Conceptualizing African Politics

INTRO: Politics is ubiquitous. It exists everywhere including in Africa, dating back to the foremost state formation processes in the continent which began between 6000 and 4000 BC; i.e., some 6000 and 8000 years ago (Biereenu-Nnabugwu 2006). African politics against this fact, is age long with an impressive span that transverses several millennia. The phrase “African Politics” is clearer when it is reordered to read “politics in Africa.” It follows therefore to mean that doing justice to the conceptualization of African Politics will justifiably start with the review of the scholarly renditions of the concept of politics, and the delimitation of the bearing of the African continent in the world.

What is Politics?

The concept of politics has been an object of intense intellectual disagreement but with several junctions of agreement especially on the public nature of politics. In other words, politics is inter-personal, and never intra-personal. This is evident in David Easton’s decision-making flavoured definition of politics which sees politics as the authoritative allocation of values (Easton, 1965). This definition points to the existence of an authority that makes binding decisions on the members of the society, an authority that controls power over others, an authority that makes or mars the destinies of the members of the society, and an authority that decides the fate of the members of the society. In this definition by David Easton, it is observable that politics is what happens in a typical organized human community such as the state, and therefore interpersonal.

In a similar rendition, Lasswell (1957) believes politics to mean “who gets what, when and how.”

The similarity between Easton and Lasswell’s definitions of politics is squarely rested on decision-making. As a matter of fact, the values which David Easton contended that an authority allocates authoritatively is coterminous with the “what” by Lasswell, while the Easton’s word “allocation” is parallel with Lasswell’s “when and how.”

Hans Morgenthau in his definition of politics contended that politics is struggle for power (Morgenthau, 1948). Morgenthau’s definition of politics still stand within the perimeters of the fact that politics is interpersonal especially as the word struggle can also be taken to mean competition. Now, the power so struggled for are simply, the values in the society: the value to becoming the decision-maker, the value of receiving a favourable decision from the decision-maker. In clearer terms, Nnoli (1986) posits that politics connotes all those activities which are directly or indirectly associated with the seizure, use, and consolidation of state power. This definition still recognizes the interpersonal nature of politics and unequivocally believes that politics is a business of the state. The “seizure” and “consolidation” of the state power in the definition are parallel with Morgenthau’s “struggle for power.” The art of seizure and consolidation are not done without struggle, and at the heart of the struggle for power is the goal, use of the state power.

Locating the African Continent

Africa is the bean-shaped continent of the world which is the second largest after Asia in terms of the landmass and population. It is associated with other prime islands such as Madagascar, and archipelagos such as Seychelles and Comoros. The continent maintains border with the Mediterranean at the North, Indian Ocean at the East, Atlantic Ocean at the West, and the confluence of Atlantic and Indian Oceans at the South. The continent is almost divided equidistantly by the East-West line of the Equator, and also is crossed from north to south by the line of the Prime Meridian.

African continent is composed of 55 countries. Irrespective of the abundant natural resources of the countries of the continent, majority of them are still ranked among the poorest countries of the world. According to the United Nations' Human Development Report in 2003, the bottom 24 ranked nations (151st to 175th) were all African. The problem of the continent has been traced to corruption, ineptitude, illiteracy, lack of central planning, human rights violation, armed conflicts and lack of access to foreign capital.

Conceptualizing African Politics 

African politics is the struggle for power in the African continent. This struggle for power falls into three main eras: pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial. The pre-colonial era was the era of pristine African societies in which several kingdoms and societies blossomed. That was the era that predated European incursion into the continent. The second era was the era of colonialism which was marked by unbridled exploitations by the colonial masters. The last era is the post-colonial era. The era that began in the 1960s following the end of the World War II during which the majority of the African countries gained their independence. This era is marked with dependency and neocolonialism. The study of African politics focuses on the struggle for power, and the authoritative allocation of values in these tripartite eras.