State Theory and Practice in Francophone Africa: French Roots and Perspectives

Abstract

"A common institutional design for political structures is found practically everywhere in francophone areas of Africa, from Madagascar to Mali, Guinea to Cameroon. It features a single-centered state whose officials exhibit strong tendencies towards centralization and resistance to authorizing self governance for local communities. That the same basic design should persist, despite poor performance and significant critiques, thirty-five years after independence in some fifteen countries suggests not only a common tradition of institutional practice, but strong common intellectual roots. This is indeed the case. Moreover, since the ideas underlying state practices do affect people's lives and life chances, it is important that practitioners in the area understand of the general implications of those ideas. This chapter sets four objectives: identify the assumptions underlying the French tradition of state design; review briefly the record in francophone Africa of state design and structures, and how it relates to the original French model; examine the country of Mali as a context within which this common design functions, using the governance and management of renewable resources to illustrate the argument; and explore whether other options might be more apt to facilitate efforts of African citizens of these states to solve some or all of their problems by themselves."