Patrick Chabal

Patrick Chabal (29 April 1951 – 16 January 2014) was an Africanist of the late 20th and early 21st century. He had a long academic career. Patrick Chabal's latest position was Chair in African History & Politics at King's College London. He published numerous books, book chapters and articles about Africa. He was one of the founders of AEGIS (Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies) and was a board member for many years.

Major publications

 * with Jean-Pascal Daloz:
 * with Jean-Pascal Daloz:

Quote from Africa Works: disorder as political instrument (1999)
"Our (admittedly far from cheering) conclusion is that there prevails in Africa a system of politics inimical to development as it is usually understood in the West. The dynamics of the political instrumentalization of disorder are such as to limit the scope for reform in at least two ways. The first is that, where disorder has become a resource, there is no incentive to work for a more institutionalized ordering of society. The second is that in the absence of any viable way of obtaining the means needed to sustain neo-patrimonialism, there is inevitably a tendency to link politics to realms of increased disorder, be it war or crime. There is therefore an inbuilt bias in favour of greater disorder and against the formation of the Western-style legal, administrative and institutional foundations required for development."