THE WARRENDER LECTURE 2018

Prof Katrin Flickschuh - The Idea of the State as a Failed Universal?'

Abstract: The idea of the state as a territorially based, coercively unifying and normatively authoritative collective political agent pays a central role in Western political theory. The idea also centrally informs normative and empirical work on non-Western modern polities, including African polities. Assessed against the normative ideal of Western statehood, African states are often classed as 'failed' or 'fragile' states at best. But how adequate is the Western ideal in the face of modern African post-colonial realities? In this lecture I shall argue that Western political theory may be inadequate in terms of its theoretical and normative grasp of modern African political realities. I shall consider the implications of these conceptual inadequacies in relation to modern African statehood for our idea of the state in general.