Eroded state revenue capacity gave rise to African war machines

Evidence

War machines emerged in Africa during the last quarter of the twentieth century in direct relation to the erosion of the postcolonial state’s capacity to build the economic underpinnings of political authority and order. This capacity involves raising revenue and commanding and regulating access to natural resources within a well-defined territory. In the mid-1970s, as the state’s ability to maintain this capacity began to erode, there emerged a clear-cut link between monetary instability and spatial fragmentation. — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 132

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Scaffolding module theme of how modern bureaucratic rationality and state capacity enable or fail to prevent exclusion and violence. — connects to: African statehood fragmented into markets where coercion and violence are bought and sold — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 127; Kenyan guerrilla war arose where foreign ownership blocked an indigenous bourgeoisie — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 139; Small-arms proliferation and mercenaries enlarged African civil war feasibility after 1990 (+1 more)

Related

• Small-arms proliferation and mercenaries enlarged African civil war feasibility after 1990 (similarity 0.84)
• African statehood fragmented into markets where coercion and violence are bought and sold (similarity 0.84)
• Kenyan guerrilla war arose where foreign ownership blocked an indigenous bourgeoisie (similarity 0.83)
• War machines govern populations by immobilizing or scattering them beyond state borders. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• African statehood fragmented into markets where coercion and violence are bought and sold #expands (0.92) — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 127