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The Limits of Federalism: and Examination of political Institutional Transfer in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

While Africa was in the throes of the decolonisation process, many of its leaders considered classical federalism an effective way of reconciling unity and diversity.1 Along with their counterparts in Europe, they reasoned that federalism would compensate for the nation-state's inability to meet modern political, economic, and strategic demands without at the same time threatening the special interests of the constituent parts. Federalism would avoid the extreme of overcentralisation seemingly implicit in unitary government as well as the risks of disintegration which continually threaten multilateral economic and military communities. Such a system had worked for political craftsmen in earlier times; now it was to be extended to the needs of Africa.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

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References

Page 275 note 1 Throughout this article, federalism is used in Dicey's, A. V. sense of a constitutional system which distributes ‘the force of the state among a number of co-ordinate bodies each originating in and controlled by the constitution’. Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (London, 9th ed., 1952), p. 157.Google Scholar See also Wheare, K. C., Federal Government (London, 4th ed., 1963), pt. 1.Google Scholar

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Page 279 note 3 With the publication of the Western Kingdoms and Busoga Act soon after independence, the quasi-federal nature of Kingdoms other than Buganda became apparent to all. See my ‘Majimbo Schemes in East Africa’, in Boston University Papers in African Politics (Boston, 1967).Google Scholar

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Page 280 note 2 The same preference for unitary government was evident among Soudanese leaders of the Mali Federation. See Foltz, William J., From French West Africa to the MaliFederation (New Haven, 1965), p. 179;Google Scholar and see p. 183 for subsequent Senegalese disillusionment.

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Page 281 note 2 ‘Report to the Secretary-General from the Officer-in-charge of the United Nations Operation in the Congo on Developments relating to the Application of the Security Council Resolutions of 21 February and 24 November 1961’;U.N. Doc. s/5053/Add. 13, 26 November 1962, Annex ix, p. 2.

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Page 287 note 3 In April 1965, Prime Minister Balewa did include five members of Chief S. L. Akintola's Nigerian National Democratic Party in his cabinet. However, because the Action Group was excluded from the federal government, a significant proportion of Yoruba opinion remained outside the system.

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Page 290 note 3 The same anxieties were evident in the discussions over the proposed East African federation, not only among the spokesmen for traditionalist Buganda or the moderately conservative Kenya African Democratic Union but also, more significantly, among such leaders as Prime Minister Obote of Uganda. A comment on this might be the statement of the Kenya Minister of State, Joseph Murumbi, at the height of the federation debates: ‘ I feel that in Uganda, we have this difficulty of the leadership there fearing they will be absorbed into an East African Federation. Some of the Uganda leaders feel they might become non-entities overnight.’ Uganda Argus, 25 10 1963.Google Scholar

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