1 - Understanding African state-building: Integrating approaches from above and from below

This paper proposes an analytical framework for this panel. African state-building can be understood as the process of reclaiming the "state," defined and operated by colonial powers and white settlers, by Africans themselves. To make the comparative studies more meaningful, we set two working hypotheses for the analysis: first, the main concerns of state-building are organized into resource management (or development) and territorial governance, aiming to strengthen and streamline them; second, state-building progresses as an interaction between "top-down" intervention by political elites and mobilization and resistance movements from "bottom-up" in local communities. Based on these working hypotheses, four issues for comparison would be clarified. The first is the "top-down territorial governance," involving the process by which the state concentrates political power and penetrates it within its territory or the policies aimed at achieving this. The second is "top-down resource management," where development policies and interventions are anticipated. The third is "bottom-up resource management," involving local-level resource management or mobilization and resistance against government development policies. The fourth deals with the "bottom-up territorial governance," typically involving the relationship between customary chiefs and communities. Each paper will focus on one of these four issues or their interaction, thus clarifying which actors are advancing state-building efforts through what actions and whether these efforts contribute to strengthening state functions.