A Spectre is Haunting Africa: It is the Modern State. Peripheral Fears and Hopes

The text turns the usual study of political transitions and evolutions in neo-independent Africa on its head by questioning the standard by which they are usually assessed, the ideal model of modern democracy. The text contrasts the oscillations of expert optimism about African states with the repeated empirical evidence of the inadequacy of the state model bequeathed by colonisation to the reality and potential of the African social fabric. The author proposes that many alleged African dysfunctions should be analysed as necessary experiments to ensure the management of diversity in global society, a capacity that is not accumulated by the old European nation-state model, and that may imply abandoning or moderating the principle of the individual as the only ultimate source of sovereignty.