Two Publics-One Trust Crisis: Why Governments Struggle to Gain Trust in Africa

The 2026 edition of Foresight Africa has been released. This flagship annual publication of the Brookings Institution analyzes the key political, economic, and social trends shaping Africa in the year ahead, and offers policy-oriented recommendations on how the continent can confront the challenges of 2026 while advancing toward inclusive, resilient, and self-determined growth. Among its most thought-provoking contributions is an article by James A. Robinson examining the relationship between governments and public masses in Africa, which revisits and reinterprets Peter Ekeh’s influential “two publics” theory. As Robinson has repeatedly argued, some of Africa’s most enduring challenges are best understood through the analytical lenses of anthropology and sociology, rather than solely through economic theory. We examine the article from a simplified perspective to highlight its key insights.

Peter Ekeh (1937–2021) was a Nigerian political sociologist and one of Africa’s most prominent social theorists. Educated in Nigeria and the United States, and long associated with the University at Buffalo, Ekeh is best known for his 1975 essay “Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa”, which has become a foundational text in African political thought. In that work, Ekeh tried to explain the persistent legitimacy and accountability problems of post-colonial African states by tracing them to the moral and institutional legacies of colonial rule.

Ekeh argued that African societies are characterized by the coexistence of “two publics.” The first is the primordial or communal public, rooted in ethnic, kinship, religious, and local community ties. This sphere is governed by strong moral obligations similar to those found in family life, where reciprocity, trust, and social responsibility are clearly defined. The second is the civic public, embodied by the modern state and its institutions, which emerged largely from the colonial experience. This civic public is often perceived as alien, impersonal, and historically extractive, and therefore weakly connected to shared moral norms.

This conceptual divide offers a powerful lens through which to understand contemporary trust deficits in Africa. Afrobarometer surveys consistently show that fewer than half of Africans trust their presidents, with even lower levels of confidence in institutions such as the police, courts, and parliaments. These patterns are not merely cultural attitudes or temporary political dissatisfaction. They reflect a deeper structural problem in which state institutions are widely seen as lacking legitimacy, fairness, and accountability.

The persistence of the “two publics” helps explain why many African citizens remain morally and institutionally disconnected from state apparatuses, despite maintaining strong political awareness and engagement. However, comparative experiences across the continent suggest that trust can be rebuilt if governments succeed in linking formal state institutions with locally grounded norms, practices, and sources of legitimacy. The article cites Botswana’s post-independence governance reforms in the 1960s, which integrated traditional village assemblies (kgotla) into national decision-making, are often cited as an early example. More recent experiences (also mentioned in the article) come fromSomaliland and Rwanda, which have pursued governance approaches that draw on locally rooted institutions and so-called “home-grown” solutions to reinforce state authority and social cohesion.

Not all attempts have been successful. Tanzania’s efforts under Julius Nyerere to base state governance on traditional communal values through ujamaa ultimately fell short, underscoring that bridging the divide between the two publics is complex, politically sensitive, and highly context-specific.

The central lesson, reaffirmed in the Robinsons’ article, is that rebuilding trust in African governance requires narrowing the gap between modern state institutions and traditional sources of social legitimacy. There is no universal model for achieving this. Meaningful progress depends on inclusive public debate, locally informed institutional design, and governance systems that reflect the lived social realities of African societies. While external partners can play a supportive role, durable trust and legitimacy must ultimately be generated from within Africa’s own political and social frameworks.