THE POLITICS OF STATE COLLAPSE AND RECONSTITUTION IN SUB-SAHARA AFRICA: THE LIBERIAN NARRATIVE

For some time now, states have been failing and collapsing in Africa to the chagrin of observers and analysts. While these processes are/were on, scholars from within and outside Africa have attempted to identify the forces that are spurring the processes. This article contributes to this discourse by exploring and narrating the Liberian experience. Drawing data mainly from secondary sources and leaning on social contract theoretical framework argues that state failure and collapse in Liberia and elsewhere in Africa are rooted in state illegitimacy. Put differently, a social formation where the state and the 'citizens' work at cross purpose is predisposes to failure and collapse. The Liberian state under Tubman, Tolbert, Doe and Taylor never served the common good. It serves narrow racial, ethnic and class interests. Thus it became an arena of internecine power struggle among the various antagonistic social forces ultimately leading to political implosion. The article submits that what Liberia needed during her transition to democracy is state re-legitimation and reconstitution and not elite-driven state-building. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]