Sovereignty and Government in Africa after Independence
Sovereignty and Government in Africa after Independence

Summary/Abstract: This essay is a contribution to the field of institutional studies in that it treats the State as a substantial phenomenon, composed of institutions that require analysis in their own right. Here, the focus is on the political form of African states from the 1960s to the 1980s. On the one hand, I will follow Bourdieu here in insisting that the study of government demands that we know something of the history of political thought (la pensée politique). This simple observation is seldomly applied when it comes to politics in postcolonial Africa. On the other, I use Peter Wagner´s concept of modernity to show that struggles against colonialism and Imperialism and the pursuit of self-determination for African and Asian peoples are unambiguously struggles against domination and for autonomy. The emergence of Third World nationalism (and the Non-Aligned Movement) is an event, therefore, firmly in modernity. So too is the phenomenon of the One-party state in Africa.

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