Africa as a Success Story: Political Organization in Pre-Colonial Africa

Soeren Henn and James A. Robinson

No 21115, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We provide an overview of the explanations for the relative lack of state formation historically in Africa. In doing so we systematically document for the first time the extent to which Africa was politically decentralized, calculating that in 1880 there were probably 45,000 independent polities which were rarely organized on ethnic lines. At most 2% of these could be classified as states. We advance a new argument for this extreme political decentralization positing that African societies were deliberately organized to stop centralization emerging. In this they were successful. We point out some key aspects of African societies that helped them to manage this equilibrium. We also emphasize how the organization of the economy was subservient to these political goals.

Keywords: Political centralization; State formation; Economic institutions; International relations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D7 N47 O55 P5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02
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