Africa’s unfinished state formation is political struggle, not failure
The measure of Africa's state formation is not resemblance to Europe or East Asia. It is whether authority can be made legitimate, durable and grounded in social reality.
Africa’s states are not failed copies of a European script but the product of a political struggle that was interrupted, redirected, and constrained.
Political authority is never built by procedure alone, it rests on the ability to project force, to raise and spend revenue predictably, and to convert that capacity into rules people accept as legitimate.
