Dysfunctional State and Severance in Africa: An Analysis in Specificities and Contradictions

Abstract

This paper identifies and examines two interrelated contradictions that affect Africa’s contemporary material existence. They are dysfunctional or inorganic state and its structures and manipulated severance from Africa’s roots. The paper aligns with the quest for a platform that provides more than a cursory prism for veritable insight into specificities and contradictions in the context of contemporary Africa. Anchored in Alavi’s theory of overdeveloped state, the paper is essentially an exploratory analysis of Africa’s concrete situation.

Key words and phrases: inorganic state structures, dysfunction, manipulated severance, contradictions and Africa’s roots