Foxes in the Henhouse: Reactionary Self-Determination and the African State System

During the struggle for African political independence, African nationalists premised their claims to self-determination on pan-ethnic nationalisms that corresponded with their inherited colonial borders. However, competing ethno-national claims to legitimacy within their territories never disappeared, even if they were temporarily eclipsed during the ‘decolonization moment.’ As a result, the new states that emerged after independence were always particularly vulnerable to disintegration from ethnic-based secessionism. This paper will examine a certain kind of ethno-national self-determination claim as it emerged in the context of postcolonial Africa, one that took on a distinctly reactionary character. It will argue that this reactionary self-determination, and the unrecognized reactionary states it produced—in particular Katanga and the so-called Bantustans of South Africa--presented a unique and dangerous challenge to the delicate African state system just as it was emerging from the traumas of colonial rule.