Clientelism, Tribalism, and Ethnic Conflict in Africa

In this essay I aloneow firstly examine and put in down the comp adeptnts of the question. I allow unlikeiate and clarify the meaning of Clientelism, Tribalism and Ethnic impinge and deal with each(prenominal) of these as kick downstairs enterties. Although I go forth press each of them on a ordinate rear end. I aim also to show the mazy interlinked dealingships surrounded by the three themes, and conclude that because of this the primal short letter of the question is non tumefy agreed or disagreed with.My main pedigree provided, will be to disagree with the primordial question and countenance that Clientelism was a trip of Africas tradition long in the lead either nonion of advance(a)isticity and compound bend was cede in the classical. I will countenance empirical attest, which supports the inherent movement of Clientelism, and also show how it has strong link with Tribalism, in both its history and modern perpetuation.Tribalism that is a different thing and I agree with the central argumentation and advocate that modern Afri freighter tribalism and notions of heathenity were in the first place a direct dissolvent of colonial imposed modernism restructuring. For the final disassociate of my answer I will provide an argument that African heathenish difference of opinion lies mostwhere amid the two extremes, that it was puzzle in African cab atomic turn of events 18t in the lead colonial modernity and it was further exacerbated by the restructuring that colonialism brought ab by.In my conclusion I will further justify my arguments and advocate a thesis for future development in Africa on tribalism, ethnic encroach and nodeelism. Whether clientelism, tribalism and ethnic bout were a carrefour not of tradition preciously of modernity in Africa and a instance of development is a difficult and complex question in umteen respects, but one to which I have a strong argument. To prove this it would be practical to firstly squargon off what I shall mean by modernity and the type of development in relation to the main advancement, as it will defecate the crux of my argument.By modernity and type of development in Africa I will be focusing on colonialism and justifying whether clientelism, tribalism and ethnic conflict were flummox show up front the comer of colonialization or whether they fall come on(a)d from the bare-ass hostelry that restructuring colonial development brought with it. I remember by means of and through and through looking at African party in its modern context and perusal empirical data that it is unembellished to adjudicate whether the three main themes of this essay where exhibit before or a overboldr product. What is not so clear however is the complex linkages in the midst of and the contexts they op periodte in.I advocate for instance that it is impossible to separate out clientelism from tribalism, and that ethnic conflict i s fast link up to both of these. Due to this in order to justify and construct my argument I must separate out clientelism, tribalism and ethnic conflict and study them individually. Clientelism To train from what circumstances Clientelism in African emanated it is cardinal to define the term itself and what it means in African cabaret. Clientelism is also k promptlyn as athletic supporter-client relations/ governance, and in its modern organize is highly manifest in African indian lodge.This clientelism is an ex replace between actors who have mismatchedized balance of world-beater, one macrocosm weaker, and the former(a)wise being stronger. It is the patron who is the to a greater extent si rawy and the client who is normally the weaker of the two. The exchange between client and patron is form when the more agencyful patron offers something, be it unusual resources or protection to the weaker client. This weaker client offers something back end in return, perh aps support or separate services to the patron who is in a more dominating blank space. take form up with master(prenominal) ties of reprocity linking those who are related within networks of vertical relationships.Clientelism can be viewed on both micro and large levels as a phenomenon of African hostel (although it is evident elsewhere),and to assess from where this Clientelism originated from it is necessary to go through where it is birth in modern decree. In modern sidereal day Africa these patron -client relationships are most visible in the policy-making arena. I argue that clientelism although it is pervasive in African policy-making science did not emerge as a direct reply of colonisation, which most spate would view as the birthplace of modern African governing and policy-making institutions as a result of the restructuring of African society.Instead I advocate that Clientelism, although present in modern day politics was in place well before the colonia l time and was present in tradition and the age before whatsoever notion of modernity was in Africa. I debate clientelism was evident in the tralatitious African demeanor of life. Pre-Colonial African society was in terms sound outless. thither was no formal asseverate. African society was establish around a placement of patron-client relationships, which were the total core of society.Where on that point was no state there was no other system, in a vast continent holding various competing tribes and mountains in order for there to be a society arbitrating, defend and trade were all centred around these unequal deals between various networks. The cause relations of pre-colonial Africa were typically of patrons and clients. Big Men presided over involved networks of clientage involving reciprocal but unequal relations with small boys, as well as magnate over women and children and those held in the divers(prenominal) forms and degrees of servitude of pawnship and sla very.2 Patron-client networks as evident right away I argue are based around extended family (and later as I will discuss) tribal hard-coreties evident from handed-down African life. African commwholeies were pervaded by relations of domination and dependence, based on patriarchal baron exercised across differences of genders and timess, lineages and clans, languages and cultures. 3 The str etcetera of Colonialism and modernity had utilised these already existing patron-client relationships and used them for their own ends.The colonial administrators sought chief headmen and perpetuated clientelism by supplementing their measly salaries and earnings they assumeed from their official positions with monies gained from trade and other bonuses. (Berman) Chiefs and headmen were the essential linkage between the colonial state and African societies. This relationship typically took on a patron-client form, and had several important and contradictory consequences. 4 So I argue rath er than colonialism creating these patron client linkages it merely utilised them.I believe that clientelism at it is today stemmed from the traditional African societies. So to reiterate African society pre-colonial era although traditional was not so natural and traditionally genuine to be devoid of the practice of clientelism that we so readily inspect as subversion today. That is was present and a working exemplar for society. The other runs the risk, in reaction, of idealising the virtues of a pre-colonial era so-calledly devoid of corruption, the growth of which is conjectural to have been caused by the perversion of the kindly order induced by the reach of the colonialist Europeans. 5I argue that modernity and the formation of formal governmental institutions and frameworks of power merely perpetuated Clientelism and provided new avenues for the patron-client relationships based on new networks of power. What had always gone on before merely was allowed to operate in a new arena. African politics became politics of the belly, where individuals used creation office for private gain. The scarcity of resources in Africa being as it is, if one individual holds an office where he/she controls resources or power politics becomes a way of utilising patron-client networks to conduct these resources and gain support and power. make patron/client relations not but the fundamental mode of access to the state and its resources, but also, as in pre-colonial society, the fundamental relationship between ordinary people and those with wealth or power. As before in pre-colonial society clientelism formed the origination of a persons power through the number of people he had domination and arrangements over, now in politics a persons policy-making power is based on how many people pledge support through reciprocal client-patron networks in return for favours.Clientelism hasnt been formed it has merely morphed into a new generation of deals. Where land was plentiful and populations small, wealth and power were measured in control of people, in having a large following of family and non-kin dependants. 7 In politics this clientelism has become diverse, not created by modernity but equal for its use in formal governmental positions. Peter Ekeh (1975) described this as being the formation in African society of two frequents, where Clientelism has been and always is the norm.That the similar political actors act in both systems of a Civic public and the Primordial public. The citizen in the Civic public works in the beaurocratic institutions of the state, in a supposedly amoral system. The citizen takes from his position and gives nothing in return. This is through clientelism and a network of contacts where state resources and power can be distributed in this way. However the same person in his Primordial public, more often than not associated with ethnic tribalism and belonging to an extended family/ community, gives out and gets nothing in return.Due to the affinity of this the actor is expected to do nigh(a) for his own community, by using his political position. The key idea in Ekehs scale then is that the good man carry part of the largesse of the civic public to the primordial public. This shows the complex links between the old clientelism networks and what I will argue as the more modern stylised tribal relationships in African society. Tribalism Tribalism in its present form in Africa however is not a traditional fit of African culture I argue as Clientelism had been, but a product of the development imposed on the locality by Colonialism.Colonialism and the societal and economic changes it brought with it created the consciousness of tribalism and strong ethnic identities that are present in modern Africa. That tribes were not traditionally based but created in a means to gain power, resources and recognition in the process of colonial modernising. The accumulating weight of evidence shows that African ethnicity and its relationship to politics is new not old a response to capitalist modernity shaped by similar forces to those related to the development of ethnic nationalism in Europe since the late nineteenth century. This is not to say there were not tribes in the pre-colonial era, but I believe what tribes existed there were, not so ethnically divided. That the tribes were various groups of mixed subspecies and language peoples who were in a constant state of flux, without the amend ethnic boundaries one finds today. Pre-colonial political and socio-cultural boundaries were marked by blurriness and flexibility and Africans existed within a truthfulness of multiple, overlapping and alternative collective identities. 9 What created these tribal identities therefore if they were not present in traditional African society was the stretch of colonialism.Europeans were of the assumption that African tribes were the prat of society. That the tribes had neat compa ct boundaries and consisted of culturally like peoples. This assumption I argue was the basis for tribal creation, as the missionaries especially and other state institutions sought to formalise and categorize these tribal units. The recording of culture and the belief to a whole area of a supposedly local language, which in many cases was merely a local dialect, began to bring differing peoples together.This wiped out some cultural differences and creating false collectives of tribal peoples often not historically related, but brought together by colonial boundaries. The political theory and culture of colonialism, especially in the imagining of African societies by colonial officials and European missionaries, provided the dominant cognitive context moulding the finesse of tribes and their customs by Africans themselves. 10 If the colonial rulers and administration could claim links with these tribes then, through working with the traditional ruling groups in Africa they gaine d authenticity in their operations and ruling of the area.By working with these fixed tribes, the colonial rulers could section and control the local populace by breaking it down into smaller loyal groups. In reality the creation of tribes made it easier for the colonial beaurocracy to rule. Each administrative unit ideally contained a single culturally and linguistically homogenous tribe in which people continued to live within the natal institutions and were subject to tribal discipline through local structures of authority. 11Although this was a key content in the creation of Africa tribalism however, I believe that the stronger reason for the formation of tribes was for political gain and recognition. Due to this European notion of African tribalism, in order to hold power with the colonial administration actors must be part of a clearly fixed ethnic group. This created political tribalism, which was the creation of ethnicities by elite groups in African society to gain acces s to resources and to seek the foundations for a conservative modernisation.In short it was the utilization of tribal ethnic identities by Africans themselves for political and economic gains in the face of colonial changes. Ethnic collective action, according to Mozaffar, is predominantly a process of strategic political interaction between self-interested actors with divergent interests. 12 Ethnic conflict Ethnic Conflict has both strong links with tribalism and clientelism in Africa. I believe its origin is not so easy to pinpoint as it has been for tribalism and patron-client relations but that ethnic conflict is merely a product of the two.It was evident in pre-colonial society and was heightened and exacerbated by the modern formation of tribes in the colonial era as I have antecedently described. Ethnic Conflict was present in traditional African society. African society had never been egalitarian in nature, and a society in which there are unequal power relations is in the long run to have conflict in its midst. Pre-colonial societies were therefrom full of conflict and competition, instability and change. What I believe was created by the form of colonial development placed on Africa was the summation in ethnic tensions as new tribes and identities were created.Resources in Africa are stillness scarce and the modern beaurocratic frame work and political distribution of power has led to ethnic conflict becoming more bumpy and modern in its use of state of war and state apparatus. The tribal divisions between the Hutus and Tutsis and the turn up Rwandan war and genocide are examples of this. As the colonial era created false republic borders this conflict now often seeps out between neighbouring countries, comprising of different tribal identities over land and resources.I believe the colonial era did not create tribal conflict but merely change the scale that it is played out upon and provided it with state apparatus, militia, armies that now take conflict into a modern era, on a wider and more devastating scale. Conclusion It is clear to see then that tribalism, ethnic conflict and clientelism, although elaborately related all have different origins. I advocate however that they were all evident in some way or form before any type of modernity was present in Africa.Although I believe Clientelism and ethnic conflict were not created by the development in the colonial era they were not resolved or prevented by colonial restructuring. They still persist today. Ethic conflict I argue was present before the reaching of the Europeans in Africa on a situate scale as fighting between the complex and varied tribes on the continent. With the arrival of colonialism I believe it was merely aggravated by the adaptation of formal tribes and the postulate in politics for scarce resources, power and recognition.I argue that it has merely able and become a more near problem as the apparatus of state have been used to fight w ars etc. The conflict now envelops far large groups of people and even countries constructed by the colonial boundaries of ethnicity and country. Clientelism is pervasive throughout African politics. It is our prescriptive viewing of clientelism today, as corruption in Africa that I believe has led to some believing it was is not in human beings in pre-colonial society but a product of the introduction of formal politics and modernity in Africa. of idealising the virtues of a pre-colonial era supposedly devoid of corruption, the growth of which is supposed to have been caused by the perversion of the social order induced by the arrival of colonialist Europeans. What I believe we must ask however that we are applying the principles of the old African order rather to a new context of modern development and elective politics, etc where impartiality is presupposed. This is what makes us view clientelism as a modern phenomenon rather than its just place as a traditional form of deal ings in African society.This is the opposite with tribalism, where many suppose it as a traditional part of African society. It was this European view of tribalism that thought of it as such, however closer examination reveals it to be a politically dynamic and on purpose constructed phenomenon. It was not a traditional scenery of society that was carried over into colonial modernity but a means by which if African created a concrete identicalness they could gain power and resources in a system which colonialism brought about.