracies (May 9, 2011). Introduction: The Meaning of the Concept Government 1.1. 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. Beyond such macro factors, several less obvious variables seem important to the political and economic governance future of the region. 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. Institutional systems emanate from the broader economic and political systems, although they also affect the performance of the economic and political systems. This section attempts to explain these seemingly contradictory implications of traditional institutions. Hoover Education Success Initiative | The Papers. Ideally, African nations will benefit when civil society respects the states role (as well as the other way around); rather than one-sided advocacy, both sides should strive to create a space for debate in order to legitimize tolerance of multiple views in society. They include: Monarchs (absolute or constitutional): While the colonial state reduced most African kings to chiefs, a few survived as monarchs. An alternative strategy of bringing about institutional harmony would be to transform the traditional economic systems into an exchange-based economy that would be compatible with the formal institutions of the state. The evidence suggests that traditional institutions have continued to metamorphose under the postcolonial state, as Africas socioeconomic systems continue to evolve. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Differences and Similarities Between a Democracy and a Republic Unfortunately, little attention by African governments has been given to this paradoxical aspect of traditional institutions. Another driver of governance trends will be the access enjoyed by youthful and rapidly urbanizing populations to the technologies that are changing the global communications space. 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.