P. Mawhood (ed.), Local Government in the Third World: the experience of tropical Africa. Chichester: John Wiley, 1983, 276 pp., £21.00, ISBN 471 105 104. - R. F. Ola, Local Administration in Nigeria. London: Kegan Paul International, 1984, £9.95, ISBN 0710 300 441. - L. Adamolekun, Politics and Administration in Nigeria. Ibadan and London: Spectrum Books and Hutchinson Educational, 1986, £6.95, ISBN 0915 809 19.

Africa ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-249
Author(s):  
D. J. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Third World ◽  
Local Administration ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third World

Sovereignty and Underdevelopment: Juridical Statehood in the African Crisis

1986 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Jackson ◽  
Carl G. Rosberg
Keyword(s):  
Air Force ◽  
Third World ◽  
The State ◽  
Close Approximation ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
The Third ◽  
Falklands War ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Military

When we speak of ‘the state’ in Tropical Africa today, we are apt to create an illusion. Ordinarily the term denotes an independent political structure of sufficient authority and power to govern a defined territory and its population: empirical statehood. This is the prevailing notion of the state in modern political, legal, and social theory1, and it is a fairly close approximation to historical fact in many parts of the world – not only in Europe and North America, where modern states first developed and are deeply rooted, but also in some countries of South America, the Middle East, and Asia, where they have more recently emerged. The state is an inescapable reality. The military credibility of Argentina during the Falklands war, when it was by no means certain that Britain would prevail against its air force, is an indication of the reality of the state in some parts of the Third World today.

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