The Foreign Service Journal, May 2004

Sudan . Since independence, Sudan has wavered between attempts to deal with the discontent of its southern population through repression and attempts to devise a federal solution. In 1972, Sudan adopted an asymmetrical federal system, with a northern govern- ment ruling the entire country and the south having limited autonomy. In 1983, President Jafaar Nimeiri tried to break up the southern region into three provinces less threatening to Khartoum, and war resumed. The conflict was made worse when a radical Islamist movement took over in Khartoum and declared sharia the law of the country, including in the non-Muslim south. A second agreement, again giving autonomy to the south, may be in the offing, but, as argued earlier, even it does not claim to provide a definitive answer. South Africa . It is worth considering briefly the case of South Africa, the only successful big state in Africa. Despite the size of the country, South Africa considered but rejected a federal solution. There are two explanations for this. First, the apartheid regime had attempted to maintain minority control by setting up 10 independent homelands that would be united with white South Africa in a “constellation of indepen- dent states.” The attempt failed but also left a legacy of suspicion of decentralization. Second, the country already had a strong unitary system in place that allot- ted limited power to four large provinces — the origi- nal states that were merged in the Union of South Africa following the South Africa (Anglo-Boer) War of 1899–1902. With a functioning system in place, it was easier for South Africa to continue along the same lines, increasing the number of provinces from four to nine, each with an elected legislature and premier. At the same time, the South African government was also able to use its central control to equalize spending across the territory, transfer revenue among levels of government, and monitor the fiscal performance of the provinces. Arguably, South Africa was successful in part because it rejected extreme decentralization. International Community Faces Big States The international community has not dealt with big states as a separate category requiring a special approach. Rather, it has dealt with them on the basis of a mixture of political expediency and general principles that are often of scant relevance to the situation. Countries with economic or strategic interests in the big states have, not surprisingly, sought to protect those interests without much attention to the long-term con- sequences of their policies or the long-term needs of their countries. With the weakening of colonial ties, most recently those of France with its former colonies, and the end of the Cold War, expediency is now direct- ed less at safeguarding interests than at avoiding the pressure to become involved directly in stabilizing troubled countries. Three principles have governed the way African states have dealt with each other. The first is that African boundaries cannot be altered. This principle, which is also enshrined in the charter of the Organization of African Unity and its successor, the African Union, looks increasingly today like the legacy of a bygone era. It was plausible in the immediate aftermath of decolonization, when new countries did not want to open themselves up to one another’s terri- torial demands. It was also in keeping with the histor- ically unprecedented worldwide freezing of interna- tional borders that characterized the Cold War period. Since the late 1980s, however, more than 20 new states have formed, primarily in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, but including one in Africa, Eritrea. Yet the international community remains theoretically committed to the territorial integrity of all African states. The second principle is that the most effective polit- ical systems are decentralized, and in the big states, decentralization becomes federalism. Federalism is usually taken to mean a territorial arrangement, not one based on ethnic identities. The Ethiopian solution has been grudgingly accepted by the international community, but without enthusiasm. It is certainly not held up as a model on how to solve the problem of large, diverse states. The third principle, which has only prevailed since the end of the Cold War, is that democracy and a strong bill of rights provide the solution to internal conflicts in states big and small. Political systems should be blind to ethnicity and religion and should not recognize the rights of groups. The United States is particularly emphatic on this point. There is nothing wrong with this third principle per se, but it bears little relation to reality. Ethnicity and religion are highly politicized in all African states, and even quite democratic, federal F O C U S 32 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 0 4