In the last decades of the twentieth century, the sinisterly clownish garb of teenage killers in Liberia, the theatrical rage of mobs in Mogadishu, and the dignified suffering of refugees in camps throughout Africa vividly underscored the significance of political order. The power of these images cried out for a response from humanitarians and policymakers. It challenged scholars as well by posing that most innocent and unsettling of questions: Why? Why in late twentieth-century Africa did states fail and things fall apart?

To address these questions, I have retreated to the foundations of my field, which focus on coercion and the properties of the state. I have also re-immersed myself in the politics of Africa. From the first came a theory; from the second, the evidence with which to explore – and to test – its answers.

The realities of contemporary Africa compel us to realize that political order is not a given; it is the product of decisions. There is political order when citizens choose to turn away from military activity and to devote their energies to productive labor and when those who govern – specialists in violence – choose to employ their power to protect rather than to prey upon the wealth that their citizens create. Political order becomes a state when these choices persist as an equilibrium. The foundations of the state lie in the conditions that support that equilibrium; so, too, then, must the origins of state failure.

The fable that framed this analysis highlights the conditions that rendered possible political order. It also suggests the importance of forces unleashed in the late twentieth century. Changes in the global economy and economic mismanagement at home resulted in fiscal dearth: The decline in public revenues led to predation by those in positions of power and to resistance by those whom they ruled. The fall of communism permitted erstwhile patrons to abandon abusive incumbents and enabled those who had protested the quality of governance to lay claim to the rights of political opposition. Loosing support from abroad and facing new threats from within, incumbents faced a sharp and unanticipated increase in the level of political risk.