TY  - JOUR
T1  - The Struggle for Power in Post-Colonial Africa: Politics without Hegemony and the State
AU - Fadakinte, M.M. 
JO  - Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences
VL  - 16
IS  - 5
SP  - 148
EP  - 161
PY  - 2019
DA  - 2001/08/19
SN  - 1683-8831
DO  - pjssci.2019.148.161
UR  - https://makhillpublications.co/view-article.php?doi=pjssci.2019.148.161
KW  - Hegemony
KW  -colonization
KW  -the state
KW  -dominant class
KW  -African states
AB  - Scholars have explained the implications of
colonization on Africa but none has explained the
implications to include crisis of hegemony and crisis of
state. And that is the thrust of this paper, an interrogation
of hegemony and the state in order to explain why
post-colonial Africa is enmeshed in violent struggle for
power by factions of the dominant class soon after
independence. At the time European colonization began
in Africa, the African societies were at different stages of
slavery and feudalism which means that it was
colonialism that instituted capitalism in Africa when
Africans were least prepared for it. Also, unlike in
Western Europe, capitalism did not evolve organically in
Africa. Thus, in pre-colonial Africa, there was no
capitalist class and no capitalist social classes in
antagonistic relations, so also there were no capitalist
institutions for example, like the state. So, capitalism and
the European modern states were injected into Africa at
the time Africa did not have the capacity to put them into
practice. Thus, colonialism imposed capitalism and
inverted the process of creating a capitalist sate which
made the emerging dominant class who were of different
ethnic and tribal origins to develop into factions. As a
result, the dominant classes were made up of belligerent
factions and therefore cannot institute hegemonic process
which will be the way they will maintain a dominant
culture through the use of social institutions to formalize
power. Consequently, in post-colonial Africa, politics is
without hegemony (leadership, domination and control)
and a state (institution for order). And whenever people
struggle for power without hegemony and the state what
emerges is chaos. Hence, post-colonial African countries
boil each time there is competition for power. Thus, there
is need to redefine state-society relations in post-colonial
Africa, based on a new paradigm of state formation that
will reflect their colonial experience.
ER  -