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This volume examines political life in the Kingdom of Dahomey, located in the Republic of Bénin.
This study brings Africa into the mainstream of studies of state-formation in agrarian societies. Territorial integration is the challenge: institutional linkages and political deals that bind center and periphery are the solutions. In African countries, rulers at the center are forced to bargain with regional elites to establish stable mechanisms of rule and taxation. Variation in regional forms of social organization make for differences in the interests and political strength of regional leaders who seek to maintain or enhance their power vis-a-vis their followers and subjects, and also vis-a-vis the center.
Looks at the political and social history of the Gold Coast in West Africa from the early 16th century to the second half of the 18th. The book examines how political entities in Nzema were structured territorially, as well as the formation of ruling groups and aspects of their political, economic, and military actions.
The essays in this volume are the product of an interdisciplinary research seminar on The Early State in Africa, conducted during the 1979-1980 academic year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This seminar was one of a series of seminars on comparative civilizations. The participants included historians, sociologists, political scientists, and specialists in comparative religion, who shared an interest in the emergence and dynamics of the state in Africa and were concerned with trying to understand its origins and its various manifestations on the continent.
The evolution of the state from earlier forms of political organization is associated with revolutionary changes in the structure of inequality. These magnify distinctions in rank and power that outweigh anything previously known in so-called primitive societies. This volume explains how and why people came to accept and even identify themselves with this new form of authority. The introduction provides a new theory of legitimacy by synthesizing and uniting earlier theories from psychological, cultural-materialist, rational choice, and Marxist approaches. The case studies which follow present a wide range of materials on cultures in both Western and non-Western settings, and across a number of different historical periods. Included are examples from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the New World. Older states such as Ur, Inca, and medieval France are examined along with more contemporary states including Indonesia, Tanzania, and the revolutionary beginnings of the United States. Using a variety of approaches the contributors show in each instance how the state obtained and used its power, then attempted to have its power accepted as the natural order under the protection of supra-naturally ordained authority. No matter how tyrannical or benign, the cases show that state power must be justified by faith and experience that demonstrates its value to the participants. Through such analysis, the book demonstrates that states must be capable of enforcing their rule, but that they cannot deceive populations into accepting state domination. Indeed, the book suggests that social evolution moves toward less coercive rule and increased democratization. Ronald Cohen is a political anthropologist who has taught at the Universities of Toronto, McGill, Northwestern, and Ahmadu Bello, and is on the faculty of the University of Florida. He has carried out field research in Africa, the Arctic and Washington. His major works include The Kanuri of Borno, Dominance and Defiance, Origins of the State, and a book in preparation on food policy and agricultural transformation in Africa. Judith D. Toland is a lecturer at University College, Northwestern University, and the College of Arts and Sciences, Loyola University of Chicago. She is the director of her own corporate and non-profit consulting firm. She has done fieldwork in Ayacucho, Peru and has written widely on the Inca State.
This Handbook offers a comprehensive treatment of transformations of the state, from its origins in different parts of the world and different time periods to its transformations since World War II in the advanced industrial countries, the post-Communist world, and the Global South. Leading experts in their fields, from Europe and North America, discuss conceptualizations and theories of the state and the transformations of the state in its engagement with a changing international environment as well as with changing domestic economic, social, and political challenges. The Handbook covers different types of states in the Global South (from failed to predatory, rentier and developmental), in different kinds of advanced industrial political economies (corporatist, statist, liberal, import substitution industrialization), and in various post-Communist countries (Russia, China, successor states to the USSR, and Eastern Europe). It also addresses crucial challenges in different areas of state intervention, from security to financial regulation, migration, welfare states, democratization and quality of democracy, ethno-nationalism, and human development. The volume makes a compelling case that far from losing its relevance in the face of globalization, the state remains a key actor in all areas of social and economic life, changing its areas of intervention, its modes of operation, and its structures in adaption to new international and domestic challenges.
In this volume the role of ideology in the emergency of early states is discussed by an international group of specialists. The book is of interest to all those concerned with the complex interaction of ideological and political developments.
This book brings to fruition the research done during the CEA-ISCTE project ‘’Monitoring Conflicts in the Horn of Africa’’, reference PTDC/AFR/100460/2008. The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) provided funding for this project. The chapters are based on first-hand data collected through fieldwork in the region’s countries between 4 January 2010 and 3 June 2013. The project’s team members and consultants debated their final research findings in a one-day Conference at ISCTE-IUL on 29 April 2013. The following authors contributed to the project’s final publication: Alexandra M. Dias, Alexandre de Sousa Carvalho, Aleksi Ylönen, Ana Elisa Cascão, Elsa González Aimé, Manuel João Ramos, Patrick Ferras, Pedro Barge Cunha and Ricardo Real P. Sousa.
By examining three centuries of history, this book shows how vital border regions have been in shaping states and social contracts.
Featuring a sweeping array of essays from scholars of state formation and development, this book presents an overview of approaches to studying the history of the state. Focusing on the question of state formation, this volume takes a particular look at the beginnings, structures, and constant reforming of state power. Not only do the contributors draw upon both modernist and postmodernist theoretical perspectives, they also address the topic from a global standpoint, examining states from all areas of the world. In their diverse and thorough exploration of state building, the authors cross the theoretical, geographic, and chronological boundaries that traditionally shape this field in order to rethink the customary macro and micro approaches to the study of state building and make the case for global histories of both pre-modern and modern state formations.