His argument is that the structure of the African terrain has shaped the political decisions that politicians have had to make. The reason politicians in Africa have problems is because they have not been able to expand their control over the vast amounts of land. In all fairness it is a state development argument with only 5% of the military vehicle in functioning state there is no way that the state can get things done. The beaurocracy in most African countries is weak and things that take hours in most parts of the world take days or months on the continent- or maybe used to because now most parts of the continent are efficient.
The state in Africa is weak because it has not been able to expand its control and power over the vast under populated land. I can see some sense in this argument suggesting that the state needs to find a way to be able to collect taxes to effectively govern but I think that the state i.e. the ruling regime has made progress beyond the urban areas infact it looks like to consolidate power the regimes have all but left opposition parties to fight for the few urban votes as they spread themselves into the ruling area. Now I think the real question is why isn’t the rural voter holding the politicians accountable, as they should? His argument is that the location power in the state capital colonial creations that were meant to make trade easier but not to encourage rule is the problem this could be true but over time most countries have developed some urban centers away from the city and is this really a phenomenon unique to Africa because I think in almost every country the further away you move from the major cities the less development you will see and this is just a function of accessibility but I do see the point that there has been significant under development in the rural areas and this is less a geographical concern than that voters in those areas have no way of holding their politicians accountable. It beats me why rural voters are voting for the parties whose policies do them no good.
This was probably one of my favorite books in graduate school- his buffer mechanisms where a genius way of dealing with the way states maintain their weak control over their territories- my thesis was essentially an expansion of his argument even though I have some issues with how this expands to the rest of the world.
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