African statehood fragmented into markets where coercion and violence are bought and sold

Evidence

Let’s take Africa as an example. Here, the political economy of statehood dramatically changed over the last quarter of the twentieth century. Many African states can no longer claim a monopoly on violence and on the means of coercion within their territory. Nor can they claim a monopoly on territorial boundaries. Coercion itself has become a market commodity. Military manpower is bought and sold on a market in which the identity of suppliers and purchasers means almost nothing. Urban militias, private armies, armies of regional lords, private security firms, and state armies all claim the right to exercise violence or to kill. Neighboring states or rebel movements lease armies to poor states. Nonstate deployers of violence supply two critical coercive resources: labor and minerals. Increasingly, the vast majority of armies are composed of citizen soldiers, child soldiers, mercenaries, and privateers. — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 127

Categorization

• XREF: This is Mbembe’s necropolitics vocabulary feeding the Foundations module toolkit — connects to Weber’s state monopoly on violence being dissolved. — connects to: Eroded state revenue capacity gave rise to African war machines — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 132; Monopoly of violence within precise borders is distinctive to the modern state — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 155; Treason maintains equilibrium in segmentary societies as prices do in markets (+2 more)
• DEFINE: Illustrates the ‘privatization of coercion’ and marketization of violence core to Mbembe’s account.

Related

• Eroded state revenue capacity gave rise to African war machines (similarity 0.84)
• Small-arms proliferation and mercenaries enlarged African civil war feasibility after 1990 (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Monopoly of violence within precise borders is distinctive to the modern state #complicates (0.85) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 155
• Treason maintains equilibrium in segmentary societies as prices do in markets #exemplifies (0.80)