STATE-BUILDING IN THE AFRICAN COUNTRYSIDE - STRUCTURE AND POLITICS ATTHE GRASS-ROOTS

This is a comparative analysis of institutions linking state and count ryside in three West African regions. Senegal's groundnut basin, south ern Cote d'Ivoire, and southern Ghana If argues that conflicts within rural society, and between rural elites and governments, have been mor e important in shaping these linkages than much of state-centric polit ical science has allowed Different patterns of economic and social org anisation have produced regionally-specific political dynamics that ha ve, in turn, shaped institution-building and state formation. The anal ysis shows African states to be more deeply embedded in localised powe r relations than many previous studies have suggested. It may shed lig ht on sources of unevenness and variation in attempts to decentralise and democratise state structures in the 1980s and 1990s.