States at Work Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies Series Editors Gregor Dobler, University of Freiburg, Germany Elísio Macamo, Basel University, Switzerland Editorial Board William Beinart, University of Oxford, UK Filip De Boeck, Catholic University Leuven, Belgium Patrick Chabal, King’s College London, UK Paul Nugent, Edinburgh University, UK Nic van de Walle, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA VOLUME 12 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/agis States at Work Dynamics of African Bureaucracies Edited by Thomas Bierschenk Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan LEIDEN •• BOSTON 2014 This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. Further information and the complete license text can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/4.0/ The terms of the CC license apply only to the original material. The use of material from other sources (indicated by a reference) such as diagrams, illustrations, photos and text samples may require further permission from the respective copyright holder. An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. More information about the initiative can be found at www .knowledgeunlatched.org. Cover illustration: City Hall offices, Lubumbashi, DR Congo, 2007 ©Guy Tillim. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data States at work : dynamics of African bureaucracies / edited by Thomas Bierschenk, Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan. pages cm. — (Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies ; volume 12) Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-26478-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-26496-0 (e-book) 1. Public administration—Africa. 2. Bureaucracy—Africa. 3. Africa—Politics and government—1960– 4. Africa—Economic policy. 5. Economic development—Africa. 6. State, The. I. Bierschenk, Thomas. II. Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre. III. Series: African-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (Series) ; v. 12. JQ1875.S73 2014 351.6—dc23 2013046380 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1574-6925 ISBN 978-90-04-26478-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-26496-0 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by the Authors. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. CONTENTS What others say about States at Work ........................................................ viii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ ix About the Authors .......................................................................................... xi PART ONE AFRICAN BUREAUCRACIES IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE Studying the Dynamics of African Bureaucracies. An Introduction to States at Work ....................................................................................... 3 Thomas Bierschenk and Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan Ethnographies of Public Services in Africa: An Emerging Research Paradigm ....................................................................................................... 35 Thomas Bierschenk and Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan PART TWO BUREAUCRATS AT WORK Seeing like a State Agent: The Ethnography of Reform in Senegal’s Forestry Services ........................................................................................ 69 Giorgio Blundo Factionalism and Staff Success in a Nigerian University: A Departmental Case Study ................................................................... 91 Chris Willott Working in Neopatrimonial Settings: Public Sector Staff Perceptions in Tanzania and Uganda ................................................. 113 Ole Therkildsen “We make do and keep going!” Inventive Practices and Ordered Informality in the Functioning of the District Courts in Niamey and Zinder (Niger) ..................................................................................... 145 Oumarou Hamani vi contents “I take an oath to the state, not the government”: Career Trajectories and Professional Ethics of Ghanaian Public Servants ........................................................................................... 175 Carola Lentz “We must run while others walk”: African Civil Servants, State Ideologies and Bureaucratic Practices in Tanzania, from the 1950s to the 1970s ..................................................................... 205 Andreas Eckert Sedimentation, Fragmentation and Normative Double-Binds in (West) African Public Services .............................................................. 221 Thomas Bierschenk PART THREE BUREAUCRACIES AT WORK The Politics of Reform: A Case Study of Bureaucracy at the Ministry of Basic Education in Cameroon ......................................... 249 Hélène Charton Building State Capacities? The Case of the Poverty Reduction Unit in Mali ................................................................................................. 271 Isaline Bergamaschi A Breeding Ground for Revenue Reliability? Cameroonian Veterinary Agents and Tax Officials in the Face of Reform ......... 301 José-María Muñoz Old-school Bureaucrats and Technocrats in Malawi: Civil Service Reform in Practice ..................................................................................... 329 Gerhard Anders Teachers’ Unions and the Selective Appropriation of Public Service Reforms in Benin ....................................................................................... 349 Azizou Chabi Imorou contents vii The State that Works: A ‘Pockets of Effectiveness’ Perspective on Nigeria and Beyond ................................................................................... 365 Michael Roll The Delivery State in Africa. Interface Bureaucrats, Professional Cultures and the Bureaucratic Mode of Governance ..................... 399 Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan Index of Names and Places .......................................................................... 431 WHAT OTHERS SAY ABOUT STATES AT WORK This is a major breakthrough in scholarly understandings of the African state. Mas- terly analytic chapters by the two editors unravel the complex interactions of norms and institutions that shape how the bureaucracies that constitute states in Africa in fact deliver (or don’t) goods and services. They thus manage simultaneously to trace out some specifically African patters of state functioning, while demystifying and brilliantly undercutting essentialist arguments about African “culture” or “tradition.” The whole is enriched with a number of specific case studies, drawing broadly across countries and public services. The strong case made by the editors, and illustrated by the case studies, of the importance of empirical ethnographic approaches to under- standing the state in its complex realities is a methodological lesson that should be taught in graduate programs not only in anthropology, but in political science and related disciplines. Leonardo A. Villalón, Professor of Political science and African Studies, Univer- sity of Florida This is an exemplary collection in the best tradition of ethnographic inquiry: theoreti- cally astute, empirically rich, and capable of challenging pre-conceptions. It makes outstanding use of the comparative method to de-exoticize African bureaucrats and bureaucracies, while tracing the elements that have formed them. Recommended for readers interested in understanding states-in-practice in any corner of the globe, and especially important for experts bearing blueprints for state reform. Tania Murray Li, Professor of Anthropology, University of Toronto While African states have attracted all kinds of labels over the last fifteen years, little schol- arly attention has been paid to the actual working of African state agencies. This fresh and theoretically informed contribution, based on close empirical inspection, is a landmark behind which the discourse on the state in Africa should not fall back again. Klaus Schlichte, Professor of Political Science at the University of Bremen This book constitutes a landmark in its efforts to rescue African states and public bureaucracies from a tendency to homogenize, pathologize and, above all, generalize on the basis of limited evidence. It squarely addresses larger theoretical questions about bureaucracies in general, as well as the contribution anthropology can make to our understanding of actual states in Africa. The critique of some current aca- demic fashions is provocative and will spark a debate.