Andey Storey suggests that the widespread absence of state legitimacy works against the emergence of developmental states in Africa, states which would be capable of dealing with the challenges of globalisation in a progressive way, i.e., helping to improve the welfare of the majority of the population. The absence of state legitimacy also hinders the development of civil society and democracy. This legitimacy deficit is rooted in history, but it is also compounded by present-day factors, and it has not been fundamentally tackled by present programmes of economic and political reform. Whether it can be tackled, and if so how, is the subject of the concluding section of the article.