Product Description

This book examines the growth of fraud and smuggling in African states, the plundering of natural resources, the privatization of state institutions, the development of an economy of plunder and the growth of private armies. It suggests that the state itself is becoming a vehicle for organized criminal activity. The authors propose criteria for gauging the criminalization of African states and present a novel prognosis: they distinguish between the corruption of previous decades and the criminalization of some African states now taking place. Major operators are now able to connect with global criminal networks. Also, the notion of social capital has led to current attitudes towards the use of public office for personal enrichment, or even systematic illegality. Looking at South Africa, the authors examine the decades-long tradition of association between crime and politics in this area. South Africa is now the centre of important international patterns of crime, notably in the drug trade. It has Africa's largest formal economy and the continent's largest criminal economy. Considering the economic origins of official implication in crime, the authors conclude that new forms of corruption have been unintentionally helped by liberal economic reforms. In association with the International African Institute North America: Indiana U Press

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #557105 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Review
The extent to which the trends identified in this book grow or diminish in importance and geographical extent seems to be a major determinant of the future of African politics. - John A. Wiseman in THE JOURNAL OF MODERN AFRCAN STUDIES It is without doubt concerned with a topic of great importance, about which much is rumoured but little of analytical substance is written ... These are difficult questions and the authors must be applauded for having attempted to make sense of their complexities. - Patrick Chabal in INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS What is positive about this book is that it not only presents a number of cases but also shows their historical, economic and cultural connections. The present problems are seen from a wide perspective stemming from precolonial and colonial situations as well as the situations created by independence struggles and the reign of nationalistic governments. What is suggested is that all this should be viewed in the light of historical continuity rather than discontinuity. AFRICA THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Customer Reviews

Solid historical, sociological and political analysis
The thesis explored in this short book is that the states of Africa are becoming fused with the world of international organised crime, as defined by international norms. While the authors claim that few fully "criminal" states exist, they do detect a tendency in this direction, which they link to the privatisation of economic and state functions and the rise of global flows. The book is divided into four chapters. The introductory chapter, by all three authors, gives a general overview, explains the thesis, and situates events in their broader context. Jean-Francois Bayart contributes a chapter on the state and politics, linking it to historical trends (which he terms an accumulation of social capital) and the everyday knowledge, or metis, connected to these trends. Beatrice Hibou contributes a chapter on economics and criminalisation. This chapter explores how African societies have absorbed externally-imposed economic forms, and how reforms aimed to end corruption have had the opposite effect of encouraging criminalisation. It also lists a variety of illegal and informal practices, looks at the role of social networks, and explores the privatisation of administrative functions. Inbetween these chapters is a rather anomalous piece by Stephen Ellis on South Africa, which primarily serves to outline how criminal organisations arose from the rival strategies of the ANC and the apartheid government to win support or control in urban ghettos.

The strength of this book is its empirical and discursive focus and its avoidance of the temptation to slip into moralising despair and to reduce the meaning of phenomena to their meaning for western observers. It also provides clear structural explanations of the trends it analyses. "Criminalisation" is placed in its context in relation to political economy (such as the role of illicit trade in broader economic flows), cultural tropes and interpretations (such as the metaphor of pursuit of wealth as hunting, playing or gambling), and history (such as the similarities between current privatised violence and colonial practices). A general thesis is proposed that a "shadow state" or set of informal elites with concentrated informal sanctions has emerged in parallel to the official state, so that in some passages it seems the surface state is unable to penetrate the depth and complexity of informal and parallel institutions and economies, or more often, events occur on both levels at once, with the social situatedness of the state emerging from its insertion in the parallel networks. Phenomena are brought to the fore - such as parallel and shadow governments, and cultural valorisations of deception - which could easily be missed on a more superficial reading of the situation. The book avoids getting sucked into the morass of much journalistic and political work on Africa, looking seriously at social and political issues in social and political terms.

A partial weakness is that picture painted here is very broad-brush, with plenty of empirical examples briefly mentioned but a lack of ethnographic detail behind them and of substantiation, and even reference, of many of the claims. A sense is provided of Africans seeking to construct their own meanings, and to survive economically in a difficult context. While there is a sense of hope implicit in this viewpoint, the ambiguity of its simultaneous role as incorporation in the world system and resistance to dominant norms of this system is not really developed. Also absent is any real alternative political agenda; when political engagement emerges, which is uncommon, the authors slip back into the mode of seeking reforms in the direction of westernisation, identifying the different forms of African states as instances of lack, or identifying criminal activities as primitive accumulation which could produce later economy and state-building. In this it compares disfavourably with Hecht and Simone's "Invisible Governance" and Achille Mbembe's work on the African postcolony, where the transformative and active potentials of networked, syncretic and invisible social forms are explored in more depth. I'd also have been interested to see more on how social movements interact with the parallel structures, and what kinds of popular agency can affect, displace or win concessions from informal elites or alter informal flows or relations of power.

must read for a realist perspective
an excellent description of what actually takes place underneath the veneer of formal state machinery, a must read for us realists out there, and a damming indictment of prescriptions for naive quick-fix IMF and World Bank led solutions. Quite depressing actually.

Criminalisation of the State in Africa
Although published ten years ago, this book is still a powerful description of the way the institutions of African states can be corrupted to the point where they become entirely dysfunctional and oppressive of their own citizens. It deals with the internal and external factors including the IFIs, donors and businesses tending to create these conditions of decay.

The phenomena are familiar to those who follow African affairs now; in a few cases the process has proved reversible or at least stoppable; but not in most.