The Postcolonial African State in Transition : Stateness and Modes of Sovereignty.

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Information -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Chapter 1 Political History as State Ideology -- Introduction -- State(ness) as Historicity: A Misreading -- State Failure and Other Debilities: A Review -- Failed-State Literature -- (Neo)patrimonialist Literature -- Interventionist Literature -- Un-understanding the State -- The State in Transition: A Proposal -- The Naam and Tenga : A Normative Order and Its Legitimation -- Chapter 2 The Trail of the Horse -- Introduction -- The Ecology of Social Organization -- Social Formation at the Intersection of Mobility and Encounter -- The Voltaic Region: A Common Culture-Area -- Generic Construct: Of Stranger-Kings and Accomodating Natives -- The Political Economy of a State Formation -- Gradations of Stateness -- Mamprugu: The Core State -- The Mossi States of Ouagadougou/Yatenga: Steady Statization -- Dagbon: A Mobile kingdom -- Dagara/Dagaaba/Dagao: Uneven Statelessness -- What to Make of All This? -- Conclusion -- Chapter 3 The Time/Space Dynamics of the Constitution of the Political -- Introduction -- Spatial Occupation and/as the Ethics of Being/Relating -- Land Gods and Territorial Occupation: Mediating Social Phenomena -- Ritual Locales and Sovereignty -- Subjectivities of Intersection -- Constitutional Practice and Authority in a Decentralized Society -- Of Politics and the Political -- Schmitt and the Theological State -- Conclusion -- Chapter 4 Statization and Centralizing Processes in Eighteenth-Century Moogo -- Introduction -- Frontiermen as State-Builders -- Myths of Origin in Moogo -- The Ends of Power -- Statization as Divorce of Kingship from Kinship -- The Naam , Jural Corporateness and Rog-n-miki -- Frames of Interdependence -- Earthpriests -- Blacksmiths -- Of Codes of Hospitality and Social Integration.

Being and Becoming  Moaga -- Moos bûudu -- The Ethics of Othering: Identity and Centralization -- Forms of Integration -- Pogsiure , or Deferred Exchange in Women -- Of Slaves, Captives and Systems of Servitude -- Conclusion -- Chapter 5 Rituals as Political References -- Introduction -- Withdrawal of the High God as a Process of Socialization of Belief -- Proposition of Power and Principles -- The Dual Principle as Model:  Ringu , or History Transacted -- Sacred Kingship: The Political in the Ritual -- Divine Reference and Historical Initiative -- Belief and Historical Experience: The State as Hermeneus -- Conclusion -- Chapter 6 The State in Transition -- Of Sovereignty and Stateness -- Centralization and Consolidation: The Colonial Encounter -- The Post-independence State: Governance and Cultural Bricolage -- Thomas Sankara and the Conceptualization of African Revolutionary Modernity -- Problematized Statehood: Divergences and Dislocations -- Recentring the Debate: Three Propositions -- Conclusion -- Appendix: Glossary of Mooré Terms -- Bibliography -- Index.

Through a detailed historical investigation of the Voltaic region, the book theorizes the state in transition as the constitutive condition of the African state, rendering centralization processes as always transient, uncertain, even dangerous endeavors.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.