THE FUTURE OF THE STATE IN AFRICA CLAUDE AKE The state is a specific modality of class domination, a generic phenomenon in capitalist and socialist formations. The unique feature of the socioeconomic formations in postcolonial Africa is that the state, if we can properly talk of such an existence at all, has very limited autonomy.
‘The Global South’ has become a shorthand for the world of non-European, postcolonial peoples. Synonymous with uncertain development, unorthodox economies, failed states, and nations fraught with corruption, poverty, and strife, it is that half of the world about which the ‘Global North’ spins theories. Rarely is it seen as a source of theory and explanation for world historical events.