ABSTRACT
Studies of relations between the state and society in Africa have tended to follow a conflict between liberal systems, stressing a regime based on rights, and Africanist systems, which insist on making the old communities the centre of African politics and on defending local culture (Bidaguren and Estrella 2002). Jokin Bidaguren and Daniel Estrella argue that the solution to this impasse between Eurocentrics and Africanists must be “a synthesis which can transcend both sides” (2002: 114). While Washington consensus structural adjustment policies of the 1990s made investment conditional upon “good governance”, they focused mostly on strengthening the judicial system to guarantee the stability of economic transactions and to improve states’ administrative capacity. This helped to safeguard investments and markets in developing nations, but, the authors argue, “problems of active participation, remoteness and mistrust of the judicial system on the part of ordinary people and the lack of any adaptation of Western legal traditions to a multicultural reality are left as marginal issues on the agenda of reform” (2002: 115).
