ABSTRACT

The conflict and development research has directed its attention towards the phenomenon of state fragility over the past ten years and, in this context, has re-discovered the issue of state-building. Sub-Saharan Africa has received particular attention in this regard. Though a rather new topic on the research agenda, state fragility captures a phenomenon that has characterized the African continent since decolonization. State weakness' can be defined as the inability of a state to provide security and public goods to its citizens, to collect taxes, and to formulate, implement, and enforce policies and laws. The legacies of state formation, instability, neo patrimonialism and political hybridity help to understand why state institutions in Africa are, in general, weak. Drawing on Max Weber's sociology of domination, Engel and Erdmann define the neo patrimonialism as a mixture of two, partly interwoven, types of domination that co-exist: namely, patrimonial and legal-rational bureaucratic domination.