A QUARANTINE FOR THE AFRICAN STATES?
The 1950s and 1960s witnessed the ascendancy of the state in theoretical and policy considerations of the African predicament, with a lot of effort being sunk into attempts to strengthen further relevant institutions as a way out of the legacy of underdevelopment. By way of contrast, the 1970s and 1980s were basically decades of disenchantment, given the reality of the profligacy, fragility, and non-performance of the African state and its managers. What was then witnessed was a conceptual and policy shift away from concerns over how to build the capacity of the state, mainly in order to mould and incorporate society in the march towards development, to a perspective informed by increasing evidence of the state's incoherence, incapacitation, and weaknesses. The 1990s, therefore, appear set to complete the swing of this intellectual and policy pendulum away from the African state towards the terrain of civil society, in the expectation that this will provide an alternate resource base for engineering and sustaining the development of the continent. Symbolically enough, the decade has opened with the publication of a volume whose editors and contributors have not only come down decidedly on the side of society, but who often appear to call for the state to be quarantined in order to facilitate meaningful development. Their collection of essays is the outcome of a 1985-6 workshop in political theory and policy analysis, led by Vincent and Elinor Ostrom at Indiana University, and is understandably informed by insights drawn from their work on theories of collective action, organisational behaviour, and public administration.
Deconstructing "Oluwole": Political Economy at the Margins of the State
In July 1999, following charges of age falsification and forgery of university certificates, the Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives Salisu Buhari was impeached from office. What a section of the press called “Buhari-Gate” is emblematic of a wider phenomenon of document forgery, one that continues to be replicated in different forms locally and nationally, and in the public and private sectors in Nigeria. Underlying the numerous scandals is the “Oluwole” phenomenon. While the phenomenon predates 1999, its regularity and currency in the public domain in the aftermath of the return to civilian rule warrants further investigation (Bayart, Ellis, and Hibou, 1999: 109). With a few scattered exceptions, “Oluwole” has on the whole attracted an embarrassing silence from the criminological enterprise,1 except for occasional media sensationalism (13). The lack of systematic research raises suspicions that even members of the intelligentsia could perhaps be caught in the web of the Oluwole phenomenon.
A Preference for Forgetting: Some Reflections on Publishing Looking For Blackfellas' Point: An Australian History of Place
Blackfellas' Point lies on the Towamba River in south-eastern New South Wales. As the river descends rapidly from its source on the Monaro plains, it winds its way through state forest, national park and farming land. Around twenty-five kilometres before it reaches the sea, just south of Eden, it passes through Towamba, the small village in which Mark McKenna now owns eight acres of land. Mark's land looks across the river to 'Blackfellas' Point', once an Aboriginal camping ground and meeting place. Looking for Blackfellas' Point is a history that begins by looking across the river to the arc of bush that is 'Blackfellas' Point. From there, Mark McKenna's gaze pans out - from the history of one place he knows intimately, to the history of one region and, ultimately, to the history of Australia's quest for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Looking For Blackfellas' Point is a history for every Australian who is interested in the story of settler-Australia's relations with Indigenous people - what happened between us, how we learnt to forget and, finally, how we came to confront the truth about our past and build a movement for reconciliation.