8 - Nonstate Violence as a State Effect

Summary

Ghana has been among the most peaceful countries in sub-Saharan Africa since independence. Yet its northern hinterland is the one sub-national region in which this peaceful reputation is not especially accurate. Over the last four decades, Northern politics has been characterized by repeated flare-ups of non-state violence. This chapter concludes Part III by arguing that non-state communal violence can be another political outcome of a scarce, resource-advantaged state’s isolated interventions in hinterland regions. Because the state’s actions have such outsize effects on society, the state’s few steps into society generate waves of societal upheaval that create conflict.