State Capacity and Decolonial Critique

Considering the current situation in Burkina Faso, the international media is speaking of institutional weakness and state failure in Africa and the role of international institutions and local non-state actors in providing security and public goods in the Sahel. The discourse of state failure and counter-state sovereignty has a decades-old genealogy, but recent work by African scholars has sought to contest top-down Western labels and categories. African attempts to decolonize social science research began shortly after independence in the 1960s. Yet, lately, scholars like Ugandan sociologist Sylvia Tamale have taken the critique of Western knowledge production in a new direction. As French Special Forces prepare to depart Burkina Faso, commentators have begun speculating that the Russian mercenary group Wagner will be arriving to assist the Burkinabe leader Captain Ibrahima Traore in countering a ten-year Islamist insurgency that has displaced an estimated two million people. 1 Once again, the media is speaking of institutional weakness and state failure in Africa and the role of international institutions and local non-state actors in providing security and public goods in the Sahel. As we show below, the discourse of state failure and the rebel/Jihadi governance model has a decades- old genealogy. However, recent work by African scholars has sought to contest top-down labels and Western categories. African attempts to decolonize social science research began shortly after independence in the 1960s, and scholars like Ugandan sociologist Sylvia Tamale have taken the critique of Western knowledge production in a new direction.