This is in part because the role of traditional leaders has changed over time. Presently, Nigeria practices the federal system. These consisted of monarchy, aristocracy and polity. Oromos are one of the largest ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa belonging to the Cushitic-speaking peoples in Northeastern Africa in general and in modern Ethiopia and Kenya in particular. African Governance: Challenges and Their Implications. This principle is particularly relevant for diversity management, nation-building, and democratization in contemporary Africa. In the centralized systems also, traditional leaders of various titles were reduced to chiefs and the colonial state modified notably the relations between the chiefs and their communities by making the chiefs accountable to the colonial state rather than to their communities (Coplan & Quinlan, 1997). "Law" in traditional Igbo and other African societies assumes a wide dimension and should be understood, interpreted, and applied as such, even if such a definition conflicts with the Western idea. The leaders in this system have significant powers, as they often are custodians of their communitys land and they dispense justice in their courts. Constitutions of postcolonial states have further limited the power of chiefs. These include macro variables such as educational access (especially for women), climate change impact and mitigation, development and income growth rates, demographic trends, internet access, urbanization rates, and conflict events. The same factors that hinder nation-building hinder democratization. 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. There is no more critical variable than governance, for it is governance that determines whether there are durable links between the state and the society it purports to govern. If a critical mass of the leaderse.g., South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Cote dIvoire, Algeria, Egyptare heading in a positive direction, they will pull some others along in their wake; of course, the reverse is also true. If African political elite opinion converges with that of major external voices in favoring stabilization over liberal peacebuilding agendas, the implications for governance are fairly clear.17. 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 . African political systems are described in a number of textbooks and general books on African history. These communities select the Aba Gada, who serves a nonrenewable term of 8 years as leader. Note that Maine and . Space opened up for African citizens and civil society movements, while incumbent regimes were no longer able to rely on assured support from erstwhile external partners. Invented chiefs and state-paid elders: These were chiefs imposed by the colonial state on decentralized communities without centralized authority systems. Certain offences were regarded as serious offences. Cold War geopolitics reinforced in some ways the state-society gap as the global rivalry tended to favor African incumbents and frequently assured they would receive significant assistance from external powers seeking to build diplomatic ties with the new states. . The abolishment of chieftaincy does not eradicate the systems broader underlying features, such as customary law, decision-making systems, and conflict resolution practices. 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. Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Politics. Chiefs such as those of the Nuer and Dinka are examples of this category. Perhaps a more realistic transitional approach would be to reconcile the parallel institutions while simultaneously pursuing policies that transform traditional economic systems. Our data indicate that traditional leaders, chiefs and elders clearly still play an important role in the lives Not surprisingly, incumbent leaders facing these challenges look to short-term military remedies and extend a welcome to military partnerswith France, the United States, and the United Nations the leading candidates. The settlement of conflicts and disputes in such consensus-based systems involves narrowing of differences through negotiations rather than through adversarial procedures that produce winners and losers. Keywords: Legal Pluralism, African Customary Law, Traditional Leadership, Chieftaincy, Formal Legal System Relationship With, Human Rights, Traditional Norms, Suggested Citation: It assigned them new roles while stripping away some of their traditional roles. Botswanas strategy has largely revolved around integrating parallel judicial systems. In light of this discussion of types of inclusion, the implications for dealing with state fragility and building greater resilience can now be spelled out. Due to the influence of previous South African and Nigerian leaders, the African Union established the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) to review and report on a range of governance criteria. Long-standing kingdoms such as those in Morocco and Swaziland are recognized national states. 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. There was a lot of consultation between the elders before any major decision was made. Settling a case in an official court, for example, may involve long-distance travel for villagers and it may require lawyers, translators, a long wait, and court fees, while a traditional court rarely involves such costs and inconveniences. Although much has been lost in the shadows and fogs of a time before people created written accounts, historians . As Legesse (1973, 2000) notes, the fundamental principles that guide the consensus-based (decentralized) authority systems include curbing the concentration of power in an institution or a person and averting the emergence of a rigid hierarchy. However, the system of traditional government varied from place to place. Rather, they often rely on voluntary compliance, although they also apply some soft power to discourage noncompliance by members with customary laws. History. Africas rural communities, which largely operate under subsistent economic systems, overwhelmingly adhere to the traditional institutional systems while urban communities essentially follow the formal institutional systems, although there are people who negotiate the two institutional systems in their daily lives. Rule that is based on predation and political monopoly is unlikely to enjoy genuine popular legitimacy, but it can linger for decades unless there are effective countervailing institutions and power centers. Institutions represent an enduring collection of formal laws and informal rules, customs, codes of conduct, and organized practices that shape human behavior and interaction. There is strong demand for jobs, better economic management, reduced inequality and corruption and such outcome deliverables as health, education and infrastructure.22 Those outcomes require effective governance institutions. Another layer represents the societal norms and customs that differ along various cultural traits. This enhanced his authority. Another category of chiefs is those who theoretically are subject to selection by the community. While traditional institutions remain indispensable for the communities operating under traditional economic systems, they also represent institutional fragmentation, although the underlying factor for fragmentation is the prevailing dichotomy of economic systems. The nature of governance is central because it determines whether the exercise of authority is viewed as legitimate. The Aqils (elders) of Somalia and the chiefs in Kenya are good examples. Admittedly, the problem is by no means uniquely African, but it is very commonly experienced in Africa. Most African countries are characterized by parallel institutions, one representing the formal laws of the state and the other representing the traditional institutions that are adhered to more commonly in rural areas. Indigenous education is a process of passing the inherited knowledge, skills, cultural traditions norms and values of the tribe, among the tribal member from one generation to another Mushi (2009). One scholar specializing on the Horn of Africa likens the situation a political marketplace in which politics and violence are simply options along the spectrum pursued by powerful actors.5. THE FUTURE OF AFRICAN CUSTOMARY LAW, Fenrich, Galizzi, Higgins, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2011, Available at SSRN: If you need immediate assistance, call 877-SSRNHelp (877 777 6435) in the United States, or +1 212 448 2500 outside of the United States, 8:30AM to 6:00PM U.S. Eastern, Monday - Friday. African Traditional Political System and Institution: University of The Gambia, Faculty of humanities and social sciences. The size and intensity of adherence to the traditional economic and institutional systems, however, vary from country to country. 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. Abstract. The population in the traditional system thus faces a vicious cycle of deprivation. Traditional affairs. A look at the economic systems of the adherents of the two institutional systems also gives a good indication of the relations between economic and institutional systems. Chiefs administer land and people, contribute to the creation of rules that regulate the lives of those under their jurisdiction, and are called on to solve disputes among their subjects. Although considerable differences exist among the various systems, opportunities for women to participate in decision making in most traditional systems are generally limited. Building an inclusive political system also raises the question of what levels of the society to include and how to assure that local communities as well as groups operating at the national level can get their voices heard. 3. These include - murder, burglary, landcase, witchcraft, profaning the deities and homicide. Posted: 12 May 2011. It is unlikely, however, that such harmony can be brought about by measures that aim to abolish the traditional system, as was attempted by some countries in the aftermath of decolonization. As a result, they are not dispensable as long as the traditional economic systems endure. Despite the adoption of constitutional term limits in many African countries during the 1990s, such restrictions have been reversed or defied in at least 15 countries since 2000, according to a recent report.6, The conflict-governance link takes various forms, and it points to the centrality of the variable of leadership. In this respect, they complement official courts that are often unable to provide court services to all their rural communities. Allocation of resources, such as land, is also much more egalitarian under the traditional system than it is under the private ownership system in the formal state system. There were several reasons for such measures. The first type is rights-based legitimacy deriving from rule of law, periodic elections, and alternation of political power, the kind generally supported by western and some African governments such as Ghana and Senegal. Its lack of influence on policy also leads to its marginalization in accessing resources and public services, resulting in poverty, poor knowledge, and a poor information base, which, in turn, limits its ability to exert influence on policy. That is, each society had a set of rules, laws, and traditions, sometimes called customs, that established how the people would live together peacefully as part of larger group. media system, was concerned with the more systematized dissemination of information between the traditional administrative organ and the people (subjects). Pre-colonial Administration of the Yorubas. Reconciling the parallel institutional systems is also unlikely to deliver the intended results in a short time; however, there may not be any better alternatives. Enlightened leaders face a more complex version of the same challenge: how to find and mobilize the resources for broad-based inclusiveness? Issues of corruption and transparency are likely to become driving themes in African politics. Introduction: The Meaning of the Concept Government 1.1. A command economy, also known as a planned economy, is one in which the central government plans, organizes, and controls all economic activities to maximize social welfare. Paramount chieftaincy is a traditional system of local government and an integral element of governance in some African countries such as Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia and Ivory Coast. Only four states in AfricaBotswana, Gambia, Mauritius, and Senegalretained multiparty systems. Many of the chieftaincy systems, such as those in much of South Africa, the Asantehene of the Ashanti of Ghana, the Tswana of Botswana, and the Busoga of Uganda seem to fall within this category. Typically, such leaders scheme to rig elections or to change constitutional term limitsactions seen in recent years in such countries as Rwanda and Uganda. 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. Similarly, the process of conflict resolution is undertaken in an open assembly and is intended to reconcile parties in conflict rather than to merely punish offenders. One of these will be the role and weight of various powerful external actors. Political leaders everywhere face competing demands in this regard. 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 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. One can identify five bases of regime legitimacy in the African context today. Africa contains more sovereign nations than any other continent, with 54 countries compared to Asia's 47. The term covers the expressed commands of Virtually every group was involved in the . Traditional leaders would also be able to use local governance as a platform for exerting some influence on national policymaking. Relatively unfettered access to the internet via smart phones and laptops brings informationand hence potential powerto individuals and groups about all kinds of things: e.g., market prices, the views of relatives in the diaspora, conditions in the country next door, and the self-enrichment of corrupt officials. With respect to their relevance, traditional institutions remain indispensable for several reasons. In traditional African communities, it was not possible to distinguish between religious and non-religious areas of life. The first objective of the article is to shed light on the socioeconomic foundations for the resilience of Africas traditional institutions. West Africa has a long and complex history. The origins of this institutional duality, the implications of which are discussed in Relevance and Paradox of Traditional Institutions, are largely traceable to the colonial state, as it introduced new economic and political systems and superimposed corresponding institutional systems upon the colonies without eradicating the existed traditional economic, political, and institutional systems. This is done through the enforcement agencies such as the police force. Furthermore, for generations, Africans were taught the Western notion of the tribe as . The link between conflict and governance is a two-way street. On the other hand, weak or destructive governance is sometimes the source of conflicts in the first place. The scope of the article is limited to an attempt to explain how the endurance of African traditional institutions is related to the continents economic systems and to shed light on the implications of fragmented institutional systems. However, the traditional modes of production and the institutional systems associated with them also remain entrenched among large segments of the population. As Mamdani has argued, understanding the role of traditional leadership and customary law in contemporary African societies requires us to understand its history. In African-style democracy the rule of law is only applicable to ordinary people unconnected to the governing party leadership or leader. A partial explanation as to why the traditional systems endure was given in the section Why African Traditional Institutions Endure. The argument in that section was that they endure primarily because they are compatible with traditional economic systems, under which large segments of the African population still operate. Following decolonization, several African countries attempted to abolish aspects of the traditional institutional systems. Leaders may not be the only ones who support this definition of legitimacy. As a result, customary law, which often is not recognized by the state or is recognized only when it does not contradict the constitution, does not protect communities from possible transgressions by the state. Even old-fashioned tyrants learn that inclusion or co-option are expensive. Their "rediscovery" in modern times has led to an important decolonization of local and community management in order to pursue genuine self-determination. "Law" in traditional Africa includes enforceable traditions, customs, and laws. While this attribute of the traditional system may not be practical at the national level, it can be viable at local levels and help promote democratic values. Stated another way, if the abolition of term limits, neo-patrimonialism, and official kleptocracy become a regionally accepted norm, this will make it harder for the better governed states to resist the authoritarian trend.