wished to use his presidential powers in a way that he
thought would be beneficial for the society, unencumbered
by constraints imposed by the Supreme Court, the inclusive
U.S. political institutions prevented him from setting aside
the constraints on his power. Under extractive political
institutions, there is little check against the exercise of
power, however distorted and sociopathic it may become.
In 1980 Sam Bangura, then the governor of the central bank
in Sierra Leone, criticized Siaka Stevens’s policies for
being profligate. He was soon murdered and thrown from
the top floor of the central bank building onto the aptly
named Siaka Stevens Street. Extractive political
institutions thus also tend to create a vicious circle because
they provide no line of defense against those who want to
further usurp and misuse the powers of the state.
Yet another mechanism for the vicious circle is that
extractive institutions, by creating unconstrained power and
great income inequality, increase the potential stakes of the
political game. Because whoever controls the state
becomes the beneficiary of this excessive power and the
wealth that it generates, extractive institutions create
incentives for infighting in order to control power and its
benefits, a dynamic that we saw played out in Maya city-
states and in Ancient Rome. In this light, it is no surprise
that the extractive institutions that many African countries
inherited from the colonial powers sowed the seeds of
power struggles and civil wars. These struggles would be
very different conflicts from the English Civil War and the
Glorious Revolution. They would not be fought to change
political institutions, introduce constraints on the exercise of
power, or create pluralism, but to capture power and enrich
one group at the expense of the rest. In Angola, Burundi,
Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Republic of
Congo Brazzaville, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda,
and of course in Sierra Leone, as we will see in more detail
in the next chapter, these conflicts would turn into bloody
civil wars and would create economic ruin and unparalleled
human suffering—as well as cause state failure.
F ROM E NCOMIENDA TO L AND G RAB