State Decay and Civil War: a Discourse on Power in Sierra Leone

Article Critical Sociology 37(2) 199 –216 State Decay and Civil War: A © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: Discourse on Power in Sierra Leone sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0896920510379438 crs.sagepub.com Abu Bakarr Bah Northern Illinois University, USA Abstract Building upon the works of Karl Marx, Max Weber, Alexis de Tocqueville and Michel Foucault, this article develops a concept of power that bridges the structure-agency, control-benefit and macro-micro divides in sociology. Using Sierra Leone as a case study, the article identifies three forms of power that are manifested in political, economic, and everyday life situations. It traces political and economic power to the struggles for control over the government and the economic exploitation of the state by the elite. It argues that the forms of political and economic power that emerged in Sierra Leone led to state decay, which created conditions for the civil war. Furthermore, it examines the micro manifestation of power by combatants and ordinary people during the civil war. The article contributes to the theoretical discourse on power in sociology by bringing in an African political experience, which is often missing in sociological theory. Keywords Africa, civil war, corruption, forms of power, sociological theory, Sierra Leone Introduction The conundrums of decision making, resource control, and exerting influence over the conduct of individuals have featured prominently in sociological discourses. These are the issues of power the founding fathers of sociology dealt with in their works. Power has been viewed in terms of the configuration of the state and the relations among individuals and groups. In his critique of capital- ism, Karl Marx examined the economic foundation of power. Max Weber discussed power in terms of stratification and domination. In the works of Alexis de Tocqueville, we see a discourse on power that centered on the relation between the state and its citizens. These discourses of power were largely informed by the economic, social, and political realities of Europeans during the 18th and 19th centuries. Most recently, Michel Foucault has addressed the microphysics of power and its implications for everyday life. These rich theoretical discourses of power are insightful for understanding some of the political problems that have been facing the world, such as the civil war in Sierra Leone. This article Corresponding author: Abu Bakarr Bah, Department of Sociology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA. Email: [email protected] 200 Critical Sociology 37(2) addresses the power-related questions in the civil war: what forms of power developed in Sierra Leone? Who exercised power? What are the effects of power on the country? How did ordinary people experience the effects of power? To answer these questions, I engage in a critical discourse on power that is rooted in the works of Marx, Weber, Tocqueville, and Foucault. Taken together, these theorists provide a rich sociological discourse on power that goes beyond the European realities that they examined. In a similar way, Abner Cohen (1981) used classical sociological theory to study power in Sierra Leone. However, Cohen focused on the culture of the political elite as manifested among the Creoles. While this article also deals with power and infuses classical sociological theory with African political reality, its substance is different from Cohen’s study. Instead of looking at the normative and symbolic aspects of elite power and its cultural reproduction, this article examines the actions of the elite, which led to state decay and created conditions for the civil war, and the way power was manifested by combatants during the war. Though the actions may be conditioned by the elite culture, the focus is on the political and personal motives of the elite and the national implications of their actions. The goal of this article is to provide a multifaceted discourse on power that can shed light on the causes and nature of the war in Sierra Leone. By using the works of the above mentioned theorists to discuss the war, the article expands their discourses of power and brings African political realities into the discourse of sociological theory. State Decay and the Civil War The notion of state decay is critical for understanding the nature of power and the war in Sierra Leone. There were significant political and economic problems prior to the war that raise serious questions about the efficacy of the state and the legitimacy of the government. Robert Bates (1981: 3) raised the question as to ‘Why should reasonable men adopt public policies that have harmful consequences for the societies they govern?’ African regimes have been typically described as patrimonial, neopatrimonial and sultanist, which invoke Weber’s notion of traditional authority. These categories have been weaved into the concept of personal rule, which depicts the prevalence of patronage politics and its negative political and economic effects. African states weakened by colonialism, international dependency and enclave production not only fail to promote economic and social development, but too often become oppressive and unstable (Bates, 2008; Leonard and Straus, 2003). Robert Rotberg (2004) identified three problematic types of states in the developing world, namely: collapsed, failed, and weak states. Sierra Leone was classified as a failed state. Rotberg’s definition of failure centers on the state’s inability to provide basic security, political freedom, and social services. In his study of constitutionalism and democracy in the former Soviet republics, Stephen Holmes (1999) used the notion of state decay to examine the crumbling of the system of power and the emergence of a modern version of the state of nature. While the concept of failed state depicts the deplorable realities of Sierra Leone during the war, state decay points to the dete- rioration of the state’s capacity to deliver positive political goods during the years leading to the war. State decay was manifested in economic decline, corruption, dilapidation of state institutions and infrastructure, and breakdown of the rule of law. State decay led to severe economic and political problems. In 1990, for example, Sierra Leone ranked last on the Human Development Index with a value of 0.048 (UNDP, 1991). As economic conditions worsened, so did political instability. There were civil unrest, demonstrations, and an underground youth opposition movement against the All People’s Congress (APC) government (Abdullah, 1998). Faced with mounting domestic and international pressures, the government Bah 201 promised political reforms. In the midst of the democratization charade, the civil war erupted in March 1991. The critical questions are: what led to state decay? What are the consequences of state decay? Studies of African states tend to either prioritize the historical and structural causes of state decay or the effects of state decay on ethnicity and violence (Bates, 2008; Leonard and Straus, 2003). This study addresses both sides by tracing state decay to the form of political and economic power that emerged in Sierra Leone and examining how state decay created conditions for the civil war which unleashed a brutal form of power upon the masses. What is Power? Power has often been viewed in terms of the struggle to exercise control and gain benefits in situations that are mediated by structure and agency. Dennis Wrong (1995: 21) sees power as ‘the capacity to produce intended and foreseen effects on others.’ Power takes multiple forms, such as force, manipulation, persuasion, and authority. Working largely within a macro framework of state formation, Gianfranco Poggi (2001: 14) views power as the ability to ‘lay routine, enforceable boundaries upon the activities of other human subjects … in so far as that ability rests on the former subjects’ control over resources.’ He identified three main forms of social power: political, ideological/normative, and economic.1 C. Wright Mills (1956) understands power as control over political, economic, and military institutions, which allows the power elite to make public decisions and differentiate themselves from the masses. In contrast, Richard Emerson (1962) focuses on the relation of dependency among actors in micro settings. Individuals gain benefits and exercise control by manipulating the dependency relation. Power, especially at the micro level, tends to gravitate toward equilibrium. Pierre Bourdieu (1977, 1984) sees power as social and cultural capital, which actors use to navigate economic and social spaces. While his notions of symbolic power and habitus are sensitive to structure, Bourdieu pays significant attention to agency. Patricia Collins (1990) also tried to transcend the structure-agency dichotomy in her discourse on power. Her notion of matrix of domination points to ways in which structure, agency, and emotions inform the way African American women experience and resist race, gender, and class oppressions. Instead of reducing power to zero-sum choices: structure or agency, exercising control or gaining benefits, and macro or micro level analysis, I take a multifaceted approach to power that pulls all of these dimensions together. Marx provides a concept of power that does not only deal with structure and the pursuit of wealth, but also recognizes agency and social control in human relations. Marx’s concept of power is rooted in his notion of species being, which sees human

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