IntroductionModern African states have various problems ranging from corruption, to armed conflicts, to stunted structural development. The effects of colonialism have been offered as a starting point for much of the analysis of African states, but the question of why African states are particularly dysfunctional needs to be examined, given the extent to which they have lagged behind other former European colonies in many countries. wait. In the first section I will consider problems with African states from the state level. That is, the nature of states' origins and underlying flaws may explain some of the issues that have been associated with African states today. I will next examine the development, or lack of, of civil society and institutions that took place across the continent during the colonial era. In particular, I consider the lack of education and judicial authority and how this has influenced the formation of existing structures in the postcolonial era. Finally, the economic legacy of colonialism is explored and whether the failure of African states to prosper can be explained by colonial practices. Formation of states Since the borders of Africa were drawn in 1884/5, very little has changed in terms of the layout of the continent. territorial divisions. Much has been made of the fact that the postcolonial states that constitute Africa were the product of colonial demarcations and whose territories are not congruent with existing political and ethnic organizations. Ethnic conflict within states is an unfortunate feature of many African states and undoubtedly retards any kind of development. There has been discussion about the nature of African ethnicities and whether they were synthetic... middle of paper ......education in the colonial period influenced the ability to develop from within. Civil institutions were weak and the judiciary was incapable of providing a balancing role to the central power of the state. Indigenous Africans were generally not allowed to reach significant levels in the industrial complex, and infrastructure was built only enough to serve wealth extraction. The small number of educated bureaucrats who previously thrived in their positions found themselves as a new elite class in the absence of the colonialists, and it was perhaps too difficult for them to change their behavior after inheriting the state. In summary, it could be said that large portions of the inhabitants of the new independent state had not entered into any type of stable "social contract" through the organic process as had happened in other societies..