Rethinking Instability: Imbalances between indigenous powers and state collapse in Guinea-Bissau

Abstract

The premise of this paper emerges from an understanding of political turmoil and recurrent instability as being due to the process of the Africanisation of power. My aim is to discern this idea in relation to Guinea-Bissau. Since 1994, the West African country has experienced continuous political instability. So far, political analysis has pinpointed the rationale of Bissau-Guinean political turmoil as dependent on the ethnicisation of power and a dysfunctional state. The first is largely due to the role played by the Balanta ethnic group. While much harm was inflicted on the Balanta in the past, the group assumed power through its domination of the military. The second phenomenon relates to a political class unprepared for office yet committed to the misappropriation of power and resources, engendering failure of the state and its institutions. Without discarding these hypotheses, I argue that the underlying rationale of Bissau-Guinean political turmoil is further related to the Africanisation of power. The latter is a bi-directional process, in which the state influences indigenous political powers and vice versa. This paper identifies how these political powers differ in their configuration of the polity and in the policies applied, leading to discrepant political behaviours in their subjects.