The Political Ecology of the African State

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics in Developing Countries & Foreign Policy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Comparative Politics in Developing Countries

Abstract

States seldom control the entirety of the territory defined by their de jure borders. African states in particular are known for their incomplete consolidation; in many African countries, there exist large swathes of territory in which the state is either entirely absent, or exercises minimal control. I explore this phenomenon of incomplete consolidation by addressing two fundamental questions in comparative politics: First, where do states choose to locate their assets and materiel, and thus exercise direct control over territory? And second, why do states elect to control certain territories within their jurisdictions, but not others? To answer these questions, I combine a novel dataset on the spatial extent of African states’ territorial control with a variety of geospatial data from publicly available sources, and use these data to characterize the “ecological niche” of the African state. This niche is defined by a set of spatially-variant strategic, demographic, and economic features that make a given geography conducive to state colonization. I find that a core set of features—economic activity, population density, and proximity to other state resources---are strong predictors of the overall spatial distribution of state infrastructure across the continent. Geographically localized analyses, however, reveal a more nuanced picture, one which underscores the importance of market access, agricultural productivity, and durable infrastructure in determining where government assets are situated in a given region.

Author

• Michael F. Seese