State Retrenchment and the Exercise of Citizenship in Africa

Abstract

What explains the varied ways that Africans practice citizenship on an everyday basis? And how does the extent of state building (or neoliberal unbuilding) in a particular context affect the way individual Africans think about the rights, duties, and appropriate channels for exercising their citizenship? Over the past 20 years across most of sub-Saharan Africa, neoliberal economic reform has meant a major retrenchment of the state in the provision of health and education services. This article argues that Africans who have at least some experience with public schools and clinics are more likely to exercise their citizenship on a more frequent basis than those who have no experience of state social services at all. The article confirms the existence of policy feedbacks between the micro experience of state social policy and democratic consolidation in Africa.