Keeping the State Weak: Economic Informality and the Weak-State Trap in Sub-Saharan Africa

Even if a state is democratic, it will fail its citizens if it cannot raise sufficient revenue or distribute public goods effectively. Keeping the State Weak points to widespread economic informality as a key feature that keeps poor democracies unstable. Jessica Gottlieb traces the colonial roots of this pernicious type of embedded informality and theorizes how it impacts both state citizens and state actors. Quantitative and qualitative evidence shows how widespread informality prevents a would-be middle class from coordinating programmatic claims on the state and how informal intermediaries who benefit from their status resist attempts at formal state-building. The book concludes with a sobering perspective on the potential for formalization campaigns to initiate socio-political transitions and more optimistic suggestions for where a programmatic transition might originate.

• Publication date: 3 September 2026
• Page count: 250
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Format: Paperback
• ISBN-13: 9781009846714