Values Added: Grassroots Politics (Michelle Goldberg & Rich Lowry)

[db63]

Originally Posted by Sulla the Dictator

Unless local authorities are sovereign governments, how is it analogous? By foreign governments I mean things like the relations of European powers with the Sikh kingdom as opposed to the British Raj.

i think the issue doesn't necessarily have to do with modern manifestations of the bearer of sovereignty (i.e., the nation-state). in west africa, tribal authorities were just as much "sovereign" as a modern nation-state is, just at a smaller level of social organization. of course, the effects of sovereignty varied between 19th c. west africa and 21st c. africa, but the basic mechanisms of the control--foreign economic exploitation through use of local, sovereign authorities--remains the same.