However, the traditional judicial system has some weaknesses, especially with respect to gender equality. In this context the chapter further touches on the compatibility of the institution of chieftaincy with constitutional principles such as equality, accountability, natural justice, good governance, and respect for fundamental human rights. Against this backdrop, where is African governance headed? Posted: 12 May 2011. 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. The council of elders, religious leaders, and administrative staff of the chiefs exercise checks on the power of the leaders and keep them accountable (Beattie, 1967; Busia, 1968; Coplan & Quinlan, 1997; Jones, 1983; Osaghae, 1989). 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. 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. An analytical study and impact of colonialism on pre-colonial centralized and decentralized African Traditional and Political Systems. The key . The population in the traditional system thus faces a vicious cycle of deprivation. One layer represents the formal institutions (laws) of the state. Different property rights laws are a notable source of conflict in many African countries. 17-19 1.6. The guiding principle behind these two attributes is that conflict is a societal problem and that resolving conflict requires societal engagement. To learn more, visit 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. PDF NNSO OKAF, Ph.D. (a.k.a. OKEREAFEZEKE) The third section deals with the post-colonial period and discusses some problems associated with African administration. The problems that face African governments are universal. 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. African Governance: Challenges and Their Implications Constitutions of postcolonial states have further limited the power of chiefs. 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. Customary law also manages land tenure and land allocation patterns. However, three countries, Botswana, Somaliland, and South Africa, have undertaken differing measures with varying levels of success. Another measure is recognition of customary law and traditional judicial systems by the state. However, the traditional modes of production and the institutional systems associated with them also remain entrenched among large segments of the population. Learn more about joining the community of supporters and scholars working together to advance Hoovers mission and values. America's flawed democracy: the five key areas where it - The Guardian In other cases, however, they survived as paid civil servants of the state without displacing the traditional elder-based traditional authority systems. The reasons why rural communities adhere to the traditional institutions are many (Logan, 2011; Mengisteab & Hagg, 2017). Judicial marginalization: Another challenge posed by institutional fragmentation relates to marginalization of the traditional system within the formal legal system. These features include nonprofits, non-profits and hybrid entities are now provide goods and services that were once delivered by the government. Your gift helps advance ideas that promote a free society. It is also challenging to map them out without specifying their time frame. The modern African state system has been gradually Africanized, albeit on more or less the identical territorial basis it began with at the time of decolonization in the second half of the 20 th century. 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. To illustrate, when there are 2.2 billion Africans, 50% of whom live in cities, how will those cities (and surrounding countryside) be governed? The leaders, their families and allies are exempt. When conflicts evolve along ethnic lines, they are readily labelled ethnic conflict as if caused by ancient hatreds; in reality, it is more often caused by bad governance and by political entrepreneurs. (PDF) The role and significance of traditional leadership in the 7 Main Features of a Traditional Society - Sociology Discussion Against this broad picture, what is striking is the more recent downward trend in democratic governance in Africa and the relative position of African governance when viewed on a global basis. The formal institutions of checks and balances and accountability of leaders to the population are rather weak in this system. 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. Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Politics. The parallel institutional systems often complement each other in the continents contemporary governance. In many cases, the invented chieftaincies were unsuccessful in displacing the consensus-based governance structures (Gartrell, 1983; Uwazie, 1994). Music is a form of communication and it plays a functional role in African society . Africas rural communities, which largely operate under subsistent economic systems, overwhelmingly adhere to the traditional institutional systems while urban communities essentially follow the formal institutional systems, although there are people who negotiate the two institutional systems in their daily lives. Rules of procedure were established through customs and traditions some with oral, some with written constitutions Women played active roles in the political system including holding leadership and military positions. Admittedly, the problem is by no means uniquely African, but it is very commonly experienced in Africa. Consequently, national and regional governance factors interact continuously. Afrocentrism, also called Africentrism, cultural and political movement whose mainly African American adherents regard themselves and all other Blacks as syncretic Africans and believe that their worldview should positively reflect traditional African values. Public Administration and Traditional Administrative System in Africa Since institutional fragmentation is a major obstacle to nation-building and democratization, it is imperative that African countries address it and forge institutional harmony. There is no more critical variable than governance, for it is governance that determines whether there are durable links between the state and the society it purports to govern. Africa's tumultuous political history has resulted in extreme disparities between the wealth and stability of its countries. With the dawn of colonialism in Africa, the traditional African government was sys-tematically weakened, and the strong and influential bond between traditional lead- . It assigned them new roles while stripping away some of their traditional roles. What Is a Command Economy? - The Balance Rule that is based on predation and political monopoly is unlikely to enjoy genuine popular legitimacy, but it can linger for decades unless there are effective countervailing institutions and power centers. Another common feature is the involvement of traditional authorities in the governance process, at least at the local level. 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. By the mid-1970s, the politics of Africa had turned authoritarian. Tribe Versus Ethnic Group. The geography of South Africa is vast scrubland in the interior, the Namib Desert in the northwest, and tropics in the southeast. Discuss any similarities between the key features of the fourth 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. This kind of offences that attract capital punishment is usually . Extensive survey research is required to estimate the size of adherents to traditional institutions. Sometimes, another precedent flows from thesenamely, pressure from outside the country but with some support internally as well for creating a transitional government of national unity. African traditional administrative system with bureaucratization in the emerged new states of Africa. The African state system has gradually developed a stronger indigenous quality only in the last twenty-five years or so. We know a good deal about what Africans want and demand from their governments from public opinion surveys by Afrobarometer. On the other hand, their endurance creates institutional fragmentation that has adverse impacts on Africas governance and socioeconomic transformation. The Alafin as the political head of the empire was . 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. The African Charter: A Printed Futility or a Reflection of Human Rights The initial constitutions and legal systems were derived from the terminal colonial era. Chieftaincy is further plagued with its own internal problems, including issues of relevance, succession, patriarchy, jurisdiction, corruption and intra-tribal conflict. While empirical data are rather scanty, indications are that the traditional judicial system serves the overwhelming majority of rural communities (Mengisteab & Hagg, 2017). This category of chiefs serves their communities in various and sometimes complex roles, which includes spiritual service. One layer represents the formal institutions (laws) of the state. 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 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. To sum up, traditional institutions provide vital governance services to communities that operate under traditional socioeconomic spaces. African Governance: Challenges and Their Implications. Ancient West Africa: Bantu Migrations & the Stateless Society 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 quality and durability of such leader-defined adaptive resilience cannot be assured and can be reversed unless the associated norms become institutionalized. Note that Maine and . 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. Africas economic systems range from a modestly advanced capitalist system, symbolized by modern banking and stock markets, to traditional economic systems, represented by subsistent peasant and pastoral systems. 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. President Muhammadu Buhari is currently the federal head of state and government. In this respect, they complement official courts that are often unable to provide court services to all their rural communities. Beyond such macro factors, several less obvious variables seem important to the political and economic governance future of the region. 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. A third objective is to examine the relevance of traditional institutions. The laws and legal systems of Africa have developed from three distinct legal traditions: traditional or customary African law, Islamic law, and the legal systems of Western Europe. However, they do not have custodianship of land and they generally do not dispense justice on their own. This short article does not attempt to provide answers to all these questions, which require extensive empirical study. TRADITIONAL AUTHORITY IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT - Modish Project 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 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. The cases of Nigeria, Kenya, and South Sudan suggest that each case must be assessed on its own merits. This is done through the enforcement agencies such as the police force. 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. In West Africa, a griot is a praise singer or poet who possesses a repository of oral tradition passed down from generation to generation. 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. Institutional systems emanate from the broader economic and political systems, although they also affect the performance of the economic and political systems. Decision making is generally participatory and often consensus-based. But established and recognized forms of inherited rule cannot be lightly dismissed as un-modern, especially when linked to the identity of an ethnic or tribal group, and could be construed as a building block of legitimacy. List of African Union member states by political system This theme, which is further developed below, is especially critical bearing in mind that Africa is the worlds most ethnically complex region, home to 20 of the worlds most diverse countries in terms of ethnic composition.8. For Acemoglu and Robinson, such turning points occur in specific, unique historical circumstances that arise in a societys development. Aristotle was the first to define three principal types of government systems in the fourth century B.C. Careful analysis suggests that African traditional institutions lie in a continuum between the highly decentralized to the centralized systems and they all have resource allocation practices, conflict resolution, judicial systems, and decision-making practices, which are distinct from those of the state. This fragmentation is also unlikely to go away anytime soon on its own. Africas states are the worlds newest, and it can hardly be surprising that Africans define themselves in terms of multiple identities including regional, tribal, clan-based, and religious onesin addition to being citizens of a relatively new state. Most African countries are characterized by parallel institutions, one representing the formal laws of the state and the other representing the traditional institutions that are adhered to more commonly in rural areas. Such a consensus-building mechanism can help resolve many of the conflicts related to diversity management and nation-building. The book contains eight separate papers produced by scholars working in the field of anthropology, each of which focuses in on a different society in Sub-Saharan Africa. African Traditional Political Systems and Intitutions - Academia.edu Traditional and informal justice systems aim at restoring social cohesion within the community by promoting reconciliation between disputing parties. Less than 20% of Africas states achieved statehood following rebellion or armed insurgency; in the others, independence flowed from peaceful transfers of authority from colonial officials to African political elites. In some countries, such as Botswana, customary courts are estimated to handle approximately 80% of criminal cases and 90% of civil cases (Sharma, 2004). by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University. One common feature is recognition of customary property rights laws, especially that of land. Before delving into the inquiry, clarification of some issues would be helpful in avoiding confusion. Another layer represents the societal norms and customs that differ along various cultural traits. They succeed when there are political conditions that permit a broad coalition to impose pluralist political institutions and limits and restraints on ruling elites.20 Thus, resilience of both state and society may hinge in the end on the rule of law replacing the rule of men. Contents 1. Galizzi, Paolo and Abotsi, Ernest K., Traditional Institutions and Governance in Modern African Democracies (May 9, 2011). Introduction. There are very few similarities between democracy and dictatorship. 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. Paramount chieftaincy as a system of local government 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. The system of government in the traditional Yoruba society was partially centralised and highly democratic. 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 . "Law" in traditional Africa includes enforceable traditions, customs, and laws. Another issue that needs some clarification is the neglect by the literature of the traditional institutions of the political systems without centralized authority structures. . Within this spectrum, some eight types of leadership structures can be identified. The same factors that hinder nation-building hinder democratization. The political systems of most African nations are based on forms of government put in place by colonial authorities during the era of European rule.