Reviews for Powernomics

The average rating for Powernomics based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-07-06 00:00:00 Tony Blevins Herbst's book is an extension of Tilly's argument in that it was not land, but labor that was scarce in developing African states. This did not bring states into direct conflict until after their false creation through European colonialism and thus their state institutions lacked the social credibility and depth complicated by the manipulation of those states as Cold War proxies and subjugation through development aide. Herbst proposes two camps of solutions to the problem: state reform or state reconstruction. State reform may be aided from the outside but largely consists of the development of internal institutions to reassert control throughout physical territory. State reconstruction may come in the form of support to state devolution and re-definition (such as with the establishment of South Sudan) or simply the revocation of recognition of sovereignty for states who fail to maintain control (which could be applied in states like Mali).Lastly, Herbst proposes a possibility of a new solution beyond the nation-state concept but leaves the operationalization of this concept to the minds of the readers, and more specifically, Africans since the only way such a move could work would be an internal revolution and redesign of state institutions. Formal criticisms of Herbst include his overreliance on population density (ala Tilly) as a driving factor in poor institution development as opposed to colonialism and value judgments on the quality of developed states and their support for individual rights and decreasing levels of violence. Of the two, it seems to me the assumption that somehow more alignment between a state's institutions and borders would make a state more responsive to the needs of its people or stable would appear to be hopeful if not misguided. One could imagine the suffering generated in an African version of the 30-years war as states seek to redefine themselves in accordance with the limits of their control. One could also argue that such a process has been ongoing in Somalia since 1991 with little resolution. In summary, Herbst's extension of Charles Tilly's argument for state formation is logically-constructed but I'm not sure his propositions for the future are of much help. Insomuch as Herbst has appropriated the basic framework of Charles Tilly in terms of the structuralist approach to nation-building, it goes without saying that he should be [rightly] criticized for overlooking the domestic interplay of culture and politics. Herbst would likely employ the same defense as Tilly (generalization of trends and accounted for in the concept of coercion structures) but this approach is insufficient to explain the range of levels of development evident in African states. Also, for a supposedly scholarly work, this book is lacking a detailed bibliography. The footnotes are there so I'm not sure why the author or publisher chose not to include one.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-10-03 00:00:00 A R Walton Herbst constructs an argument attempting to explain the reasons that the modern African state fails to govern or develop areas on its periphery. The basic argument is that the pre-colonial forms of rule were ones which 'rippled out' from a power base, with certain areas coming under the suzerainty of multiple leaders or benefactors. The primary explanation for this is the difficulty of African geography, and the fact that populations are sparsely spread out. The attempt to control a large, therefore, was difficult due to the simple fact that people could move beyond the area of control. this has continued in the post-colonial area, however given that leaders need not concern themselves with the integrity of their borders (due to international consensus regarding non-interventionism), they simply ignore the peripheries at the expense of the core. This, Herbst asserts, is a key explanation for the emergence of rural-based guerrilla insurgencies.