This is an excerpt from a summary of the heavily abridged explanation of Herbst's States and Power in Africa which, like this blogger, I am very interested in, but really haven't gotten around to. (I did get to Wizard of the Crow last year, though, and I loved with great fervor.)

The central thesis seems to be that because land was so plentiful in Africa and labor was the scarce resource there was no need to build a government that had the vast network and resources that are needed to defend territory. I'm not entirely sure I buy it, though the corollaries are fascinating. He sees aid from the rest of the world as actually hurting the formation of more stable governments because it divorced the ability of governments to take in money from the economic health of their country. Tax revenue is different from aid in that you both have to encourage growth to have taxes available to the government and taxes are difficult to collect without some cooperation from citizens.

Though this has made me even more interested in a book that I will not get around to reading for a long time, if my current life is any indication of the future.