Despite undergoing changes, present-day African traditional institutions, namely the customary laws, the judicial systems and conflict resolution mechanisms, and the property rights and resource allocation practices, largely originate from formal institutions of governance that existed under precolonial African political systems. Given its institutional disconnect with the state, the traditional sector and the communities that operate under it invariably face marginalization in influencing policy as well as in access to economic resources throughout the continent. The movement towards a formal state system is characterized by its emphasis on retribution and punishment. Violating customary property rights, especially land takings, without adequate compensation impedes institutional reconciliation by impoverishing rather than transforming communities operating in the traditional economic system. The geography of South Africa is vast scrubland in the interior, the Namib Desert in the northwest, and tropics in the southeast. Among the attributes of the traditional system with such potential is the systems transparent and participatory process of resolving conflicts, which takes place in open public meetings. Why can't democracy with African characteristics maintain the values, culture and traditional system of handling indiscipline, injustice and information management in society to take firm roots. The Pre-Colonial Period: From the Ashes of Pharaohs to the Berlin Conference At the end of the prehistoric period (10 000 BC), some African nomadic bands began to In Sierra Leone, for example, approximately 85% of the population falls under the jurisdiction of customary law, defined under the constitution as the rules of law which, by custom, are applicable to particular communities in Sierra Leone. Only four states in AfricaBotswana, Gambia, Mauritius, and Senegalretained multiparty systems. Towards a Definition of Government 1.3. General Overviews. The leaders, their families and allies are exempt. For example, the election day itself goes more or less peacefully, the vote tabulation process is opaque or obscure, and the entire process is shaped by a pre-election playing field skewed decisively in favor of the incumbents. Hoover Education Success Initiative | The Papers. Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. In Africa, as in every region, it is the quality and characteristics of governance that shape the level of peace and stability and the prospects for economic development. In new countries such as most of those in Africa,7 where the rule of law is in competition with the rule of men, leaders play a strikingly critical role, for good or ill. Somalilands strategy has brought traditional leaders into an active role in the countrys formal governance by creating an upper house in parliament, the Guurti, where traditional leaders exercise the power of approving all bills drafted by the lower house of parliament. Judicial marginalization: Another challenge posed by institutional fragmentation relates to marginalization of the traditional system within the formal legal system. Under conditions where nation-building is in a formative stage, the retribution-seeking judicial system and the winner-take-all multiparty election systems often lead to combustible conditions, which undermine the democratization process. The council system of the Berbers in Northern Africa also falls within this category (UNECA, 2007). (No award was made in 50% of the years since the program was launched in 2007; former Liberian president Ellen John Sirleaf won the award in 2017. Afrocentrism, also called Africentrism, cultural and political movement whose mainly African American adherents regard themselves and all other Blacks as syncretic Africans and believe that their worldview should positively reflect traditional African values. Unlike the laws of the state, traditional institutions rarely have the coercive powers to enforce their customary laws. Among the key challenges associated with institutional fragmentation are the following: Policy incoherence: Fragmented economies and institutions represent dichotomous socioeconomic spaces, which makes it highly challenging for policy to address equitably the interests of the populations in these separate socioeconomic spaces. Against this broad picture, what is striking is the more recent downward trend in democratic governance in Africa and the relative position of African governance when viewed on a global basis. Pastoral economic systems, for example, foster communal land tenure systems that allow unhindered mobility of livestock, while a capitalist economic system requires a private land ownership system that excludes access to others and allows long-term investments on land. Africa contains more sovereign nations than any other continent, with 54 countries compared to Asia's 47. The kings and chiefs of Angola and Asante, for example, allowed European merchants to send their representatives to their courts. Table 1 shows the proportion of the population that operates under traditional economic systems in selected African countries. The three countries have pursued rather different strategies of reconciling their institutional systems and it remains to be seen if any of their strategies will deliver the expected results, although all three countries have already registered some progress in reducing conflicts and in advancing the democratization process relative to countries around them. A more recent example of adaptive resilience is being demonstrated by Ethiopias Abiy Ahmed. Aristotle was the first to define three principal types of government systems in the fourth century B.C. In addition, according to Chirayath et al. A long-term route to political and economic success has been comprehensively documented by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson in their global study of why nations fail or succeed. A second conflict pattern can develop along the lines of ethnic cleavages which can be readily politicized and then militarized into outright ethnic violence. Traditional leaders would also be able to use local governance as a platform for exerting some influence on national policymaking. Finally, the chapter considers the future of the institution against the background of the many issues and challenges considered. Pre-colonial Administration of the Yorubas. Command economies, as opposed to free-market economies, do not allow market forces like supply and demand to determine production or prices. The usual plethora of bour- 2. The nature of governance is central because it determines whether the exercise of authority is viewed as legitimate. The nature of governance is central because it determines whether the exercise of authority is viewed as legitimate. Because these governmental institutions reject the indigenous political systems on which African society was built, they have generally failed to bring political . The most promising pattern is adaptive resilience in which leaders facing such pressures create safety valves or outlets for managing social unrest. On the other hand, their endurance creates institutional fragmentation that has adverse impacts on Africas governance and socioeconomic transformation. This theme, which is further developed below, is especially critical bearing in mind that Africa is the worlds most ethnically complex region, home to 20 of the worlds most diverse countries in terms of ethnic composition.8. Institutions represent an enduring collection of formal laws and informal rules, customs, codes of conduct, and organized practices that shape human behavior and interaction. The Alafin as the political head of the empire was . The government is undertaking a review of local government, which includes a commitment to introduce direct election of metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCEs). Almost at a stroke, the relationships between African governments and the major powers and major sources of concessional finance were upended, while political liberalization in the former Soviet bloc helped to trigger global political shock waves. A second objective is to draw a tentative typology of the different authority systems of Africas traditional institutions. Governance also has an important regional dimension relating to the institutional structures and norms that guide a regions approach to challenges and that help shape its political culture.1 This is especially relevant in looking at Africas place in the emerging world since this large region consists of 54 statesclose to 25% of the U.N.s membershipand includes the largest number of landlocked states of any region, factors that dramatically affect the political environment in which leaders make choices. In traditional African communities, it was not possible to distinguish between religious and non-religious areas of life. One is the controversy over what constitutes traditional institutions and if the African institutions referred to as traditional in this inquiry are truly indigenous traditions, since colonialism as well as the postcolonial state have altered them notably, as Zack-Williams (2002) and Kilson (1966) observe. Legal norms are an integral part of the discussion about inclusivity since they affect every aspect of economic and personal life; this poses a critical question over whether individual rights or group rights take precedence in the normative hierarchy. The means by which the traditional government reached out to her subjects varied from sounds, signs to symbol, and the central disseminator was the "town crier". While this seems obvious, it is less clear what vectors and drivers will have the most weight in shaping that outcome. One is that the leaders of the postcolonial state saw traditional institutions and their leadership as archaic vestiges of the past that no longer had a place in Africas modern system of governance. The structures of leadership of African traditional institutions are diverse and they have yet to be mapped out comprehensively. Traditional leadership in South Africa pre-existed both the colonial and apartheid systems of governance and was the main known system of governance amongst indigenous people. In addition, they have traditional institutions of governance of various national entities, including those surrounding the Asantehene of the Ashanti in Ghana and the Kabaka of the Buganda in Uganda. Second, the levels of direct battle deaths from these events is relatively low when compared with far higher levels in the wars of the Middle East. At times, these traditional security system elements are sufficient enough for some uses, but there's certainly no denying . The chapter further examines the dabbling of traditional leaders in the political process in spite of the proscription of the institution from mainstream politics and, in this context, analyzes the policy rationale for attempting to detach chieftaincy from partisan politics. Some regimes seem resilient because of their apparent staying power but actually have a narrow base of (typically ethnic or regional) support. This brief overview of conflict in Africa signals the severity of the security challenges to African governance, especially in those sub-regions that feature persistent and recurrent outbreaks of violence. The problems that face African governments are universal. Even so, customary law still exerts a strong . My intention in this chapter is to explore the traditional African ideas and values of politics with a view to pointing up what may be described as the democratic features of the indigenous system of government and to examine whether, and in what ways, such features can be said to be harmonious with the ethos of contemporary political culture and hence can be said to be relevant to .
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features of traditional african system of government