To what extent are African countries coherent nation-states in the sense of Europe, America, or Japan? Many are organized along former colonial borders and are

To what extent are African countries coherent nation-states in the sense of Europe, America, or Japan? Many are organized along former colonial borders and are very diverse, multiethnic, and multinational. This means that political legitimacy, state capacity, transparency against corruption, social trust, social coordination, and collective action problems generally can be more difficult. I'm often skeptical of the common insistence that national borders never change (as in Somalia/Puntland), but see the problems in South Sudan, which appears to be collapsing into open ethnic conflict. There's of course not going to be one reason why the continent as a whole is undeveloped. Take the argument for example: "Scholars such as the economist William Easterly, for example, have argued that even now, the effects of the African slave trade can be measured on the continent, with areas that experienced intensive slaving still showing greater instability, a lack of social trust, and lower growth." The slave trade undoubtedly had a long-term negative impact on Africa. But the slave trade itself was an indigenous African institution where intergroup conflict led to the capture of people from competing groups. The Atlantic slave trade just created an export market for people who might have just simply been killed otherwise, and the influx of guns and trade goods for slaves led to the formation of states that were more dependent on warfare and the slave economy, such as Dahomey. That's a combination of internal and external factors yielding a destructive system. But it also means the Congo was a place of intense intergroup conflict long before the Second Congo War. It's a pretty great article for pointing out how internal factors (conflict, lack of political legitimacy, &c.) allow external actors like profiteering corporations to support bad governance in Africa. But it's important to remember that a lot of progress and economic development HAS been made in Africa, especially in recent years. There has been lots of economic growth worldwide at the low end of the economic scale. And if extractive multinationals propping up corrupt local collaborators amounts to cover colonialism, well at least that's not overt colonialism.