Africa was not an anarchist paradise; it underwent broadly similar processes of centralisation and state formation to those found elsewhere, with regional variation.
What you demonstrate is that Henn and Robinson are repeating an old mistake of treating the current state of a dynamic system as its permanent character. Burton encountered Somali society in 1854 and described it as inherently resistant to authority, without realising he was looking at the aftermath of the Ajuraan collapse rather than some deep cultural constant. Henn and Robinson reach the same static conclusion through mid-20th-century anthropology.
Your evidence bears this out. Kongo had tribute systems, provincial officials, and standing armies, which then fragmented when Atlantic trade disrupted the conditions that had made centralisation viable. The Nyamwezi went the other way: no prior tradition of centralised leadership, yet hegemonic states within a generation, once the caravan trade and Ngoni migrations changed what they were up against. The same underlying structures, yet completely different outcomes. Vansina says as much in the passage you provide: innovations took root only when conditions shifted, and then through historical accident. This is not a cultural argument.
There's a policy implication worth recognising. Once this kind of framing takes hold, it provides cover for bypassing state-building altogether. Hence, we see micro-finance, cash transfers, and NGOs standing in for the centralised authority Africans supposedly never sought. But if your argument is right, the failure of state-building isn't cultural resistance. It's the absence of conditions that makes state capacity develop. And that's a problem we could actually do something about.
"But if your argument is right, the failure of state-building isn't cultural resistance. It's the absence of conditions that makes state capacity develop. And that's a problem we could actually do something about."
Thank you! It's almost disappointing how some readers may miss this key observation.
Specific conditions during specific periods enabled or limited the emergence of states. In the present era, the replacement of state functions by NGOs and similar institutions is exactly the sort of condition that a historian would identify as inhibiting state capacity.
A fantastic and insightful piece - I appreciate your pushing back on continued misinterpretation of African states and history. Learned a lot from this.
This analysis is fantastic. However, no analysis of anarchism in Africa would be complete without an acknowledgement of the Tiv and the anarchic tradition of Kwagh-hir. Have you read The Kwagh-hir Theater: A Weapon for Social Action by Iyorwuese Hagher? I would love to read your analysis of pre-colonial states as affected by this ancient and modern revolutionary tradition.
I will; I'm hoping to write more about anarchic (so-called stateless) societies in Africa, although I'm wary of having to rely on purely anthropological rather than historical data. I have written about the Khoi-San of southern Africa, but mostly focusing on the forms of social organisation that resemble classical states.
The dense/competitive state system of western Eurasia is often the emphasis by scholars of many traditions- You write that “states and centralizing institutions arose whenever the underlying conditions and political innovations were favorable.” But it seems to be the case that conditions were generally not favorable - if nothing else having 1/6 (all of Africa) to 1/10th (sub-Saharan) the population density of western Eurasia in ~1800 and much higher transport costs/much worse transport infrastructure were alone hugely limiting conditions.
Henn and Robinson may have made a weak mechanism-claim but for much of what that larger literature is focused on the key claim (for many purposes) that conditions were indeed “not favorable” to dense contiguous competing centralized states in Africa is true.
Their claim isn't that conditions were not favorable. Their claim is that Africans actively blocked state formation. Please read the paper; a link to it is provided in the second paragraph of the introduction.
You can then come back and move the goal posts to something else.
My comment acknowledges that- “Henn and Robinson may have made a weak mechanism-claim but for much of what that larger literature is focused on the key claim…”.
You mention Acemoglu and Robinson’s wider institutional work which discusses the range of theories on African institutions.
What are the unfavorable conditions you refer to as limiting states and centralizing institutions since Henn and Robinson are incorrect on the cause(s)?
I didn't say anything about "unfavourable conditions"; my essay is specifically about some of those regions which were, in fact, favourable.
As explained, specifically based on Vansina's research in the Equatorial region, there are multiple conditions, both human and natural, that enable the emergence of centralised states, and sometimes, those conditions simply lead to other forms of social organisation.
This is not an alternative history argument from the negative (about what isn't, or what didn't happen) its an argument from the evidence (what is, and what did happen).
If you'd like to discuss the great divergence in the context of African history, and whether or not states were even limited, you'd need to first do a lot of groundwork by studying each region on the continent, and then making informed conclusions based on the available historical evidence.
There are no shortcuts; you can't skip the homework and hope to magically explain something that most historians haven't even tackled because of its sheer scale and diversity.
Have you never wondered why professional historians rarely engage with such grand theories or attempt to answer such broad questions? even though they are the best equipped to provide the exact answers we need.
That is Acemoglu and Robinson's mistake; they come up with a general theory by extrapolating a few case studies, and hope that it will apply everywhere. No specialist would be this reductive. Even Vansina makes his equatorial tradition incredibly dynamic because, in a relatively small region like the D.R.C, one could find a dozen different forms of social organisation at different points in time that could all produce different forms of political and social development.
That's why my conclusion to this essay was "A more adequate understanding of African state building requires careful engagement with the historical literature."
You wrote “states and centralizing institutions arose whenever the underlying conditions and political innovations were favorable” - so where unfavorable they did not but, as you say, had “other forms of social organisation.”
Of course you can limit your writing to describing the details of the exceptions under “favorable” conditions. But in your opening you refer to the wider causal literature (Acemoglu and Robinson) on development questions.
I was curious what exceptional “underlying conditions” you imply held in the areas/time periods where Africa didn’t have “the emergence of centralised states” but rather “simply…other forms of social organisation.”
i wasn't limiting my writing to exceptions, I was quite literally summarising a book about the development of social complexity in the equatorial region. (as you can see clearly from the map, complex states were not the exception in Congo, even in the regions adjacent to and within the world's largest rainforest (a not so condusive environment). They covered most of the environment that could be inhabited by humans.
As I said, even when Vasina attempts to highlight the unique environments where alternatives emerged, eg, "Business Firms" of the western and costal regions, his book ends up becoming the usual historian's outline of the development of complex societies and states:
"Like most works of history, Vansina’s book ultimately traces processes of social differentiation and the expansion of political scale, even as he seeks to emphasize the diversity of alternate paths to social and political change."
Secondly, in case you didn't click on the link to my critique of Acemoglu and Robinson's arguments, I was not referring to the wider causal literature on state development, I was, in fact, rubbishing their wilful misinterpretation of African historical examples of centralised kingdoms and institutions, as well as their complete disregard for historical research.
Rubbishing- right. So that’s why I am asking what your alternatives would be- as I said you mention “favorable” so you must have something in mind addressing the AR work you mention at the outset
It's amazing how they keep using the same tribal map and the same outdated 70-year-old anthropological studies to come up with new, erroneous theoretical arguments that somehow always manage to cross over to the mainstream.
If it weren't such a disservice to basic Africanist scholarship, I'd be impressed.
What you demonstrate is that Henn and Robinson are repeating an old mistake of treating the current state of a dynamic system as its permanent character. Burton encountered Somali society in 1854 and described it as inherently resistant to authority, without realising he was looking at the aftermath of the Ajuraan collapse rather than some deep cultural constant. Henn and Robinson reach the same static conclusion through mid-20th-century anthropology.
Your evidence bears this out. Kongo had tribute systems, provincial officials, and standing armies, which then fragmented when Atlantic trade disrupted the conditions that had made centralisation viable. The Nyamwezi went the other way: no prior tradition of centralised leadership, yet hegemonic states within a generation, once the caravan trade and Ngoni migrations changed what they were up against. The same underlying structures, yet completely different outcomes. Vansina says as much in the passage you provide: innovations took root only when conditions shifted, and then through historical accident. This is not a cultural argument.
There's a policy implication worth recognising. Once this kind of framing takes hold, it provides cover for bypassing state-building altogether. Hence, we see micro-finance, cash transfers, and NGOs standing in for the centralised authority Africans supposedly never sought. But if your argument is right, the failure of state-building isn't cultural resistance. It's the absence of conditions that makes state capacity develop. And that's a problem we could actually do something about.
"But if your argument is right, the failure of state-building isn't cultural resistance. It's the absence of conditions that makes state capacity develop. And that's a problem we could actually do something about."
Thank you! It's almost disappointing how some readers may miss this key observation.
Specific conditions during specific periods enabled or limited the emergence of states. In the present era, the replacement of state functions by NGOs and similar institutions is exactly the sort of condition that a historian would identify as inhibiting state capacity.
You write rigorous things that always end up with a heft I find incisive—thx 4 that
Thank you too!
A fantastic and insightful piece - I appreciate your pushing back on continued misinterpretation of African states and history. Learned a lot from this.
This analysis is fantastic. However, no analysis of anarchism in Africa would be complete without an acknowledgement of the Tiv and the anarchic tradition of Kwagh-hir. Have you read The Kwagh-hir Theater: A Weapon for Social Action by Iyorwuese Hagher? I would love to read your analysis of pre-colonial states as affected by this ancient and modern revolutionary tradition.
I will; I'm hoping to write more about anarchic (so-called stateless) societies in Africa, although I'm wary of having to rely on purely anthropological rather than historical data. I have written about the Khoi-San of southern Africa, but mostly focusing on the forms of social organisation that resemble classical states.
Luckily Iorwyese Hagher includes both historical and anthropological data in his analysis. I will keep an eye out for your writeup!
The dense/competitive state system of western Eurasia is often the emphasis by scholars of many traditions- You write that “states and centralizing institutions arose whenever the underlying conditions and political innovations were favorable.” But it seems to be the case that conditions were generally not favorable - if nothing else having 1/6 (all of Africa) to 1/10th (sub-Saharan) the population density of western Eurasia in ~1800 and much higher transport costs/much worse transport infrastructure were alone hugely limiting conditions.
Henn and Robinson may have made a weak mechanism-claim but for much of what that larger literature is focused on the key claim (for many purposes) that conditions were indeed “not favorable” to dense contiguous competing centralized states in Africa is true.
Their claim isn't that conditions were not favorable. Their claim is that Africans actively blocked state formation. Please read the paper; a link to it is provided in the second paragraph of the introduction.
You can then come back and move the goal posts to something else.
My comment acknowledges that- “Henn and Robinson may have made a weak mechanism-claim but for much of what that larger literature is focused on the key claim…”.
I didn’t in a short comment discuss I disagree strongly with aspects of AJR & related work- https://x.com/clintballinger/status/1846261129535717862?s=46
You mention Acemoglu and Robinson’s wider institutional work which discusses the range of theories on African institutions.
What are the unfavorable conditions you refer to as limiting states and centralizing institutions since Henn and Robinson are incorrect on the cause(s)?
I didn't say anything about "unfavourable conditions"; my essay is specifically about some of those regions which were, in fact, favourable.
As explained, specifically based on Vansina's research in the Equatorial region, there are multiple conditions, both human and natural, that enable the emergence of centralised states, and sometimes, those conditions simply lead to other forms of social organisation.
This is not an alternative history argument from the negative (about what isn't, or what didn't happen) its an argument from the evidence (what is, and what did happen).
If you'd like to discuss the great divergence in the context of African history, and whether or not states were even limited, you'd need to first do a lot of groundwork by studying each region on the continent, and then making informed conclusions based on the available historical evidence.
There are no shortcuts; you can't skip the homework and hope to magically explain something that most historians haven't even tackled because of its sheer scale and diversity.
Have you never wondered why professional historians rarely engage with such grand theories or attempt to answer such broad questions? even though they are the best equipped to provide the exact answers we need.
That is Acemoglu and Robinson's mistake; they come up with a general theory by extrapolating a few case studies, and hope that it will apply everywhere. No specialist would be this reductive. Even Vansina makes his equatorial tradition incredibly dynamic because, in a relatively small region like the D.R.C, one could find a dozen different forms of social organisation at different points in time that could all produce different forms of political and social development.
That's why my conclusion to this essay was "A more adequate understanding of African state building requires careful engagement with the historical literature."
You wrote “states and centralizing institutions arose whenever the underlying conditions and political innovations were favorable” - so where unfavorable they did not but, as you say, had “other forms of social organisation.”
Of course you can limit your writing to describing the details of the exceptions under “favorable” conditions. But in your opening you refer to the wider causal literature (Acemoglu and Robinson) on development questions.
I was curious what exceptional “underlying conditions” you imply held in the areas/time periods where Africa didn’t have “the emergence of centralised states” but rather “simply…other forms of social organisation.”
i wasn't limiting my writing to exceptions, I was quite literally summarising a book about the development of social complexity in the equatorial region. (as you can see clearly from the map, complex states were not the exception in Congo, even in the regions adjacent to and within the world's largest rainforest (a not so condusive environment). They covered most of the environment that could be inhabited by humans.
As I said, even when Vasina attempts to highlight the unique environments where alternatives emerged, eg, "Business Firms" of the western and costal regions, his book ends up becoming the usual historian's outline of the development of complex societies and states:
"Like most works of history, Vansina’s book ultimately traces processes of social differentiation and the expansion of political scale, even as he seeks to emphasize the diversity of alternate paths to social and political change."
Secondly, in case you didn't click on the link to my critique of Acemoglu and Robinson's arguments, I was not referring to the wider causal literature on state development, I was, in fact, rubbishing their wilful misinterpretation of African historical examples of centralised kingdoms and institutions, as well as their complete disregard for historical research.
Rubbishing- right. So that’s why I am asking what your alternatives would be- as I said you mention “favorable” so you must have something in mind addressing the AR work you mention at the outset
Thanks.
It's amazing how they keep using the same tribal map and the same outdated 70-year-old anthropological studies to come up with new, erroneous theoretical arguments that somehow always manage to cross over to the mainstream.
If it weren't such a disservice to basic Africanist scholarship, I'd be impressed.