Methods wiki > > Methods Herbst- Ashley Smith
Methods:
- The method is more controversial than the concept it is to answer the questions regarding state making while examining the Sub Saharan Africa region. Compare the large number of entities while considering the influence that the rules adopted by colonists and independent leaders have shaped the way in which the states have been consolidated.
- Analyze the problems associated with the joining of states in Africa over hundreds of years from the precolonial period through European colonialism to today’s era of independent states.
- The failure of states to consolidate in Africa is an issue that results in civil wars in many countries, the presence of millions of refugees, and the implementation of questionable policy. It is assumed that states in Africa are able to control everything within their boundaries but this is not always the case in regions with difficult geography and sparse populations so it creates a disparity between what is assumed and the power that is actually exerted. The notion that a state’s power encompasses entire territory within its boundaries it’s a largely European idea because their boundaries are more defined with high population densities.
- The methodological advantage is by holding the physical environment constant there can be a focus on the political calculations of various African leaders over time as they were designing their states
- Developing a typology of African countries based on computer generated maps that show population distribution that are enclosed in the boundaries. Population density is divided into five categories: population densities in the top twenty percent are given the darkest color; population densities in the next fifth percent are represented by the second darkest color. The population densities have variation between countries. This system of classification is effective because it allows for the comparative analysis of the difficulties that each state is facing governing their population. Using this system, it was analyzed that Ethiopia has a dispersed population, so it makes sense why Addis Ababa was unable to resolve the civil war.
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Ashley,
You have offered some context and background for the study, but your post here doesn’t really address the methods Herbst uses, except for bullet point 4. See if you can go back and find where Herbst talks explicitly about the methods he uses.
Thank you, I will build upon the fourth point. • The methodological advantage is by holding the physical environment constant there can be a focus on the political calculations of various African leaders over time as they were designing their states. The physical environment is the factor that influences the effectiveness of a leader. It is argued that a more difficult physical environment will produce a less effective the leader because it is more difficult to govern areas with an inhospitable physical environment due to sparse populations and a lack of development. Holding the physical environment constant will enable an analysis of the political calculations without having to consider how the difficult environment has affected the politics of the country.
• The comparative method is used to study state building of African states and comparing the building European states through war which creates boundaries. War is key in the consolidation of European states because it created defined boundaries that leaders could easily exert their force over and this is compared to the difficulty African leaders having governing areas with sparse populations so there must be a shift to exerting power over people and not a territory. Comparative methods are used to compare European state building to African state building but there must be a shift to create new ideas around Africa state consolidation and apply them to Europe not the other way around because Europe’s boundaries were created through war while Africa’s boundaries were created through fiat.
In his book, Herbst develops a comparative analysis. He compares the state-building struggle differences between the African and European continent. The methodological approach describes how empirical evidence is collected and organized. Ashley provides important information that helps us understand the book. However, she does not analyze how the evidence is gathered and organized.
Herbst’s methodological approach is controversial because it is different to compare the African continent’s struggle to the European since they both have completely different characteristics and historical experiences. However, Ashley does a great job mentioning the methodological advantage that this study enjoys; the “physical environment” variable is always constant.