The State and the Challenges of Nationhood in Africa: Ake's Theory of Political Integration

This study examines Claude Ake's analysis of the problem of political integration and its continuing relevance for contemporary Africa. One of his major works, A Theory of Political Integration, is discussed in the light of his conception of the conditions for achieving political integration in the new states in the immediate post-independence period. Focusing on Africa, the study discusses the complex web of violent conflict and wars over natural resources from the 1990s as an impediment to political integration in the continent. Epitomized by the erosion of the stateness of many African polities, a renewed salience of informal politics and an adaptation to diminished state presence and service provision, the post-Cold War conflict situations across Africa are significant departures from the Cold War experiences in the continent. This study examines the emergent political complex in the region and establishes how it feeds into the global struggles for natural resources as well as ongoing structures of imbalances characterizing the global flows of capital and Africa's growing marginalization and poverty.