Based on existing evidence, the authority systems in postcolonial Africa lie in a continuum between two polar points. The leaders in this system have significant powers, as they often are custodians of their communitys land and they dispense justice in their courts. Evidence from case studies, however, suggests that the size of adherents varies from country to country. These events point to extreme state fragility and a loss of sovereign control over violence in the 11 affected countries, led by Nigeria, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic (CAR). In many cases, the invented chieftaincies were unsuccessful in displacing the consensus-based governance structures (Gartrell, 1983; Uwazie, 1994). With the dawn of colonialism in Africa, the traditional African government was sys-tematically weakened, and the strong and influential bond between traditional lead- . In Africa, as in every region, it is the quality and characteristics of governance that shape the level of peace and stability and the prospects for economic development. On the opposite side are the decentralized systems, led by a council of elders, that command little formal power. There were several reasons for such measures. In this respect, they complement official courts that are often unable to provide court services to all their rural communities. Among the attributes of the traditional system with such potential is the systems transparent and participatory process of resolving conflicts, which takes place in open public meetings. Some African nations are prosperous while others struggle. Oromos are one of the largest ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa belonging to the Cushitic-speaking peoples in Northeastern Africa in general and in modern Ethiopia and Kenya in particular. The debate is defined by "traditionalists" and "modernists." . Some of these conflicts are, in reality, low-tech, sporadic skirmishes and armed attacks. These circumstances can generate an authoritarian reflex and the temptation to circle the wagons against all sources of potential opposition. This discussion leads to an analysis of African conflict trends to help identify the most conflict-burdened sub-regions and to highlight the intimate link between governance and conflict patterns. To learn more, visit Beyond the traditional sector, traditional institutions also have important attributes that can benefit formal institutions. The same technology vectors can also empower criminal, trafficking, and terrorist networks, all of which pose threats to state sovereignty. Even so, customary law still exerts a strong . One scholar specializing on the Horn of Africa likens the situation a political marketplace in which politics and violence are simply options along the spectrum pursued by powerful actors.5. The three countries have pursued rather different strategies of reconciling their institutional systems and it remains to be seen if any of their strategies will deliver the expected results, although all three countries have already registered some progress in reducing conflicts and in advancing the democratization process relative to countries around them. According to this analysis, Africas traditional institutional systems are likely to endure as long as the traditional subsistent economic systems continue to exist. The government system is a republic; the chief of state and head of government is the president. Indigenous education is a process of passing the inherited knowledge, skills, cultural traditions norms and values of the tribe, among the tribal member from one generation to another Mushi (2009). The Chinese understand the basics. Government and Political Systems. The council system of the Berbers in Northern Africa also falls within this category (UNECA, 2007). Often women are excluded from participation in decision making, especially in patrilineal social systems. Regardless, fragmentation of institutional systems poses a number of serious challenges to Africas governance and economic development. Changes in economic and political systems trigger the need for new institutional systems to manage the new economic and political systems, while endurance of economic and political systems foster durability of existing institutional systems. Thus, another report by PRIO and the University of Uppsala (two Norwegian and Swedish centers) breaks conflict down into state-based (where at least one party is a government), non-state-based (neither party is an official state actor), and one-sided conflicts (an armed faction against unarmed civilians). However, three countries, Botswana, Somaliland, and South Africa, have undertaken differing measures with varying levels of success. The fourth part draws a conclusion with a tentative proposal on how the traditional institutions might be reconciled with the formal institutions to address the problem of institutional incoherence. Both types of government can be effective or infective depending on . Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. Why traditional institutional systems endure, how large the adherents to them is, and why populations, especially in rural areas, continue to rely on traditional institutions, even when an alternative system is provided by the state, and what the implications of institutional dichotomy is are questions that have not yet received adequate attention in the literature. The challenge facing Africas leadersperhaps above all othersis how to govern under conditions of ethnic diversity. On the one hand, traditional institutions are highly relevant and indispensable, although there are arguments to the contrary (see Mengisteab & Hagg [2017] for a summary of such arguments). However, the winner takes all system in the individual states is a democracy type of voting system, as the minority gets none of the electoral college votes. not because of, the unique features of US democracy . The traditional African religions (or traditional beliefs and practices of African people) are a set of highly diverse beliefs that include various ethnic religions . In the past decade, traditional security systems utilized in commercial or government facilities have consisted of a few basic elements: a well-trained personnel, a CCTV system, and some kind of access control system. First, many of the conflicts enumerated take place within a limited number of conflict-affected countries and in clearly-defined geographic zones (the Sahel and Nigeria; Central Africa; and the Horn.) Societal conflicts: Institutional dichotomy often entails incompatibility between the systems. A look at the economic systems of the adherents of the two institutional systems also gives a good indication of the relations between economic and institutional systems. Some trust traditional leaders more than they trust state authorities. Traditional institutions already adjudicate undisclosed but large proportions of rural disputes. Keywords: Legal Pluralism, African Customary Law, Traditional Leadership, Chieftaincy, Formal Legal System Relationship With, Human Rights, Traditional Norms, Suggested Citation: 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. The purpose is to stress that such efforts and the attendant will 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. Ten years later, in 2017, the number of conflicts was 18, taking place in 13 different countries. This outline leads us to examine more closely the sources of legitimacy in African governance systems. In general, decentralized political systems, which are often elder-based with group leadership, have received little attention, even though these systems are widespread and have the institutions of judicial systems and mechanisms of conflict resolution and allocation of resources, like the institutions of the centralized systems. There are several types of government that are traditionally instituted around the world. One snapshot by the influential Mo Ibrahim index of African Governance noted in 2015 that overall governance progress in Africa is stalling, and decided not to award a leadership award that year. In many cases European or Islamic legal traditions have replaced or significantly modified traditional African ones. Figure 1 captures this turn to authoritarianism in postindependence Africa. Legitimate authority, in turn, is based on accepted laws and norms rather than the arbitrary, unconstrained power of the rulers. Executive, legislative, and judicial functions are generally attributed by most modern African constitutions to presidents and prime ministers, parliaments, and modern judiciaries. Unlike the laws of the state, traditional institutions rarely have the coercive powers to enforce their customary laws. Second, the levels of direct battle deaths from these events is relatively low when compared with far higher levels in the wars of the Middle East. Many African countries, Ghana and Uganda, for example, have, like all other states, formal institutions of the state and informal institutions (societal norms, customs, and practices). Traditional governments have the following functions; Almost at a stroke, the relationships between African governments and the major powers and major sources of concessional finance were upended, while political liberalization in the former Soviet bloc helped to trigger global political shock waves. Abstract. In most African countries, constitutionally established authorities exercise the power of government alongside traditional authorities. The article has three principal objectives and is organized into four parts. At the same time, traditional institutions represent institutional fragmentation, which has detrimental effects on Africas governance and economic transformation. 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, This process becomes difficult when citizens are divided into parallel socioeconomic spaces with different judicial systems, property rights laws, and resource allocation mechanisms, which often may conflict with each other. Most of the regions states were defined geographically by European cartographers at the start of the colonial period. Another issue that needs some clarification is the neglect by the literature of the traditional institutions of the political systems without centralized authority structures. 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. Traditional and informal justice systems aim at restoring social cohesion within the community by promoting reconciliation between disputing parties. 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. . Subsequent to the colonial experience, traditional institutions may be considered to be informal institutions in the sense that they are often not sanctioned by the state. To complicate matters further, the role of traditional institutions is likely to be critical in addressing the problem of institutional fragmentation. This adds to the challenge of building national identities; this identity vacuum increases the risk that political elites and social groups will capture the state for narrower, self-interested purposes that weaken, rather than strengthen, social cohesion. We do not yet know whether such institutions will consistently emerge, starting with relatively well-governed states, such as Ghana or Senegal, as a result of repeated, successful alternations of power; or whether they will only occur when Africas political systems burst apart and are reconfigured. Chieftaincy is further plagued with its own internal problems, including issues of relevance, succession, patriarchy, jurisdiction, corruption and intra-tribal conflict. One can identify five bases of regime legitimacy in the African context today. Pre-colonial Administration of the Yorubas. The geography of South Africa is vast scrubland in the interior, the Namib Desert in the northwest, and tropics in the southeast. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural, include belief in a supreme creator, belief in spirits, veneration of the dead, use of magic and traditional African . The analysis presented here suggests that traditional institutions are relevant in a number of areas while they are indispensable for the governance of Africas traditional economic sector, which lies on the fringes of formal state institutions. In this paper, I look first at the emergence of the African state system historically, including colonial legacies and the Cold Wars impact on governance dynamics. Political and economic inclusion is the companion requirement for effective and legitimate governance. Presently, Nigeria practices the federal system. One influential research group, SIPRI in Sweden, counted a total of 9 active armed conflicts in 2017 (in all of Africa) plus another 7 post-conflict and potential conflict situations.3, More revealing is the granular comparison of conflict types over time. This study notes that in 2007 Africa saw 12 conflicts in 10 countries. It is too soon to tell whether such institutions can evolve in modern Africa as a result of gradual tinkering with reformist agendas, as the legacy of wise leaders; or whether they will only happen as a result of fundamental tests of strength between social and political groups. Communities in the traditional socioeconomic space are hardly represented in any of the organizations of the state, such as the parliament, where they can influence policy and the legal system to reflect their interests. The relationship between traditional leadership and inherited western-style governance institutions often generates tensions. Hoover scholars form the Institutions core and create breakthrough ideas aligned with our mission and ideals. There are also various arguments in the literature against traditional institutions.2 One argument is that chieftaincy impedes the pace of development as it reduces the relevance of the state in the area of social services (Tom Mboya in Osaghae, 1989). 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. Large countries such as the DRC, Ethiopia, and Mozambique are likely to experience pressures against centralized, authoritarian, or one-party governance (whether accompanied by real elections or not). The same factors that hinder nation-building hinder democratization. Third, Africas conflict burden reflects different forms and sources of violence that sometimes become linked to each other: political movements may gain financing and coercive support from criminal networks and traffickers, while religious militants with connections to terrorist groups are often adept at making common cause with local grievance activists. South Africa has a mixed economy in which there is a variety of private freedom, combined with centralized economic . 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. States would be more effective in reforming the traditional judicial system if they recognized them rather than neglecting them, as often is the case. A third argument claims that chieftaincy heightens primordial loyalties, as chiefs constitute the foci of ethnic identities (Simwinga quoted in van Binsberger, 1987, p. 156). This layer of institutions is the subject of inquiry of this article. This situation supported an external orientation in African politics in which Cold War reference points and former colonial relationships assured that African governments often developed only a limited sense of connection to their own societies. Against this backdrop, where is African governance headed? The regime in this case captures the state, co-opts the security organs, and dissolves civil society. If African political elite opinion converges with that of major external voices in favoring stabilization over liberal peacebuilding agendas, the implications for governance are fairly clear.17. African indigenous education was. the system even after independence. In some societies, traditional, tribal authorities may offer informed and genuinely accepted governance, provided that they are not merely government appointees pursuing decentralized self-enrichment. Governance also has an important regional dimension relating to the institutional structures and norms that guide a regions approach to challenges and that help shape its political culture.1 This is especially relevant in looking at Africas place in the emerging world since this large region consists of 54 statesclose to 25% of the U.N.s membershipand includes the largest number of landlocked states of any region, factors that dramatically affect the political environment in which leaders make choices. They are already governing much of rural Africa. Admittedly, the problem is by no means uniquely African, but it is very commonly experienced in Africa. Another reason is that African leaders of the postcolonial state, who wanted to consolidate their power, did not want other points of power that would compromise their control. The formal institutions of checks and balances and accountability of leaders to the population are rather weak in this system. Although considerable differences exist among the various systems, opportunities for women to participate in decision making in most traditional systems are generally limited. To illustrate, when there are 2.2 billion Africans, 50% of whom live in cities, how will those cities (and surrounding countryside) be governed? One layer represents the formal institutions (laws) of the state. The quality and durability of such leader-defined adaptive resilience cannot be assured and can be reversed unless the associated norms become institutionalized. They include: Monarchs (absolute or constitutional): While the colonial state reduced most African kings to chiefs, a few survived as monarchs. This proposal will be subject to a referendum on the constitutional changes required.16.2e 2.4 Traditional leadership Traditional leaders are accorded Why the traditional systems endure, how the institutional dichotomy impacts the process of building democratic governance, and how the problems of institutional incoherence might be mitigated are issues that have not yet received adequate attention in African studies. 79 (3), (1995) pp. Introduction: The Meaning of the Concept Government 1.1. The kings and chiefs of Angola and Asante, for example, allowed European merchants to send their representatives to their courts. Africa contains more sovereign nations than any other continent, with 54 countries compared to Asia's 47. Misguided policies at the national level combined with cultural constraints facing these social groups may increase exclusion and create seeds of future trouble. 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. During the colonial period, "tribe" was used to identify specific cultural and political groups in much the same way as "nation" is defined above. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals . The participatory and consensus-based system of conflict resolution can also govern inter-party politics and curtail the frequent post-election conflicts that erupt in many African countries. Towards a Definition of Government 1.3. The term covers the expressed commands of Africas geopolitical environment is shaped by Africans to a considerable degree. The essay concludes with a sobering reflection on the challenge of achieving resilient governance. By the mid-1970s, the politics of Africa had turned authoritarian. Poor statesociety relations and weak state legitimacy: Another critical outcome of institutional fragmentation and institutional detachment of the state from the overwhelming majority of the population is weak legitimacy of the state (Englebert, 2000). In other words, the transition from traditional modes of production to a capitalist economic system has advanced more in some countries than in others. It may be good to note, as a preliminary, that African political systems of the past dis played considerable variety. 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. However, their participation in the electoral process has not enabled them to influence policy, protect their customary land rights, and secure access to public services that would help them overcome their deprivation. Despite undergoing changes, present-day African traditional institutions, namely the customary laws, the judicial systems and conflict resolution mechanisms, and the property rights and resource allocation practices, largely originate from formal institutions of governance that existed under precolonial African political systems.

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