The social impact of Africa’s predatory state-society relations

More than five decades after gaining flag independence from the colonial masters, the State in Africa remains entrapped in a global matrix of power in which the supposed independence was a mere decoy for other forms of control. ¹ As various scholars have argued, the State in Africa is a colonial construction, which was created for the purpose of exploitation, extraction and accumulation. In order to fulfil these roles, it became overdeveloped, dictatorial and violent. ² Although the State in Africa manifests some semblance of the Weberian state in terms of structures and expected functions, it is different from the latter due to its lack of autonomy and embeddedness from and in the society. ³ In this chapter, I argue that the lack of rootedness in the society, its auxiliary position as the satellite of the core capitalist countries and the lack of autonomy has severely constrained the ability of the State in Africa to organise the political economy in such a way that can result in inclusive development. In other words, the nature and the character of the State in Africa, broadly defined in terms of its capacity for mobilisation of capital, autonomy in decision making, negotiations with core capitalist countries and the quality of political leaders, have affected the delivery of public goods and social welfare for the citizens.