Understanding African politics

Generalisation about African politics and political systems is made difficult by the extent to which African states both differ from one another and have changed since independence. This article discusses whether it is nevertheless possible to understand African states as examples of the same political system, as some recent studies have asserted (or assumed). It argues that by comparing the historical patterns of political development in African states, one can identify a limited number of distinct historical paths, starting with the process of decolonisation (where there are two variants). Subsequently divergent paths arose from differing responses to early post‐independence political crises, producing contrasting forms of politics ‐ ‘centralised‐bureaucratic politics’ and ‘spoils politics’ ‐ and corresponding political systems. Further differentiation has arisen systematically from popular responses to the breakdown of these forms, giving rise to populist revolts, state collapse or to democratic challenges (and sometimes democratic restructuring). Each of these represents a distinct form of politics, and political systems, within Africa. A model of the process of political development in post‐war Africa is set out along these lines, and used to criticise several recent attempts at characterisation of African politics, in which either states belonging to one historical path (and thus one political system) are treated as representative of all African states, or in which states from different paths and belonging to different systems are seen as examples of the same political form and political process.