Artikel

Juridische en politieke aspecten van de processen van natievorming in Afrika

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Abstract

Legal and political aspects of the state and national integration process in Africa - The problem of principal importance is the question whether the historically created conception of the nation could be adapted for African communities at the present stage of their transformation. The problem of “nations” and national states has appeared in Africa in principle during the decolonisation period in an international plane as well as in an internal plane. The question is, among other things, to establish the principle of nations’ right to selfdetermination in comparison to its unquestionable dualism in practise. An existence of state organisation is not, to be sure, the most important element of the process of the formation of nationalities, but in Africa the state plays an essential role in this process because the principal element of the nation’s integration process in the structure of existing states will be, after all, the consciousness of an affiliation to the particular political unit. National ideology and political parties play an important role in this process. As it seems at present, a category of the nation, even at its fairly free definition, is not adequate for the definition of African communities. It would be better to speak about the trials to create the political and ethnic unities than national, which perhaps in the future will be transformed into national unities based upon the political, ideological and economical elements of integration.

How to Cite:

Kenig, M., (1979) “Juridische en politieke aspecten van de processen van natievorming in Afrika”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen 24(3), 246–264. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.96119