Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T05:58:31.405Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - The Historicity of State Formation

Welfare Services in Uganda and Cameroon

from Part I - The Imperial Past and Present in International Politics and IR

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2023

Klaus Schlichte
Affiliation:
Universität Bremen
Stephan Stetter
Affiliation:
Universität der Bundeswehr München
Get access

Summary

This chapter argues against mainstream IR, which tend to only identify deficit of governance in ‘areas of limited statehood’. It presents the results of a structured comparison between Uganda and Cameroon. Taking the historicity of state seriously, the authors argue, brings to the fore that what is usually considered to be recent crisis, has it long roots in the past of how states have been formed. The four features that are highlighted are as follows. First, both Uganda and Cameroon are highly internationalized structures of domination. Second, both polities present a bifurcation inherited form the colonial regime between ‘citizens’ from ‘subjects’ (Mamdani). Third, both states make intensive use of the strategy of ‘discharge – i.e.the delegation of functions to private or semi-private agencies without giving up final control of them’ (Hibou). Fourth ‘power without knowledge’ (Breckenridge) is a central feature of state politics. The chapter ultimately argues against conventional narratives on modern statehood that ignore such important historical imprints.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Historicity of International Politics
Imperialism and the Presence of the Past
, pp. 84 - 103
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aerts, J.-J., Cogneau, D., Herrera, J., de Monchy, G. & Roubaud, F. (2000). L’économie camerounaise: un espoir évanoui, Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Badie, B. (1995). La Fin des territoires, Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar
Barnett, M. (2011). Empire of Humanity. A History of Humanitarianism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Bayart, J.-F. & Ellis, S. (2000). Africa in the World: A History of Extraversion, African Affairs, 99(395), 217–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayart, J.-F., Ellis, S. & Hibou, B. (1999). The Criminalization of the State in Africa, Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Breckenridge, K. (2008). Power without Knowledge: Three Nineteenth Century Colonialisms in South Africa, Journal of Natal and Zulu History, 26(1), 330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carbone, G. (2012). Do New Democracies Deliver Social Welfare? Political Regimes and Health Policy in Ghana and Cameroon, Democratisation, 19(2), 157–83.Google Scholar
Clapham, C. (1996). Africa and the International System: The Politics of State Survival, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, F. (1996). Decolonisation and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, F. (2002). Africa Since 1940. The Past of the Present, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cornia, G., Jolly, R., & Stewart, F. (eds.). (1987). Adjustment with a Human Face: Protecting the Vulnerable and Promoting Growth, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Deltombe, T., Domergue, M. & Tatsitsa, J. (2011). Kamerun!: une guerre cachée aux origines de la Françafrique (1948–1971), Paris: Editions La Découverte.Google Scholar
Dujardin, B., Dujardin, M. & Hermans, I. (2003). Ajustement structurel, ajustement culturel?, Santé Publique, 15(4), 503–13.Google Scholar
Eboko, F. & Awondo, P. (2018). L’État stationnaire, entre chaos et renaissance, Politique africaine, 2, 527.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. (2005). Seeing Like an Oil Company: Space, Security, and Global Capital in Neoliberal Africa, American Anthropologist, 107(3), 377–82.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2004). La Naissance de la biopolitique. Cours au Collège de France (1978–1979), Gallimard/EHESS/Seuil.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1975). Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la prison, Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Furnivall, J. S. (1948). Colonial Policy and Practice. A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gemalto. (2018, January 28). Cameroon’s new national identity card. Retrieved October 16, 2020, from www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/digital-identity-and-security/government/customer-cases/new-national-identity-card-for-cameroonGoogle Scholar
Hennock, E. P. (2007). The Origin of the Welfare State in England and Germany, 1850–1914: Social Policies Compared, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Herbst, J. (2000). States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hibou, B. (1999). La ‘décharge’, nouvel interventionnisme, Politique Africaine, 73, 615.Google Scholar
Joseph, R. A. (1980). Church, State, and Society in Colonial Cameroun, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 13(3), 532.Google Scholar
Kamdoum, A. (1994). Planification sanitaire et ajustement structurel au Cameroun (No. 29), Paris: CEPED.Google Scholar
Krasner, S. D. & Risse, T. (2014). External Actors, State-Building, and Service Provision in Areas of Limited Statehood: Introduction, Governance, 27(4), 545–67.Google Scholar
Kuhnle, S. & Sander, A. (2010). The Emergence of the Western Welfare State, in Castles, F. G., Leibfried, S., Lewis, J., Obinger, H. & Pierson, C. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, 7392, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lachenal, G. (2010). Le médecin qui voulut être roi, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 65(1), 121–56.Google Scholar
Lachenal, G. (2015). Lessons in Medical Nihilism: Virus Hunters, Neoliberalism, and the AIDS Crisis in Cameroon, in Geissler, W. (ed.). Para-States and Medical Science: Making African Global Health, 103–41, Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Linjuom Mbowou, C. R. (2013). Etre Sans Papier Chez Soi: Identification, Visibilité et Invisibilité dans les Marges Camerounaises du Bassin de Lac Tchad (Memoire de Master Recherche de Science Politique), Paris: Université Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne.Google Scholar
Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mbembe, A. (1991). Désordres, résistances et productivité, Politique Africaine, 42, 28.Google Scholar
Mbembe, A. (1996). La naissance du maquis dans le Sud Cameroun, 1920–1960, Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Mbembe, A. (1999). Du gouvernement privé indirect, Politique Africaine, 1, 103–21.Google Scholar
Mbembe, A. (2013). Sortir de la grande nuit: Essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée. La Découverte.Google Scholar
Mbembe, A. (2017). Au Cameroun, le crépuscule d’une dictature à huis clos, Le Monde, 9(10), 2017.Google Scholar
Médard, J.-F. (1992). Le ‘Big Man’ en Afrique: Esquisse d’analyse du politicien entrepreneuer, L’Année Sociologique, 42, 167–92.Google Scholar
Mittelman, J. N. (1975). Ideology and Politics in Uganda: From Obote to Amin, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mkandawire, T. (2010). On Tax Efforts and Colonial Heritage in Africa, Journal of Development Studies, 46(10), 1647–69.Google Scholar
Morcillo Laiz, Á. & Schlichte, K. (2016). Rationality and International Domination: Revisiting Max Weber, International Political Sociology, 10(2), 168–84.Google Scholar
Munyambonera, E., Katunze, M., Munu, M. L. & Sserunjogi, B. (2018). Expanding the Pension Sector in Uganda, Research Series No. 143, Kampala: Makerere Economic Policy Research Centre.Google Scholar
Njiale, P. M. (2006). Crise de la société, crise de l’école. Le cas du Cameroun, Revue internationale d’éducation de Sèvres, 41, 5363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noiriel, G. (1996). The French Melting Pot: Immigration, Citizenship, and National Identity, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Nyamnjoh, F. B. (1999). Cameroon: A Country United by Ethnic Ambition and Difference, African Affairs, 98(390), 101–18.Google Scholar
Ocheng, M. T. K. (2004). Basic Education through Primary Education Cycle in Uganda. 1925 to 1999: Rationale and Analysis of Policy Changes (PhD dissertation), Kampala: Makerere University.Google Scholar
Okuonzi, S. A. & Macrae, J. (1995). Whose Policy Is It Anyway? International and National Influences on Health Policy Development in Uganda, Health Policy and Planning, 10(2), 122–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pongou, R., Ezzati, M. & Salomon, J. A. (2006). Household and Community Socioeconomic and Environmental Determinants of Child Nutritional Status in Cameroon, BMC Public Health, 6(1).Google Scholar
Reid, R. J. (2017). A History of Modern Uganda, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rubongoya, J. B. (2018). ‘Movement Legacy’ and Neoliberalism as Political Settlement in Uganda’s Political Economy. In Wiegratz, J., Martiniello, G. & Greco, E. (eds.). Uganda: The Dynamics of Neoliberal Transformation, London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Schlichte, K. (2008). Uganda, Or: The Internationalisation of Rule, Civil Wars, 10(4), 369–83.Google Scholar
Schlichte, K. (2017). The International State. Comparing Statehood in Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, in Heathershaw, J. & Schatz, E. (eds.). Paradox of Power: The Logics of State Weakness in Eurasia, 105–19, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Thomson, M., Kentikelenis, A. & Stubbs, T. (2017). Structural Adjustment Programmes Adversely Affect Vulnerable Populations: A Systematic-Narrative Review of Their Effect on Child and Maternal Health, Public Health Reviews 38(1), 13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Toro District Annual Report 1956, District Commissioner’s Office, Fort Portal, Toro District, 20 March, 1957, Mountains of the Moon University Archive, Fort Portal, Box 414.Google Scholar
Vaughan, M. (1991). Curing Their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness, Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Veit, A., Schlichte, K. & Karadag, R. (2017). The Social Question and State Formation in British Africa: Egypt, South Africa and Uganda in Comparison, European Journal of Sociology, 58(2), 237–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wacquant, L. (2010). La fabrique de l’Etat neoliberal. ‘Workfare’, ‘prison fare’ et insécurité sociale, Civilisations, 59(1), 151–72.Google Scholar
Zartman, I. W. (1995). Introduction: Posing the Problem of State Collapse, in Zartman, I. W. (ed.). Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority, 111, Boulder: L. Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×