Africa on the Verge of Political Instability

Political instability prevails in African polities. Bastions are few. How long can they postpone the sweeping spread of disorder? We will see.

In this overview of political stability in Africa, we come to sketch the contours of a general conclusion:

1)    Too many polities will not be able to pull themselves out of the Malmstrom of political instability hence come under reconstruction, creating a critical mass of polities, displaying viable political instability on the continent.

2)    The regional powerhouses and bastions of stability are too weak to react in an ordering fashion.

3)    Hence, Africa is approaching major political instability and polity fragmentation throughout 21^st century.

In the following we make a tour de force through the continent, focusing on political stability by using the color code from Polity Volatility Index (PVI), indicating the prospect for the UN recognized polities. The PVI colorcode goes from blue: very stable, over green: stable, through yellow: challenged by potential instability, and orange: suffering from instability, to red: permanently unstable, to purple: under re-construction.

Global perspective

Approaching the continent from outer space, one is struck with the difference in climate from arid North to wet around Equator to semi-arid South; this geography must hold all potential. But in terms of viable political order this is the most challenged continent on the planet. The Northern region is divided between Egypt to the East of what was formerly known as Libya and the relatively stable Maghreb countries to the West. A line can be drawn from Libya through Chad and Central African Republic to Democratic Republic of Congo where we determine the political situation as ‘purple’ = under (re-) construction, i.e., areas where anarchy and intra-state conflict prevail without any efficient political infrastructure. From Central African Republic another line can be drawn eastward, through South Sudan, Sudan, and Ethiopia to Somalia. Along this line polities are also ‘purple,’ leaving the somewhat economically prosperous Egypt standing out together with Eritrea, both in ‘red’ due to fragile states but kept afloat by resolute regimes. The global military presence in this region is centered in Djibouti, at the Gulf of Aden, containing bases from several major powers. In the Mideast we find Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, displaying some political stability despite their weak political infrastructure. They are in ‘orange.’

Color code and dynamic

The difference between ‘red’ and ‘orange’ is that while both categories indicate severe intra-structural issues only those who are orange will be able to do something about these issues, eventually port themselves into ‘yellow’, while those in ‘red’ cannot become ‘orange;’ they are only able to postpone their eventual descend into purple. As conflict and anarchy tends to spill over into surrounding polities, creating fragmentation and demand for military intervention to police territory, we can already now conclude that the challenges of political stability in Africa are severe and that the perspective on Africa really needs to be local, since the problems of African polities cannot be solved by external intervention. We shall return to the conundrum of post-colonialism another time. Note the vast territory projected to succumb to the Malmstrom of political stability predicted by the PVI. Already the coming decades will present the world with severe problems due to political instability in Africa.

Regional perspective 

In the south we find South Africa. It is ‘orange,’ displaying severe governmental issues visible both in the mismanaged critical infrastructure and in the weak distribution of rights to the so called ‘colored’ citizens. The internal issues facing this regional powerhouse dampens optimism concerning the ability of remaining viable and reinforce political stability at home and abroad, to the northeast of its borders. South Africa is flanked by the somewhat prosperous Namibia and the well managed Botswana, both having functioning and concentrated population centers, and Zimbabwe

, the purple space in the south where anarchy prevails. Madagascar and Mozambique

are in the red with economic growth and political turmoil only waiting to fall into division. Zambia is orange while Angola

is deep in red; despite being extremely rich on natural resources, it suffers from poverty, and got stuck with a garrison state keeping Angola afloat by sustaining extreme levels of clientelism. The mid-west displays the small polity of Gabon remaining on the verge of yellow, despite a fragile constitutional order, and Equatorial Guinea, also orange, but as well Republic of the Congo in red, flanked by outright intra-state conflict to the north in Cameroon. The regional powerhouse Nigeria is on the brink of severe political division due to its fragile consociationalism vulnerable to the situation unfolding in neighboring Niger, balancing ethnic divides within Nigeria with its role as leader of ECOWAS.

Another troubled region

The region to the northwest of Nigeria and the dynamics of western Africa has our full attention in these years, as it seems to be the region that could determine the outcome for the whole continent. Stability of the regional powers like Nigeria and South Africa are crucial in postponing spiraling dynamics like the ones we are currently witnessing in and around Addis Ababa, the capitol of the former regional power at The Horn. Entering western Africa, we are faced with massively challenged polity, most of them in ‘red’ with few exceptions. Many are dealing with Islamic insurgency, collapsed political infrastructure, amounting to fading government legitimacy and poor arial control, corruption, de facto bankruptcy, and large bulks of internally displaced peoples. Hungry people do not rebel; they beg for food. Elite fragmentation and neo-patrimonialism are catalysts for political instability.

Local perspective

It is probably needless to say that the causes of political stability in Africa to a large degree stems from the hopeless political divisions that are reproduced here by our focus on political stability of UN recognized polities, i.e., by naming countries one by one; of course, these countries and their borders towards each other are arbitrarily fixed, not a result of balance of power dynamics between capitals: Fundamentally, our focus on countries, leaves us with a genuine misconception of the actual polity divisions that traverses the political orders on this continent, way beyond the zone of reconstruction demarcated by the overview. The point is here, that we are now beyond the tipping point of maintaining this ‘system of states’ hence soon, in this prediction already before 2050, the whole of Africa will be under reconstruction hence a local perspective is necessary when projecting long-term. This conclusion may seem bold, but the polity volatility analysis points directly to the critical mass of wrecked societies on the continent; stable political orders are simply too few: Beyond Maghreb, perhaps Gabon and Tanzania could be thrown into the category of ‘stable polities’, but outside this handful and the two ‘green’ beacons of hope: Rwanda, and Botswana, one poor the other rich, both remarkably well run monoarchies, but too small and exceptional to make a difference: Looking beyond these up till seven polities, we see little signs of potential recovery anywhere on the continent, and unfortunately the prediction is clear: they will all succumb to regional and global political dynamics in the decades to come as the large and economically powerful polities fall prey to intra-state conflict and anarchy.

In Conclusio

Reconstruction will be under way throughout the 22^nd century as the locations displaying relative stability now, will come under increasing pressure from the ‘spill over’ effects of conflict. That is the overall conclusion. Consequences will be severe there and in the rest of the world, especially in Europe, where the effects of political instability in Africa is already felt, most notably in France who has economic interest in the so-called CFA franc zone but has recently had its troops thrown out by new governments in West Africa. Our first entries on the topic of ‘Africa’, will be the question of survival for what appears as emerging city-state like entities under the leadership of military juntas around the capitols in the polities currently known as Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso.