Hey! I’m Ghanaian-American and just read the piece on African borders—great read overall. I write about individual African countries myself, but with a different lens than many African writers who often lean heavily anti-Western or leftist. I try to call it like it is—highlighting both internal and external factors, especially economic dysfunction and leadership failures.
There’s a lot I believe your article gets right. I completely agree that African borders weren’t simply drawn by Europeans in some German boardroom during the Berlin Conference. As you note, many borders were drawn after the conference, and yes—European powers often relied on treaties of suzerainty with local rulers to legitimize their claims. Countries like Rwanda, Burundi, Dahomey, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini, Tunisia, and Algeria make that case well. I also appreciated the nod to arbitrary constructs like the Congo Free State (now the DRC), and the influence of rivers in shaping some borders (like Gambia-Senegal).
But where I take issue is with their broader conclusion—that African borders weren’t arbitrary or random at all. That’s a stretch. Once you dive into the precolonial history of individual African countries—kingdoms, empires, chieftaincies, and tribal boundaries—it becomes clear just how mismatched many modern states really are. A few examples:
1) Morocco:
Morocco historically claimed significantly more territory than its current borders reflect, which explains ongoing disputes like Western Sahara and past conflicts like the Sand War with Algeria over Western Algeria in the 1960s. Also after independence, Morocco originally claimed all of Mauritania and Northern Mali (the Azawad region where Tuareg nomads live).
2): Libya:
Libya is an ancient name but the borders of Libya are arbitrary. Libya is a modern construct combining Tripolitania (Ottoman-backed city-state), Cyrenaica (ruled by the Senussi order), and the Fezzan desert. These were unified only after Italy defeated the Ottomans. That’s not a natural nation-state—that’s a colonial patchwork.
3): Nigeria:
Perhaps the clearest case of arbitrary borders.. It combined several distinct precolonial entities—Hausaland, Kanem-Bornu, the Sokoto Caliphate, the Edo Benin Kingdom, the Arochukwu confederacy, the Nri Kingdom, the Oyo Empire, and more—into a single country whose boundaries clearly ignored historical realities.
Hausaland is also part of Southern Niger, Kanem-Bornu was also in Chad, the Sokoto Caliphate also had territory in modern day Cameroon, and parts of Burkina Faso and Niger. The Oyo Empire encompassed parts of modern day SouthWest Nigeria and Benin. This is why Hausas are in Niger & Nigeria, Fulani are in Nigeria, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and frankly all across West Africa, and Yorubas from Oyo are in Nigeria & modern day Benin.
4) Kenya & Tanzania
Neither existed pre-colonialism. The coasts had Swahili-Arab city-states like Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Kilwa who took slaves to the Arab World; the interior was sparsely populated with tribal chieftaincies like the Kikuyu, Maasai, Luo, Kalienjin, Chagga, Hehe and more. European borders pulled together vastly different ethnic groups with little shared history.
5) Uganda
The British allied with the Buganda Kingdom and used them (and the Maxim gun) to dominate rival statelets like Bunyoro and Ankole. Uganda wasn’t a historical nation—it was built through selective colonial alliances.
6) Sudan
Originally carved out by Mehmet Ali, the Albanian Turk who ruled Egypt. Sudan combined the Funj and Darfur, and various southern tribes south of the Sudd Swamp like the Dinka and Nuer. The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium later had a deeply divided North (Arab-Muslim) and South (animist-Christian), eventually leading to South Sudan’s independence in the 2010s.
Some interesting nuances that fit both our points (my point being arbitrary tribes being split and your point about countries made by geography like rivers) entail Senegal-Gambia. Ethnically the exact same people exist in both countries but they are split by the Gambia river, so Gambia exists inside Senegal.
Regardless, I could go on—Eritrea’s separation from Ethiopia due to Ottoman and then Italian influence, Namibia’s creation of many tribes by the Germans, the history of South Africa's borders and so forth. If you studied each country's individual history, there's no way you would make the conclusion that most borders aren't artificial based on their pre-colonial state.
Even in Ghana, my own country, borders do not neatly reflect historical realities. The Asante Empire, often cited as Ghana’s historical precedent, extended into territories now part of Togo and Ivory Coast after the Asante conquered the Gyaaman, while Ghana itself incorporates diverse northern kingdoms like Gonja.
So while you provide solid evidence that some African borders were indeed shaped by local geography, that some states were indeed protectorates as I mentioned, and that many states were made post Berlin conference, your sweeping conclusion that this process wasn't random or arbitrary or that maps onto historical states doesn't hold up when you dive deeper into specific national histories and see how tribally mismatched many countries are.
Your response is very interesting. I sometimes wonder whether it would have been possible or desirable to try and change state boundaries during the period of decolonisation to match those of pre-colonial polities. For example, I occasionally mull over the idea of whether it would have been better for there to have been co-operation between Britain and France to help re-establish an independent Biafran state. What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks for sharing this! Really interesting analysis. Though I wonder if the foil for the argument – the claim that african borders were established "as-if random" – is not a bit of a strawman... first because arbitrary ≠ random... second, because I haven't seen many scholars make that claim seriously. it'd be nice to get some quotes of scholars claiming or clearly implying that europeans set those borders "arbitrarily with respect to the realities on the ground"
This is very impressive empirical work, for which I commend the authors. However, speaking as a mere consumer of research in this field, I must admit some surprise at the fact that the APSR article on which this blog post is based appears to oversell its theoretical contribution and downplay previous work that has made similar contributions. I have in mind, for example, the article by Carter and Goemans in IO (2011), where they make the case that prior administrative frontiers are a driving factor in the creation of new state borders.
The present article claims to build on this insight when making their central claim about the role of precolonial states, but in practice the article gives the original authors very little credit for their original theoretical contribution. I believe that the present article does more than just build on that previous work, but actually directly borrows from it. This, of course, is not a problem in itself. But I do think an article published in the flagship journal of the political science discipline should be more upfront about its intellectual debts.
The way I see it, the Paine et al. article makes a significant and much-needed empirical contribution to our understanding of border formation in Africa. However, its claims to theoretical originality (something that is unfortunately still largely a requirement for publishing in the APSR) seem overstated. The Carter and Goemans piece could at least have been cited in the article's introduction as a central piece in this literature and one that the present APSR article owes significant theoretical debt to, as opposed to the subtle and discreet mention it receives in the article.
Hey! I’m Ghanaian-American and just read the piece on African borders—great read overall. I write about individual African countries myself, but with a different lens than many African writers who often lean heavily anti-Western or leftist. I try to call it like it is—highlighting both internal and external factors, especially economic dysfunction and leadership failures.
There’s a lot I believe your article gets right. I completely agree that African borders weren’t simply drawn by Europeans in some German boardroom during the Berlin Conference. As you note, many borders were drawn after the conference, and yes—European powers often relied on treaties of suzerainty with local rulers to legitimize their claims. Countries like Rwanda, Burundi, Dahomey, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini, Tunisia, and Algeria make that case well. I also appreciated the nod to arbitrary constructs like the Congo Free State (now the DRC), and the influence of rivers in shaping some borders (like Gambia-Senegal).
But where I take issue is with their broader conclusion—that African borders weren’t arbitrary or random at all. That’s a stretch. Once you dive into the precolonial history of individual African countries—kingdoms, empires, chieftaincies, and tribal boundaries—it becomes clear just how mismatched many modern states really are. A few examples:
1) Morocco:
Morocco historically claimed significantly more territory than its current borders reflect, which explains ongoing disputes like Western Sahara and past conflicts like the Sand War with Algeria over Western Algeria in the 1960s. Also after independence, Morocco originally claimed all of Mauritania and Northern Mali (the Azawad region where Tuareg nomads live).
2): Libya:
Libya is an ancient name but the borders of Libya are arbitrary. Libya is a modern construct combining Tripolitania (Ottoman-backed city-state), Cyrenaica (ruled by the Senussi order), and the Fezzan desert. These were unified only after Italy defeated the Ottomans. That’s not a natural nation-state—that’s a colonial patchwork.
3): Nigeria:
Perhaps the clearest case of arbitrary borders.. It combined several distinct precolonial entities—Hausaland, Kanem-Bornu, the Sokoto Caliphate, the Edo Benin Kingdom, the Arochukwu confederacy, the Nri Kingdom, the Oyo Empire, and more—into a single country whose boundaries clearly ignored historical realities.
Hausaland is also part of Southern Niger, Kanem-Bornu was also in Chad, the Sokoto Caliphate also had territory in modern day Cameroon, and parts of Burkina Faso and Niger. The Oyo Empire encompassed parts of modern day SouthWest Nigeria and Benin. This is why Hausas are in Niger & Nigeria, Fulani are in Nigeria, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and frankly all across West Africa, and Yorubas from Oyo are in Nigeria & modern day Benin.
4) Kenya & Tanzania
Neither existed pre-colonialism. The coasts had Swahili-Arab city-states like Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Kilwa who took slaves to the Arab World; the interior was sparsely populated with tribal chieftaincies like the Kikuyu, Maasai, Luo, Kalienjin, Chagga, Hehe and more. European borders pulled together vastly different ethnic groups with little shared history.
5) Uganda
The British allied with the Buganda Kingdom and used them (and the Maxim gun) to dominate rival statelets like Bunyoro and Ankole. Uganda wasn’t a historical nation—it was built through selective colonial alliances.
6) Sudan
Originally carved out by Mehmet Ali, the Albanian Turk who ruled Egypt. Sudan combined the Funj and Darfur, and various southern tribes south of the Sudd Swamp like the Dinka and Nuer. The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium later had a deeply divided North (Arab-Muslim) and South (animist-Christian), eventually leading to South Sudan’s independence in the 2010s.
Some interesting nuances that fit both our points (my point being arbitrary tribes being split and your point about countries made by geography like rivers) entail Senegal-Gambia. Ethnically the exact same people exist in both countries but they are split by the Gambia river, so Gambia exists inside Senegal.
Regardless, I could go on—Eritrea’s separation from Ethiopia due to Ottoman and then Italian influence, Namibia’s creation of many tribes by the Germans, the history of South Africa's borders and so forth. If you studied each country's individual history, there's no way you would make the conclusion that most borders aren't artificial based on their pre-colonial state.
Even in Ghana, my own country, borders do not neatly reflect historical realities. The Asante Empire, often cited as Ghana’s historical precedent, extended into territories now part of Togo and Ivory Coast after the Asante conquered the Gyaaman, while Ghana itself incorporates diverse northern kingdoms like Gonja.
So while you provide solid evidence that some African borders were indeed shaped by local geography, that some states were indeed protectorates as I mentioned, and that many states were made post Berlin conference, your sweeping conclusion that this process wasn't random or arbitrary or that maps onto historical states doesn't hold up when you dive deeper into specific national histories and see how tribally mismatched many countries are.
Your response is very interesting. I sometimes wonder whether it would have been possible or desirable to try and change state boundaries during the period of decolonisation to match those of pre-colonial polities. For example, I occasionally mull over the idea of whether it would have been better for there to have been co-operation between Britain and France to help re-establish an independent Biafran state. What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks for sharing this! Really interesting analysis. Though I wonder if the foil for the argument – the claim that african borders were established "as-if random" – is not a bit of a strawman... first because arbitrary ≠ random... second, because I haven't seen many scholars make that claim seriously. it'd be nice to get some quotes of scholars claiming or clearly implying that europeans set those borders "arbitrarily with respect to the realities on the ground"
This is very impressive empirical work, for which I commend the authors. However, speaking as a mere consumer of research in this field, I must admit some surprise at the fact that the APSR article on which this blog post is based appears to oversell its theoretical contribution and downplay previous work that has made similar contributions. I have in mind, for example, the article by Carter and Goemans in IO (2011), where they make the case that prior administrative frontiers are a driving factor in the creation of new state borders.
The present article claims to build on this insight when making their central claim about the role of precolonial states, but in practice the article gives the original authors very little credit for their original theoretical contribution. I believe that the present article does more than just build on that previous work, but actually directly borrows from it. This, of course, is not a problem in itself. But I do think an article published in the flagship journal of the political science discipline should be more upfront about its intellectual debts.
The way I see it, the Paine et al. article makes a significant and much-needed empirical contribution to our understanding of border formation in Africa. However, its claims to theoretical originality (something that is unfortunately still largely a requirement for publishing in the APSR) seem overstated. The Carter and Goemans piece could at least have been cited in the article's introduction as a central piece in this literature and one that the present APSR article owes significant theoretical debt to, as opposed to the subtle and discreet mention it receives in the article.