Treason, punishment and postcolonial insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa

As the death penalty declines in sub-Saharan Africa, capital treason laws endure, with several countries passing death sentences for treason in recent years. This paper addresses the significance of the death penalty for treason in sub-Saharan Africa. While treason exceptionalism survives beyond Africa, in sub-Saharan Africa, capital treason has acquired penal-political salience, with its retention and use shaped by the interaction of postcolonial insecurity, military interventions and sovereign anxiety. Drawing on scholarship in punishment studies, the article conceptualises capital treason as a form of penal governance through which states symbolically assert sovereignty and manage perceived threats to political authority. Capital treason also contributes to shaping the legal and coercive repertoires through which state power is defended. By tracing how different colonial legacies produced uneven processes of nation building, civil-military relations and political legitimacy, this article demonstrates that capital treason laws have played a central role in responding to threats to state power. It argues that capital treason laws acquired particular penal-political significance where postcolonial authority remained vulnerable to coups, insurgencies and challenges to state power.